Morning Everyone Book Review

Morning Everyone

By Ged Ladd
January 17 2006

Simon Hughes' cricket career gently petered out, but his writing and media career went stratospheric. He has regular broadsheet newspaper columns, Channel 4 work as �The Analyst� & several superb books. Now Simon has written a book about being a sportswriter. Ged Ladd reviews Morning Everyone. 1000 words plus top and table

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Simon Hughes was, for years, Middlesex�s very own sportswriter, moonlighting as a journalist in his spare time.� His cricket career gently petered out at Durham, but his writing and media career went stratospheric.� He has regular broadsheet newspaper columns, television work with Channel 4 as �The Analyst� and several superb books.� Now Simon has written a book about being a sportswriter.� Ged Ladd reviews Morning Everyone � A Sportwriter�s Life by Simon Hughes.

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Simon Hughes was a reasonably good county cricketer who learnt his craft (bowling) and played out most of his first class career at Middlesex.� Unbeknown to many of us, he was also a budding sports journalist, developing his journalistic craft in his spare time.� And it is in that more cerebral career, sportswriting, that Simon Hughes has really excelled.�

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His book A Lot of Hard Yakka is excellent, as is the follow up Yakking Around the World.� So Ged was enthused by the idea of Simon writing about his sportswriting career in Morning Everyone � A Sportwriter�s Life.� Indeed, so much was Ged enthused, that he almost expected to be disappointed by the book.� But he needn�t have worried.� Morning Everyone is a cracking good read and should interest anyone with a love of cricket � or indeed anyone with a love of sports journalism generally.�

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Of course, Simon Hughes has really made his name on Channel 4 in his role as �The Analyst� for that channel�s cricket coverage.� His regular pieces on Jargonbusting proved so popular that he managed to get a book out of that idea as well.� Ged hasn�t read the Jargonbusting one, but as a tribute to Simon Hughes the rest of this review is written in the style of jargonbusting.

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First Class � as in �first class cricket� or �first class read�.� Morning Everyone really is a first class read.� One of Ged�s tests for a first class read is the extent to which Ged wants to read passages out loud to Daisy and (assuming the book is humorous, which Morning Everyone undoubtedly is) the extent to which Ged laughs out loud.� Lots of passage reading and laughing out loud with this book.

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Night Watchman � as in �dodgy job for Hughes to do some evenings as a bowler who thinks he can bat� or �a suitable job for a reader of Morning Everyone�.� Ged struggled to put this book down.� The holiday period was a good time for Ged to read it.� Otherwise sleep deprivation and other unwanted consequences might well have ensued.

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Game of Two Halves � more a clich� than jargon.� Mercifully, the book is light on clich�s. �Morning Everyone is a book of two halves and it seeks to meet two purposes.� The first half covers the period up to 1999.� This period (especially the first 100 pages or so) might interest the Middlesex fan the most, although Middlesex folk and anecdotes crop up throughout the book.� Gatts eating habits are a constant recurring theme.� The first half of the book chronicles Simon�s moonlighting journalism career while he was with Middlesex (and latterly Durham).� It also covers the start of his full-time career as a journalist while also keeping an eye on England�s inexorable decline towards the bottom of the world rankings.�

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The second half of the book covers his engagement by Channel 4 in 1999 and (after the nadir of the Oval in 1999) the step by step signs of England�s resurrection, culminating in the Ashes victory of September 2005.� Remember?� Simon�s insight�s into England�s fortunes are very interesting.� Although Simon doesn�t labour the point in the book, he was the only journalist that Ged respects who openly predicted that England would win the Ashes before the series started.� The second half of the book makes this book �Simon Hughes� Ashes Book�, but he mercifully doesn�t let the Ashes story dominate; this book covers a much bigger canvas than most of the Ashes 2005 books.

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Away Swing � see �Yakking Around the World: A Cricketer�s Quest for Love�.�.� Just couldn�t resist using the pun one more time.

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Drop � something Simon Hughes did less frequently with catches than he does with names in this book.� Really.� Sam Mendes, Kate Winslet, Ned Sherrin, �Richie and Daphne� Benauld, Jeremy Paxman, those Langer boys Justin and Bernhard�� you get the idea.��

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Free Hit� - if the thought of buying a hardcover horrifies you, you could use the �Free Hit� technique of sneaking into a book shop and reading the good bits.� Ged recommends �Moonlighting� � pp9-13, �Double Trouble� � pp23-26 � the bit where he works for BFBS is an absolute hoot, �Ungentlemanly Conduct� pp28-31��.� Actually, by the time you�ve sneaked a look at that lot I suspect that many of you will buy the book.�

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No Balls � if you don�t have the guts to use the �Free hits� advice, probably easier to click the book through Amazon � details given below.

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Late Cut � check out the post Christmas prices for this book, if the �16.99 cover price seems steep to you.� See Amazon discount below.� Ged got his with a �3 off hardbacks voucher at Waterstones.� Ged votes this book value for money.

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Guzunder � something that is bound to happen to a publisher that chooses to publish Simon Hughes, whereas it rejected one of Ged Ladd�s books many years ago.� Ged doesn�t hold grudges and it was all a long time ago and Ged�s book was published successfully elsewhere anyway thank you very much and Orion has clearly learnt some lessons since then.� End of message.

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Cover Point � and while speaking of Orion, thanks very much to the publisher for granting us permission to use the cover artwork and asking me to get back to them if we want anything else.� I�ll try and think of something.

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