My Shit Life So Far

by Frankie Boyle

Ever since being brought up by The Beatles, Frankie Boyle has been a tremendous liar. Join him on his adventures with his chum Clangy The Brass Boy and laugh as he doesn’t accidentally kill a student nurse when a party gets out of hand.

I don't think anyone can have written an autobiography without at some point thinking "Why would anyone want to know this shit?" I've always read them thinking "I don't want to know where Steve Tyler grew up, just tell me how many groupies he f**ked!"'

So begins Frankie's outrageous, laugh-out loud, cynical rant on life as he knows it. From growing up in Pollockshaws, Glasgow (‘it was an aching cement void, a slap in the face to Childhood, and for the family it was a step up'), to his rampant teenage sex drive (‘in those days if you glimpsed a nipple on T.V. it was like porn Christmas'), and first job working in a mental hospital ('where most evenings were spent persuading an old man in his pants not to eat a family sized block of cheese'), nothing is out of bounds.

Outspoken, outrageous and brilliantly inappropriate, Frankie Boyle, the dark heart of Mock the Week, says the unsayable as only he can. From the TV programmes he would like to see made ('Celebrities On Acid On just like Celebrity Dancing On Ice, but with an opening sequence where Graham Norton hoses the celebrities down with liquid LSD'), to his native Scotland and the Mayor of London ('voting for Boris Johnson wasn't that different to voting for a Labrador wearing a Wonder Woman costume'), nothing and no one is safe from Frankie's fearless, sharp-tongued assault.

Sharply observed and full of taboo-busting, we-really-shouldn't-be-laughing-at-this humour, My Shit Life So Far shows why Frankie Boyle really is the blackest man in show business.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, Humor, Comedy, Autobiography, Memoir, Scotland

304 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 1, 2009

About the author

Francis Martin Patrick "Frankie" Boyle is a Scottish comedian and writer, well known for his pessimistic, often controversial sense of humour. He was a permanent panellist on Mock the Week for seven series and has made guest appearances on several popular panel shows including Have I Got News for You, 8 Out of 10 Cats, Would I Lie to You?, You Have Been Watching, Never Mind the Buzzcocks (as guest host and team captain when Phill Jupitus was unavailable for recording), and Argumental, as well as writing for Jimmy Carr's Distraction and Sean Lock's TV Heaven, Telly Hell.

Reviews

[James Tivendale · Rating 3 out of 5]

A cool fun read about the life of one of Britain's most notorious comedians. It focused mostly on his youth, alcohol-fueled adventures and breaking into the Scottish comedy scene. It is a better read if you are familiar with Frankie and internally read in his voice at his expertly delivered comic pace. I was familiar with a few of the jokes he recycled from Mock the Week. I wish he'd have spoken more about Mock the Week and other panel shows. All he really said regarding this era were comic lies. Either way, an enjoyable quick read that won't be too memorable.

[Ana · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have no idea who Frankie Boyle is and bought this based on the title at a used bookstore. Super funny- Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of people I can recommend this to, as the material is VERY offensive. Not for the faint at heart. Also the Scottish references were lost on me. Still, this was truly entertaining. An example of his nasty humor is that he calls AIDS the "Gay Rabies". HA!

[Lea · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'd consider myself a kind-of Frankie Boyle fan. I really like some of Frankie Boyle's jokes, but mostly on mock the week, his stand up isn't really my thing most of the time (mainly because it does not make me laugh...). I was curious about this "autobiography" but it's neither really funny nor informative, but rather pretty rambley. I don't mind the way he writes, I don't mind the cruel jokes, but if they're not funny they just make me think they there for shock factor only. The worst part of the books were the comedy routines, as they're just not funny at all, the best parts were when I felt he was being more genuine.

This book is okay and an easy read, and if you're a Frankie Boyle fan you've probably already read this anyway, but it's not a must-read.

[Barry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Relentlessly hilarious, disjointed and the only "celebrity" autobiography worth reading as it tells you precisely nothing about the person.

My favourite line - "tell God if he wants to make himself useful he can stick his finger up my arse".

[Ray · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written in 2009 when FB was peak Mock the Week (UK news based comedy panel show). He and Russell Howard were the stand out stars. Frankie was known for really sick jokes and skated close to the edge on several occasions.

