We have your favourite table ready and waiting and a selection of tasty and unusual dishes for your delectation and delight (but do bear in mind that the kitchen closes shortly as the Chef needs to go to his second job, rodding out blocked sewers). We have a few choice 'nostalgedy' stories for Starters, some meatier ones for your Mains, a selection of 'curmudgeonly rants' or keen observations (you take your choice) for Dessert, and something unspeakable to go with your Coffee and Mints.Philip Whiteland tickles your fancy (it's not a crime yet) once again with this compilation of stories, often with a food-based theme, from today and yesterday. Pull up a chair and tuck in!

    A perfect evening of comedy. Scenes Include:ACT ONEWord Dance (Part One)The Night the Bed FellFables for Our Time (Part One)The Wolf at the DoorThe Unicorn in the GardenThe Little Girl and the WolfIf Grant Had Been Drinking at AppomattoxCasuals of the KeysThe Macbeth Murder MysteryGentleman ShoppersThe Last FlowerACT TWOThe Pet DepartmentFile and ForgetMr. Preble Gets Rid of His WifeTake Her Up TenderlyThe Secret Life of Walter MiddyWord Dance (Part Two) Only material authorized for the production of this play may be used."Of belly laughs there is abundance...Small, cozy, and completely captivating revue...a sheer delight... joyous, magnificently lunatic festival" - New York Daily News

    With over 400,000 copies sold, Benrik's brand of unhinged self-help has changed countless lives worldwide, some of them even for the better. "This Book Will Change Your Life" collects together the 365 best extreme life-changing tasks from the cult series "This Diary Will Change Your Life", and constitutes the definitive version. Road-tested by thousands of devotees, if this book doesn't change your life, you're most probably dead. Enjoy! 'Hip, visually delightful and almost endlessly engaging' - "The Guardian". 'Cheerfully nihilistic' - "The Times". 'Wonderful, zany, absorbing' - "The Observer". 'Will put a smile on even the gloomiest Monday-morning face' - "Glamour".

    1 bestselling author Robert Bryndza.Coco Pinchard has just turned forty, and is feeling fabulous. Her long-held dream to be a writer has been realised, with the publication of her debut novel, her son, Rosencrantz, is attending a prestigious London drama school, and her musician husband, Daniel, seems more in love with her than ever. Coco feels poised to enter an exciting new chapter in life.When the New Year dawns after a hideous Christmas spent with her awful in-laws, Coco catches Daniel in bed with a younger woman, her novel flops, and Rosencrantz goes spectacularly off the rails.As her once-happy life unravels, and any chance of an exciting new chapter recedes into the distance, Coco's new iPhone becomes her confessional.Through emails to loyal friends Christopher, a neurotic middle-aged socialite, and Marika, a slightly alcoholic schoolteacher, Coco begins to document her seemingly endless (and often hilarious) run of bad luck.When Coco reaches the top of the local allotment list (after putting her name down nineteen years previously) she meets the drop-dead gorgeous Adam, and she's back in the world of dating as a single forty-something. Read the emails that tell the hilarious, feel-good tale of Coco picking up the pieces!Fans of rom coms by Sophie Kinsella will be glued to the pages of this totally addictive page-turner.

    This year: * Her boyfriend finally proposed after six years of dating (only for her to find out he cheated on her for five and a half of them)* She landed her dream job as a writer at Craze magazine (which swiftly fell into administration)* She moved into her dream flat overlooking the city (just for the pipes to explode making the place unliveable)As she mourns everything wrong in her life, her best friend mutters the dreaded words: Saturn Return. The time in a woman's life where Saturn returns to the position it was in on the day of their birth, 29.5 years ago, and, according to legend, everything goes to shit. Krystal has never bought into astrology but maybe it's time to re-evaluate - because if the stars got her into this mess, they can get her out of it. And she only has six months to make things right.Loaded with crystals, horoscopes, tarot cards and a carefully aligned chakra or two, Krystal's determined to have her life back on track by the time Saturn returns. No longer shall she brand herself a 'human disaster' because this time it's not her fault, it's written in the treacherous stars. It's Krystal versus the universe in a fight for her future that she's determined to win.

    Whether he's assisting trauma surgeons who are singing “Take me out to the ballgame” while removing a well-placed iconic symbol of America’s greatest past time, learning how fast he can run after being shot at by an angry couple who called for an ambulance, working with a prankster-loving urologist who demonstrates how bladder problems were diagnosed before modern urinalysis, or screaming like a little girl while doing night rounds with a dead flashlight on a psychiatric ward, Cyra’s comedic style of storytelling will make your cheeks sore. Emergency Laughter: Stories of Humor Inside Ambulances and Operating Rooms shows why most health care professionals have such a twisted sense of humor and how critical laughter is to the survival of both patient and care giver.

