Humour 25 HOW TO…


If a chap can’t compose an epic poem while he is weaving a tapestry, he had better shut up.


- William Morris


74184 INDIANA JONES HANDBOOK


by Denise Kiernan and Joseph D’Agnese Every adventurer should know what to so if you are bitten, how to dress for the occasion, making fire, handling poisonous snakes or tarantulas, how to escape from being tied up, how to fend off a


gang of swordsmen, how to handle awkward foods, how to blend in by moving in large groups and acting the part and even how to survive for several days clinging to a submarine’s periscope! Dozens of crucial skills for any archaeologist-in-training, with stills from the popular films in colour, specially commissioned artwork and diagrams in a fun but ultimately extremely useful handbook. 176pp. £14.99 NOW £5


72212 READER’S DIGEST HOME SAFETY AND


SECURITY DIY MANUAL by Reader’s Digest Electrical, gas, water safety, fire, poisons, safety outdoors, a room by room safety check takes us through our houses and helps us keep our property more secure and in good condition. With a detailed look at door and window locks and catches, choosing a burglar alarm and CCTV systems, security lights, and keeping your property safe from bogus callers, car crime, identity theft and online threats. Spiral bound, 128 large pages with colour photos and diagrams. £9.99 NOW £2.75


72773 LIFE... GREAT ADVICE, SIMPLY PUT Easy Ways to Get the Most Out of Life edited by Peggy Northrop


From how to read someone’s body language to how to make a good first impression yourself, from looking ten years younger in an instant to appearing more intelligent, and from eating with chopsticks to recovering from a gaffe, here are numerous ways to bring success and contentment into what may have become a dreary existence. 173 life-affirming pages, colour. £9.99 NOW £2.50


HUMOUR


Always borrow money from a pessimist. He won’t expect it back.


- Oscar Wilde


74348 TOMMY COOPER JOKE BOOK by John Fisher


‘You’ve heard of the Lone Ranger? I’m his brother, Hydranga!’ ‘I’ve got a dog, you know. I have. He’s a one-man dog. He only bites me.’ Tommy Cooper died the most visible of deaths live on television on the stage of Her Majesty’s Theatre. Since his death he has acquired the status of folk hero and new generations have caught up with his comedy magic. Reproducing images of his typewritten scripts like ‘more one-liners’ from January 1959 here is a small sampling - ‘She’s on a diet of coconuts and bananas. She hasn’t lost any weight but boy, can she climb trees?’ ‘I just had a boy scout cocktail. Two of them and an old lady helped YOU across the street!’ To one of his writers, Eddie Bayliss, we owe ‘My feet are killing me - every night when I’m lying in bed they get me right round the throat like that.’ Packed with Cooper gems, his face lit up in many images, we meet the wife, pay homage to Max Miller, go down memory lane with Tommy, read his heckler stoppers, his pub tales, philosophical, stating the obvious, Tommy the boxer, more one-liners and Cooper classics. 166 pages. £9.99 NOW £4.50


74094 GILES THE


COLLECTION 2013 by John Field


Grandma, father, mother, Vera, children and pets populate these cartoons which make you smile on several levels. Hoover up quirky little


snippets hidden in plain view from Giles, the ‘Spreader of Happiness’. More than a daily dose, here is a whole year’s worth of mirth in a Christmas collection family album of one of Britain’s most bewildering families. With several generations living together in the same house, family dynamics can often be fraught with misunderstandings and conflict. Giles’s created family seems to encapsulate all the chaos and turbulence since it first appeared on 5th August 1945. With family tree on the back cover!, full page cartoons ranging from the 50s to the 90s and the captions will remind you of the eras depicted. By the man voted the 20th Century’s Greatest Cartoonist. Landscape softback produced by Express Newspapers. £7.99 NOW £4


74364 CLASSICAL


COMPENDIUM: A Miscellany of Curious Facts, Bizarre Beliefs and Scandalous Gossip from Ancient Greece and


Rome by Philip Matyszak Xenophon did it. Pliny did it. In fact many ancient writers did it - that is, they collected lively anecdotes and after-dinner jokes. Here, a writer


74086 WRINKLIES’ BEDSIDE COMPANION by Mike


Haskins and Clive Wichelow Pet animal to wrinkly owner - Dog ‘I’ve noticed that when we are out for a walk, you seem to need a wee about as often as I do.’ Goldfish - ‘So tell me, what’s it like living with such a poor short-term memory?’ Tortoise - ‘Is that really


the fastest you can go?’ Laugh along with the life, the wrinklyverse and everything, how to look good, false memory syndrome, why sex is overrated, celebrity bed companions, things you can count to help you get off to sleep, bedside essentials, opening lines of novels wrinklies can identify with, health, diet and exercise, attitude, utterances to philosophical wrinklies, how to live cheaply, dealing with night-time emergencies, bedtime snacks, and a wrinklies’ guide to the modern world and much more. An ideal bedside companion. 192pp.


