The Sunday Times best selling ‘Crap’ trilogy (Crap Towns, Crap Jobs and Crap Holidays) paved the way for the ‘Crap This, Crap That, Shit this, and Shit that, etc’ genre that has left something of a stain on the nation’s bookshelves.
The release of Crap Towns in 2003 led to co-editors Dan Kieran and Sam Jordison being interviewed on the Channel Four News before a studio debate on the state of the nation raged between Simon Jenkins and Iain Sinclair. The top fifty crap towns made page three of the Guardian, who called it ‘Magnificent’ and the front page of the Western Daily Press who considered it a ‘tasteless joke’. Dan was haranged on local television news programmes across the country, especially in Hull, which came in at number one. Why? You may wonder, well according to ex-resident Finlay Coutts Britton it’s because Hull ‘smells of death.’
Dan co-edited Crap Towns 1 and 2 with Sam Jordison.
Dan co-edited Crap Towns 1 and 2 with Sam Jordison.
Crap Jobs followed in 2004 and was also published later the following year in the U.S.A where the New York Post described it as ‘Hilarious!’
Applying the now familiar top (bottom?) fifty approach, this time to the worst careers, Crap Jobs came up with some startling findings. It seems that being a Management Consultant is almost as bad as being a sex-line operator according to the Idler poll. The most demeaning job had to be that of the pipe counter weight though. Gideon Berridge was paid to sit on one end of a pipe all day while a few builders set about working on the other end. As he said himself, ‘It’s a sad state of affairs when you realise that a lump of stone could actually do your job better than you.’
Dan compiled and edited Crap Jobs.
Dan compiled and edited Crap Jobs.
The original purpose of the Crap series was to look at how crap, in reality, most of modern life really is. So having looked at where we live and how we work the only subject left worth looking into was our spare time.
As well as including the fifty worst holiday stories sent into the Idler website Dan also joined forces with travel charity Tourism Concern to look at the most immoral and ecologically damaging holidays on earth. Something which led him into travel journalism. (See Articles section).
Dan compiled and edited Crap Holidays.
Dan compiled and edited Crap Holidays.
CRAP TOWNS
CRAP JOBS
CRAP HOLIDAYS
dan kieran
