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A Long Lunch
A host of memories from Simon Hoggart's forty-plus years in journalism. Simon reveals what Alan Clark said about Melvyn Bragg, what really happened at the Lady Chatterley trial, what Cherie Blair said to him and how he riposted, as well as the time John Sergeant drove a flight attendant to a fury, what happened when he mixed a drink for W. H. Auden and the day Enoch Powell met Bill Haley. A Long Lunch is often hilarious, while also being full of wisdom and insight. Simon has long been regarded as one of our sharpest and wittiest commentators. These memories cover his years in Parliament, Northern Ireland, around the world and on Radio 4, where for twelve years he chaired the much-loved News Quiz. From behind the scenes in Parliament, roving across America and bizarre meetings in TV studios, Simon Hoggart entertains, informs and delights.
The Round Robin Letters
Every Christmas, unwanted round robin letters, stuffed with news of young Chloe's nauseating excellence at - well - everything, the announcement of Janet's cousin's husband's friend's divorce, or the details of Terry's colonoscopy, accumulate on doormats. One day, Simon Hoggart decided to do something about it. He mercilessly presented the most eye-popping examples of such letters in his bestseller, The Cat that Could Open the Fridge, and followed it up with The Hamster that Loved Puccini, hoping he had put a stop to them. And yet the letters, booklets and photo-montages kept on coming. So here, to drive home his message, The Round Robin Letters brings together his two collections in an anthology that will have everyone choking with laughter on their Christmas pudding.
A Long Lunch
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Hamster That Loved Puccini
Simon Hoggart is back with a new treasure-trove of Christmas round robins. And, this time, the bete noire of the Christmas post illustrates the seven deadly sins of the middle classes, including boastfulness (dazzlingly clever children who play the saxophone and ski for Britain); smugness (their job, their house, their holidays are perfect); tiny-mindedness (do we really need to be told how to start a jigsaw by looking for the straight bits?); whimsy (letters written by pets or babies); and the dreaded over-sharing, in which every illness and operation is described in minute detail. Accompanied by Hoggart's wicked commentary, The Hamster that loved Puccini invites us to ponder what compels people to write these letters, and what they tell us about them - and ourselves.
Don't Tell Mum
Sunday Telegraph Humour Book of the Year Hilarious - Daily Mail A hilarious and invaluable insight for gap-year travellers into what to avoid out there. The email home is an essential part of every gap-year traveller's journey. Where once the news of narrowly surviving a bus crash on the dirt-roads of India, waking up to gunfire in Honduras or fending off marriage proposals from complete strangers would have made it home only on the back of a slow-moving battered postcard, these days those tantalizing details and terrible mistakes are now recorded immediately and distributed liberally for every friend and family member to wince at. In Don't Tell Mum, Simon Hoggart and Emily Monk have collected together the funniest, most surreal, most alarming gap-year emails into a treasure-trove of correspondence. Accompanied by their wicked commentary, Don't Tell Mum gives the aspiring traveller the low-down on what not to do when trotting the globe. Simon Hoggart's two previous bestselling books: The Cat that Could Open the Fridge and The Hamster that Loved Puccini.
Cat That Could Open the Fridge
The advent of the home computer has made Christmas round robin letters ubiquitous. Where once the hot news about Tamsin's A levels would be sent in a short note, now it's not unusual to get a letter that includes several pages of misery--emergency operations, dead relatives, sackings, rainy holidays, and so forth--decorated with jolly snowmen and smiling Santas. Some people go further and send out whole booklets. Computers have also made it possible to include photographs of the family eating paté in their Provencal garden, or sitting in a hot tub in California. Simon Hoggart gets hundreds of round robin letters sent to him every year and has collected the funniest, most irritating, most surreal extracts into this hilarious short book. Along the way he considers why people hate these letters so much and what they tell us about the British middle classes. What, exactly, lies behind the impulse to write about Roger's decision to cycle to work for health reasons, or Jeremy's trip to Tasmania, or the replacement pet rabbit?
The Hands of History
An account of Tony Blair's weird, baffling, sometimes inexplicable, and almost always hilarious decade in power. This book features the high drama, the low farce, the soap opera and the situation comedy that happens at Westminster every day.
Playing to the Gallery
Simon Hoggart's fans know him as the wittiest of all writers on Parliament. For thousands of people, his daily column in the Guardian is the kick-start they need in the morning. This wildly funny new collection captures the high drama, the low farce, the soap opera and the situation comedy that the Mother of Parliaments is host to every day. It's the column that the MPs turn to first, hoping to catch their friends and rivals and terrified of finding themselves. Read about Tony Blair, Ian Duncan Smith, Gordon Brown, Ian Widdicombe, Nicholas Soames and, of course, Michael Fabricant, The Brighton disc jockey who went on to become Britain's best-loved hair replacement victim. Playing to the Gallery confirms Simon Hoggart as Britain's most consistently sharp and entertaining writer on parliament.
