So we download books. For the kindles. And Mel & I, plus any assorted daughters, all read them. Generally. I generally take a pass on any book with ‘flowers’ in the title and Mel didn’t read the Roy Keane biography. I’ll read the rom-coms, because I’m that kind of man. One who likes crying.

But one book I downloaded a long while ago was ‘The Salt Path’. Mel read it, liked it, but I didn’t… couldn’t… wouldn’t… it was non-fiction. But not of a footballing nature. Possibly not of a political nature. Even of a mildly rugby nature. But the ‘memoire’ of an old couple walking along a path? Errrrr… don’t think so.

Then for some reason, just a couple of weeks ago I thought: “I’m gonna read that”, and I did/am. Midway through. And what a fucking storm its caused.

Not me reading it, as such, but just the timing of the ‘scandal’.

Because when you write a memoire or an autobiography, you generally want to portray yourself in a very positive light. As a fundamentally ‘good person’. Possibly something of ‘the victim’; that’s acceptable and will garner sympathy from the reading masses, maybe some degree of heroic, a true ‘fighter’, something good. A wonderful partner, to someone with ‘special needs’, that’ll do it.

And that’s what you get with the Salt Path. So much so that the movie came out about a month ago. Starring the X-files babe and one of the wizards from Harry Potter. Good pedigree for Raynor Winn’s book.

Which, according to a newspaper report last week, is a total pack of lies. The ‘victimhood’ was in fact self-inflicted after years of fraud and embezzlement by the writer, the ‘terminal disease’ of the husband, still living and apparently quite healthy. The ‘being made homeless’ also subject to the fact that they own a place in France.

And I’m in the middle of this book. Still full of sympathy and compassion for a couple persecuted by the courts, given terminal news by the doctors and rendered homeless so their only option is to walk 630 miles around SouthWest England with no money. I’m sharing their plight and their suffering and their perseverance and their determination in the face of horrendous odds. But I don’t get a share of the 64 grand the author allegedly nicked from her previous employers. Which was what led to the repossession of their home in the first place.

All I’m saying is; they might have fucking waited for me to finish the book before exposing it as a total fraud.

And I think I need to get Lila a slightly smaller e-bike.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx