• Humour

      A Geezer’s Guide to Mullet Maintenance by Chris Martin 

      by
      Auld-Yin
       Number of Views: 115 
      1. Categories:
      2. Non-Fiction,
      3. History,
      4. Humour,
      5. Non-Military
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      “and Comb-over Care”

      Chris Martin has brought us a humorous look at male grooming over the Millennia but the bulk of the book deals with haircuts of the past hundred years or so. For those among you who remember the “Duck’s Arrse” this small pocket-sized book will bring back some happy memories; in particular for those of you who remember the DA and still have hair on your head!

      For those of a certain age whose hair is somewhat thinning, there is a section or two on the “comb-over” made famous by Gregor Fisher and the Hamlet adverts.

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      ‘Chusan’ by Liam D’Arcy Brown 

      by
      seaweed
       Number of Views: 271 
      1. Categories:
      2. Non-Fiction,
      3. Humour,
      4. Military
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      The Opium Wars and the Forgotten story of Britain's First Chinese Island

      The author is a sinologist and writer who studied Chinese at Oxford, and then Chinese history in Shanghai, and has travelled extensively in China. This the third book to come out of this, chronicling an aspect of the Opium Wars I suspect almost nobody else in Britain knows anything about. It is intensively and very professionally researched and annotated.

      I came to this book by the back door after a local paper reported an 1842 progress by Queen Victoria being watched by ‘a small Chinese boy in Chinese costume’ who had been brought back to Britain from Chusan (not, incidentally, the orphan Afar mentioned in the book). Let’s just say that Chinese people in rig would have been something of a rarity in provincial Victorian England.

      The word ‘Chusan’ had earlier come into my life as the name of a P&O liner on board which I was entertained to dinner in Hong Kong in 1957. I came to the Opium Wars later via discovering a 3-greats grandfather’s East India Company appointment as an Uncovenanted 4th Class Sub-Deputy Opium Agent in Bengal in 1837, and the serendipitous purchase of ‘The Cree Journals 1837-1856’ by RN Surgeon EH Cree of HMS Rattlesnake (ed. M Levien). Cree was present both at Chusan and at the other main theatre of these wars, Canton, and his journals are copiously illustrated with his charming contemporary watercolour sketches. The author has made good use of some of these as illustrations in ‘Chusan’, unavoidably in black and white. I commend the original, if you can find a copy, to anyone who wants the picturesque background to these times.
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      The Merde Factor by Stephen Clarke 

      by
      metellus cimber
       Number of Views: 352 
      1. Categories:
      2. Non-Fiction,
      3. Humour,
      4. Non-Military
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      France is still the most civilised place in Europe; Paris is the most beautiful and civilised capital; the French, when they want to be, are the most dashing, elegant and charming, as well as the most infuriating, people in Europe. Having read that, read on...

      Normally I avoid humorous, whimsical books by and about Englishmen living on the alien planet of France like the plague. This one however is essential reading, whether you like or hate France and the French. (Few of us are indifferent to them.) The Merde Factor, which has to be fairly autobiographical (I recognise at least one of the characters –Jake, the pornographic American poet ...
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      The Trouble with Girls by Jonny Cox 

      by
      TheIronDuke
       Number of Views: 1717 
      1. Categories:
      2. Fiction,
      3. Humour,
      4. Military
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      If there are two things I hate in life it is marketing birds, people with stupid fucking names, SUFC, the Welsh, bald people, gingers, traffic cops, horses, yoghurt, sex, the Scotch and old age pensioners in shitty little foreign cars…

      This book ticks two of my boxes. Marketing birds and silly names.

      A shame, because it is a canny book. An interesting tale of a young officer and his journey. Written by somebody called Jonny. Nobody is called Jonny other than limp twats with funny haircuts who are waiting for their parents to die so they can inherit. Lets face it, if your Mum said you were called ‘Jonny’ you would lamp the bitch and say “Nah, you can call me Kev”.

