h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

In the very first chapter of "King Of The City", Michael Moorcock sums it all up quite nicely (although rather angrily).
I won't copy everything (when Moorcock gets wound up about something, there's no stopping him), but a few "out-takes" won't hurt... (In the novel, the "hero" is a musician / photographer in an era where paparazzi have become social pariahs, just after Diana's tragic death.)

He calls Di's life "... the ultimate chick flick scripted by Barbara Cartland..." and "... the Divine Soap...", and claims the Royal family "... are Stars, the way anyone who makes more than a million a year from satisfying public fantasies is a star. They are paid to represent the vulgar imagination..." and further "... That's our money they're living on. We're entitled to know anything we like about royal lives. They're in the public domain..."

Moorcock is a bit harsh, embittered, but he makes one think. It's a pity he wrote "King Of The City" before all the Big Brother hype, but maybe he'll have a shot at that someday.

I've often thought that the Royal Family were like a strange soap opera with a huge production budget but no really likeable characters.
To my shame, I've never read any Michael Moorcock. Perhaps I should. Judging by that quote you posted, he certainly sounds like my kind of guy! Can you recommend a good Moorcock book to begin with?

Moorcock is "a difficult nu to crack". He's one of those guys who did a bit of everything (did you know he used to play in Hawkwind?).
He has mostly written SF, and although I am a SF-fan (like most h2g2 visitors, I should think), I never really liked his work. The only non-SF novel by Moorcock I've read is "King Of The City" (Scribner UK), which is described on the jacket as the sequel to "Mother London" (I didn't find that one anywhere, not even on-line, but I keep searching). It's a halfway autobiographical novel (he tells lots of stories of the London music scene, and he actually knew all the guys he's talking about), and the plot-line doesn't seem very important to him (there's more sidetracks than you can imagine), but the social commentary is acidic, harsh, witty, f******g great! He doesn't spare anyone (not even himself).

Ah well, let me whet your appetite some more:
"... We're entering an era of unrelenting hypocrisy, half-true spins, wrinkles and twists, mind-numbing relativism, perpetual self-invention, liberal cop-outs, the new bigotry, VR backdrops, feelgoodism, abstraction and distraction, virtual theocracy, the quest for the greatest common denominator..."
(from "King Of The City")

"Virtual theocracy" sounds truly scary! I knew Moorcock was associated with Hawkwind, but I didn't know he's actually joined them for a while! I'm intrigued. I'll look out for "King Of The City".