This book is part biography and part stand up routine, savage and sharp in places so be warned. There are some very funny parts.

What I didn't appreciate until fairly recently was that FB has a keen interest in politics. This shows in this book and some of his later stuff such as New World Order.

[Alan Tennyson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Frankie, you terrible cunt! thankfully I've finish this book, I was becoming increasingly sweary to my friends and family. bunch of cunts.

[Benjamin Lettuce Treuhaft · Rating 5 out of 5]

... although I wish 4.85 were possible, as a percentage of this Scottish comedian's book is recycled scripts from old shows. But I laughed out loud at least 45 times in the 300 pages. And the shit he's allowed to say in 2010 (wishing certain celebrities and politicians dead - and worse). Boris Johnson had been recently elected mayor of London: "The Labour Party must really be in trouble if they can lose control of London to a fat albino with Down's syndrome. Earlier this year Madame Tussauds unveiled a waxwork of Boris Johnson. It's so lifelike the only way to tell them apart is that the waxwork is slightly better at running London. I mean, what a waste of money. Boris does so little work he'd have been happy to go down to Madame Tussauds for a couple of hours a day and just stand".

[Kat V · Rating 3 out of 5]

I absolutely don’t mind the cursing but heads up there’s a lot of it so I’d skip this if that’ll be offensive to you. Some of the things in the into that are “jokes” are yikes and not funny. I admit that I’ve only seen him on panel shows and I’m not British so maybe I should have done more research on his comedy before picking this up. Ok so after the intro it does calm down significantly and there were a few things that made me laugh out loud but every once in a while it just felt massively outdated and trying too hard to be edgy. I guess I wouldn’t recommend it unless you’re a big fan of his. 3 stars

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not for the faint of heart. Frankie Boyle's pseudo-autobiography. I say pseudo, because you have to assume that a large part of it is embellished, altered or downright bullshit.

Starting with his early life and working through to the time he kicked a drunk Santa off the stage in front of me at the Hammersmith Apollo (strangely he doesn't mention me being there in the book at all though).

This book isn't as funny as that show, but if you like humour that offends you to your very core, this is a good place to start...

[Crispin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dark depressing but oh so so funny book. I have friends who are just like this in read life so i can relate to alot of the things Frankie talks about. OMG though this book had me in stiches as soon as i started reading it. Still word of warning, if your feeling abit down...id stay away from it till your in a better frame of mind. Only book that made me laugh that much was Red Dwarf Infinitey welcomes careful drivers

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vile... But hilarious. I cringed at Frankie then at myself, but once I got over the constant hatred being thrown my way and stopped worrying about how terribly un-pc this book is I enjoyed it. (This was definately helped by reading said book on a kindle, hence avoiding the shame attached to buying such filth.)

[Jagan K · Rating 4 out of 5]

For fans of Frankie

Only about half way through the book we get to see Frankie beginning his comedy journey and nonetheless it's such a fun memoir to read. His picture of Glasgow is nothing different from what you see in his stand-up acts. And the acerbic nature of his humor is also quite evident in this unapologetic recount of his life experiences. Enjoyed reading it.

[[ J o ] · Rating 4 out of 5]

[Short review from memory until I re-read and re-review at a later date:

Oh, do I want to re-read this? Four stars? I was a big fan, I suppose, but now... Maybe that will put it in to perspective. Funny, I can remember, but little else. He capitalised on his fame, aye.]

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the book and it does give you some insight into his character I thought. It did read like he was writing stand up though, he needs to work on narrative. I hope he writes more books though since he's retired now as I'd definitely buy anything else he wrote.

[Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Books by stand-up comedians can be hit-or-miss, and for me this was a hit. But I think you have to be a Frankie Boyle fan coming into this read in order to fall in love with the memoir. He has a personality and comic style which is as polarizing as this genre of writing.

[Sam Burns · Rating 5 out of 5]

This made me laugh so often it was so funny. Growing up in Northern Ireland a lot of his experiences were similar to mine and I knew every celebrity influence he mentioned. Lots of laugh out loud moments.

[Alex Balcon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This has to go down as the best book I have ever read. Thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. This book is what got me into reading.

