Bill Drummond was a major pop star with his band The KLF before having a nervous breakdown. Mark Manning (or just 'Z' for short) ran the weird band Zodiac Mindwarp and the Love Reaction. Together they decided to go on a pilgrimage to the North Pole with an icon of Elvis Presley to spread love and good vibes to the whole world. They also decided that they should write a book about the journey and Bad Wisdom is that book (published by Penguin Books, 1996).

Overall, its an incredibly funny and strange book. The parts written by Drummond are introspective and honest; an account of what it was like to be a man at the end of the 20th century. It gives some background on why The KLF split up, and meditations on pop music in general, knife fixation and male friendship. There's also a lot of farting and picking noses.

Mannings parts are more disturbing; generally the narrative start out in the real world but quickly degenerates into violent porn that would've made Marquis de Sade proud. Torture, coprophilia, necrophilia, and rape, they're all there. But it's all done in a kind of absurd or surreal fashion and on the whole it balances the rest of the book perfectly.

Overall, I'd recommend this book to anyone with a sense of humour and stomach enough to get through the worst parts. An... interesting experience.

From the blurb at the back of the book:

We had a plan: we were going to save the world - the whales, the dolphins, the rainforests, Bambi, the whole damn Walt Disney bunch, babe; we were gonna free Willy, fuck chicks and slay dragons. We are Zen Masters and know what the fuck we are talking about.

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