It is ironic that the Derry broadcaster Gerry Anderson chose to call his book Surviving in Stroke City. In fact it deals more with the traumas associated with his painful stint with BBC Radio 4, and the trials of life on the road with a show-band, than with the experience of living in his native city.
Anderson hosts a high-profile daily morning radio programme on BBC Radio Ulster, and while many of his colleagues could be accused of being bland - probably related to the fact that for years they've been filling in the gaps between news programmes laden with atrocities and tragedy - the same could not be said of him.
The 54-year-old thrives on irreverence, and has fostered a flippant and carefree style. It is telling that in one survey in the North he was voted the most popular broadcaster, while also coming out top of the list of those who should be taken off the airwaves.
He probably also deserves an award for being a BBC broadcaster who wasn't afraid to poke fun at the Princess Di phenomenon shortly after her death, when popular opinion was canonising her. With his trademark mock sincerity, he said goodbye to a telephone caller, who had not been speaking about anything related to Diana, with the words: "And take care of yourself, it's what Diana would have wanted."
But for all his flippancy, wisecracks and anecdotes, Anderson does not appear an entirely carefree man. In a tailored tweed suit, his wispy grey hair parted in the middle, he shows all the signs of someone who has taken a few knocks along the way. His face is heavily lined and his fingernails bitten, but then, as he might say himself, they're his nails and he can do what he likes with them.
He says people in Derry will probably be disappointed with the book because so much of it is not about the city, although "Derry thinking permeates it". There are passages about his youth and anecdotes about people and places in the city - he describes finding himself "in the gnarled hands of the Irish Christian Brothers" - but these are interspersed between chapters on his very varied experiences as a musician and broadcaster. The book is not written in chronological order.
While he says he considered omitting his highly-publicised, disastrous move to Radio 4, the reader is left with an impression that he wanted to write the experience out of his system, to tell his side of the story.
After eight years as a successful broadcaster with Radio Ulster, during which time he won a Sony award for regional radio personality, he was offered a daily afternoon slot on BBC Radio 4 in early 1994, as bosses there tried to widen the station's appeal. It proved a fiasco, "a nightmare" in Anderson's words. At one point he was dubbed "the most hated man in Britain", as precious Radio 4 listeners threatened to picket the studio.
He opens the book with an encounter with a homeless man in a London park as he walks to work at the BBC. He finds himself envying the down-and-out, and later describes the feeling of being physically sick at the prospect of broadcasting the programme, and experiencing nausea and dizzy spells. His sharp observations of some of the people who thrive in the peculiar world of the BBC would make most people thoroughly glad that the closest they'll ever get to it is watching a TV screen.
The programme was finally axed when his one-year contract ran out, and he has since rebuilt his career on Radio Ulster. His Anderson On The Box chat-show on BBC Northern Ireland TV also went with the Radio 4 programme, because he says he was perceived by the general public as having failed. He is still scathing about "the Radio 4 Nazis", the Home County listeners who didn't want "ordinary people" presenting programmes or listening to the station. The formula was also criticised by commentators. "It was like signing for Man United and then when you turn up outside Old Trafford, you are given a cricket bat," he says.
He describes the furore as "a chattering classes war", saying about 15 per cent of the listeners feel they own Radio 4, but adds honestly: "It was a very horrible time, it was like being publicly flogged." He points out that the listener-ship never went down and says he believes his accent was partly to blame, because in England the Northern accent is associated with people complaining and arguing. Some broadcasters, he says, were willing to change their accents once they went to London. "They became English. There's nothing wrong with that if you are English."
Anderson, however, is not a typical Irishman or a typical Derry-man. He grew up on the Bogside, but says he would "certainly not" describe himself as a nationalist. He was away from the North for the worst years of the troubles and says this left him without "the baggage" many others carry.
His contempt for politicians, who he describes as "slimy" and "cheap, power-hungry bastards", is matched by a hatred of paramilitaries: "The scum are organised." After acknowledging the "uneasy peace", he closes the book by telling how the IRA bombed his mother's house in 1971 and then apologised for it.
Surviving in Stroke City only gives glimpses into aspects of Anderson's life. He says this is "a toe in the water exercise" and he will probably continue to write. While being too flippant to give you any serious insight into life in Derry, the most entertaining parts are about his life touring Ireland with show-bands and the period when he played with Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks in America.
Anecdotes about an affair with a black American stripper/masseuse who left him outside "like a dustbin" when her long-term lover returned, and the time where he decided there was more to life than "a schnozzleful of cocaine and the company of vacuous friends" would indicate that the man has more stories to tell.
Surviving in Stroke City is published by Hutchinson at £10 in UK