    She's also about six stone overweight. When she realises she can't cross her legs, has trouble bending over to tie her shoelaces without wheezing like an elderly chain-smoker, and discovers that even her hands and feet look fat, it's time to take action. But what action? She's tried every diet under the sun. This is the hysterical story of what happens when Mary joins 'Fat Club' where she meets a cast of funny characters and one particular man who catches her eye. The story is laugh-out-loud funny and will resonate with anyone who has dieted, tried to keep up with any sort of exercise programme or spent 10 minutes in a changing room trying to extricate herself from a way too-small garment that she ambitiously tried on and is now completely stuck in. Bernice Bloom is the big, new name in comedy writing...this is the first full-length novel after her series of laugh-out-loud mini books.

    His first mission: save a gazillion lives. When young Kevin has a chance encounter with a dying alien, he discovers not only that humans aren't alone in the universe, but that this encounter propels him into the middle of an intergalactic war. Now at the frontlines of a massive, far far away war, he’s sent to the last remaining ship of the losing side. The crew of the ship? All dead. His mission is simple: he must save the good guys from certain doom. From College reject to War Master, Kevin learns he must adapt quickly or billions will die.

    To take stock of WHERE HE IS and WHERE HE'S AT in order to figure out how BEST to get the MOST out of what he BELIEVES are the BEST YEARS yet to come.His typically positive and upbeat journey involves ONE HUNDRED DAYS of contemplation, research, focus, frustration and DECISION MAKING while SECRETLY:*Training for The London MARATHON*Bringing back his cult Nineties TV show TFI FRIDAY*And the small matter of suddenly being asked to take over TOP GEAR.HEALTH, LOVE, MARRIAGE, SEX, DEATH and even RELIGION all come under his witty microscope as he poses the conundrum - MIDLIFE: CRISIS vs OPPORTUNITY ?There can only be one winner.

    A fascinating historical document has now emerged which shows that there were indeed rules and in 1973 they were recorded on paper by none other than DCI Gene Hunt himself.Divided into ten sections, The Rules of Modern Policing - 1973 Edition covers everything from interrogating suspects and undercover operations to driving and dress code. Several of the rules are illustrated with diagrams, and photographs of DCI Hunt himself illustrate the more physical parts of the job: how to hit suspects so you don't leave a mark; how to signal the importance of your arrival by crashing into inanimate objects (cardboard boxes are a perfect example here - lots of noise; no damage to your motor); how to roll over the bonnet of your Cortina without making a dick of yourself. Completing the book is an invaluable glossary of police terms, covering everything from blag to lag, and nonce to ponce.An essential reference work for fans of Life of Mars, The Rules of Modern Policing offers a unique insight to seventies' law enforcement that will make you laugh until you cry like the wet little turd you are.

    Thematically covering every subject imaginable, from God to dogs, this collection is the seminal gathering of our national wit and a picture of who we are as a nation - a monument to our monumental silliness.'An Englishman, even if he is alone, forms an orderly queue of one.' George MikesJane Austen, Jo Brand, Craig Brown, Winston Churchill, Alan Clark, Jeremy Clarkson, Billy Connolly, Peter Cook, Tommy Cooper, Stephen Fry, A.A. Gill, Boris Johnson, Samuel Johnson, Maureen Lipman, Spike Milligan, Eric Morecambe, William Shakespeare, George Bernard Shaw, Frank Skinner, Sue Townsend, Peter Ustinov, Queen Victoria, Oscar Wilde, P.G. Wodehouse, Victoria Wood and many more.

    

    Or so they think.

    Huddersfield, in Yorkshire, with its distinctive manners and customs and its wealth of remarkable characters, would surely provide him with all the material he needed for his planned book, one of the great classics of travel literature. But two years later, when he sat down to write, the major events of everyday life kept intruding: the demands of a houseful of cats, the problem of getting the cooker repaired, the memories evoked by sorting through old clothes in the wardrobe . . .Still, I'm a Stranger Here Myself is a travel book of a kind, where the most hilarious adventures can happen between the kitchen and the bathroom, and where a morning's shopping can provide enough anecdotes to last a lifetime. Once again Deric Longden demonstrates his genius for taking the most ordinary materials of life and transforming them with his own special brand of gentle, inspired humour.

    Julian Mann, the hard drinking, preening, and sexually provocative star of the TV sitcome Richard the Nerd, feels caught on the horns of a dilemma: should he be concentrating on his career, which is on the slide after an unseemly bout of fisticuffs at the BAFTA awards; or following his baser instincts and bedding every young girl in sight?His twin dreams of comic immortality and a penthouse flat full of booze and young models seem to be frustrated by his wife and children; by Tom, his wife's best friend from university days, a pretentious 'National Theatre Player' who appears to be competing with Julian on the small sreen and in the bedroom; by the tax man, who's chasing him for sixty thousand pounds; and by Lillith, a psychotic fan, and member of a strange Herculean cult whose eight-year cycle of death and regeneration might augur Julian's imminent nemesis...