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The Wit and Wisdom of the North
by Rosemarie Jarski Stuart MaconieEy up, it's not only footie, pints and pies that are better up north - the humour also takes some beating. Whether it's comics like Peter Kay, Les Dawson and Victoria Wood, telly shows like Corrie and Open All Hours, or writers like Alan Bennett and Keith Waterhouse, the funniest and best-loved invariably hail from the land of perpetual drizzle (another thing they do better).This grand collection of northern wit is packed with these favourites and more. Likely lads and lippy lasses cast a wry eye on subjects close to the heart of every northerner, including - brass, grub, graft, courting, cricket, tittle-tattle and t'weather - adding up to a feast of northern hilarity.
My Family and Other Strangers: Adventures in Family History
by Jeremy HardyWhen Jeremy Hardy decided to explore his ancestry it was, in part, to get to the bottom of his grandmother Rebecca's dubious claims that the family descended from a certain 17th-century architect and that, more recently, Jeremy's great-grandfather was a Royal bodyguard. Other legends ranged from the great aunt who ran illegal hooch during Prohibition to the wronged Victorian servant girl who bore an illegitimate Hardy, not forgetting the family's rightful claim to a large country estate. Wild stories aside, Jeremy sets out to such diverse locations as the Croydon one-way system and the hostile waters around Malta in order to find traces of recognisable family traits and a sense of how he came to be. With wry humour and a keen eye for the absurd and the frustrating, Jeremy takes us on a by turns funny and moving journey into the world of family ancestry. My Family and Other Strangers will be enjoyed by anyone who has tried to decipher the 1901 census records, or simply wishes they too had asked their grandparents more about their lives.
Big Pants, Burpy and Bumface: And Other Totally True Names!
by Russell AshWhat's your name? Is it Chloe? Jessica? Jack, Sam? Is it Emily? Rebecca? Matthew, Dan?...Or is it Fart Bear? Noah Zark?Piggy Banks?Be grateful for your ordinary name - this funny, fascinating book is full of the silliest, the strangest, the weirdest and the wackiest names from around the world (and some of them are quite rude too)!
Terra Incognita: Travels in Antarctica (Modern Library Paperbacks Ser.)
by Sara WheelerTerra Incognita is a meditation on the landscape, myths and history of one of the remotest parts of the globe, as well as an encounter with the international temporary residents of the region - living in close confinement despite the surrounding acres of white space - and the mechanics of day-to-day life in extraordinary conditions. Through Sara Wheeler, the Antarctic is revealed, in all its seductive mystery.
Relate Guide To Staying Together: From Crisis to Deeper Commitment (Relate Guides Ser.)
by Relate Susan QuilliamPacked with relationship advice from Relate, the marriage guidance experts, Staying Together offers guidelines to help couples survive and grow through their relationship problems so that they need not separate and may maintain their commitment to each other. Case histories, quizzes and questionnaires show how this is possible and even how to make a partnership stronger. The book covers how to: --confront difficulties --understand your partner --re-negotiate an improved relationship --develop skills to make improvements last --assess when problems first appeared and how they developed --face changes --communicate and meet a partner's needs --create good times --build on commitment and happiness.
The Relate Guide to Better Relationships: Practical Ways to Make Your Love Last from the Experts in Marriage Guidance (Relate Relationships Ser.)
by Sarah Litvinoff'When I fall in love it will be forever...' or so goes the song. The reality can be different and the truth is that the nature of relationships will change over time. Few things can be more distressing than finding that you and your partner are no longer communicating the way you used to, that problems have developed, or that your relationship seems to have broken down. With 60 years cumulative experience of marriage guidance, the experts at Relate know better than most how to overcome relationship difficulties and in so doing create a strong, long-lasting partnership. This highly practical guide is packed full of relationship advice, exercises and guidelines to help you better understand yourself and your partner: - discover what makes your partner tick - test your compatibility - learn how to talk, listen and hear what each other is saying - improve your sex life - deepen your love through tackling problems together.
