Mark Steel's In Town, By Mark Steel

 

Christopher Hirst
Thursday 01 December 2011 20:00 EST
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Many books are compared to Priestley's English Journey but Steel is as perceptive as JB and far funnier.

This circumnavigation is perfect for our own seedy time. "Keighley is a sink of evil," insists a woman from Skipton. Steel shows righteous anger about modern Britain.

Noting that the Digger community in Surrey is now a gated estate, Steel remarks: "If Gerard Winstanley wanted to grow parsnips... he'd need a division of fucking great tanks."

Occasionally Steel's ear lets him down (Boycott would not say that a Pietersen shot "was a pile of shit" but "were a pile...") but never his comic antennae.

A Twitter exchange about Luddism near Huddersfield drew the comment: "Go on, Mark, slag off Luddites...it's not like they'll be following you here."

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