      Then we come to marketing Birds. This book is billed as “Sex in the City for Boys”. Elsewhere it is billed as “50 Shades of Grey for Men”. Who dreams up this shite? Marketing birds. You may be cute honey, but get a job in a chip shop. Because you are to flogging books what Kim Jong-Il was to stand up comedy. I am not a boy and 50 Shades was for bored middle class birds. So if men who buy books is your target market, I am somewhere over the horizon washing my flip-flops.

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      ARTE ET MARTE by JP Gray 

      by
      EScotia
       Number of Views: 434 
      1. Categories:
      2. Fiction,
      3. Humour,
      4. Non-Military,
      5. Adventure/Thriller
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      I chose to review this book as the title is the motto of the Corps of Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, a Corps I spent more than a little time in. I thought it was going to be a new take on the history of my old Corps so dived right in but soon realised it wasn't the link was to the main character who was an armourer in REME who was discharged from service as a result of a courts martial.

      Despite the somewhat misleading title, the book can be said to actually reflect the Corps motto as the main character Mark Harrison spends most of the book either engaged in fighting or scheming to get one over on his enemies, so calling the book “By skill and by fighting” whilst misleading in one way is totally accurate in another!

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      A Splendid Little War by Derek Robinson 

      by
      terroratthepicnic
       Number of Views: 496 
      1. Categories:
      2. Humour,
      3. Military,
      4. War
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      WW I has ended and all is right with the world. Well, almost..

      The year is 1919 and Russia is in the grip of a civil war. The Whites are fighting the Bolshevik Reds for control. So British being the British we stay out of it, yeah right.

      The Secretary of State for War (Winston Churchill) wants to make sure Communism doesn't win so he backs the Whites in the form of volunteers from the newly formed Royal Air Force. A British staff Officer had told them, ‘there’s a splendid little war going on, you’ll like it’.

      So the volunteers trotted of to Russia with their Sopwith Camels to ‘biff some bolo’s’. What they found was a large intense war in a country full of disease and death at every turn. They also came up against the non existent Red Air force, which turned out to be rather good at their job.

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      Made In Great Britain by Mike Tunstill 

      by
      terroratthepicnic
       Number of Views: 2101 
      1. Categories:
      2. Fiction,
      3. Humour,
      4. Military
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      The first thing I need to say about this book is that 50% of the royalty will be going to Combat Stress. At the moment the only place the book is available is on Kindle for the un-pricey sum of £2.97. But I suppose if more people buy it, it may become available in paperback one day.

      This book was reviewed as a manuscript and now as the finished article through the Arrse Book Reviewers. Auld Yin even gets a mention in the acknowledgments.

      The book follows Sgt Bob Foxton after his return from Afghanistan after getting himself blown up and having a cave roof fall on his head. The book is written in the way the main character thinks. This can become extremely confusing, but the book is looking at mental health issues (namely PTSD) so I suppose that is the point.
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      Trench Talk - Words of the First World War - Peter Doyle and Julian Walker 

      by
      Fang_Farrier
       Number of Views: 397 
      1. Categories:
      2. Non-Fiction,
      3. History,
      4. Humour,
      5. Military
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      I was looking to forward to this book, having a passing interest in the First World War and whilst it was an enjoyable read, the easiest book to compare it to is The Daily Telegraph Dictionary of Tommies' Songs and Slang. However this is not so much a dictionary but a book on language of the war and how it impacted on everyday language.

      I think it would depend very much on what aspect you approach this book, as a source for a large number of words it is not ideal but what it does do is analyse the words and phrases that are in it, giving the origins and derivations of the words.

      There is no doubt that the War effected our culture in many ways and it is understandable that with such a large army, that some of those words used in the military would work their way into everyday language. This book is more about this effect and uses several sources as evidence, there are quotes from newspapers as well as letters home, it must be remembered that this was the first war where there were vast numbers serving abroad who could read and write so were sending letters home.

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