Usefully Useless: Everything you'd Never Learn at School (But May Like to Know)
by Mark HanksUsefully Useless is a gloriously diverse volume dedicated to the most engrossing trivia in the world. Guaranteed to excite the curiosity and amuse, its pages are filled with the sort of remarkable information you would never learn, but will be overjoyed to discover. Each fact is irresistibly fun and fascinating - the essence of anecdote and dinner-party conversation that is essential in the adult world - and, above all, usefully useless. Guaranteed to improve your mind, Usefully Useless contains a wealth of miscellany on a vast range of topics, including Literature, Geography, Food, Science, the Natural World, Sport and Politics - from the export of frogs' legs to the longest Monopoly game completed in the bath. Usefully Useless provides answers to such eternal questions as:What was Margaret Thatcher's favourite sitcom?Which British league football team's name has no letters that one could colour in with a pen?How many calories do you consume when you lick a stamp?What was the original colour of Coca-Cola?Which key do toilets flush in?Find out these answers and many, many more in Usefully Useless, the essential guide to the facts you never thought you'd need to know.
Senor Nice: Straight Life from Wales to South America
by Howard MarksHoward Marks was released from Terre Haute Penitentiary, Indiana in April 1995 after serving seven years of a twenty-five year sentence for marijuana smuggling. It was time for a change of career. So he wrote two best-selling books, became a sports writer and travel writer, stood as a parliamentary candidate in Norwich North, Norwich South, Southampton Test and Neath, applied to become the country's Drug Czar, and embarked on a long-running sell-out series of one man shows. While performing in his home town of Kenfig Hill, he fell among old friends who made extraordinary claims for Welsh culture (Was Elvis really Welsh? Was there really a tribe of Welsh-speaking Native Americans?) At the same time his elderly aunt told him of his outlaw ancestry: William Owen, the legendary Welsh smuggler (who had operated for some time in South America) and his great-great-grandfather Patrick McCarty, the half brother of Billy the Kid, who had joined Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in Patagonia. He decided to explore South America. His travels took him to Jamaica and Panama in the footsteps of the Welsh buccaneer Henry Morgan; he went to Brazil looking for groups of Welsh settlers so obscure he never found them (although he did succeed in finding his musical idol Jimmy Page); and he searched among the thriving Welsh community in Patagonia for signs of Billy the Kid's half brother. Richly comic and charged with the sense of adventure that would induce an Oxford graduate to become the world's most notorious marijuana smuggler, Señor Nice is the hugely entertaining sequel to Mr Nice.
The Fabulous Girl's Guide To Decorum
by Ceri Marsh Kim Izzo'You know the Fabulous Girl, don't you? She's Holly Golightly, the girl you must have at your cocktail party. She's smart, fun, sophisticated, and of course beautifully well-mannered. She's the friend who always knows when you need a shoe-shopping expedition to lift your spirits. She's the one who calls you after your disastrous dinner party and insists that she had a marvellous time. She's the girl you admire, the girl you want to be.'The Fabulous Girl's Guide to Decorum is an entertaining, stylish and thoroughly modern guide to manners. It offers invaluable advice on workplace etiquette and how to maintain the admiration and respect of your colleagues, entertaining (including how to throw the perfect dinner party and what to do if it all goes horribly wrong), sex and romance (which we all know aren't necessarily the same thing), dealing with one-night-stands, modern marriage and divorce, friendship and fashion. Woven throughout this wealth of witty advice is the story of the Fabulous Girl herself as she learns to glide gracefully through her days. The Fabulous Girl's Guide to Decorum is as essential as a little black dress - elegant, practical and something no woman of today should be without!
