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The Spectator Book of Wit, Humour and Mischief
Approaching its 200th birthday in the rudest of health, the Spectator is known for the quality of its writing and the deep eccentricity of some of its writers. Given the freedom to say what they want, they take that freedom and more, and the result is original, provocative, often very funny, sometimes plain wrong.
From Jeffrey Bernard's reports from the Soho frontline and Auberon Waugh fulminating about hamburger gases in the early 1990s, we encounter in turn the wild stream of consciousness of Deborah Ross's restaurant reviews, the pinpoint etiquette advice of Mary Killen, Rod Liddle's frothing but elegantly sculpted outrage and the magazine's secret weapon, low life adventurer Jeremy Clarke. This bumper selection, which also includes eminent diarists, mad letter-writers and Boris Johnson, amounts to a masterclass in comic writing, lovingly compiled and edited by Marcus Berkmann, who still can't believe he wrote a monthly pop column for the magazine for twenty-eight years without being fired.
From Jeffrey Bernard's reports from the Soho frontline and Auberon Waugh fulminating about hamburger gases in the early 1990s, we encounter in turn the wild stream of consciousness of Deborah Ross's restaurant reviews, the pinpoint etiquette advice of Mary Killen, Rod Liddle's frothing but elegantly sculpted outrage and the magazine's secret weapon, low life adventurer Jeremy Clarke. This bumper selection, which also includes eminent diarists, mad letter-writers and Boris Johnson, amounts to a masterclass in comic writing, lovingly compiled and edited by Marcus Berkmann, who still can't believe he wrote a monthly pop column for the magazine for twenty-eight years without being fired.
487 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 25, 2016
9 people are currently reading
25 people want to read
About the author
Marcus Berkmann
39 books11 followersMarcus Berkmann was educated at Highgate School and Worcester College in Oxford in the UK. He began his career as a freelance journalist, contributing to computer and gaming magazines such as Your Sinclair. In the 1990s, he had stints as television critic for the Daily Mail and the Sunday Express, and has written a monthly pop music column for The Spectator since 1987.
With his schoolfriend Harry Thompson, Berkmann scripted the BBC Radio comedy Lenin of the Rovers. He came to prominence with his novel Rain Men (1995), which humorously chronicles the formation and adventures of his own cricket-touring team, the Captain Scott Invitation XI.
Berkmann has continued to write newspaper and cricket magazine columns, such as the Last Man In column on the back page of Wisden Cricket Monthly, while producing a number of critically well-received humorous books.
In Brain Men (1999), he applied his sardonic observations to the world of pub quizzes, adopting a similar approach to Fatherhood (2005). In 2005, Berkmann released Zimmer Men, a quasi-sequel to Rain Men describing his transition into middle age with cricket.
Berkmann is also credited as being part of the writing team of the BBC Three comedy show Monkey Dust, and compiler of the Dumb Britain column in Private Eye magazine. In 2009, he set up the quiz company Brain Men with Stephen Arkell and Chris Pollikett.
A Shed of One's Own: Midlife Without the Crisis was serialised by BBC Radio 4 in its Book of the Week slot during 2012. A fan of Star Trek since its first British screening by the BBC in 1969, Set Phasers to Stun: 50 Years of Star Trek, aimed at the general reader, was published in March 2016.
With his schoolfriend Harry Thompson, Berkmann scripted the BBC Radio comedy Lenin of the Rovers. He came to prominence with his novel Rain Men (1995), which humorously chronicles the formation and adventures of his own cricket-touring team, the Captain Scott Invitation XI.
Berkmann has continued to write newspaper and cricket magazine columns, such as the Last Man In column on the back page of Wisden Cricket Monthly, while producing a number of critically well-received humorous books.
In Brain Men (1999), he applied his sardonic observations to the world of pub quizzes, adopting a similar approach to Fatherhood (2005). In 2005, Berkmann released Zimmer Men, a quasi-sequel to Rain Men describing his transition into middle age with cricket.
Berkmann is also credited as being part of the writing team of the BBC Three comedy show Monkey Dust, and compiler of the Dumb Britain column in Private Eye magazine. In 2009, he set up the quiz company Brain Men with Stephen Arkell and Chris Pollikett.
A Shed of One's Own: Midlife Without the Crisis was serialised by BBC Radio 4 in its Book of the Week slot during 2012. A fan of Star Trek since its first British screening by the BBC in 1969, Set Phasers to Stun: 50 Years of Star Trek, aimed at the general reader, was published in March 2016.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 7, 2021
I was given this by a friend: "It'll make you laugh" they said. It didn't.
March 12, 2019
Highly enjoyable collection from the annals of the Spectator but there is a noticeable dip in quality in recent years, from the 2000's onwards as the the greats like Jeffrey Bernard and Taki are replaced with mediocrities like Jeremy Clarke and Toby Young.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews