Requiem for a Humanist

The Clue Bible: The Fully Authorised History of  "I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue", from Footlights to Mornington Crescent by Jem Roberts
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A thorough, if repetitive, study of the history of the antidote to panel games, this read is full of familiar gags.  It takes a similar format to From fringe to flying circus: Celebrating a unique generation of comedy, 1960-1980 and covers much the same people as it starts with the college shows and works its way through ISIRTA and beyond.
If you are looking for sexy photos of Samantha, forget it.  She's apparently not giving out - photos, anyway.
It was all very amusing until I came to the death of Humph at the end and I cried at that and at the description of the funeral, where they played the recording of him playing "We'll Meet Again."  Oh, gosh!
This is all the more touching because Tim, Graeme, and Bill brought me and my husband together.  Okay, maybe it was Alison Bean, but we've already thanked her.


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"Paradoxides" Bwhah-ha-ha-ha-haaa!

Trilobite!: Eyewitness to Evolution by Richard Fortey
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I don't want to give away who dunnit.
This book made me want to get a little hammer and go out looking for fossils. Okay, I've always sort of wanted to do that, but this intensified that feeling! Fortey might try just a bit too hard to be humorous which might go over well in a class but just made me groan.  It is plain that he has had a balanced education he's not letting go to waste, despite the childhood obsession that became his life's work.  Fortey weaves literature, personalities, and scandal into the trilobite story.  It was hardly necessary; trilobites and all the minutiae involved fascinate me.  Oh, and the eyes, their eyes!  I have two more Forteys in the stack to read.  They take such a gosh-awful long time to digest, but are worth it in the end.
I am also delighted that I too now know that Paradoxides is the "genus of the trilobite of the Middle Cambrian" just like Tim Brooke-Taylor.  You have to follow ISIRTA to find that funny.


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