By 2008 Robb Peters had been keeping a diary for over ten years. He decided to share the first year of the diary, written between 1998 and 1999, when he was fourteen to fifteen years old. D.A Diary is a year in the life of a teenage boy and his friends. In Robbs opinion, D.A Diary might not be the most interesting book to some, but it is certainly the funniest. Robb says, D.A Diary is like Marmite, you either love it or hate it, but I can guarantee you have never read anything like it in your life (even if youre 94). Enjoy reading about Robbs daily life in 1998 and 1999. Share in the life of a cheeky teen, laugh, cry and enjoy the rollercoaster of the first year of D.A Diary.
In 1978, when Alex Duff first went to watch Brentford, players would go on midweek pub crawls near the Griffin Park stadium. Sometimes, in no fit state to go home, they would crash out in a terraced home where one of them lived opposite the stadium gates. The next morning, they clambered into a white van which one of them would drive to training, stopping on the way for a bacon sandwich and cup of tea at a greasy spoon café. Brentford had once played in the top-flight but now, idling in the third division, were a second home for players and supporters, but there was neither the ambition nor money to revive their best days. They bumbled along until in 2005, fed up with trying to make a profit from a club with an ageing stadium in an unfashionable west London suburb, owner Ron Noades agreed to hand over the business to supporters on the condition they take over responsibility for their £5.5 million overdraft. One of the fans, an Oxford University physics graduate called Matthew Benham, was making millions of pounds from professional gambling and threw in a £500,000 lifeline to help keep the club afloat. Initially, as a sort of academic challenge, he began figuring out if he could employ the mathematics which he used in beating the bookmakers to improve the club's performance on the pitch. Smart Money is the story of how a scientist with an inquiring mind was set loose in a backwater of professional football, and how he turned a modest, little-known team into a competitor in one of the world's most-watched sports leagues.
You've seen Manhunt, now read Geoffrey Wansell's chilling portrait of notorious serial killer Levi Bellfield- the only man in modern British legal history to be given two whole-life sentences. On 23 Jun 2011 the convicted double-murderer Levi Bellfield was found guilty of the murder of 13-year-old school girl Milly Dowler. Milly disappeared on her way home from school in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey in 2002. Six months later her body was discovered many miles away. A massive police investigation, the largest manhunt in Surrey's history, got nowhere. Only when nightclub bouncer and bare-knuckle boxer Levi Bellfield was arrested for the murder of another young woman did it become clear to police that they had a serial killer on their hands. This is the full story of the murders, the victims and the pain-staking nine-year investigation and trial by police and prosecutors. It tells of Bellfield's terrifying, controlling personality - a man who went from charming to monstrous in the blink of an eye - and his depraved stalking of young women. Geoffrey Wansell has been acknowledged as one of Britain's leading authorities on serial killers. He was short-listed for the Whitbread Prize (now the Costa Book Award) for his biography of Terence Rattigan, and was appointed by the Official Solicitor to the Supreme Court to write the biography of Gloucester-based serial killer Frederick West.
A talented new writer whose portrayal of the serious business of assimilation and young masculinity is disturbing and hilarious Hailed as one of the most surprising British novels in recent years, Gautam Malkani's electrifying debut reveals young South Asians struggling to distinguish themselves from their parents' generation in the vast urban sprawl that is contemporary London. Chronicling the lives of a gang of four young middle-class men-Hardjit, the violent enforcer; Ravi, the follower; Amit, who's struggling to come to terms with his mother's hypocrisy; and Jas, desperate to win the approval of the others despite lusting after Samira, a Muslim girl-Londonstani, funny, disturbing, and written in the exuberant language of its protagonists, is about tribalism, aggressive masculinity, integration, alienation, bling-bling economics, and "complicated family-related shit."
