It seemed a simple enough idea at the outset: to assemble a team of eleven men to play cricket on each of the seven continents of the globe. Except - hold on a minute - that's not a simple idea at all. And when you throw in incompetent airline officials, amorous Argentine Colonels' wives, cunning Bajan drug dealers, gay Australian waiters, overzealous American anti-terrorist police, idiot Welshmen dressed as Santa Claus, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and whole armies of pitch-invading Antarctic penguins, you quickly arrive at a whole lot more than you bargained for. Harry Thompson's hilarious book tells the story of one of those great idiotic enterprises that only an Englishman could have dreamed up, and only a bunch of Englishmen could possibly have wished to carry out.
Harry Thompson is the inventor and editor of many TV comedy series including Have I Got News For You and Never Mind the Buzzcocks. He is the author of acclaimed bestsellers, including Peter Cook: A Biography. His most recent book is a historical novel, This Thing of Darkness. He works as a producer at Talkback TV and in his spare time runs an infamous cricket team, the Captain Scott XI.
Title: Penguins Stopped Play: Eleven Village Cricketers Take on the World
Author: Harry Thompson
ISBN: 9780719563454
Binding:
Publisher: John Murray Press
Publication Date: 2006-04-10
Number of Pages: 256
Weight: 0.3630 kg
'A comic gem' -- Ultratravel Praise for Harry Thompson and Penguins Stopped Play: -- . 'Actually completely brilliant' -- Ian Hislop 'Hilarious' -- Sunday Telegraph 'A real gold standard sense of humour' -- David Baddiel 'Rare, clever, creative ! a maverick, pushing boundaries with outrageous jokes' -- Guardian 'The first chapter deserves to be anthologised alongside the funniest passages of cricket writing in the game's rich literary history, and what follows is crammed with sharp observation, comic and cruel characterisation and a great many very good jokes...It is a gloriously funny and life-affirming book, and if you know anyone who plays cricket and can read you should buy it for them' - Andrew Baker -- Daily Telegraph 20060413 'Surely the funniest book ever written about the English addiction to cricket...a beautiful tale of classic British humour, self-deprecation, great courage and one of the best accounts ever of the obsessive appeal of our summer game to those whose lives revolve around it' - Tom Rosenthal -- Daily Mail 20060414 'Engaging and full of humour, though it ends with an abrupt shift in tone when Thompson discovers that he has inoperable lung cancer' - Ludovic Hunter-Tilney -- FT magazine 20060415 'As funny as you would expect from the (sadly deceased) writer of Have I Got News For You' -- Daily Express 20060414 'A hilarious, eccentically English memoir.' -- Sainsbury's Magazine 20060501 'In the whirl of hangovers, jetlag, sleeplessness and general unreliability, humour was the saviour.' -- The Week 20060422 'Delicious...This book is the perfect tribute to his greatest enthusiasm: a delivery which spins delicately past the straight bat of our expectations' - Pete Clark -- Evening Standard 20060410 'Funny and inspiring...Thompson writes with a novelist's sympathy about a wonderfully mixed bunch of characters' - Hugh Massingberd -- Literary Review 20060410 'Let's get one thing clear from the off - I don't get cricket...The fact that I loved Penguins Stopped Play can only be testament to Harry Thompson's brilliant writing, sardonic humour and English love of farce' - Lizzie Matthews -- Wanderlust (Book of the Month) 20060410 'An eccentic, funny and very English story' -- Traveller 20060410 'Part travelogue, part tale of the sporting underdog, and with its combination of frustration and wit, this is a book British cricket lovers will adore this summer' -- Waterstone's Books Quarterly 20060410 'Hilarious' -- The Bookseller 20060410 'The writing is crisper than a Gower cover drive and as witty as any of the Tales from the Long Room.' -- Wisden Cricketer 20060601 '[Thompson] writes with wit, verve, and a genuine love of the use of language shines through! superb observational comedy writing.' -- AND Magazine 20060501 Rarely has there been a funnier cricket book -- Yorkshire Evening Post 20060429 'This will make you laugh out loud as you enjoy the best of British , while lamenting the passing of this coming genius.' -- The Resident 20060501 '[Thompson] excels as a travel writer.' -- South China Morning Post, Alex Price 20060611 'This will make you laugh out loud while lamenting the passing of this comic genius.' -- Rise, Robert Gwyn Palmer 20060501 'Thompson's prose is vividly conversational! very funny.' -- Guardian: Tim de Lisle 20060617 'Very funny it is too ...he fills his warm-hearted book with a satisfying selection of tales' -- Andrew Holgate, Sunday Times 20060514 'A highly entertaining account of one man's sporting obsession' -- Father's Quarterly 20060531 'This is a beautiful tale of classic British humour, self-deprecation, great courage and one of the best accounts ever of the obsessive appeal of our summer game to those whose lives revolve around it' -- Daily Mail 20060401 'Even people who despise cricket will adore Penguins Stopped Play.' -- Times 20060701 'Thompson! maintains a witty narrative! Despite his cynical eye, Thompson is never afraid to show his love of the game' -- Observer / Sports Monthly 20060701 'Harry Thompson wrote with such verve and wit that he could have made a trip round a multi-storey car park into an adventure' -- Celia Brayfield, The Times 20060701 'A very funny, peculiarly British travel book' -- Markus Berkman, Daily Mail 20060701
