Do words fail you? Never again, once you've become the proud owner of The Complete Uxbridge English Dictionary.Every word has a meaning, but over the years those meanings change. Dip into these helpfully illustrated pages and you'll find many of the words you use every day without ever realising that their up-to-date definition is something entirely different.Words like 'bunny' (rather like a bun), or 'cherish' (rather like a chair), 'Cardiology' (the study of knit...

If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to attend a live recording of I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue, the antidote to panel games, now is your chance to discover how much fun they are! These two extended editions of the programme, from 1995 and 1996, offer an exclusive glimpse behind the scenes, in the company of players Graeme Garden, Barry Cryer, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Willie Rushton and Jeremy Hardy.Hear Humph and the team setting up before and after a recording, catch the jokes...

For everyone who’s ever wanted to attend a live recording of 'I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue', but never had the opportunity, here’s your chance to catch the complete Clue experience. From out-takes and ad-libs to asides to the audience - including some very cheeky banter - here are all the bits you never get to hear on the radio, as well as all the puns, songs, silly games and sparkling comedy that you’ve come to expect from the Clue team.These two specially extended compilat...

The world is full of pointless things. From rail replacement bus services to chip forks. From war to windchimes. From people who put cushions on beds to people who read the bit they write about the book on amazon. Look around you right now. Just about the only thing that isn't pointless is you. You look amazing. Join Alexander Armstrong and Richard Osman, the hosts of BBC1 quiz show Pointless as they take you on a journey through The 100 Most Pointless Things in the World. Filled with play...

From the author of BETWEEN THE STOPS and TOKSVIG'S ALMANACSandi Toksvig - broadcaster, writer, actor and seeker of all things whimsical - has turned her probing mind to many of the most intriguing questions of our times in the pages of the Sunday Telegraph for many years. Now, for the very first time, these musings have been collected in one hilarious collection.In The Chain of Curiosity, Sandi takes the reader on a side-splitting journey ...

'Full-on, uncontrollable, laugh-till-you-weep stories. Glover has become the indispensable chronicler of Australian family life' Geraldine BrooksRichard Glover's deeply skewed stories of everyday life are heard each week on ABC radio's 'thank God It's Friday'. He creates a world which is both weird and wry-a world in which Henry VIII provides marriage advice, JD Salinger celebrates tap-water and naked French women bring forth a medical miracle. It's also a world in which shampoo is ...

pistache (pis-tash): a friendly spoof or parody of another's work. [Deriv uncertain. Possibly a cross between pastiche and p**stake.]From Thomas Hardy's football report to Dan Brown's visit to the cash dispenser, the work of the great and the not-so-great is here sent up with little hope of coming down.Most of these pieces began their life on Radio Four's The Write Stuff, but have been retooled for the printed page. Others, such as Martin Amis's fi...

Read this meditative and inspiring diary of Derek Jarman's famous garden at Dungeness, which is also a powerful account of his life as an HIV positive man in the 1980s.In 1986 Derek Jarman discovered he was HIV positive and decided to make a garden at his cottage on the barren coast of Dungeness.Facing an uncertain future, he nevertheless found solace in nature, growing all manner of plants. While some perished beneath wind and sea-spray others flourished, ...

A FREE extended extract from Slap and Tickle: The Unusual History of Sex and The People Who Have It.Slap and Tickle is a romp through the enduringly popular subject of sex, embracing vivid literature, language, history, and personalities.It covers sex in all its delightful variety, taking a light-hearted look at the biological mechanics, and drawing on the intimate true-life stories of sex-havers young and old, professional and amateur. Slap and Tickle is eclectic, entertaini...

If it’s time for a rhyme, or you need a satiric lyric, the Collins Rhyming Dictionary is the fastest and easiest way to refine your line.The most accessible way to find the rhyme you need. Other rhyming dictionaries are characterised by the use of obscure words for padding, subsections for disyllabic and trisyllabic rhymes, and reverse phonetic order – but we avoid such complications and, as a result, have the most practical rhyming book available.The most satisfactory rhym...

A hilarious field guide to the world’s most remarkable and unusual creatures: the English.Thanks to television documentaries by Bruce Parry and David Attenborough, we are better acquainted with the hunting rituals of the San bushmen and the mating habits of Papua New Guinean tribes than we are with the everyday lives of that most peculiar of species – the English.Matt Rudd has been getting to know this curious breed, and now you’ll be able to spot the English in any number ...

Wendy Cope's first book of poems and parodies, Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis, went straight into the bestseller lists. Its successor, Serious Concerns has proved even more popular, addressing such topics as 'Bloody Men', 'Men and Their Boring Arguments', 'Two Cures for Love', 'Kindness to Animals' and 'Tumps' (Typically Useless Male Poets).