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Dalek I Loved You by Nick Griffiths
01/04/2007 . Source: Neale Monks 
pub: Gollancz. 261 page hardback. Price: £12.99 (UK only). ISBN: 0-575-07940-3. Buy Dalek I Loved You in the USA - or Buy Dalek I Loved You in the UK  check out website: www.orionbooks.co.uk
Back when I were a lad, one of the most pointless (but apparently mandatory) assignments a teacher could set was to have you write your autobiography. Such a task was a waste of time for all concerned. Your teacher certainly didn't have any interest in the collected experiences of the thirty thirteen year-olds in her charge and we certainly didn't have anything worth putting down on paper.
The whole thing was irrelevant and annoying. 'Dalek I Loved You' is very similar.
This book didn't have much compelling to say to me and seems pitched at an audience
that might not really care.
To start at the beginning...Nick Griffiths is a journalist and writer, though
I have to confess I'd never heard of the guy before reading this book. Anonymity
is, of course, not a crime and I've read many memoirs by normal people that have
been moving, inspiring or funny. But in my opinon this is not one of them. Nick
is a perfectly average sort of boy growing up through the 70s and 80s, absorbing
all the usual pop culture along the way. Being British, part of that culture is
Dr Who which ingrains itself in Nick's psyche. This is the concept behind the
book with Nick's life history woven around 'Dr Who' events and episodes.
The problem for me was that the book never really decides what it wants to be.
It is hard to imagine why anyone needs a biography of Mr. Griffiths, who has,
as far as I am aware, not actually accomplished anything beyond making a living
for himself writing for magazines. Lots of people do that and none of them have
written their memoirs.
There is, for example, a two-page list of things that make him sick, a topic of
no great amusement or importance. There there's an analysis of 'Withnail and I'
about on par with one that might be proffered by any History of Art student at
any university you'd care to name. Duke of Edinburgh Awards, Live Aid, Action
Man dolls...the list of life's normal trivialities is endless. They're written
about competently to be sure, but the inescapable conclusion after reading more
than a few pages is 'Who cares?'
My guess is that Dalek I Loved You was sold as the idea of a Dr Who book
structured around my experiences growing up in late-20th Century Britain. Not
a bad concept I suppose, but one that would only really make sense if the Dr Who
aspect had depth and details or even an index. But it does not.
To be fair on the author, his knowledge of 'Dr Who' is impressive and his recollections
of the show while he was a humble viewer are often rather entertaining. A lot
of the 'Dr Who' stuff is taken from his life as a journalist and are along the
lines of 'Elizabeth Sladen is tiny in real life' and 'Baker is a joy'. But between
the asides about how cool it is to meet celebrities and all the stuff he's collected
along the way, I didn't so much empathise with his life as get annoyed by it.
He's a lot like your friend at school who had all the best toys and went on exciting
summer holidays in America when all you got was 'Matchbox' cars and trips to Minehead.
In short, the book doesn't so much bring you into the world of 'Dr Who' as show you
how much you've missed out on. Not good.
Another issue with the book is its stream of consciousness style. If you're James
Joyce, that's fine, but most writers tend to eschew such techniques in favour
of the traditional one-thing-at-a-time approach. This book leaps from mundane
school experiences to 'Dr Who' episode summaries to philosophical ruminations
on the meaning of life with remarkable agility, leaving me straining, quite literally,
to follow the plot.
So what do we have? Part 'Adrian Mole' and part 'Dr Who' encyclopaedia, blended
together and served liberally with greyish dollops of perfectly ordinary British
growing-up type anecdotes. Probably a fascinating read for die-hard Nick Griffiths
fans, but not really recommended for anyone else.
Neale Monks
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