[Kels · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[James Earp · Rating 5 out of 5]

ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT! The funniest book I've ever read! Very typical of everything you'd expect from the man. Brutally uncensored to perfection. Don't read this if you're one of 'the offended gang'

[Tanya Gardiner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Snippets of Frankie's backstory pop up now and again but I think I learnt a bit more about what makes Frankie ticked off - following in the great vehement vein of his stand-up routines. I'm half-wishing I could write a review with a witty sarcastic voice in order to do his worldview justice. I can't. Instead, I can just say I enjoyed it; I found the book intelligent, funny, well-written and it was a quick read - ouch!

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was brilliant...so different from my usual read this year as it's been tricky to engage with a book plot.
Told my Dad today that Frankie trained to be a teacher, had pupils he didn't like so farted next them. My dad wanted to be a teacher.

[Orly · Rating 2 out of 5]

In brief: Frankie reflects on his life in a very sardonic way.... chock-a-block full of his usual acerbic wit!

The good bits: Every so often there were some parts that made me laugh out loud, such as when he wrote about his short lived spell as a teacher.

The bad bits: Having seen some of Frankie's comedy I knew that this would be quite crude in places, yet at times there were too many inappropriate jokes, even for me.

I read this book because: Jaw staggeringly rude and offensive he may be, yet I love him still!

Setting: Various places around the UK

Rating: 2/5

Similar to: I've not read anything similar to this before (in regards to it's tone)... I guess it is similar to all standard autobiographies in that it is about Frankie's life... If you've enjoyed watching Frankie on 'Mock the Week', then you'll enjoy (parts of) this!

WARNING: I really do feel the need to warn that Frankie's humour is incredibly crass and disrespectful, so if you are easily offended... don't read this book!

I've loved Frankie ever since I started watching Mock the Week a few years ago. His accent is amazing, and he always has me in stitches from his entirely inappropriate sense of humour, so when I heard that he had written a book, I really wanted to read it. Having finished it though, I feel as if I have just had a bit of an unwelcome insight into his life. I think that I preferred it when I didn't know much about him - his obsession with pornography, his penchant for drugs, or the way he got a friend of his pregnant because he was bored. Sometimes a bit of mystery can be a good thing, and in his case, I think that it was. Frankie, I'm sure, would disagree:

"It's interesting for me to see the things people choose to get offended about and the things they let slide.... it's easy to loose your sense of perspective in show business."
That being said, this is Frankie Boyle I'm writing about, and so I have to say that I'm not sure how much of this book is actually true. I'd suspect that he has made up or exaggerated a fair bit of what he has written in order to get a laugh. In fact, in the introduction he even states that big parts of this book have been made up.

"This book isn't entirely accurate. I have changed all the names and occasionally tweaked the order of events. I've also lied quite a lot."
What surprised me when I was reading this book, is how articulate he was in places. Some of his descriptions of things were truly wonderful. But unfortunately they only lasted for a sentence or two before he was off on another tangent. At times, when he described his life I truly felt sorry for him. It's obvious (well... if he was telling the truth), that he is a man who is plagued by a lot of demons, and has sought a lot of solace in alcohol and drugs. He certainly paints a very bleak picture of life in Scotland.

In this book, Frankie talks about his childhood in Scotland, his family holidays to a depressing village in Ireland, his college days and how he ended up doing comedy - first as a travelling comedian, then as a writer for Jimmy Carr, and eventually as a comedian with a tv show of his own. He certainly isn't shy about talking about his downs just as much as his ups, and I respect him for that.
In summation, this book was interesting in some places, and as a fan of his, I knew that I would be in for a shock when I read this book. I probably wouldn't recommend this book to others unless I knew that they were also a fan of Frankie's. I'm not sure if he has written anything else, but in the future I think that I'll stick to watching his comedy, rather than reading about the inner workings of his dark and somewhat twisted mind.

[Logan Horsford · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not sure why people are giving this a poor review - it's a lot like one of his shows.

Rather than getting the super dull "When I was eight we moved to a slightly larger house" crap found in most narratives, you get a lot of Boyle sense of humor and tangential rants about things.

Unless you found his skit about "Michael Jackson's Children's Hospital" funny, you probably won't like this book.

