In which Tony Hawks (who is definitely NOT Tony Hawk) swaps his fridge for a skateboard
For more than twenty years I have been mistaken for Tony Hawk, the American skateboarder. Unfortunately for me, Tony Hawk chose to name all his skateboarding computer games after him, so they were called things like Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. The reason why this is unfortunate is because it seems that young American skateboarders have failed to grasp the concept of an apostrophe* and even though it is abundantly clear on my web-site that I am an English comedian and author, they still write to me asking me questions like ‘How do you do a 900’ or ‘an Ollie’? A while back I grew tired of this, and one mischievous day I decided to starting writing back to these skateboarding enthusiasts. And I began to enjoy it. I began to publish the best of these replies on my web-site and I soon had people writing to me tell me how these mails had them crying with laughter. I now have hundreds of e mails to which I have replied, employing a pompous, serious tone, goading my correspondents for their spelling mistakes and poor grammar, whilst offering bogus or downright silly advice on how to improve their skateboarding. These ‘skatemails’ would appear alongside an equally silly and disrespectful A-Z guide to the world of skateboarding, as seen through the eyes of someone who knows absolutely nothing about it.
I see this as being a great gift book – or one that can sit on the shelf in the loo and provide the kind of unbridled laughter that could greatly assist the constipated. There – that’s my gift to society. It would also make a wonderful Christmas present to any parent who has a child who is a mad keen skateboarder…
I should also add that all my profits for this new book will be donated to my charity - The Tony Hawks Centre - which offers free health care to chronically ill children in Moldova.
