Book description
'Higher education comes at exactly the right time: in the twilight of
your teens, you're just starting to coagulate as a human being, to
pull away from parental influence and find your own feet. What better
than three years in which to explore the inner you, establish a
feasible worldview, and maybe get on Blockbusters.'
After an idyllic provincial 1970s childhood, the 1980s took Andrew
Collins to London, art school and the classic student experience.
Crimping his hair, casting aside his socks and sporting fingerless
gloves, he became Andy Kollins: purveyor of awful poetry; disciple of
moany music, and wannabe political activist. What follows is a
universal tale of trainee hedonism, girl trouble, wasted grants and
begging letters to parents.
A synth-soundtracked rite of passage that's often painfully funny,
it traces one teenager's metamorphosis from sheltered suburban
innocent to semi-mature metropolitan male through the pretensions and
confusions of trying to stand alone for the first time in your own
kung fu pumps in a big bad city.
Andrew Collins was born in Northampton. He began his journalistic
career at the
NME
and went on to edit
Q
magazine. He has written for
Select, The Observer,
New Statesman
,
Word, The Guardian
and
Radio Times
, where he is Film Editor. He won a Sony Gold award for 'Collins &
Maconie's Hit Parade' on Radio 1 and co-presented
Collins &
Maconie's Movie Club
on ITV. Andrew was a scriptwriter for
EastEnders
and
Family Affairs
. He hosted Radio 4's weekly film programme
Back Row
for nearly three years, presents a daily show on BBC 6 Music and fronts
The Day The Music Died
on Radio 2. His first sitcom,
Grass
, written with Simon Day, aired on BBC2 in 2003. He also co-wrote and
performed
Lloyd Cole Knew My Father
on stage and for Radio 2. In addition to
Where Did It All Go Right?,
Andrew is the author of
Still Suitable For Miners
, the official biography of Billy Bragg, and
Friends Reunited
. He is married, lives in Surrey and cares deeply about the world.