For me, I found it awkward because I was listening to it wandering around Odessa Ukraine bursting into spontaneous laughter or grinning like an idiot - both things which the Ukrainian's are not wanting to do because they know their perverted uncle (Russia) is waiting to jump out of the closet and bugger them.

[James · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was a fun little read at first, and to be honest I was hoping to glean or garner some inspiration for the little jokes that were flooding my mind.

You see, creating jokes isn't all that hard to do. What is hard is creating the little stories around those jokes and being able to prosecute them in a timely fashion. Also, you've got to be a good communicator, and that's the biggest area I'm lacking in.

But, believe it or not, I'm a bit of a story-teller meself, and was lucky enough to springboard myself from limericks to jokes.

I really wanted to learn something from this guy, not that I would have been able to give up my day job or anything, for... one at night. But, I was experimenting with me own little jokes, and I was starting to make people laugh -- at work mostly, and then I read his book. And that's when I knew I was totally fooked!

The book itself was quite funny -- at first, and I'm sure a similar thing happened to me that happened in that book, but I can't remember the specifics. It was also a bit sad, a tad mad, bad and clad in too much seriousness. But, apart from that, it was okay.

[eartoot · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a fan of Frankie Boyle I was suprised when I found out he'd written a celebrity biography. After reading the short section available on the Amazon website I wasn't sure whether to bother or not as it came across as disjoint and that he was trying a bit too hard to be zany.

Fortunately things settle down after the first chapter. The bits and pieces about his life, alcohol and drug experiences and the occasional story were interested but shallow. Some additional detail would have made a huge difference. Things also tapered off towards the end, almost as if he didn't know how to wrap things up or was losing his enthusiam for the project.

I was pleasantly surprised with some of the things he name checked as influences, such as old 8-bit Sinclair Spectrum games and the works of Grant Morrison.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Funny in places but mainly I didn't understand a thing he was saying! Not because of his nationality; I am half Scottish and understand the Scottish ways and way but just because it didn't seem to go anywhere. Maybe that is his point but I think he can go over the top sometimes. To him, it is for shock value but I don't think so much of it is necessary. As with most things in life moderation is the key, it's the excess that can kill you and I think the excess killed the book for me.

Also, and probably mainly, I bought this autobiography to find out about Frankie's life but there is no mention of when he was born, only brief mentions of ex-partners and nothing mentioned about his parents. Most of it is just incomprehensible rambling. Mock The Week is also only skirted over briefly. To be honest I feel a bit betrayed.

[gargamelscat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a spectacularly interesting life but that's not why I read such books.

For a 'celebrity' memoir it was well written (not too surprising as Boyle is a script writer).

Surprised to find such a Scottish guy had an Irish background - an Irish-speaking mother (hard enough to find in Ireland actually!) and spending summers in Donegal as a kid.

But the stand out observation he makes is the one about how the cause of homelessness is extreme procastination. It sent a shiver of recognition up my spine - just letting things go until they become overwhelming problems.

[Susan Steed · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I first picked this up I didn't enjoy it as a lot of it is completely made up. However, when I got into it, I found it totally fascinating. It talks about his increasing politicisation, how he found Chomsky, as well as his views on comedy and all sorts of other topics. I gave it to a charity shop so I didn't have to carry it home on the train from Edinburgh otherwise I would have included some of the more memorable quotes but I think he ends the book by saying something like 'why the fuck are you reading the autobiography of a panel show contestant you ignorant fuck'

[Jon Chater · Rating 4 out of 5]

Had to read in little stints as can't take too much of Frankie at once. Sounds like the cue for one of his jokes, but add foul language and so much offensive imagery to make a docker blush.
I could only recommend this book to one friend and he is a very dubious man. If you are easily offended not the book for you. It is however worth a go and I'm laughing now thinking is some stuff he says. Dare you read it? Who gives a ..... Ha ha ha

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is book is currently residing in the small room where it works well. I has a a lot of good content that does not require too long a sit down to get the gag/point what have you. Frankie is clearly an interesting and intelligent man and worth your time, even if you cannot agree with all he says.
The book starts at full gag speed ahead, thankfully slows to cover some actual biography and will let you know the rest when I am done.