A Mad World, My Masters: Tales from a Traveller's Life

Small wonder, then, that Simpson is a source of dozens of good stories. Many of these have been written up elsewhere in his autobiographical Strange Places, Questionable People, but there are plenty left over for this latest book in which Simpson eschews chronology and just sticks to some plain old-fashioned story telling, with sections on villains, spies, icons etc. Unsurprisingly, Simpson has a journalistic eye for detail and nuance and never holds back from telling you the things you want to know; so when he went to interview Bokassa, he managed to sneak a look inside his giant deep freeze to see if there were any human body parts. It sounds trivial but it isn't; in a strange sort of way the examination of the contents of a deep freeze can be every bit as revealing as an hour on a shrink's couch.

Simpson is a genial companion, not much given to introspection, and the book races seamlessly from anecdote to anecdote. And yet underpinning the narrative is Simpson's global malaise, a feeling that everywhere in the world is becoming more and more similar and that it's increasingly hard to find anywhere genuinely wild and remote. Simpson has been to many of those places, but the way he describes them makes them seem fairly similar in their own kind of way. McDonalds and the Gap may be thin on the ground, but there are bullets and danger aplenty. To have been to so many of these places is an achievement in itself; to have returned unscathed is a minor miracle; John Simpson has led a charmed life in more ways than one. --John Crace

He manages to encapsulate life's realities, the highs, the lows and the grey in-between of everywhere and everyone he has connected with. Although what this book delivers is presented purely from his own individual experiences and through the eyes of a distinguished journalist - I think it's fair to say that his usual diplomatic and charismatic approach to life is portrayed at every opportunity and stops this becoming one mans crusade to save the world.

John's ability to provide real life accounts of a society built around political incompetencies and dictatorships, coupled with his underlying British humour and determination in the face of terrifying adversity, shows us the side of life that most people if they're honest pretend doesn't exist.

A truly recommended read, that will only leave you queuing up for his next title.


War and Upheaval on Expenses   March 24, 2005
 3 out of 3 found this review helpful

Simpson, so long the face of BBC foreign reportage, in this book describes his own background as "Wandering Jew meets the Flying Dutchman", meaning both genetically and psychologically. This, however, is a less directly autobiographical study than his other book "Strange Lands, Questionable People"; it might be described as a book of anecdote and travel amid the detritus of war, revolution, famine etc., in other words, the ruin of a house which once stood, that house being mostly that of the European empires destroyed or dismantled since 1945.

The weakness of this book is that Simpson postulates no over-arching plan to "rescue the world", whether by the "development" lobby's way of endless appeasement of the "Third World" governments, the tougher path advocated by the Americans and their academic satraps, or by way of, in effect, re-colonizing the countries and "states" set adrift from 1945 onward. In the end this a TV journalist's book: it conveys the atmosphere, helplessness and unplesantness of a given situation, without feeling the need to put forward any practical, nor ideological, solution. Perhaps Simpson is chary of ideological solutions, whether supposedly final or not.

The book is strong on personal involvement at ground level: Simpson himself manages to help some individuals, especially in places like Sarajevo. He is scathing about those who misuse their power and connections to profit financially or sexually from those negatively affected by the war. He only gets really angry in print, though, by the Red Cross, because of their neutrality during WW2 (he thinks they should have stood up to the German authorities more rigorously). Yet Simpson himself admits being diplomatic with Serb extremists, partly to save his own skin. Goose/gander and pot/kettle?

This would be an excellent book to read on a long journey and is a genuinely good read. One will not take away great thoughts or ideals, though. It is a stream of autobiographical anecdote.


Great story-telling   August 23, 2004
 1 out of 1 found this review helpful

As I had expected I would, I really enjoyed this. I haven't read (or listened to) John Simpson's first volume (this being the second), but I don't think it made any difference.

"A Mad World, My Masters", is a collection of accounts of Simpson's experiences whilst reporting from around the world, from Kosovo to Iraq to South America. Each section is told with a great balance of shock, wonder and humour.

Simpson's narration is excellent - he sounds like he really wants you to know what it was like to be doing what he was doing.

I would recommend this to anyone who wants to hear a genuinely interesting story told by a great story-teller.