Normally I'm quite on the ball when it comes to the release of new cycling books, so it was unlike me to not have noticed Carlton had written a sequel to "Magic Spanner". To be fair though it was probably the fact the covers and themes were so similar and I have found myself less active on social media, so it was only when I got an email from Bloomsbury regards their summer sale that I realised this had been released last year.
This book differs very little from his first offering except this time around Sean Kelly as opposed to Daniel Lloyd should get a co-author credit since he is the source of so many of the anecdotes. There are other parallels in that Carlton is still never one to leave a national stereotype on the shelf- once again the only fully formed individuals are British folk or those from anglophone nations- everyone else is reduced to being a representative of the kind of stock national characteristics that formed so much of mainstream stand-up comedy of the 1970s and 80s.
That isn't to say there isn't a lot of decent humour in the book- as well noted, Carlton is a good story-teller but occasionally there is the fear he will slip into full-on pub raconteur with opinions to match. Most females mentioned are described in terms of their attractiveness, although he does row back mostly, but it appears at times he is going after the golf-club bore audience. Also despite this only coming out last year, some of the content has aged horribly, though obviously this isn't a failing on his part. References to using GCN+ to watch races may rankle with those of us upset by how that excellent platform suddenly vanished and one chapter is basically an advert for Zwift, but lines like how Rohan Dennis is one of Carlton's favourite riders really jar when the tragic death of his wife is taken into consideration (again I emphasise that this happened after the book appeared).
There are a few typos missed in the editing stage (a "heel" becomes "heal" and "break" in place of "brake") and I am also slightly mystified by the boxes after each chapter providing a glossary of cycling terms which anyone picking up the book would probably be more than au fait with (although these are alternated with some of the phrases Carlton regularly comes out with while commentating.
As in the first book, Carlton has fully embraced the "here I am, you can either like me or not, I don't care and I ain't changing" ethic. To be fair, he does attract a lot of opposing opinions when commentating and generally while I like him, I can see how he can be annoying at times ( but then again commentating on a 6 hour flat stage with so much air time to fill is going to throw up plenty of opportunities to get on people's nerves). This is ramped up to a higher level in this book, with Carlton not being too shy to blow his own trumpet ( I could say Cornet and make a link to the 1904 TdF but I think he did something similar in his last book).
Overall the structure of the book is clever and introduces readers to some of the lesser-known races and there are a few laugh-out loud moments but this is all underpinned by the fear throughout that Carlton might go full Reform UK at any moment. While this generalisation is most probably unfair on the man, it does again leave the question as to who the book is targeted at- proper cycling fans who are generally a lot more internationalist in view or the type of person who certain tabloid newspapers want to appeal to by going for the lowest common denominator?
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