My American experience of early COVID was slightly different--more haphazard and unstructured, more politically frustrating (Bohnson's got nothing on Drump)--but the world is small enough and the pandemic so global, that despite the geographical gulf, Key's rendering of living alone, frozen in time while the world spiraled out of control, resonated. If I weren’t a slave to my own literary-critical (?) choice, I’d straight up give this book 5 stars. But what do I have to do with my revolting enthusiasm now? PDF / EPUB File Name: He_Used_Thought_as_a_Wife_-_Tim_Key.pdf, He_Used_Thought_as_a_Wife_-_Tim_Key.epub Instead, He Used Thought As A Wife is primarily a compelling character study of his peevish poet persona at his most irritable, condescending and insecure. The jaunty bonhomie of his blokey middle-aged banter which he so accurately nails is tissue-thin, a passive-aggressive frustration scratching through every superficially jovial turn-of phrase. His admittedly unreliable recollections are a delight, despite, or possibly because of, the undertow of despair that he’s trying not to confront. Key’s decline is charted with a dry and ever-present wit, which frequently erupts into a bluntly funny line that elicits a hard, inappropriate laugh.

He Used Thought As A Wife by Tim Key : Reviews 2021 - Chortle

If you are in Australia or New Zealand (DVD Region 4), note that almost all DVDs distributed in the UK by the BBC and 2entertain are encoded for both Region 2 and Region 4. The UK and Australasia are in the same Blu-ray region (B). Alone in this intersection of spoken waffle and poetry, there’s nothing else like Tim’s writing and it’s in top form here. Moreso than the books 2021 Sequel ‘Mulberry’ that loses much of this books charm by changing setting to outdoors. Tim’s Flat, complete with floor plan provided, does claustrophobia like a fart in a lift. Well humoured, but dense and suffocating.Juniper designed the beautiful Megadate printed script, and then his playing cards (which also have conversations with her on some of them) and in this book her role as TK's foil is thrust even further into the spotlight (although how much (if any) of it is real is for the reader to guess). Almost a theatre performance in its dialogues, a novella in its narrative and it’s also the worst possible phrase: ‘a character study’. Not only of Key, but all of us across 2020. Slow, plodding & frequently in a daytime bath - ‘Thought as a Wife’ harrows and entertains in equal measure. A latter-day Samuel Pepys, chronicling the modern bubonic plague for posterity... a hilarious portrait of an artist just about creatively keeping his funk at bay" i At his most self-consciously pompous, Key fancies himself a latter-day Samuel Pepys, chronicling the modern bubonic plague for posterity. With some justification, even as his febrile imagination conjures bleak erotica, featuring an out-of-his-depth, depressed Boris Johnson, “Bohnson”, as he sinks further into his own hellish quagmire.

He Used Thought as a Wife, by Tim Key, review: pithily funny

These poems form a true collection, some stand alone, others form an arc of running gags. If you are a fan of Tim Key already, you will be familiar with his abrasive, and very funny, poems. What stands out about this book is the conversations, beautifully type-faced, between Key and various friends and family members he keeps in touch with from a safe distance. Each character has its own voice, each of them uniquely funny - a testament to the strength of the writing. Is comedy more important than kindness? Is meanness towards those closest to you necessary for quality humour? Is a poem about a Jacob Reece Mogg-like character masturbating a cat really that funny? I think the answer to each of those questions is no. The collection, beautifully designed by Emily Juniper, may draw on such tropes as clapping for the NHS or obsessing about sourdough starter without ever seeming trite or overfamiliar. And to be fair on Key, this is a far more entertaining account of this plague: a rich source of perfectly observed, often laugh-out-loud humour than never shies away from the malaise, the melancholy, the isolation, the futility, the political incompetence and the uncertainty that has blighted the last year. If you are in the North America, look out for US/Canadian flag icons on popular product listings for direct links.Tim Key has] always been at a gloriously odd angle to life as we know it. Now that life itself is at an ingloriously odd angle to life as we knew it, his time has come.” The Times ****

He Used Thought as a Wife by Tim Key | Waterstones

All the while, Key’s intensifying mental degradation belies the volume’s deceptive density and rigorous chronological timeline of major pandemic moments. Despite alighting on obvious touchstones such as the NHS clapping, Johnson’s brush with Covid, banana bread and Dominic “Cumdawg” Cummings’ trip to Barnard Castle, it is the specific oddity of Key’s existence that best captures the general experience of lonely, inward-looking, disconnected life. Having a knowledge of Key and his actual life/friends helps contextualise the conversations, and it is easy to work out who some of the veiled characters are - but beyond that the character that TK paints is fascinating, and the reader is left wondering to what extent the actual Tim Key resembles his self portrait. [Something that his Megadate show also left the audience wondering, I suspect]. It's SO good?? Wtf Tim, your brain is a wonder and I'm in awe. The book is very funny, joyful, perfectly odd, sad, relatable and... cozy? I felt snuggled up reading this book. It took care of me.

Lou Sanders on shame, skating and her new show, Unforgivable: ‘You don’t have to be broken to be funny’ It's semi-autobiographical meaning it's not entirely clear what he's invented with his own imagination (I mean, did he have a cow on his balcony? Was there even a mouse?!) but I feel like this just highlights the chaos of the pandemic and the stuff we all had to do to cope. The typesetting and layout is genuinely very attractive. This is Emily Juniper's contribution - the person whom Tim converses most with in the book. As this book seems like a continuation of the same world that TK created for Megadate, and then his Poetical Playing Cards this is appropriate.