24-10-10, 05:55 PM
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Join Date: Jun 2009
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Compare the memoir: insurance meerkat's life story on sale
Compare the memoir: insurance meerkat's life story on sale | Books | The Guardian
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The preternatural decadence of Keith Richards, the confessional wit of Stephen Fry and the sexual candour of Tony Blair may have met their match in a small creature with a thick Russian accent and an infuriating line in catchphrases.
Step forward Aleksandr Orlov: self-made insurance flogger and now meerkat-of-letters. The dapper Orlov – whose relentless pushing of the Compare the Market insurance website amuses and annoys in almost equal measure – has become the latest "celebrity" to unloose a memoir on the world. And while the autobiography is not published until Friday, it is already selling remarkably well.
A Simples Life was this afternoon sitting at 92 in Amazon's 100 bestselling books, just above Derren Brown's Confessions of a Conjuror. According to the blurb, the tome will set its readers' whiskers aquiver with tales of how Orlov and his trusty sidekick conquered the world.
"My story of struggles, successes and Sergei is the greatest, most thrillsy book ever written by a meerkat in the bath," explains Orlov. "With this book, I am hope to inspire the next generation of young businesskats. And with royalties I am hope to re-marble roof on Orlov family mansion. Please enjoyment."
Quite who the book is aimed at remains something of a mystery, but the meerkat and his broken English are not without their fans: Orlov has 41,411 Twitter followers and 762,480 Facebook adherents. The best clues as to what sort of person might be tempted to fork out £9.99 for the fictional life story of an anthropomorphic, CGI mongoose-cousin are to be found on the Amazon website. Under the "Customers who bought this item also bought …" section are: Meery Meerkats Christmas Cards Pack, Grow Your Own Meerkat sponge, a 5.7cm standing Meerkat model and, most baffling of all, The Devil Rides Out by Paul O'Grady.
Although A Simples Life is still lagging dozens of places behind Life: Keith Richards, The Fry Chronicles, and Blair's A Journey, its publishers are confident that their meerkat will hold his own when he goes paw-to-toe with the heavyweights in a few days' time. "As we contemplate further economic downturn and unprecedented public sector cuts sometimes the only salve is outright escapism," said Andrew Goodfellow, senior publishing director for Ebury Press.
"In Aleksandr Orlov you have an fantastical but utterly convincing comic hero whose struggles we can all identify with. His ability to achieve his hopes and dreams despite himself are something to raise an unfettered smile whether you are eight or 80."
Although some have accused the advertising icon of crude stereotyping, one Russian may have his own, rather more personal reasons for ruing the day Orlov put pen to paper. Publication is likely to make life still more difficult for Arsenal's diminutive Russian play-maker, Andrei Arshavin, whose team mates are rumoured to call him Meerkat because of apparent similarities between his accent and that of his made-up countryman.
Orlov himself could not be reached for comment.
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You know what? I read this whole awesome story and my main thought was "preternatural?"
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