LAST 100 YEARS (GIVE OR TAKE) AND ALL THAT

The comedian is best known for his alter ego The Pub Landlord. He co-hosts the hit history podcast 'We Have Ways of Making You Talk' with James Holland. Funny and clever, a little sarcastic, Al Murray looks at the causes and key points, effects and outcomes history has had in his own unique and irreverent tone. He begins with Doubleyou Doubleyou One, the Spanish Flu Pandemic 1918, the Treaty of Versailles 1919 (seemed like a good idea at the time), the Russian Revolution, Communism, Lenin, Stalin, the Jazz Age, the General Strike. Under a piece called 'Woke Royal Shocker': 'Weirdly, the General Strike featured what you might call a woke royal intervention. George V, not known for his general political grooviness, said, 'Try living on their wages before you judge them.' Move over Meghan Markle! Hitler, the Holocaust, the Cold War, the Suez Crisis, the invention of sex, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the assassination of JFK 1963, Beatlemania the same year, England wins the World Cup 1966, the Moon landings 1969, The Troubles, something Johnny Rotten in the state of England. Britain joins the EEC 1973, the Thatcher years, the Falklands War, the Satanic Verses Fatwa, the fall of the Berlin Wall, Hong Kong Phooey, the Good Friday Agreement 1998 and the same number of topics again, each given a short factual appraisal alongside some cartoon illus. 317pp, paperback.