Madresfield: One house, one family, one thousand years
by Jane MulvaghMadresfield Court is an arrestingly romantic stately home in the Malvern Hills in Worcestershire. It has been continuously owned and lived in by the same family, the Lygons, back to the time of the Domesday Book, and, unusually, remains in the family's hands to this day. Inside, it is a very private, unmistakably English, manor house; a lived-in family home where the bejewelled sits next to the threadbare. The house and the family were the real inspiration for Brideshead Revisited: Evelyn Waugh was a regular visitor, and based his story of the doomed Marchmain family on the Lygons.Never before open to the public, the doors of Madresfield have now swung open to allow Jane Mulvagh to explore its treasures and secrets. And so the rich, dramatic history of one landed family unfolds in parallel with the history of England itself over a millennium, from the Lygon who conspired to overthrow Queen Mary in the Dudley plot; through the tale of the disputed legacy that inspired Dickens' Bleak House; to the secret love behind Elgar's Enigma Variations; and the story of the scandal of Lord Beauchamp, the disgraced 7th Earl.
The Broken Boy
by Patrick CockburnIt is very easy to get polio. Patrick Cockburn was six when he woke up one day in the summer of 1956 with a headache and a sore throat. His parents, Claud and Patricia Cockburn, had recently returned to Ireland, to their house in East Cork, careless of the fact that a polio epidemic had broken out in Cork City. He caught the disease and was taken to the fever hospital. The virus attacks the nerves of the brain and the spinal cord leading to paralysis of the muscles. Patrick could no longer walk. The Broken Boy is at once a memoir of Patrick Cockburn's own experience of polio, a portrait of his parents, both prominent radicals, and the story of the Cork epidemic, the last great polio epidemic in the world.
Popular Errors Explained
by Stewart McCartneyIn 1841 John Timbs wrote a book called Popular Errors Explained. It went on - with Timbs' other great series 'Curiosities of ...' - to become one of the great popular books of the 19th century, running into many editions and selling hundreds of thousands of copies. Some say the popularity of his one hundred and fifty volumes led him to outsell a certain Mr Dickens.Stewart McCartney, under the Timb's title of Popular Errors Explained has created a new book, capturing the zeal and enthusiasm of the original, to be 'agreeable, by way of abstract and anecdote so as to become an advantageous and amusing guest at any intellectual fireside.' The book has completely new material - around 200 or so 'popular errors' from science and literature, history, sport, popular culture and so on. Each entry will have that eyebrow raising 'I didn't know that!' or 'Surely that cannot be true!' feel. Every one will explode a commonly held misbelief.
The Fifth Book Of Peace (Vintage Contemporaries Ser.)
by Maxine KingstonBy the author of the bestselling The Woman Warrior, a magical book: a literature of peace built on the stories of war. Divided into four sections - 'Fire', 'Paper', 'Water' and 'Earth' - this book is neither fiction nor autobiography nor memoir, but a unique form of Chinese 'talk-story' in which real and imagined worlds intrude upon and enrich one another. From the anti-war protests in Hawaii to Kingston's own conversations with Vietnam veterans, the author takes us inside the hearts and minds of a host of characters, not least of whom is her own Mama, the veteran woman warrior Brave Orchid. This remarkable book is also the narrative of the seminal years in which Kingston rebuilds her life following a devastating fire, which destroyed all her possessions including her novel The Fourth Book of Peace, and the death of her father.
Christian Perspectives on Transhumanism and the Church: Chips in the Brain, Immortality, and the World of Tomorrow (Palgrave Studies in the Future of Humanity and its Successors)
by Steve Donaldson Ron Cole-TurnerChristians have always been concerned with enhancement—now they are faced with significant questions about how technology can help or harm genuine spiritual transformation. What makes traditional and technological enhancement different from each other? Are there theological insights and spiritual practices that can help Christians face the challenge of living in a technological world without being dangerously conformed to its values? This book calls on Christians to understand and engage the deep issues facing the church in a technological, transhumanist future.
Christian Perspectives on Transhumanism and the Church: Chips in the Brain, Immortality, and the World of Tomorrow (Palgrave Studies in the Future of Humanity and its Successors)
by Steve Donaldson Ron Cole-TurnerChristians have always been concerned with enhancement—now they are faced with significant questions about how technology can help or harm genuine spiritual transformation. What makes traditional and technological enhancement different from each other? Are there theological insights and spiritual practices that can help Christians face the challenge of living in a technological world without being dangerously conformed to its values? This book calls on Christians to understand and engage the deep issues facing the church in a technological, transhumanist future.
