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Very British Problems (all Device Version): Making Life Awkward For Ourselves, One Rainy Day At A Time (2013)

by Rob Temple(Favorite Author)

3.84 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

0751556076 (ISBN13: 9780751556070)

languge

English

genre

Humor

publisher

Sphere

review 1: Not a book I'd have bought for myself, but a gratefully received Christmas present. Basically a printed version of a series of Tweets. Uncomfortably accurate, but became repetitive after a while. There's only so many ways to poke fun at the British expectations around queueing and tea.My favourite was in the glossary section where "Bloody" is defined as "Absolute". A reference is made to blowing off doors and no more. Anyone not familiar with the original "Italian Job" may well have missed the reference.
review 2: Fun and far too easy to see myself in some of these, like: "Feeling you need a change in your life, so treating yourself to a completely new type of cheese.""The disappointment of finding the train company has reserved you a seat next to another human... more.""Tripping over nothing and turning to stare furiously at the floor.""Attempting to deal with a queue-jumper by staring fiercely at the back of their head.""Thanking people under your breath as punishment for them not thanking you.""Telling someone to help themselves, then feeling your chest tighten when they take more than you think they should.""Being told to enjoy your meal, flight, stay or birthday and replying, 'Thanks, you too!'""Accidently saying 'you're welcome' too loudly when someone hasn't thanked you, and smiling politely when they look straight at you.""Feeling utterly devastated when you say to the barman, 'I think this guy was next' and you're not thanked.""Dropping five pence: Pick it up and look desperate or leave it and look like a snob?"As others have noted, and as one can tell just by reading the lines above, there is some repetition throughout the book, which can feel less forgivable when you consider how brief it is. I wanted this because I've been following the Twitter feed for a few months and frequently laugh out loud over lines there, but there were less laughs here. I have to wonder of the material is older, so less developed, before they hit their stride or whether perhaps witticisms like this are best encountered in the brief world of Twitter instead of gathered together like this - even though I did try to nip in and out of it over the course of a couple weeks, instead of reading it all at once (which definitely wouldn't be advised). Anyway, still fun and insightful, and nice to know that I'm not always the only one to have such thoughts and reactions to others around me. less

Download links for: Very British Problems (all device version): Making Life Awkward for Ourselves, One Rainy Day at a Time

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