Housed in a Heavaaay! Dutaaay! cardboard slipcase and with a none-more-black inside cover, this isn’t quite as sizeable as ‘big black book’ would suggest – maybe two-thirds of your usual coffee-table whopper – but it sure is packed with a pleasingly tongue-in-cheek interpretation of Spinal Tap’ s history, from Squatney whippersnappers surviving on deep-fried cotton wool balls to Break Like The Wind, the 1992 comeback that “defied all expectations and logic”, plus a full Tapography.
Featuring pockets of facsimile memorabilia – the Themeland Puppet Show ticket, the Spinal Pap airport sign – it’s all icing on a very silly cake and it’s just as well the Scratch And Sniff card doesn’t work (Leather Jacket, Cold Sore, Explosion). But the whole package does, as a fun, and funny, read, rightfully celebrating the greatest spoof band of all time.
Sadly, though, the Stonehenge napkin isn’t actually a napkin. Just that one detail would have turned this up to a 12.