For foodies:
Having previously enjoyed Nigel Slater's Toast (The Story of a Boy's Hunger), I keenly picked up Eating for England: The Delights and Eccentricities of the British at Table. This is a book of the same style as Toast, it's Nigel Slater reminiscing about food as well as commenting on today's eating habits. The book is essentially a series of random vignettes with headings such as Oxo Cubes; The Midnight Feast; The Tight-Arse Cook; Tipping, as Only the Brits Know How; Pre-Jamie Man; Post-Jamie Man; Colman's Mustard. Here's a sample from The Extravagant Cook:
"... Men tend to show off in food shops in a way women don't. Two men, finding themselves at the deli counter at the same time, will act as if they are side by side at the traffic lights, each one revving up while surreptitiously eyeing the other's vehicle (in this case the BMW and the Audi have been temporarily swapped for wire baskets).
"... A dinner party with the extravagant shopper is a non-stop exhibition of ego-cooking. The best ingredients, the flashiest recipes and, actually, quite sound cooking, albeit done on a cooker that wouldn't look out of place at Gordon Ramsay's. It's the culinary equivalent of driving a Porsche Cayenne."
Food and humour are always good and Slater does not disappoint.
For pure torrent-of-tear inducing laughter:
Must Try Harder!: The Very Worst Howlers by Schoolchildren pulls together a selection of slippery slip ups made by schoolchildren when writing. Norman McGreevy, a school teacher has compiled this very funny collection.
I came across this book when picking up the Daily Mail in my mother's hospital ward: they had excerpts from it in a feature. I started to read them out. My mother and I were in stitches, tears running down our cheeks. And then the other ladies in the ward started listening, so we caused a bit of light and merry disruption. It just might be that this book is of more use than your average painkiller. Here are some examples:
"While rowing up river I slumped over the whores in a state of physical exhaustion."
"Adolescence is the stage between puberty and adultery."
"If you cross XY and XX chromosones, you get XX (female), YY (male) and XY (undecided)."
"Louis XVI was gelatined to death."
"When Elizabeth exposed herself before her troops, they all shouted, 'hurrah'. Then her navy went out and defeated the Spanish Armadillo."
"The wife of a duke is a dukky."
"All the crew were taken into custardy."
"A consonant is a large piece of land surrounded by water."
And finally one for the wonderful Norm at CRIMESCRAPS:
"If teeth are not cleaned, plague is the result."
Recent Comments