Browsing the shelves of Oxfam the other lunchtime I saw, and immediately snapped up, a copy of I, Flook. On the face of it an autobiography of the eponymous star of the long running cartoon strip in the dreaded Daily Mail, though (as I knew), really written by the always interesting George Melly. I've never read any of the actual strips (albums of which go for about £30 each when they're available). Flook is a funny little creature from the Stone Age, possibly a woolly mammoth, but it's not clear. He (I think he's a he) has lots of skills and attributes that you wouldn't normally attribute to a mammoth, and he gets into lots of quite amusing adventures.
Anyway, my curiosity was aroused by the fact that this book was written by Melly during the period of his life covered in the first part of his autobiography, one of the most enjoyable books I've ever read. In common with that book it also has excellent illustrations by the cartoonist Trog. Having read Owning Up to death a bit I thought I, Flook might provide some further scraps of insight into the great Melly's life. This view was encouraged when I saw that pictures of a character named Scoop were blatantly based on Melly (see below, and what nice shoes!).
As I scanned the pages a description of bleary eyed gamblers stumbling into the dawn to see Albert Bridge gilded by the morning sun jumped out at me. "Aha", I thought,"clearly informed by the years the author spent living in Margarette Terrace", and felt quite pleased with myself. At one point Flook refers with fondness to the decor of his flat, a feature of which is a phrenologists' head - while over in Owning Up George recounts his own joy at turning up just such an object at a junk shop in Grimsby.
Perhaps not staggering revelations, but little pieces of a puzzle nonetheless. As it happens the author takes up three pages in Owning Up on Flook, admitting that his lifestyle was all grist to the mill or, as he puts it, "Flook meat".