Mrs Dolby's Memory Magic: A Comprehensive Compendium of Tools, Tips and Exercises to Help You Remember Everything
by Karen Dolby'Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it' How many times have you said: 'I've got a memory like a sieve'? Who hasn't cursed their inability to remember information for exams? And been jealous of those that seem to be able to retain anything with ease? Well, it's not a God given talent. It's something you can easily learn.If you want to remember poetry, speeches, lists, I will show you how. Everything from language and spelling, general knowledge, history, astronomy, science, geography, which monarch followed which, how many days in each month, the sequence of planets and much much more. Did you know that there are just 100 words in French, Spanish and German that give you the fundamentals to communicate? Did you know how easy it is to remember numbers and shopping lists and indeed almost anything? After all, I'm just like you. I've got a memory like a sieve as well. That's why I wrote this book!
The Pocket Enquire Within: A guide to the niceties and necessities of Victorian domestic life
by George ArmstrongWhat is the correct way to carve a partridge?How should leeches be applied?How can egg whites be used to repair broken china?First published in 1856, Enquire Within rapidly became the indispensable guide to Victorian domestic life. Packed with words of wisdom and pithy advice, it covered everything from entertaining and etiquette to household management, and took in considered discussion of such arcane matters as how singing might prevent consumption, and which ointments will remove freckles, not to mention why chess should on no account ever be played at a ball.This new, charmingly illustrated pocket-sized edition contains a selection of hints and tips that not only provide a fascinating insight into the day-to-day life of Victorian Britain, but also, in places, reveal timeless wisdom that we would do well to heed today.
Perfect Speeches for All Occasions (The\perfect Ser.)
by Matt ShinnHave you been asked to give a speech?Are you worried your nerves will get the better of you?Do you need some tips on how to deliver your message clearly and effectively?Perfect Speeches for All Occasions is an indispensable guide for anyone who has to give a talk or presentation. Written by Matt Shinn, a professional speech writer with years of experience in the field, it explains how to structure your speech so that it has the most impact and gives practical advice about controlling your nerves on the big day. Whether you're been asked to say a few words at a party or need to put together a high-level presentation, Perfect Speeches for All Occasions has all you need to make sure you perform with style and confidence.The Perfect series is a range of practical guides that give clear and straightforward advice on everything from getting your first job to choosing your baby's name. Written by experienced authors offering tried-and-tested tips, each book contains all you need to get it right first time.
Perfect Babies' Names: All You Need To Choose The Ideal Name (The\perfect Ser.)
by Rosalind FergussonPerfect Babies' Names is an essential resource for all parents-to-be. Taking a close look at over 3,000 names, it not only tells you each name's meaning and history, it also tells you which famous people have shared it over the years and how popular – or unpopular – it is now. With tips on how to make a shortlist and advice for avoiding names that give rise to unfortunate nicknames, Perfect Babies' Names is the ultimate one-stop guide.The Perfect series is a range of practical guides that give clear and straightforward advice on everything from getting your first job to choosing your baby's name. Written by experienced authors offering tried-and-tested tips, each book contains all you need to get it right first time.
Perfect Best Man (The\perfect Ser.)
by George DavidsonPerfect Best Man is an indispensable guide to every aspect of the best man's role. Covering everything from organising the stag night to making sure the big day runs according to plan, it walks you through exactly what you need to do and gives great advice about getting everything done with the least possible fuss.With checklists to make sure you have it all covered, troubleshooting sections for when things go wrong, and a unique chapter on choosing and organising the ushers, Perfect Best Man has everything you need to make sure you rise to the occasion.The Perfect series is a range of practical guides that give clear and straightforward advice on everything from getting your first job to choosing your baby's name. Written by experienced authors offering tried-and-tested tips, each book contains all you need to get it right first time.
