Product Description

"This week the first pet passports came into effect. Around the country dogs have been hopping into photo booths and trying to look as relaxed as possible, which is not easy when you know you're not allowed on the chair". Gathered here are the best of John O'Farrell's newspaper columns for "The Guardian" and "The Independent", which saw him win the coveted Best Columnist of the Year Award at the prestigious British Liars Awards. Among many other things, he claims that the only conviction in the Tory Party was when Jeffrey Archer got sent to prison; that scientists have created a genetically superior monkey which will advertise lapsang souchong instead of PG Tips; and that with the election of George W. Bush, the global village has finally got its own global village idiot.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #18684 in Books
• Published on: 2002-10-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
The title of John O'Farrell's latest book, Global Village Idiot, refers not to the author, who proves far from an idiot, but to President George W Bush, whose trip to Europe in June 2001 closes this compendium of absurdly funny, journalistic pummellings. Sadly, subsequent events may now result in only edgy laughter at the witticism. In an age of ubiquitous but low-cal humour, John O'Farrell is that old-fashioned diamond, a gags man unable to write a dull line. In this, he plies a trade of satire and whimsy that combines the best of British working-men's clubs with the quick-fire, dime-a-joke New York patter that relies on fresh rather than canned humour.

Collecting 1000-word comment pieces, mainly from The Guardian and The Independent, Global Village Idiot reveals an irreverently relevant look at British and world news at the turn of the century. O'Farrell, the author of Things Can Only Get Better, a memoir of 18 grim years as a Labour Party activist ruined by the 1997 General Election triumph, and the comic novel, The Best a Man Can Get, distinguishes his soapbox pennyworths by an affirming sense of belief, and moral consequence. He may poke fun at Bush, New Labour, boarding-school parents, hopping across the wasteland of television "choice", Euro-sceptics, SAS novelists and paternity leave; he even piles further comic indignities onto Neil Hamilton and Mohammed al Fayed, despite their own high standards on that score. Yet behind the wisecracks, and consistently high chortle factor, lies more serious intent. To laugh is to be alive to the disgraces, anomalies, hypocrisies, skulduggery and double standards of modern life that impel socio-political satirists such as O'Farrell to write with such consistent pinging accuracy. Perhaps the biggest compliment is to say that if today's news is tomorrow's fish-and-chip paper, then somehow O'Farrell makes delightful macramé from it. And who knows, an article a day may help keep the spin-doctors at bay. --David Vincent

Review
We're all used to hearing how the world has become one big global village, and, now, with the election of George Bush as President of the USA, we have the global village idiot we deserve. So says John O'Farrell, who sets his stall out early and eagerly chooses politicians - especially those with no sense of humour - as the targets most deserving of his verbal assaults. Granted, the humourless politician is not what you would call a difficult target, but O'Farrell's observations are spot on nearly every time, so it's easy to forgive him. That he is happy to have a laugh at his own shortcomings, and particularly his Labour Party membership, also goes a long way to endearing him to the reader. All manner of political beasts and shenanigans stalk these pages, from the naive hope of the early days of New Labour to exceptionally enjoyable and funny attacks on the Archers and Hamiltons of the world. The general indifference to the euro, the dire state of television, and the Mayor of London controversy all jostle to remind us just how intrusive and ultimately unimportant politics can be to the everyday life of many people. Fox hunting, the new religion of shopping and the inevitable arrival of Thanksgiving as a UK holiday all provide fodder for O'Farrell's well-written and amusing columns, originally published in the Guardian or Independent. Proudly spanning two centuries (or 24 months depending on how you look at it), this collection embraces the news that mattered at the turn of the millennium, all in portions that are perfect for reading in short bursts. It's a handy, witty synopsis of what held the nation in thrall between the summers of 1999 and 2001. (Kirkus UK)

From the Back Cover
'This week the first pet passports came into effect. Around the country dogs have been hopping into photo booths and trying to look as relaxed as possible, which is not easy when you know you're not allowed on the chair.'

Gathered here are the best of John O'Farrell's newspaper columns for the Guardian and the Independent, which saw him win Best Columnist of the Year at the British Liars' Awards. In a hundred highly readable and very funny pieces he tackles every topical issue from mobile phones to the dangers of asteroids:'Okay, so one huge meteorite wiped out all the dinosaurs, but you have to admit it was incredibly bad luck that they were all standing in that exact same spot at the same time.' He also claims that scientists only developed a genetically superior monkey so that it could advertise lapsang souchong instead of PG Tips; that with one punch John Prescott placed himself near the top of the list of the world's hardest ever politicians (way ahead of Shirley Williams and Mahatma Gandhi); and that with the election of George W. Bush, the global village has finally got its own global village idiot.

Customer Reviews

Very Enjoyable
I really enjoyed this selection of articles which were written before the Iraq war. Having read it recently it was quite uncanny some of the comments and warnings made by John O'Farrell. Pity Tony Blair did not heed them or perhaps he never read them.

Mostly funny, but the same style as all his others (yawn)
A collection of columns from The Guardian, this book is mostly funny, though of course it is dated. Moreover, after you've read 40 or 50 columns you DO realise his humour uses the same formula (make a statement then contradict it) so some of the gags do become a bit guessable.

Like all his other works it ONLY offers humour, though of course as it is not a proper novel in the story-telling definition we can excuse him (this time) for not providing plot, characters or descriptions! It'a also written in the first-person, again like most of his other works.

The problems are that if you aren't up on current affairs you won't remember the stories he is telling here, so much of it will be lost on you. And all the humour is politically-based, so if you hate politics you won't like this! (eg lots of anti GW Bush stuff.) The humour is fine but it's a bit more diluted and predictable than his 'Things Can Only Get Better' book. Yet it isn't rubbish as some reviewers have stated.

Just remember, if you read this and then consider trying his proper novels, beware: you don't get plot, real characters or vivid descriptions in those either . . .

6/10

Boring, dated and pointless
Global Village Idiot is a collection of articles written by John O'Farrell between April 1999 and June 2001, as published in the Guardian and Observer newspapers. O'Farrell himself sits on the left of the Labour party and is quite critical of anything that might be accused of being supportable by any other politicl partyby the Conservative party.

O'Farrell's focus of abuse is broad... world policy, domestic policy, the countryside and of course the Conservative party. He explains in very direct terms why he is right and everyone else is wrong. And herein lies my problem with this book... it's basically a rant of O'Farrell's views of how the world should be - power to the Unions, high taxes etc. Don't get me wrong - everyone is entitled to their views but I would have hoped that a writer whose past works include Spitting Image and Have I Got News For You would actually have the ability to write something of interest to a broader range of readers than just someone with their political views.

Beyond that, the topics are not particularly interesting. The book doesn't give a view of the nation at the turn of the millennium.... It tells the thought process of someone complaining during the course of the millennium, a timeframe which isn't actually of much relevance at all to any of the rantings. Will I be reading O'Farrell again? Well, definitely not reprints of his journalistic output (perhaps this review could be applied to most journalist reprint books), but maybe his full books will be somewhat more enjoyable.