Review by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Through The Eye Of A Needle
The true story of a man who went searching for meaning - and ended up making his Y-fronts
By John-Paul Flintoff
Published by: Permanent Publications; 1st edition (Aug 2009)
232 pages – paperback – 19.4 x 13 x 2 cm
ISBN 978-1-85623-045-2
Price: £7.95
John-Paul Flintoff was the archetypal mindless consumer until one day he set out to find a purpose in life - and decided to make his own clothes.
Journalist John-Paul Flintoff shares his humorous personal tale of escaping the world of designer clothes, learning about the impact of the clothing industry on its workers and the natural environment and finding happiness through making his own clothes.
“Through The Eye Of A Needle” is a brilliant account of this journey of his – illuminating, enchanting and often extremely funny to the point of laughing out loud – in which he is arguing that the way we look at clothing influences the way we look at the environment, the economy and life itself.
Few books written in our soulless times have such potential to transform people’s minds so completely – while also making them laugh.
His encounters are by turns humorous and enlightening. He meets BBC TV’s
Jeremy Clarkson, Hollywood superstars Richard Gere and Daryl Hannah, spiritual
teachers, politicians, call-center and sweatshop workers, artists, Transition Town
leader Rob Hopkins, Prince Charles’s own Savile Row tailor and many others.
John-Paul Flintoff is a well-known writer on Britain’s best-selling upmarket paper, The Sunday Times, and regular broadcaster.
His writing has attracted compliments from the documentary maker Michael Moore, the stage and film director Richard Eyre, and the late Nobel-winner Harold Pinter (“Very good. Very funny… In fact, it made me laugh”).
He has also worked as a bin man, scuba diver, poet, taxi driver, assistant undertaker, tailor, gardener, high-wire window cleaner, very amateur boxer and rat catcher.
“Through the eye of a Needle” is written in a very easy journalist style of writing and being made up of mostly short chapters makes it a very pleasurable read indeed.
While “Through the eye of a Needle” is the account of one person's quest it should give lots of food for thought to anyone who reads it.
I have enjoyed every page of this book, I am sure, and it has given me much to think about as to how we live in this world, while having been amusing and fun to read with many a times when I laughed out loud.
This could well be, as Alex Somerset said, “A world-changing book”.
© 2009
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