Product Description

In this unique travel memoir, Dan Kieran embarks on a satirical ‘crime spree’ to uncover fascinating and disturbing truths about the state of post-Blair Britain.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #245548 in Books
• Published on: 2007-05-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

MAXIM, June 2007
From cake-eating protests to roof-clambering OAPs, this book
uncovers the UK's weirdest oddball laws - and the even odder folk who rally
against them.

THE TIMES
'Very funny...should be at the top of [Tony Blair's] reading
list.'

THE INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY
'Inspiring'

Customer Reviews

Quirky
You should definitely read this book, it is an essential slice of the madness that is Britain today. But when I had finished it I felt a little underwhelmed, a little unsure, as if it somehow didn't fully explain something. Odd, but there you go.

The more people that read this the better!
Having been concerned about the erosion of civil liberties, particularly in the light of the recent 42-day detention issue, I saw this and couldn't resist: and the situation is worse than I feared!

This book is funny, but it's also scary; it shows us how we're sleepwalking in (not into, in: we're already there) a situation where anyone can be stopped and searched for no reason (the Government enacted legislation enabling the police to stop and search anyone for no reason under exceptional circumstances for a month at a time: that legislation has been renewed every month in Greater London since 2002!)

He also lists the ten most ridiculous laws, not saying that they are rdiculous per se, but that the heavy-handed and ill-thought-out laws have unintended and ridiculous consequences:

Sex Offences Act 2003... Section 9 prohibits sexual contact with a child (obviously not ridiculous) 'but when applied with Section 13... it actually makes it a criminal offence for two teenagers to snog'. This was bad enough, but when I mentioned it in passing to a solicitor friend, she said that she had personally dealt with people actually prosecuted for, basically, a teenage snog in the park.

It's a real eye-opener. Anyone who has given any thought at all to the disregarding of 800 years of legal rights as enshrined in the Magna Carta will read this and realise that it's much worse than they thought.

Fantastic look at the erosion of civil liberties
An excellent read, made me laugh, angry and cry with despair at some of the laws we've now got.