The story of a modern Asian young woman trying to straddle Western attitudes and traditional beliefs. You've heard of an Essex Girl or even a Chelsea Girl but what is a Hounslow Girl? The term has become a byword for confident, young Muslim women who are grappling with traditional values, city life and fashion. From the joys of Pakistani weddings to fights on the night bus, Ambreen Razia's The Diary of a Hounslow Girl is a funny, bold, provocative play highlighting the challenges of being a teenage girl in a traditional Muslim family, alongside the temptations and influences of growing up in and around London. “Ambreen’s writing is poetic in its structure and intensity, funny, moving, chilling, and delivered in a style that takes inspiration from spoken word and physical theatre. She has created a rhythm that draws the audience in, as compelling as a thriller, complete with gathering ominousness, shocks and comic relief.” Deborah Bestwick, Director, Ovalhouse “Ambreen Razia’s terrific play is exactly the kind of new work we wish to support in the new home of multi-cultural theatre in London. Hounslow Girl is a wonderfully funny take on a London phenomenon and one audiences will enjoy.” Jatinder Verma, Artistic Director, Tara Arts” "a powerful piece of theatre... Ambreen Razia's performance is astonishing." BritishTheatre.com "This is a sophisticated, moving and often very funny piece of writing, particularly nuanced in its depiction of Shaheeda's relationship with her mother ... astute in tackling the breakdown of the loving bonds between parent and child that can occur when a child becomes a teenager – and also how this experience can be magnified for the children of first-generation immigrants, whose parents feel distant from their children’s British lives... Razia's script touches on everything from first love to cultural expectations to student-teacher relationships; it’s a bit like an inner-city version of An Education." The Stage Ambreen Razia is an actress and writer from South London. The Diary of a Hounslow Girl is Ambreen's debut show which premiered at Ovalhouse in 2015. Passionate about re-establishing British Asian comedy within the UK, she continues to write her comedy sketch show involving two British Asian girls exploring the clash between traditional Indian/Pakistani culture and modern British life. She is also currently writing her next play POT primarily focusing on the recent comeback of gang culture within the UK. Performance credits include: On the Middle Day (Old Vic Theatre); Words and Women (Edinburgh Fringe); Random Acts (Channel 4); Fair Exchange (Hen and Chickens Theatre); Variations on a Theme (Camden People's Theatre); Mind the Gap (National Theatre); No Guts, No Heart, No Glory (BBC4/Perth Festival Australia) and Murdered by my Father (BBC3).
This is a story of migration from rural Gujarat to Nairobi, Kenya and the impact of the struggles for independence from British rule on a traditional Hindu Gujarati family, and finally to London in 1949. Here, the family navigated a life in between two cultures maintaining and imbibing the best of both. Hemkunver lived a life of bhakti – devotion. Manilal, her husband, followed a life of engaging with the world but spiritually grounded in his love for Indian classical music and philosophy. These characteristics were passed on to the main protagonist Viram, who from a very early age fell in love with Indian classical music. His abilities and interests were varied though – so he did not mind playing his sitar with jazz, or playing with Jimmy Page on Led Zeppelin or composing for films, TV and radio, whilst also developing a successful career in business. His desire to create awareness for one of the most sophisticated music systems of the world, led him to become an authority as a performer, advocate and producer of Indian music throughout the UK and Europe, creating around one hundred iconic events per year. He overcame the prejudice he faced from the British arts elite and jealous Indians by embarking on a journey into Vedantic philosophy to find his freedom.
'The Soles of My Shoes' is a hitch-hiking travelogue, a Kerouac for the sustainability generation. In this time of austerity cuts, climate change, under-employment and over-education, what better way to travel? This is a story of spontaneity, of adventure, of responsibility, of sustainability, of doubt and conviction - and perhaps even of love. It will appeal to the great generation of hitch-hikers young in the sixties, as well as to the youth of today who feel trapped by financial constraints and the expectations of social conformity.
The Plot: On Saturday 8th April 1975, in a fit of rage, Paul Townley took the life of his father, Harold. The significance of that single event was to affect the rest of his life, as he resolved to make it his mission to rid society of the kind of person that the man had become. The first killing took place six months later, and over the following fifteen years seventeen more were to follow, as the trail of devastation left by a serial killer covered the length and breadth of England. Detective Chief Inspector Colin Barnes looked down at the letter which lay on the desk before him. An icy hand gripped his heart as he read once more the details of the eighteen murders. Murders which had come back to haunt him from his past as he realised that he would, once more, be faced with the serial killer who had called himself ......Petey.
Written with the full co-operation of the club and including exclusive interviews with players and officials, Just a Bus Stop in Hounslow follows Brentford's debut season at home and away, as they took on the 2021/22 season.
