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Nearly Famous: Adventures of an After-Dinner Speaker
Nearly Famous: Adventures of an After-Dinner Speaker
Oct 12, 2024 12:33 AM

Author:Bob Bevan

Nearly Famous: Adventures of an After-Dinner Speaker

Firmly established in the world of entertainment, The Cat's route to fame has been through corporate and sporting dinners. He grew up loving sport and perservered despite having only one eye and an almost total absence of natural ability. His reputation as a figure of fun and his readiness to laugh at his own failures have reaped rich rewards.

How many of us have played football with Bobby Moore and George Best at Wembley, or played at Lord's, or written a poem teasing the Duke of Edinburgh for never recognising us? In Nearly Famous, The Cat writes hilariously of the many famous people he has worked with - everyone from Colin Cowdrey, Bobby Robson and Terry Venables to Eric Clapton, Rod Stewart, Billy Connolly, Eric Morcambe and Brian Johnston - and the highs and lows of that most serious of businesses: making people laugh.

Reviews

More sporting laughs than you will read in a dozen sports autobiographies.

—— Ian Wooldridge , Daily Mail

He's the funniest speaker on football I have heard in all my experience.

—— Sir Bobby Robson

Unsuprisingly full of amusing self-depracating sporting anecdotes and gags.

—— The Times

This man is magic

—— Sir Harry Secombe CBE

Far from being a tome for just those in the know, Horses for Courses is the ideal introduction for a newcomer to racing. . . Many of the author's encounters with people result in marvellous recounts of famous racing moments

—— Irish Field

Full of compelling anecdotes and perceptive analysis, and I would heartily recommend it even if it didn't also include a few excerpts from my own encounters with notable characters from the world of spin.

—— Brian Viner , Independent

Get hold of a copy of Amol Rajan's Twirlymen...This is a forensic and often lyrical examination of the history of spin

—— James Lawton , Independent

In Amol Rajan the twirlers have found a historian worthy of their deceptive art...a brilliant, revisionist book...which should be compulsory reading for anyone who claims to love the game even half as much as the author evidently does.

—— Simon Redfern , Independent

An eloquent, page-turning series of biographies about cricket's finest spin bowlers.'

—— Sunday Express

Amol Rajan provides a natty introduction to the spin bowler.

—— i

A charming history of spin-bowling

—— The Lady

Twirlymen is a splendid romp through the history of spin bowling. A delight from start to finish, it's a book I dearly wish I'd written myself.

—— Alex Massie , Spectator

A fine book

—— William Leith , Scotsman

Entertaining and informative

—— Brandon Robshaw , Independent on Sunday

This seductive book will engage those who don’t know a googly from a doosra and enlighten those who do

—— Independent
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