Have You Eaten Grandma?

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I also learned a few things that I didn't know, which surprised me a lot at times; apparently I've been getting a few things wrong. It's probably worth borrowing from a library to scan/copy out some of his useful bits - hence the 2 stars.

A fascinating blend of fact and fiction, This Oscar Wilde double bill offers significant insight into one of the world's most significant literary figures.I will admit the actual information is well presented, it's just everything in between that I hated. A former Oxford Scholar, President of the Oxford Union and MP for the City of Chester, Gyles Brandreth’s career has ranged from being a Whip and Lord Commissioner of the Treasury in John Major’s government to starring in his own award-winning musical revue in London’s West End. From text speech and new abbreviations and initialisations, to the mistakes make in Tweets or statements by past or current politic leaders, as well as the embracing of gender neutral language. A prolific broadcaster (in programmes ranging from Just a Minute to Have I Got News for You), an acclaimed interviewer (principally for the Sunday Telegraph), a novelist, children’s author and biographer, his best-selling diary, Breaking the Code, was described as ‘By far the best political diary of recent years, far more perceptive and revealing than Alan Clark’s’ ( The Times) and ‘Searingly honest, wildly indiscreet, and incredibly funny’ ( Daily Mail). It can be much harder than it seems; commas, colons, semi-colons and even apostrophes can drive us all mad at times, but it riles no one more than the longest-serving resident of Countdown's Dictionary Corner, grammar guru Gyles Brandreth.

This book is just him moaning about slang that annoys him while praising PG Wodehouse for the slang that he invented. In this brilliantly funny and accessible guide to proper punctuation and so much more, Gyles Brandreth explores the linguistic horrors of our times, tells us what we’ve been doing wrong and shows us how, in the future, we can get it right every time.

he waxes lyrical about the importance of language as, after all, it is what we use to define ourselves and is ultimately what makes us human. And alongside them, often dwarfing them, you will see new buildings, too, and you will think that some of them are striking and inspiring and that some are monstrously ugly and should never have been put up in the first place. Brandreth keeps the mood and tone light and with a little bit of wit and humor, but there are specific parts of the book that drag on a little and others that are entirely skippable.