Chris Tarrant's Introduction to Wright Here
The first time I met Alan Wright I knew I was going to like him. I also knew Alan Wright was not right ! Not right at all. He is a nutter. At least one sandwich short of a picnic. He is quietly but completely barking! We met in no less prestigious a setting than the Long Room at Lord's Cricket Ground. It was a balloon debate on behalf of the Lord's Taverners, with some of the best after dinner speakers in the land going head to head in a brutal verbal knock out competition. The anecdotes flowed, the wine flowed and, by a massive consensus, quietly but inarguably at the end of the whole gruelling side-splitting affair, Alan won.
Since then we’ve met up in the North East, very much his home turf, at various manic Taverners occasions and he’s never failed to make me laugh at his sheer silliness. Similarly this book is clever, warm and witty but, above all, it’s filled with a wonderful sense of the ridiculous. It oozes the North East and particularly his native Hartlepool. The topics are as random as the man himself : the wearing of the pooly-dut; jogger’s nipple; making love to a duck; the loss of Ricki Tomlinson’s ukulele; the image of his dad cycling 25 miles a day to and from work; playing rugby for Hartlepool; going to school in sub-Arctic conditions; bread and dripping; pints of Cameron’s and Morrell’s pies. It is the very essence of life on Teesside and it’s deliciously daft. Chris Tarrant
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