The Blaze of Obscurity — The TV Years

	Contents:
			Introduction	17		Shanghai Express
	1		Out of the Frying Pan	18		Wheels at Speed
	2		Ferrets to the Rescue	19		It Would Be An Honour
	3		White Knuckles of Africa	20		Where All Roads Lead
	4		Elephant Walk	21		Pushing It
	5		Pause to Regroup	22		Back to Basics
	6		Alpine Idyll	23		Company Store
	7		The Weekly Stint	24		First Tango
	8		Economy of Effort	25		In this Valley of Dying Stars
	9		We’ll Always Have Paris	26		What Becomes of          the Broken-Hearted?
	10		Keeping the Balance
	11		Dealing with Genius	27		As Time Ran Out
	12		Destination Tokyo	28		Late Final Extras
	13		Pageant Cities	29		Driven Men
	14		The House has the Edge	30		Trumpets at Sunset
	15		Focus on the Name	31		Epilogue: The Return of          the Metropolitan Critic
	16		Throw to Australia

“Though it always courts tedium to be precise about numbers, in this case the statistics tell a story. The fifth volume of my unreliable memoirs, The Blaze of Obscurity, covering my years in television between 1982 and 2000, had a publication date (October 7, 2009) timed to coincide with my 70th birthday. It would have been a pretty good stratagem for saying “not dead yet” if the book had not been sent to join a full fifty other brand-new showbiz autobiographies released for the Christmas season. So there I was, toe to toe with Alan Titchmarsh, and neck and neck with Katie Price if I was very lucky. In fact the only advantages I had over the latter candidate were (a) I wrote my book myself, and (b) my breasts were real. But with the help, perhaps, of a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week serialisation, my latest offering escaped instant burial, and even attracted some serious reviews, which I proudly append – proudly because, against all likelihood, I actually try to make this apparently frivolous form a vehicle for what little wisdom I might have managed to acquire.”

Reviews for Clive James's fourth volume of memoirs, North Face of Soho, included several that specifically requested a further volume. Clive James has duly obliged, and here, in all its glory, is Unreliable Memoirs V, otherwise known as The Blaze of Obscurity.

For many people, Clive James will always be a TV presenter first and foremost, and a writer second — this despite the fact that his adventures with the written word took place before, during and after his time on the small screen. Nevertheless, for those who remember clips of Japanese endurance game shows and Egyptian soap operas, Clive James reinventing the news or interviewing Hefner and Hepburn, Polanski and Pavarotti, his ‘Postcards’ from Kenya, Shanghai and Dallas, or Clive James Racing Driver, his rightful place does seem to be right there — on the box, in our homes, and almost one of the family.

However you think of him, though, and whatever you remember him for, The Blaze of Obscurity is perhaps his most brilliant book yet. Part Clive James on TV and part Clive James on TV, it tells the inside sory of his years in television, shows Clive James on top form then and now, and proves — once and for all — that he has a way with words ... whatever the medium.

First published 2009 by Picador.

To the memory of
Richard Drewett

All my clever dealings, he said to himself, have not made me happy. I remain a broken, restless man.
— Stefan Zweig, Ungeduld des Herzens

Fool, of thyself speak well.
— Richard II, V, 5