Perfect Wedding Speeches and Toasts: All You Need To Give A Brilliant Speech (The\perfect Ser.)
by George DavidsonPerfect Wedding Speeches and Toasts is an invaluable guide to preparing and delivering unforgettable speeches. Covering everything from advice on mastering your nerves to tips about how to make a real impact, it walks you through every aspect of preparing for the big day and speaking in public. Whether you're the father of the bride, the bride herself, the groom or the best man, Perfect Wedding Speeches and Toasts will help make sure your speech goes off without a hitch.The Perfect series is a range of practical guides that give clear and straightforward advice on everything from getting your first job to choosing your baby's name. Written by experienced authors offering tried-and-tested tips, each book contains all you need to get it right first time.
A Single Swallow: Following An Epic Journey From South Africa To South Wales
by Horatio ClareFrom the slums of Cape Town to the palaces of Algiers, through Pygmy villages where pineapples grow wild, to the Gulf of Guinea where the sea blazes with oil flares, across two continents and fourteen countries - this epic journey is nothing to swallows, they do it twice a year. But for Horatio Clare, writer and birdwatcher, it is the expedition of a lifetime. Along the way he discovers old empires and modern tribes, a witch-doctor's recipe for stewed swallow, explains how to travel without money or a passport, and describes a terrifying incident involving three Spanish soldiers and a tiny orange dog. By trains, motorbikes, canoes, one camel and three ships, Clare follows the swallows from reed beds in South Africa, where millions roost in February, to a barn in Wales, where a pair nest in May.
Advanced Homework for Grown-ups
by Beth Coates Elizabeth FoleyIf you paid attention to Homework for Grown-ups you should hopefully now have a grasp of the basics: know your chiasmus from your zeugma, your obliques from your acutes, and your Anne of Cleves from your Anne Boleyn. Now, sit up straight, and get your jotters and pencils out, because E Foley and B Coates are back to steer you through some of the more complicated elements of the curriculum and beyond.Advanced Homework for Grown-ups will revisit and refresh the core subjects of Maths, English, Science, Geography, History and Classics in a little more depth. This time, amongst other topics, they tackle logarithms, unlock the secrets of semantics, and explore the Agrarian Revolution, with a mix of really useful information and entertainingly esoteric material. In addititon, new subjects enter the timetable: Music, Modern Languages, Economics, Politics, Philosophy and Psychology, as well as Design and Drama.Packed with fun practical excercises and, of course, examination papers for the competitive, Advanced Homework for Grown-ups will be the perfect gift.
Maths for Mums and Dads: The Teenage Years
by Mike Askew Rob EastawayIn a new edition, fully revised and updated to reflect key new curriculum topics and methods, Maths for Mums and Dads guides you through the basics of primary school maths and covers the dilemmas and problems you are likely to be confronted with, including:* number bonds, place value and decimals* long multiplication and division * fractions, percentages and decimals* basic geometry, shapes, symmetry and angles* data-handling, combinations and chanceComplete with sample questions, mock exam papers and examples of children's errors, Maths for Mums and Dads will challenge and reassure in equal measure.
Kinanthropometry and Exercise Physiology
by Kevin Norton Roger EstonFully updated, revised and consolidated into one single volume, the fourth edition of Kinanthropometry and Exercise Physiology offers the best theoretically contextualised, practical resource for instructors and students available. Incorporating substantial sections on kinanthropometry, exercise physiology, energy systems and the application of science in health and high performance settings, the book covers the basics of measurement in exercise science through to advanced methods, and includes brand new chapters on: Pre-exercise screening and health risk stratification Functional movement assessment Point of care testing Anthropometry standards Anaerobic power and capacity History of exercise for health benefits Monitoring training loads in high-performance athletes Measuring game style in team sports Offering on-line access to newly developed exercise science measurement tools through the Exercise Science Toolkit – www.exercisesciencetoolkit.com – no other book offers such a complete resource, from the science of kinanthropometry and exercise physiology to their applications in health and performance, through practical, interactive learning. This book is an essential companion for students on any sport and exercise science-related degree programme and any instructor leading practical, laboratory-based classes.