The Sixties were always a bit hard to swallow, and now that they're being reheated and served up in all sorts of watered down forms - Oasis haircuts, flared trousers, lounge music - they're more indigestible than ever. This cult novel, which was first published in 1966, contains all the essential Sixties ingredients - drugs, sex, student rebellion, Cuba and lines like "Not Greek enough, man. Too Coptic" - while its author, Richard Farina, did all the right Sixties things like hang out with Fidel Castro, "work with" the IRA, release two albums of folk songs and get killed in a motorbike accident two days after Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Ale was published. The story concerns one Gnossos Pappadopoulis and his substance sozzled search for Truth and it reminds me, to be perfectly honest, of Kinky Friedman at his grottiest.
