I cried because I did not have an office with a door, until I met a man who had no cubicle." - Dilbert"After your boss has taken away your door, your walls, and your storage areas, there aren't many options left for the next revolution in office design. One of the following things is likely to go next: the floor; the ceiling; your happiness.I think the floor will stay, but only because your company would have to dig a huge hole all the way to the other side of the earth to get rid of it. As you can imagine, a huge hole through the earth would represent a serious threat to office productivity. From The Joy of Work by Scott AdamsRead by Scott Adams.
Frank Skinner is undoubtedly one of the funniest and most successful comedians appearing on British screens. Born Chris Collins in 1957 he grew up in the West Midlands where he inherited his father's passion for football, a West Bromich Albion supporter, along with a liking for alcohol. Expelled from school at 16 Frank held various jobs later going on to gain an MA in English Literature. Nurturing a serious drink problem from the age of fourteen, Frank eventually turned to Catholicism in 1987 and hasn't had a drink since. He performed his first stand up gig in December 1987. His first television appearance in 1988 met with fits of laughter from the audience and 131 complaints, including one from cabinet minister Edwina Currie. He met fellow comedian David Baddiel in 1990 and the two went on to share a flat throughout the early 90's and to create the hit TV series Fantasy Football League. Winner of the prestigious Perrier Award at the Edinburgh Festival, Skinner's is a unique mixture of laddish and philosophical humour which has won him the prime time ITV show - The Frank Skinner Show. Here, for the first time, Frank candidly tells us of the highs and lows of his fascinating life and career.
True Tales of People Who Just Can't Take It Anymore. What can you do when the world is pushing you over the edge? More than you think. For some of us, it's the automated voice that answers the phone when we'd rather talk to a real person. For others, it's the fact that Starbucks insists on calling its smallest-sized coffee "tall." Or perhaps it's those pesky subscription cards that fall out of magazines. Whatever it is, each of us finds some aspect of everyday life to be particularly maddening, and we often long to lash out at these stubborn irritants of modern life. In Life's Little Annoyances Ian Urbina chronicles the lengths to which some people will go when they have endured their pet peeves long enough. We meet the junk-mail recipient who returns unwanted "business reply" envelopes weighted down with sheet metal, so the mailers will have to pay the postage, and the woman, fed up with the colleague who kept helping himself to her lunch cookies, who replaces them with dog biscuits that look like biscotti. And we revel in the seemingly endless number of tactics people use to vent their anger at telemarketers, loud cellphone talkers, spammers, and others who impose themselves on us. A compendium of human inventiveness, this audiobook will provide comfort and inspiration to anyone who has ever gritted his teeth and dreamed of sweet retribution against the slings and arrows of outrageous people.
Just as uproariously funny and terrifically popular today as when it first began on BBC Radio 4 in 1968, Just a Minute challenges contestants to speak for one minute on a given subject without repetition, hesitation or deviation. Its mix of irreverent fun and ferocious competition has always attracted stellar names from the world of comedy and theatre, all of whom pit their wits and their wit against regular players including Kenneth Williams, Clement Freud, Derek Nimmo, Peter Jones and Paul Merton. Among the guests in these four archive programmes are Peter Cook, Barry Took, Victoria Wood, Wendy Richard and Stephen Fry. Nicholas Parsons, who has been at the helm of the series since it began, as chairman and occasionally as player, introduces this sparkling quartet of editions and provides fascinating background information on the game, as well as memories of its players and its devisor, Ian Messiter. These four episodes were first transmitted on 28th October 1968, 29th May 1979, 24th September 1983 and 11th January 1992.
How lovely it is to once again vada the dolly old eek of Round the Horne, the radio comedy series which ventured where few had gone before in the late 1960s. For four series, suave and unruffled host Kenneth Horne battled manfully with a marauding parade of characters, from enterprising chorus boys Julian and Sandy and warbling songsmith Rambling Syd Rumpo to booming Daphne Whitethigh and breathless thespians Charles and Fiona. In this latest collection of episodes, we listen in to an interview at the BBC personnel department; Kenneth Horne, master spy, has serious trouble when the evil Ginsberg causes people to assume the characters of animals; Julian and Sandy suggest something decadent for the garden; and, in a wartime drama, Fiona finds something lacking in her marriage to Charles.
One of the greatest minds in American writing, Kurt Vonnegut has left an indelible impression on literature with such inventive novels as Cat's Cradle, Slaughterhouse- Five and Breakfast of Champions. Now this iconic figure shares his often hilarious and always insightful reflections on America, art, politics and life in general. No matter the subject, Vonnegut will have you considering perspectives you may never have regarded. On the creative process: "If you want to really hurt your parents . the least you can do is go into the arts. I'm not kidding." On politics: "No, I am not going to run for President, although I do know that a sentence, if it is to be complete, must have both a subject and a verb." On nature: "Evolution is so creative. That's how we got giraffes." On modern cultural attitudes: "Do you think Arabs are dumb? They gave us our numbers. Try doing long division with Roman numerals." And on the fate of humankind: "The good Earth-we could have saved it, but we were too damn cheap and lazy." A Man without a Country showcases Vonnegut at his wittiest, most acerbic, and most concerned. Beyond the humor and biting satire is an appeal to all readers to give careful thought to the world around them and the people they share it with.
Just a Minute was devised by the late Ian Messiter, who came up with the idea on the top of a number 13 bus, where he suddenly remembered the ordeal of speaking for one minute without hesitation or deviation being meted out by one of his school masters to his class. This challenging task is hilariously attempted by a host of top comedians and entertainers in these four great shows from 2005. Panellists include Paul Merton, Graham Norton, Clement Freud, Linda Smith, Tony Hawks, Sue Perkins, Stephen Fry, Jenny Eclair, Julian Clary, Ross Noble, Lisa Tarbuck, Tim Rice and Wendy Richard.
Since 1977, BBC Radio 4's funniest and quirkiest game show has been answering questions and offering wit and wisdom on global happenings, national news and quite frankly pathetic parochial events. In this annual highlights edition, a selection of 2005's most entertaining news stories and current events are given a satirical twist by top comedians and journalists. Panellists include Alan Coren, Andy Hamilton, Jeremy Hardy, Armando Iannucci, Linda Smith and Francis Wheen. 'The cleverest, wittiest, best programme in any medium in the story of the world ever' - Chris Campling, The Times.
'New York is a hard place to visit, but a pretty good place to live,' says Garrison Keillor, and on this humorous and insightful audio collection he explains why. This Grammy Award-nominated collection comprises 10 monologues in which Keillor reflects on New York City life through the eyes of a transplanted Minnesotan. These stories are among Keillor's very best work.