£9.99 NOW £5


74085 WRINKLIES’ WIT AND WISDOM: Humorous Quotes About Getting On a Bit


by Rosemarie Jarski Old is the new young! Grey is the new black! Saga-louts are the new lager-louts! Collapsing the old stereotypes of knitting grannies and doddering grandpas, senior citizens are now living life to the full, taking on new challenges and showing us


all how to grow old disgracefully. Regrets, Joan Bakewell says, ‘I rather regret I haven’t taken more drugs. Is it too late, at 70, to try cocaine? Would it be dangerous or interesting?’ Keith Waterhouse, the Simpsons, Welsh proverbs, John Mortimer, Tom Baker, Stephen Fry, Lee Marvin, David Letterman, David Bailey, Ozzy Osborne to Barbara Cartland all have their say in these witty one liners. 272pp. £9.99 NOW £4


74087 WRINKLIES JOKE BOOK: The Laughter Lines: More Jokes, Quotes and Funny Stories for the Golden Generation


by Mike Haskins and Clive Whichelow Note. The authors will accept no liability for wrinkles induced as a result of laughing at this joke book. It is choc-à-bloc with anecdotes, stories, proverbs, and observations all relating to the ‘elder generation’. There are quotes from the likes of Stephen Fry, Jo Brand, George Burns, Harry Hill, Milton Berle and the cast of Have I Got News For You as well as dozens of other witty wordsmiths. 192 pages. £9.99 NOW £4.50


and historian gathers together his favourite incidents, wisecracks and curious facts, not from modern times but from ancient Greece and Rome. This collection includes humorous quips by the emperor Augustus and wry observations by the philosopher Socrates. There are stories of ghastly crimes, incredible journeys, and some bizarre military mishaps, together with dozens of lists covering unusual topics - such as Romans who lived to be 100, or odd deities like Sterculinus, the god of manure spreading. Many of the tales, such as a statue who was tried for murder, may seem strange to us but, in those days, they were normal enough. The mind boggles! 192 pages with 109 illustrations in b/w. Contents same as 73387.


£9.99 NOW £4 74417 STRANGE LAWS OF


OLD ENGLAND by Nigel Cawthorne


It is still illegal to enter the Houses of Parliament wearing a suit of armour, in Hertford a wife has the right to throw out her husband’s stash of girlie magazines and in London it is against the law to keep a pigsty at the front of the house. In Liverpool it is unlawful to ‘dress or undress a female mannequin in the window of any shop or store where


children might observe the unclothed model’, while the Outer Space Act of 1986 gives magistrates the power to use reasonable force to turn back an alien invasion. Intriguing, often hilarious, look at odd English laws. 266pp. Paperback, b/w illus. £9.99 NOW £4


74401 NECESSARY


APTITUDE: A Memoir by Pam Ayres


Written with Pam’s much-loved combination of fun and poignancy, this book is a touching memoir of her early years. She admits to having been hooked on performing from the age of seven and she also loved writing because the mystery of how ‘humour, sadness and pathos can be conjured up from a blank


sheet with a pen and an idea’ seems magical. With typical diffidence, she is just amazed that she has been able to harness her two abilities and use them to make a living. Born in the immediate post-war years, she enjoyed life with four older brothers and a sister in their crowded council house. In her late teens, after enduring a succession of boring clerking jobs and being told that she ‘lacked the necessary aptitude’, she became totally dissatisfied with her life, in which the local ‘hop’ or dance was the only excitement. Having seen three of her brothers called up for National Service and sent off to exciting destinations, she felt desperate for travel and adventure. So she joined the WRAF and soon found herself in the Far East. It was there that she began to write in earnest, and developed the unique talent that would make her one of Britain’s favourite comics. An endearing read. 404 paperback pages with colour and b/ w archive photos. £13.99 NOW £5


71640 BEST OF PUNCH CARTOONS: 2000 Humour Classics


introduced by Helen Walasek


A very British institution for over 160 years, Punch was the world’s most celebrated magazine of humour and satire, imitated, parodied and pirated but never bettered. Like tasty plums in a pudding, here are witty cartoons from the pens of the great Leech, du Maurier, Phil May, H. M. Bateman, Pont, E. H. Shepard, Fougasse, Emett, Anton, Hoffnung, ffolkes, Thelwell, Searle, Heath, and out great friends Tony Husband and Tony Reeve. Arranged by eras 1841-1913, Through the Wars, the 60s and 70s to the 80s and Beyond covering the magazine’s most celebrated and zany themes, caricatures, the Great Exhibition of 1851, early motoring, the space race, new technology, holidays, mind doctors and Lemmings from P. G. Wodehouse to Alan Coren. First time discounted. 608 large glamorous pages, 10" x 11½”. £30 NOW £18


