Billy's Log....

The hilarious diary of one mans struggle with life, lager and the female race. 

For Billy Ellis, life is one series of disasters after another. His haemorrhoids have just cost him promotion, his new boss wants to buy the flat next door and can’t buy a packet of condoms without almost getting arrested. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he’s just read through his 1999 diary and suddenly realised that he’s almost 30, still single and has looks that give new meaning to the word average.

So the next morning, in a lager induced haze, Billy decides that the time has come to change his life for ever. And the best way to do that is to find himself a woman. The problem is, he has no idea where to start looking. Because thanks to the explosion of ‘girl-power’ women haven’t just moved the goal posts, they’ve taken them away and hidden them!

And so begins a nightmarish journey of discovery involving soft porn, lots of lager, PMS and a man with a penis called Bruno. But it’s a journey that is destined to end in success.

Eventually!

Background

Billy’s Log was inspired by a conversation I once overheard between two power-dressed, thirty-something career women on a tube train. They were talking loudly about the problems of being a single woman in this day and age, and what absolute pigs men were. And so, out of curiosity, and hopeful that I might finally learn something useful about women and what makes them tick, I listened in to try and find out what it was they were really wanting.

But the more I heard the more I realised that the people most to blame for their problems were: other women!

Because in seeking the holy grail of equality, they have obviously failed to notice that each step they've taken along that rocky path has driven fear into the hearts of men and a knife into the beast that is romance. Books like Bridget Jones’s Diary and its many successors, not to mention something like Men Are From Mars..., all fail to realise the simple truth that for every female moaning about her age, weight and lack of a partner, there is some poor male somewhere doing exactly the same thing. And, if anything, it’s even worse for blokes because if we suffer any kind of emotional turmoil, the only avenue open to us is to get drunk and go to football. And that’s hardly the same as a chic-flick and a choc-fest.

Having thought about this, I decided to write a book that would redress the balance and highlight how hard life as a single male can be these days. After all, not only do we have to deal with the stress of everyday life and the sexual terrorism happily employed by the alien species that is woman, we also have to cope with our fellow lads - the majority of whom seem to believe that any sign of growing up is a betrayal of their sex. How we ever find someone to settle down with us is a mystery – but in Billy’s Log we learn how one bloke gets there, in the end.

Reviews

For those of you who have read the wonderfully fun novel, Bridget Jones's Diary, by Helen Fielding (or have seen the major motion picture) and loved it, I have a wonderful treat for you: Billy's Log, by Dougie Brimson! While Bridget's 'diary' is a funny, light-hearted, all-too-familiar-to-women look at dating and the pressures a single (English) woman faces, Billy's 'log' is a just-as-funny look at life through the male perspective. (While Jones's diary loosely follows Jane Austen's Pride And Prejudice as well, unless I'm missing something big, Billy's log is pretty original, unless you count the obvious comparison to Jones.)

The book is written by a 'regular guy', who is approaching thirty, working at a job where he gets passed over for promotions (and when you read why, you'll have to at least chuckle), and having a hard time finding a stable relationship that fits well into his life. He gets quite a bit of grief from his mates, as well, when he tries to make changes in his life that seem to involve doing anything besides drinking himself silly or watching football every Sunday, pursuits that he doesn't quite mind.

What I love about this book, other than the endearing traits of Billy, the interesting plot, the hilarious voice of Billy, and all of the funny things that happen to this poor, sweet, fellow (many because of his own folly), is the equity that this book offers. Perhaps even more than Fielding's novel, Brimson's book is appealing to both men and women; the everyday life of Billy may ring as true to men as Jones's rantings were for women, and women will enjoy the relationship aspects of the book as well as the humor and plot that men and women are both sure to love.

I think this book is a great read for anyone who likes good, funny writing and is interested in relationships and/or football (you'll understand when you see how the two forces compete fiercely for Billy's attention). It's even better for those who like reading about English characters. But I would especially recommend this book to men and women who are dating and feeling pressure to 'settle down' (for the cathartic aspects). And I think this book is even better-suited for women who feel like men have it better (because Billy painfully and hilariously illustrates the difficulties that dating men go through, especially as they age). Finally, the book is especially well-suited for men who would like to read that they're not alone in their feelings and experiences (validation that's often hard to come by for men, as you blokes don't often sit around painting one another's toenails while crying on one another's shoulders or showing other signs of 'emotional weakness').

www.about.com

Men Behaving Badly meets Nick Hornby in a hilarious look at male inadequacy - a brilliantly funny story about the humiliations of someone who tries to remain one of the lads but really wants to settle down. The central character Billy Ellis is a painfully recognisable lad whose trials and traumas all men will relate to.

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The book was written with the intention of highlighting how hard life as a single male can be these days. After all, not only do we have to deal with the stress of everyday life and the sexual terrorism happily employed by the alien species that is woman, we also have to cope with our fellow lads - the majority of whom seem to believe that any sign of growing up is a betrayal of their sex. But, like all lads, we know that what we all secretly hanker for a Utopia where life is a little bit less complicated and superficial.

Does "Billy's Log" give the answers? Of course not, there are no answers. Women, and how to handle them, are a fact of life that will never go away. What the book does though is highlight the plight of the modern man, so that even the most hard-nosed feminist will surely feel sorry for Billy's kind.

A "must read" book that both the victims and villains will enjoy. You all know who you are!

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Contact....

www.dougiebrimson.com © 2010