Bøker av Geoff Tibballs

YES, IT'S EUROVISION TIME AGAIN! THE PERFECT GIFT FOR THE EUROVISION FAN IN YOUR LIFE!For 60 years the Eurovision Song Contest has existed in a parallel universe where a song about the construction of a hydro-electric power station is considered cutting-edge pop, where half a dozen warbling Russian grandmothers are considered Saturday night entertainment, where a tune repeating the word 'la' 138 times is considered a winner, and where Australia is considered part of Europe During those sixty years we have witnessed scandals: in 1957, Denmark's Birthe Wilke and Gustav Winckler enjoyed an outrageously long 13-second kiss because the stage manager forgot to say 'cut' during the live broadcast. We have witnessed national outrage: the 1976 Greek entry was a savage indictment of Turkish foreign policy in Cyprus. But most have all we have witnessed silly costumes, terrible lyrics and performers as diverse as Celine Dion and Dustin the Turkey.This book chronicles the 100 craziest moments in the history of Eurovision - the drag acts, the bad acts, the nul points heroes and the night in Luxembourg when the floor manager warned the audience not to stand up while they applauded because they might be shot by security forces. It captures some of the magic from this yearly event that continues to beguile and bemuse in equal measure.

Would you Adam and Eve it? Over a hundred years after it was first heard on the streets of Ye Olde London Towne, Cockney rhyming slang is still going strong, and this book contains the most comprehensive and entertaining guide yet.Presented in an easy-to-read A to Z format, it explains the meaning of hundreds of terms, from old favourites such as apples and pears (stairs) and plates of meat (feet) to the more obscure band of hope (soap) and cuts and scratches (matches) through to modern classics such as Anthea Turner (earner) and Ashley Cole (own goal), as well as providing fascinating background info and curious Cockney facts throughout. Also included are a series of language tests so that readers can brush up on their newfound knowledge on their way to becoming a true Cockney Geezer.All in all, The Ultimate Cockney Geezer's Guide to Rhyming Slang is well worth your bread and honey to have a butcher's.

The Mammoth Book of Dirty, Sick, X-Rated and Politically Incorrect Jokes is the ultimate collection of X-rated and decidedly politically incorrect jokes - an indispensable guide to the funny, the fearless and the filthy. Be warned, the contents of this spanking new bumper book are not for the faint-hearted. Even a blonde would blush ...if she got any of them.

From getting a seat on the bus to forgetting what you were worrying about, there are countless reasons to be grateful for being old.

A collection of fun jokes for old folks who are young at heart, from bestselling humour author Geoff Tibballs

Short, quick-fire jokes have been popular for centuries. Indeed the world's oldest surviving joke book, the Philogelos, which was written in Ancient Greek, contains this classic doctor joke: Patient: "Doctor! When I wake up I'm all dizzy. Then after half an hour I feel fine." Doctor: "Well, wait half an hour before waking up." Meanwhile in Rome, they had a gag for every occasion, from senate orations and lavish feasts to throwing Christians to the lions. A Cicero stand-up gig was the hottest ticket in town. Shakespeare readily slipped one-liners into his comedies, while medieval jesters used pithy quips to amuse the royal court, well aware that if the joke backfired and somehow offended the monarch, their next audience might be with the executioner. "Dying on stage" carried a more sinister meaning for comedians in those days. It's not hard to see why one-liners remain in vogue with today's comedians. They are easy to remember, quick to deliver and if one gag dies on its feet, the next is waiting in the wings, hopefully to a better reception. Here is a compilation of the best one-liners around - a heady mix of old and new favourites, Dad jokes, thoughtful musings, corny puns and witty observations, covering a vast range of topics from Families to Fish, Money to Music, Relationships to Religion and Technology to Travel. They can be used to brighten up business conferences where the delegates are as tired as the sandwiches; dinner parties where the conversation is threatening to slide into a discussion about spreadsheets; seemingly interminable Zoom calls; and, of course, speeches at weddings that are so emotional that even the cake is in tiers.

