Then I remembered that literally two minutes before I sat down to write this, I had made a purchase on ebay. The Clash's 1979 classic album 'London Calling'. And not just any copy, but the new, flashy, 25th anniversary double CD edition with bonus DVD material and a 36-page booklet. Got it at a steal, too.

So when it comes to items geared toward cashing in on the commemoration of milestones, I can be as easily convinced to part with money in exchange for nostalgia as anyone. Besides which, well, you know, the CD is packaged with the DVD (which I'll probably watch once) and bonus booklet (which I'll probably flick through once) and all that. And consequently, I can't really make any snide remarks about all the Senna-related stuff that appeared as if by magic around May 1 this year, which, as you would all know, marked the tenth anniversary of the Brazilian's fatal crash at Imola. Some of it was inevitably better than others, but the one book that stood out - for all sorts of reasons - was this one from Tom Rubython, the man behind BusinessF1 magazine, and former editor of Bernie's now-defunct Formula One mag.

It certainly seemed to be the most visible new Senna title of the past year. Whether this can be put down to a cleverly planned marketing strategy or the simple fact that the book's striking cover, coupled with its impressive physical dimensions (I seriously doubt any spider that gets whacked with this book will not stay down) sells itself is anybody's guess.

As seems to be the case with a lot of Rubython's work, this is a book that takes itself very, very seriously. It makes no secret of the fact that it sets out to be the definitive Senna biography, the one that will automatically render every other Senna volume useless for anything other than propping up a table with a wonky leg.

So has it succeeded? Well, it's good - very good, even - but not that good. Before we get into the reasons why, we should stop for a minute and look at some of the things that Rubython has gotten right. When viewed against the perspective of the highly media-orientated nature of F1 now (and F1 10 years ago), it seems unthinkable that the very public death of one of world sport's greatest names should still be so shrouded in mystery. How, with so much data, so many cameras, so many journalists, and so many tens of thousands of man-hours devoted to unearthing the 'truth', has it still eluded us?

The answer is, of course, that the scale of scrutiny under which the sport now exists that makes the unanswered questions surrounding Senna's death so mysterious has probably played a large part in some of the vital details being kept under wraps in the first place.

This helps fuel the rumours that have circulated in race paddocks, newspapers, books and on the internet virtually from the moment that the Williams came to rest at Tamburello. Some of these have more credence than others, but before this book came along there were a few that seemed to have some credence but had not, to my knowledge, been published previously. An example of this were the concerns over the impact of the lightweight prototype helmet that Senna was said to have used during the race.

Rubython addresses this in some detail, and weighs up what kind of contribution it may have made to Senna's injuries. The author's handling of issues such as this is fairly typical of the nature of the book as a whole. It is quite detailed, particularly in its coverage of the legal investigations into the accident, and strikes a good balance in its portrayal of Senna's family life, racing career and the ramifications of his death. On the downside, there are a couple of examples where Rubython's enthusiasm gets the better of his judgement.

On page 53, for example, he writes of Senna's impressive Formula Ford career, and finishes off an account of his FFord statistics by declaring that "Why he wasn't whisked off to Formula One at that point is an enduring mystery".

This is followed up on page 55, where a recap of his FFord career is finished off with: "Nowadays he would probably have gone straight into Formula One". You have got to be kidding. When was the last time that anyone went from Formula Ford to Formula One in a single step? The only person who came close in recent history was Kimi Raikkonen, who stepped up from Formula Renault - and in doing so raised all kinds of concerns about his capacity to drive a Formula One car when his open-wheel career was at such an embryonic stage.

Kimi has gone on to prove his doubters so spectacularly wrong that it's almost forgotten now that he was originally racing under a provisional Superlicence - but he is still very, very much the exception, not the rule.

A Formula Ford is designed to be the first step from karts to open-wheelers, not the last step before the main game. It has no aero grip, not a lot of mechanical grip, and is not on the same continent as F1 in terms of horsepower. Add to that the fact that any young driver fresh out of Formula Ford still invariably has a lot to learn about racecraft (irrespective of how talented they may be), and the whole idea of making one giant leap seems completely preposterous. This is why we have Formula Renault, and Formula Three, and GP2 and a zillion of other categories in between FFord and F1.

Another, more general problem that niggled at me throughout the book was that the manuscript apparently never visited the desk of an editor. A 600-page tome is awe-inspiring, but there was a lot of repetition and general flab that should never have made it to print. The book could have easily been 40 pages shorter without losing any of the basic story, and at minimal detriment to its physical impressiveness.