Windswept & Interesting: My Autobiography

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From a troubled and desperately poor childhood in the docklands of Glasgow he is now the intimate of household names the world over. It comes just as his dad, William, learns about Mona’s tyranny and you think he’s going to put a stop to it.

In 2007 and again in 2010, he was voted the greatest stand-up comic on Channel 4's 100 Greatest Stand-Ups. A lovely autobiographical tale from none other than Sir William Connolly himself it is a dictated book rather than a written book, the program that was supposed to change the spoken word into writing decided that a Glaswegian accent was not understandable for machine, and I do sympathise because the first time I met a person from Glasgow while studying in Lancaster England he spoke to me and I am sure I found Chewbacca better understandable when I heard him first.His life is a seemingly infinite wellspring of incident, all of which he’s commendably frank and open about. Listening to this book had me laughing to a point where I had to pause the book so I could compose myself and also hear what Billy was saying! One minute you are reading how he was taken in by his aunts after his mother left, the next you are reading about giant spiders and baby rhinoceros. It’s a moniker Connolly revels in and believes is an accurate description of a type of person he identifies with: someone with their own individual style and who doesn’t give a fuck (excuse my language, but I am paraphrasing Billy) what anyone else thinks. I admire him for a lot of reasons, like he came from a lower class part of Glasgow and suffered terrible abuse and made something of himself; even after being told repeatedly that he'd amount to nothing.

It's curious to think that a lot of younger Australian kids don't know Billy Connolly, as he was something of a staple here for many years.

He has outraged certain sectors of audiences, critics and the media with his free use of the word “fuck”. The structure of the book is interesting, with a vignette from the present introducing a segment of the past. The book is by his wife, Pamela Stephenson, formerly of Saturday Night Live, now with a PhD in psychology.

I’ve learned to be wary of beige people and to appreciate the freedom of naked dancing (vicariously, not personally). In a 1999 interview with "The Sunday Herald" Connolly condemned the SNP as "racist" and the new Scottish parliament as a "joke". His wardrobe was as famous as his joke-telling with leotards, scissor suits, and banana boots adding to his allure.He could have turned out so differently by letting those who were supposed to have raised him get to him, instead he pushed on and had the great delight of proving them all wrong. Reading this book gave me so many more insights into his life and work and made me respect him all the more.