Tales from the Bedroom Floor

London: Abacus, 2000 Why is this book on the bedroom floor? - I used to own a copy of David Baddiel’s debut, Time for Bed , because Frank Skinner described it as having “at least one belly laugh per page”. I don’t recall any of those, if any, but nevertheless when I saw this for the princely sum of 50p, I thought it was worth a bash. About the author - one of the UK’s best-known stand-up comedians, David Baddiel graduated with a double first class degree in English from Cambridge University and immediately began a career in comedy. As part of The Mary Whitehouse Experience team, Baddiel found fame, which only increased when he and partner Rob Newman broke away to write and perform Newman and Baddiel in Pieces . The partnership dissolved acrimoniously in 1993 following a headline gig at Wembley Arena. Baddiel then enjoyed a second fruitful endeavour with Frank Skinner, hosting Fantasy Football League , leading to a number one single, ‘Three Lions’. Baddiel has recently returne

London: Profile, 2014 Why is this book on the bedroom floor? - I spotted this in a charity shop. It was the spine which caught my attention, proving that you can’t judge a book by its cover but you can certainly get arrested by it. About the author - Gaston Dorren is a language writer from the Netherlands. He speaks six languages and reads in a number of others. Lingo was based on his book Language Tourism , published in Dutch in 2012 and subsequently published in different languages. He continued the theme of Lingo by writing Babel , about the twenty most spoken languages in the world today. He seems like a very engaging and enthusiastic bloke, at least based on his website at https://languagewriter.com/. The English edition was translated by Alison Edwards, and there were contributions by Jenny Audring and Frauke Watson. Plot - Around continental Europe in sixty languages, Lingo tells us something interesting beyond the vocab for each and every one. Review - In my seco