Böcker av Charlie Connelly

This solemn, rhythmic intonation of the shipping forecast on BBC radio is as familiar as the sound of Big Ben chiming the hour. Since its first broadcast in the 1920s it has inspired poems, songs and novels in addition to its intended objective of warning generations of seafarers of impending storms and gales.Sitting at home listening to the shipping forecast can be a cosily reassuring experience. There's no danger of a westerly gale eight, veering southwesterly increasing nine later (visibility poor) gusting through your average suburban living room, blowing the Sunday papers all over the place and startling the cat.Yet familiar though the sea areas are by name, few people give much thought to where they are or what they contain. In ATTENTION ALL SHIPPING Charlie Connelly wittily explores the places behind the voice, those mysterious regions whose names seem often to bear no relation to conventional geography. Armchair travel will never be the same again.

A voyage through the culture, people and history of the defining piece of water known as the English Channel.

Bestselling author Charlie Connelly returns with a First World War memoir of his great uncle, Edward Connelly, who was an ordinary boy sent to fight in a war the likes of which the world had never seen. But this is not just his story; it is the story of all the young forgotten soldiers who fought and bravely died for their countryThe Forgotten Soldier tells the story of Private Edward Connelly, aged 19, killed in the First World War a week before the Armistice and immediately forgotten, even, it seems, by his own family. Edward died on exactly the same day, and as part of the same military offensive, as Wilfred Owen. They died only a few miles apart and yet there cannot be a bigger contrast between their legacies. Edward had been born into poverty in west London on the eve of the twentieth century, had a job washing railway carriages, was conscripted into the army at the age of eighteen and sent to the Western Front from where he would never return. He lies buried miles from home in a small military cemetery on the outskirts of an obscure town close to the French border in western Belgium. No-one has ever visited him. Like thousands of other young boys, Edward's life and death were forgotten. By delving into and uncovering letters, poems and war diaries to reconstruct his great uncle's brief life and needless death; Charlie fills in the blanks of Edward's life with the experiences of similar young men giving a voice to the voiceless. Edward Connelly's tragic story comes to represent all the young men who went off to the Great War and never came home. This is a book about the unsung heroes, the ordinary men who did their duty with utmost courage, and who deserve to be remembered.

We talk about the weather a lot. It exasperates, confounds and on occasion delights us. Our national conversation is dominated by the weather, but how much do we really know about it? In Bring Me Sunshine, Charlie Connelly sets off on the trail of our island obsession. He breezes through the lives of meteorological eccentrics, geniuses, rainmakers and cloud-busters and brings vividly to life great weather events from history. He sheds light on Britain's weirdest wind, why we have the wettest place in England to thank for the trusty pencil, the debt that umbrella owners owe to Robinson Crusoe and why people once thought firing cannons at clouds was a great idea. Having adventured round the shipping forecast areas for his bestselling Attention All Shipping, Connelly is the perfect guide through a m lange of gales, blizzards, mists, heatwaves and the occasional shower of fish. By turns informative, entertaining and hilarious, Bring Me Sunshine answers all your weather questions as well as helping you to distinguish your graupel from your petrichor.

One forgotten street, 12 unforgettable women. `'Ang on boy, Joan's got sumfink to show yer.' She rummaged in a drawer for a moment, pulled out a piece of paper and handed it to me. `Constance Street,' she said. `As I remember it.'

The landscape of the British Isles is filled with history, much of which we miss as it flashes past the car window. Do we even realise that we're following the same path as the Tolpuddle Martyrs, or that we're driving past the exact spot where King Harold was killed, shot through the eye with an arrow? As a lover of both history and the British countryside, Charlie Connelly decided to rectify this, and set out on a series of walks that recreate famous historical journeys. En route he retells the story of the original trip while discovering who and what now inhabit these iconic routes. Walking in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, Charlie journeys alongside Boudicca's ghost in Norfolk, relives Bonnie Prince Charlie's flight to Skye disguised as Flora MacDonald's maid and takes the same 32-mile round trip as the starving Louisburgh famine walkers. He suffers broken toes, becomes trapped in the Scottish Parliament and encounters dead poets and a surprisingly high number of mad old women in woolly hats. Told with Charlie's customary charm and wit, And Did Those Feet will reveal the historical secrets hidden in the much-loved coastal, country and urban landscapes of Britain.

Since his death in 1977 Elvis Presley has become an even greater cultural icon than when he was making records and consuming deep-fried peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches. IN SEARCH OF ELVIS sees Charlie Connelly set off on a journey to discover what makes Elvis so significant today and how his spirit is being kept alive more than half a century after he changed popular culture for ever. Charlie's odyssey takes him to Finland to meet an academic who performs Elvis songs in long-dead languages - while wearing a kilt; to Canada to find the orthodox Jewish Elvis tribute artist, Schmelvis; to Scotland to get fitted out with the Presley tartan; and culminates in Memphis, where Charlie stays at the Heartbreak Hotel (which is at the end of Lonely Street) and records a song in Sun Studio, the very room where Elvis arguably invented rock'n'roll. Hilarious yet informative, and written with Charlie Connelly's customary wit and charm, this book will appeal to Elvis fans of all ages, plus the many travel-book aficionados who delighted in ATTENTION ALL SHIPPING.

STAMPING GROUNDS follows the Liechtenstein national football team through their defeat-strewn qualifying campaign for the 2002 World Cup. Drawn in a group with Israel, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Austria and mighty Spain, it was hard to see the principality's part-time players scoring even one goal, never mind adding to its meagre international points total. So what motivates a nation of 30,000 people and eleven villages to keep plugging away despite the inevitability of defeat? Travelling to all of Liechenstein's qualifying matches, Charlie Connelly examines what motivates a team to take the field dressed proudly in the shirts of Liechtenstein despite the knowledge that they are, with notably few exceptions, in for a damn good hiding.Sampling the delights of Liechtenstein's capital, Vaduz, such as the Postage Stamp Museum, the State Art Museum and, er, the Postage Stamp Museum again, Connelly provides an evocative and witty account of the land where every year on National Day the sovereign invites the entire population into his garden for a glass of wine.