Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
 A Worthy Sequel November 5, 2006
Bookaholic (London)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
I think Sellar and Yeatman would have approved of this - huge fun which had me laughing helplessly page after page. The more history you 'know' the funnier it is, though it also helps to have a taste for appalling puns. As with 1066 and all that, this take on history is sometimes very pointed and insightful. Recommended.
 A New Historical Error August 6, 2006
Mr. David Cheshire
19 out of 19 found this review helpful
I note that not all the readers reviewers liked this, and although the 1930's original "1066 And All That" is rightly acknowledged as a classic, the effect of this kind of parody is always likley to be amusing rather than belly-laugh funny.
True, some of the puns are overly and sometimes unnecessarilly contrived, but there are some good moments: Grandhi walking round India "stirring up inaction"; Jesse Matthews, unexpected victor of the 1936 Olympics; the coronation in black and white, "as colour was still strictly rationed"; British World War 2 pow's, permitted nothing but "a selection of ropes, false passports, fancy moustaches, German phrase books, a selection of pantomine costumes, a wooden horse and a couple of gliders".
My favourite characters: Alexander Gissa Bell, and, for some reason, my biggest personal laugh: "the Webbs, Donald and Daffy" (bit of an historians' in-joke, that one); most obscure pun, Admiral Duncan Donitz; and Most Memorable event: the end of Mrs Thatcherism; her "loyal ministers" have individually "told her she was absolutely marvellous, but that she'd possibly be even that a little bit more marvellous if she left and never came back. She took the hint, opting to make a dignified exit from Downing Street, howling in tears, hammering on the windows and waving a blue hankie through the back windscreen of her locked car".
Nearest the knuckle of bad taste are the attempted Princess of Wails jokes, one of which makes you wince but is aimed at Tony Blur and hits the mark. Most painfully satirical are the French Resistance jokes: "under the brilliant guise of collaboration" the French "performed well disguised acts of resistance such as entertaining Nazi stormtroopers in their homes and turning in Jews". They also whistled the Marseillaise in the streets, but "for maximum impact", in 1946. Ouch.
The exam papers are better than the original, surreal and spot on, particularly the absurd sources questions (and I've marked a few). It was a brave decision to update the original, but someone had to. It may not have worked. On the whole, this does. A worthy sequel. "1066 II."
 Staring into space is much more profitable. May 18, 2006
Simon Oxley (UK)
5 out of 16 found this review helpful
Some people evidently find this kind of contrived humour amusing; unfortunately I don't. It's weak, laboured and repetitive and although I didn't have the stamina to wade through all of it, a good flick through revealed nothing that anyone over the age of 10 would find even faintly entertaining. More staggering than the poor quality of the text however, is the hyperbole indulged in by the reviewers, all familiar names who write similar kinds of books so I guess it's a case of "jobs for the boys". Anyway I was given my copy but whatever you do don't waste your hard earned cash!
A Bad Thing January 28, 2006
8 out of 16 found this review helpful
"1066 and All That" is a wonderfully mangled view of history; "1966 and All That" is a disappointingly weak sequel. "1066" is dated and amusing, "1966" will date terribly and rapidly and is *so* disappointing -- nothing especially funny and certainly nothing to justify describing Brown as "the wittiest writer in Britain today".Instead of misremembered history there is an endless stream of names turned into the most flabby and uninspired puns (Ronald MacDonald for Ramsay MacDonald, Marge Simpson for Wallis Simpson, Clement Hatley, Calorgas for Callaghan, Serviette for Soviet, Florism for Fascism, etc.) Ars Longa Vita Sackville-West and Traces Semen (Tracey Emin) are two of the few pun-names showing any wit, the others are neither revealing or amusing, they grate on the first reading and every repetition just adds to the irritation. The book is nicely divided in decades and cover all the major events, but not well *or* wittily. The pun names are inserted into just *wrong* history to allow another series of puns to stagger along (Bloomsbury Grope, pacifistfight, Appeasoupers, teenagger, The Gay Brothers (the Crays), The Arse War, The Sewers Crisis (Suez), "the hound in your pocket", etc.) The funniest parts of "1066" -- the end of chapter tests -- are, naturally, retained and are the only consistently amusing sections of "1966", along with the "Today programme" style interviews chopping up the great speeches.
Based on the extract in the Guardian... November 10, 2005
8 out of 36 found this review helpful
This is the least funny book of this or the last century. Here is a quote regarding 80s music:"...dominated by groups such as Droan Droan, Spandau Ballsup, Adam Aunt and Depressive Mode. They all danced with great difficulty and thus became known as the New Rheumatics." Completely unmoved smiley face, tumbleweed etc Hasn't this person got friends who can tell him what drivel he's writing?
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