71808 MASTERS OF SITCOM: From Hancock to Steptoe Ray Galton and Alan Simpson by Christopher Stevens


Here are 50 best-loved G & S scripts, over 600 in all! So, naturally, there are the greats of Hancock’s Half Hour - The Blood Donor, The Radio Ham, The Television Set and Sunday Afternoon at Home, to name but a few. Featured co-stars include Sid James, Kenneth Williams, Hattie Jacques, Eric Sykes, Terry Thomas, Bill Kerr, Bernard Cribbins, Leslie Phillips, Yootha Joyce and many more. 352pp with b/w photos. £20 NOW £3


71810 ARE YOU TURNING INTO YOUR DAD? by Joseph Piercy


Sciatica, piles, gout, trapped nerves and tennis elbow, embarrassing your offspring, home comforts, visiting old memorable places, ten signs you are over the hill and an OCD quiz, jokes, lists and quizzes should help ease an awkward transition. 192pp, cartoons. £9.99 NOW £2.50


71897 CARTOONS AND CORONETS: The Genius of Osbert Lancaster


introduced and selected by James Knox In his heyday Osbert Lancaster was one of the foremost artistic personalities of his generation, renowned as a satirist, cartoonist, theatrical designer, dandy and wit. His work ranges from architectural satires, which introduced styles such as Stockbrokers’ Tudor to the critical canon, through acclaimed stage and costume designs for Covent Garden and Glyndebourne to visual parodies and jokes. His fine draughtsmanship, eye for detail and historical sense make his work truly exceptional. 224 softback pages 18.5cm x 24cm, illus in colour and b/w. £15 NOW £4.50


72380 CELEBRITY FACE-OFF: The Royal Family **REDUCED**


A book of 12 masks of Princess Anne, Fergie, Andrew, Harry, Edward, The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (William and Kate), Prince Charles and Camilla, our patron and Royal Warrant granter the lovely Prince Philip and the Queen wearing a beautiful tiara but rather a hacked off expression. Best of all is the corgi on the last page! The high resolution regal masks are ready to push out from the page, pop out the eyes and loop through your own elastic - very easy to assemble. Unofficial and unauthorised softback. £14.99 NOW £3


72520 DISHONOURABLE INSULTS compiled by Greg Knight, M.P.


Political invective is not what it was, laments the editor of this indiscreet collection. Unparliamentary language includes accusing someone of being a liar, or the use of offensive expressions. Winston Churchill got round the former problem by saying the liar was guilty of a “terminological inexactitude” while Sir Nicholas Fairbairn just invented a few insulting words, calling his female colleagues “cagmags and scrub heaps”. Michael Heseltine was a great parliamentary performer who knew all the tricks of the trade. 271pp. £14.99 NOW £4


72535 MRS HUDSON’S DIARIES: A View from the Landing at 221B


by Barry Cryer and Bob Cryer Here are the long-lost diaries of Mrs Hudson, almost unflappable landlady of Sherlock Holmes and his amanuensis Doctor Watson. Interspersed with her fascinating keepsakes - letters, recipes, calling cards and photos - her humorous musings recall talking to the spirit world, dancing with government officials and nights at the music hall, not to mention mysterious visitors, disappearances, and unexplained shouts and bangs. 187 pages, illus.


£12.99 NOW £5


72552 QUEEN’S COUNSEL OFFICIAL LAWYERS’ HANDBOOK


by Daniel R. White and Alex Williams Both White and Williams have escaped from the legal profession and made good in the real world, White with his best-selling “official handbooks” and Williams with his long-running series of legal cartoon strips for The Times newspaper. The divorcing couple who imagine they will be splitting their assets 50/50 are under a misapprehension. They will be splitting them 50/50 with the lawyer, and they will have to share out the half that remains. A legal document is “bulletproof” if it has no full stops or commas but plenty of brackets within brackets and Roman numerals. 226pp, cartoon strips. £14.99 NOW £6


72754 AN A-Z OF HELLRAISERS: A Comprehensive Compendium of Outrageous Insobriety by Robert Sellers


W.C. Fields famously lived up to his initials from the balcony of a Mexican hotel by relieving himself over the brass band that were tuning up below. From Winston Churchill to Shane MacGowan, George Best to Paul Gascoigne, Peter O’Toole to Errol Flynn, here are the unforgettable and utterly hilarious tales of celebrity (over 100 of them) misbehaviour. Photos, 420pp. £20 NOW £4


OUR HELEN’S FAVOURITE


Our dear friend Helen Ranson of Wordsworth Editions (we sell all their £2 classics and are their appointed mail order agents) simply adores this favourite comedy series.


