In this collection of acid-tongued essays, ';the U.K.'s answer to Dave Barry' skewers his American cousins (Publishers Weekly). Winner of the Best Columnist of the Year at the British Liars' Awards and Britain's finest satirist, John O'Farrell takes dead aim at cell phones, awards ceremonies, genetic sheep splicers, America's right-wing cabal of dunces, dunderheads, dimwits, and the Big D himself. ';Just when we thought the lawlessness in Iraq was over,' O'Farrell observes, ';even more blatant incidents of looting have begun. With handkerchiefs masking their faces, two rioters roughly the height of George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld kicked in the gates of the largest oilfield and grabbed the keys of the gasoline trucks. ';Yee-haw! It's all ours! Millions of barrels of the stuff,' they laughed. ';Yup!' added the leader, ';and this mask guarantees my anonymousinity!' So after all these years there really is such a person as the Thief of Baghdad. Except strangely his accent sounded vaguely Texan.' A writer for the groundbreaking television show Spitting Image and contributor to the screenplay for the hit movie Chicken Run, O'Farrell meticulously researched his conclusions by spending five minutes on the Internet and then giving up. And while O'Farrell's sharpest barbs and stingers have often been written to come out of the mouths of grotesque puppets and Claymation chickens, this time around he keeps the best lines for himself: ';With the election of the 43rd President of the United States, the global village is complete,' O'Farrell writes. ';It has its own global village idiot.'
We're all used to hearing how the world has become one big global village, and, now, with the election of George Bush as President of the USA, we have the global village idiot we deserve. So says John O'Farrell, who sets his stall out early and eagerly chooses politicians - especially those with no sense of humour - as the targets most deserving of his verbal assaults. Granted, the humourless politician is not what you would call a difficult target, but O'Farrell's observations are spot on nearly every time, so it's easy to forgive him. That he is happy to have a laugh at his own shortcomings, and particularly his Labour Party membership, also goes a long way to endearing him to the reader. All manner of political beasts and shenanigans stalk these pages, from the naive hope of the early days of New Labour to exceptionally enjoyable and funny attacks on the Archers and Hamiltons of the world. The general indifference to the euro, the dire state of television, and the Mayor of London controversy all jostle to remind us just how intrusive and ultimately unimportant politics can be to the everyday life of many people. Fox hunting, the new religion of shopping and the inevitable arrival of Thanksgiving as a UK holiday all provide fodder for O'Farrell's well-written and amusing columns, originally published in the Guardian or Independent. Proudly spanning two centuries (or 24 months depending on how you look at it), this collection embraces the news that mattered at the turn of the millennium, all in portions that are perfect for reading in short bursts. It's a handy, witty synopsis of what held the nation in thrall between the summers of 1999 and 2001. (Kirkus UK)
Author
About John O'farrell
John O'Farrell is the author of four novels: The Man Who Forgot His Wife, May Contain Nuts, This Is Your Life and The Best a Man Can Get. His novels have been translated into over twenty languages and have been adapted for radio and television. He has also written two best-selling history books: An Utterly Impartial History of Britain and An Utterly Exasperated History of Modern Britain, as well as a political memoir, Things Can Only Get Better and three collections of his column in The Guardian. A former comedy scriptwriter for such productions as Spitting Image, Room 101, Murder Most Horrid and Chicken Run, he is founder of the satirical website NewsBiscuitand can occasionally be spotted on such TV programmes as Grumpy Old Men, Question Time and Have I Got News for You.
