Hello and welcome to Backlisted. This episode is one of those where we go back into the past.

In fact, quite a long way past. We're going all the way back to 2016. This is episode 20 which was recorded back when we were recording in real life in

Wolf Road in Islington in London with our original producer Matt Hall and you and I and the

guest the great slang lexicographer man who's produced I think the greatest work of linguistic reference on his own

over the last 30 years, Jonathan Green's Dictionary of Slang.

It's an episode that we haven't listened to for a long time, but it comes out of the traps and feels, I think, incredibly relevant.

This is an episode about the novel, Absolute Beginners, by Colin McKinis.

And this is notable for several reasons.

One is it's my favorite novel ever written by anyone,

and it's one of John's favorites.

And it was a great pleasure to be able to rig things so that we were able to do a show about this novel.

It changed my life. I say that very carefully because I don't, I'm not a great believer in that cliche but this book did change my life

When I read it when I was 15 in the early 1980s and it was an absolute delight to talk about it with John and with Jonathan Green who he won't

mind me saying I'm sure is a generation ahead of me and had his life changed in turn when he first read it in the

1950s and 60s. For those of you who don't know the novel it's set in the summer of 1958

in the Notting Hill area of London

across four months in the period of the race riots that took place there where in August of that summer

gangs of Ted's as they were then roamed West London looking to cause harm to

immigrants and we're recording this in summer 2024 where unfortunately in the

UK similar scenes have been played out

and I tweeted

during the recent disturbances

...