74321 ONLY FOOLS AND


HORSES by Graham McCann Created by the legendary comedy writer John Sullivan, Only Fools and Horses follows the


misadventures of Del Boy Trotter, his gormless younger brother Rodney and a collection of their loveable but shady friends as they attempt to get rich quick through dodgy deals and a ridiculous array


of knock-off goods. Something about the cast of very British misfits won the heart of the nation and in the 30 years since viewers first visited Nelson Mandela House, the comedy show has won countless awards and is one of Britain’s best loved sitcoms. Even the OED includes the phrases ‘Lovely Jubbly’ and ‘Twonk’. The pilot episode was screened in September 1981 on BBC1 and at its height over a third of the British population, 24.3 million people, watched the final instalment set in the high rise block of council flats in Peckham. Here is the full inside story, 344pp with colour photos. £20 NOW £6.50


72839 CARTOONS OF WORLD WAR II edited by Tony Husband


Illingworth’s drawing of Hitler as a glove puppet being manipulated by Himmler brilliantly suggests that the Fuhrer is a spent force. Once the war was under way, the cartoonist’s art was an important weapon, and the French version of “Careless talk costs lives” is a masterpiece of poster design. In 1942 three men in evening dress are passing round the after-dinner port saying “Shall we join the ladies?”, and meanwhile the ladies in question are on the roof, firewatching in fur coats with shovels and sand buckets. 192pp, softback, 200 cartoons selected and introduced by our friend Tony Husband.


£9.99 NOW £5 72933 HEROINES AND HARRIDANS: A


Fanfare of Fabulous Females by Sandi Toksvig


A trio of Fannys, tattooed ladies, and women whose names begin AE (joined together), Blessed Hildegard of Bingen, jolly sorts like Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Fanny Burney who published four novels and 80 plays and lived out her retirement in an Austen-like manner in Bath. Great actresses, queens, composers, the doyenne of American etiquette Emily Post, Bessie Colman the first African American aviatrix, roll-up roll-up to enjoy the history of courtesans, greed, love, talent and passion, suppressed by male historians through the ages. These women deserve to be resurrected from obscurity. SIGNED BY both Sandi Toksvig and her witty illustrator Sandy Nightingale. 126 large pages. £17.99 NOW £10


! 72996 HOW TO MAKE STONEHENGE OUT OF


BISCUITS: A Year’s Worth of Crazy Ideas! by Tracey Turner


You can discover which day of the year is No Sock Day, Dance Like A Chicken Day, International Polar Bear Day and Talk Like a Pirate Day. You are warned that if, in order to celebrate the summer solstice, you attempt to make your own Stonehenge out of biscuits, it can be very messy, so wear safety clothing. 223 pages, line drawings and cartoons. £6.99 NOW £1.75


73050 RALPH STEADMAN BOOK OF DOGS written and illustrated by Ralph Steadman With his trademark ‘stretched and blotted’ style and his perceptive eye, here is Steadman again, using his wicked pen to capture the fierce, furious, whimsical, wistful world of the dog. A lifetime lover of canines, here he shows us dogs on furniture, dogs of fashion, wine dogs, fantastical crossbreeds and even insects that live on dogs. You will either love or loathe the Saloon Bar Dog, the Antisocial Blot Dog, the Buddhist Dogs Searching for Happiness, the Dog Baby Substitute and Decibelle the Noisy Mongrel, but we can guarantee that, as with all Steadman’s works, you will not be bored. Approx 96 unnumbered pages 21.5cm x 22cm in colour and b/w. £12.99 NOW £5


73502 LES DAWSON’S JOKE BOOK by Tracy and Charlotte Dawson It is over 20 years since Les Dawson died but rising young comedians often cite him as one of their comedy heroes. He was that rare person, a comedian who wrote all his own material. He could make people laugh with a twitch of his face or a hitch of his bosom. Here is a poignant and affectionate, but above all hilarious, tribute to his talents by his second wife and his daughter, who reveal that not only was Les a good pianist but that writing was one of the great joys of his life. He left a cupboard full of fabulously funny material. 159 pages. £9.99 NOW £5


73609 COMIC BOOK COVERS by Sandra Forty


82 full page colour plates of comic book covers like Batman, Dennis the Menace, The Green Mask, Jackie Robinson, Jo-Jo Congo King, Planet Comics, Slave Girl Comics, Sweethearts, Wonder Woman, X-Men, Women in Love, Western Thrillers and more, all in glorious colour. Semi-clad busty females in danger, to monster fantasies and all-negro comics, here is the ‘golden age’ of the comic book. Captain America and the Green Lantern quickly made previous heroes of crime, cowboy and romance genres look dated. Colour. ONLY £4.50


73083 HAMMER AND TICKLE: A Cultural


History of Communism by Ben Lewis ‘What is colder in Romania than the cold water? The hot water’. The valiant and sardonic citizens of the former Communist countries - surrounded by secret police,


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36