My mother has been a fan of Cliff Richard forever, and I grew up with his hits often thumping through the speakers. "Goodbye Sam, Hello Samantha!", "Congratulations!", "Power to all our Friends!" Stop it already, please, my ears are bleeding! Really though, my mother clearly draws an awful lot of energy from his songs, and when the house positively shook to "Devil Woman" and "What Car" I can't say I never enjoyed it.

First, let me sing his praise. He was a Sixties icon. Mike Myers I'm sure styled his 'Austin Powers' on Cliff's appearance at the 1968 Eurovision Song Festival. Then he turned to Christianity rather than drugs, boring perhaps but he deserves some credit for doing it his own way and sticking to it. Apart from that he's been quite active in Christian charities making a difference in Uganda, Bangladesh, Brazil and other places. He's been going longer than the Stones now. Despite a clean and cheesy image he remained popular, and even radio stations banning his music hasn't stopped him from getting big hits. You can't beat a film like Summer Holiday, can you? Look out, cliff hehehe.

On the other hand though.. Even in his own opinion he's not that great a singer, technically very good but hardly an amazing voice. He struggles on any instrument, but plays a bit of guitar. He's not finished school, nor has he come back to study later in life. Jumping on the scene just before the Beatles did in an effort to emulate Elvis Presley, his success was no doubt helped by his youthful looks and a great backing band.. The Shadows with Hank Marvin and Bruce Welch were successful in their own right, but in the early Sixties having a singer to attract the girls did help. Record companies were looking for his sort back then, but would he have made it now? And if he'd been outlived by the likes of John Lennon and Jacques Brel where would he be? Had he been Swedish rather than English, would he have cracked as big a market with as much talent, from a smaller native language? And if girls that performed alongside him had been allowed to grow old gracefully, would he not have paled in comparison to Dusty Springfield?

But what struck me most, pre-reading his auto-biography "My Life, My Way", before wrapping it up and sending it to my mum, was his unashamed ignorance. His politics, as displayed in chapter 15 (page 218), really got my goat. As he describes it, he's been invited to 10 Downing Street with a few other celebrities and businessmen. Here, he meets Princess Diana and Margaret Thatcher. A young waitress looses her footing and sends a tray of food flying. Stood near her, Cliff proceeds to help her up when Thatcher flies across to comfort the girl, then getting on hands and knees to clear the mess up herself.

I thought: "Is this the Iron Lady? She was behaving just as my mother might have done. I voted for Margaret Thatcher. For years I hadn't voted (...) but I liked her."

It gets worse with the years, a few lines on he mentions Tony Blair:

I liked Tony too, and would have voted for him if he had been a presidential candidate - but we vote for a party in Britain, not a prime minister.

While he then continues to explain why he wouldn't vote Labour (high taxes, people losing incentives to work) fairly, he also mentions the Royal Family a lot in his book, and how he cannot see why some do not like the Royals. Would Cliff really want the Royals, a president Blair and a Tory prime minister altogether? I'm not sure, but I think neither is he, and through his short sketch on politics he comes across as infuriatingly daft. He doesn't mind dropping a few names here and there either. Which would be fine, if he had actually met them professionally or otherwise. In most cases, this is the case. However, there is an index at the end of the book and the references are sometimes astounding. Oprah Winfrey, page 297. "Really," I thought, thinking I must have overlooked a paragraph in which she is mentioned. Page 297 though only holds a list of questions and answers titled '50 Things you didn't know about Cliff'.

Who would you most like to meet? Oprah Winfrey. (But 'live' on TV)

Yeah, that list fills the index up nicely.