Then this quiz book might be just your cup of tea. Politely challenge yourself, your family and your friends with questions on British culture, language, etiquette, of course, the weather, as well as lots of other essential, quintessential British subjects.

If the words `mindfulness' and `wellness' set your teeth on edge, this laugh out loud book is for you. After all, why change when you're perfect just as you are?

When we think of the world's great sporting events, we tend to focus on spectacles such as the World Cup, the Olympics, the Derby, the Monaco Grand Prix or the University Boat Race. Yet there is also an alternative world of competition where participants risk life, limb and often dignity for meagre rewards in truly weird sporting pursuits. Step forward the Indonesian sport of sepak bola api, a variation of football in which the barefoot players kick a ball that is on fire; Germany's Mud Olympics, at which competitors play soccer, volleyball and handball while knee-deep in mud; yak racing from Mongolia; Oregon's Pig-N-Ford Races where drivers speed around the track while carrying a live pig under one arm; and Australia's variation of the Boat Race, the Henley-on-Todd Regatta, where, instead of rowing, teams carry their boats along the dry bed of the River Todd.This book lists geographically the world's 100 weirdest sports events, giving full details of their rules and colourful history. They include the grotesque (the national sport of Afghanistan is buzkashi, in which riders on horseback aim to drag the headless carcass of a dead goat towards their opponents' goal), the dangerous (Japanese hardcore wrestlers batter each other with glass fluorescent light tubes instead of their bare hands), and the downright daft in the form of the World Black Pudding Throwing Championships, the World Flounder Tramping Championships, the World Gravy Wrestling Championships and the World Shin-Kicking Championships.Races are staged in all kinds of transportation. Canada is home to the Great Klondike Outhouse Race (for portable toilets), the Vancouver Bathtub Race, and the Windsor Pumpkin Regatta; Colorado hosts the annual Emma Crawford Coffin Races; and the pride of Yorkshire is the Great Knaresborough Bed Race, where teams push a bed (containing human occupant) along a 2.4-mile course that requires a wet crossing of the River Nidd. Animals feature heavily, too. As well as traditional races for ostriches (complete with jockeys), cockroaches (no jockey required), armadillos, sheep, and Oklahoma City's splendid Dachshund Dash, rubber-duck racing is one of the fastest growing sports of recent years with events being held in several countries. Other competitions test an animal's ability to do more than just run or float, such as elephant polo, dog surfing, camel wrestling, rabbit show jumping and pig diving. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that in the near future we may even be treated to synchronized pig diving.Although the plunging porkers might disagree, the appeal of many of these sports is enhanced by taking part. If cheese rolling or volcano boarding are too energetic for your taste, ice golf or underwater hockey too uncomfortable, and lingerie football wouldn't show off your legs to best effect, you could always enjoy more leisurely pursuits like the world championships in rock, paper, scissors or pooh sticks. If, on the other hand, you prefer a watching brief, you could try your hand at cow patty bingo, a North American contest where a field is divided into numbered squares, and contestants bet on which square the cow will take a poop. It is probably the only occasion in life when you can make money from one number two on top of another.

'I won't lie to you, fatherhood isn't easy like motherhood' Homer SimpsonFathers come in many guises - wise or silly, strict or kind. They can make you laugh and they can make you cringe. They can drive you home and they can drive you mad ...In Just Like Dad Says, wise and witty words from the likes of Billy Connolly, Jerry Seinfeld, Spike Milligan and Homer Simpson cover everything from the joy of being a new dad to waving kids off as they - finally - leave home. Old and new, laugh-out-loud funny or wickedly dry, Just Like Dad Says is the best ever collection of quotes by and about Dad. 'My father only hit me once - but he used a Volvo' Bob Monkhouse'Even very young children need to be informed about dying. Explain the concept of death very carefully to your child. This will make threatening him with it much more effective' P.J. O'Rourke

In 1894, when the motley assortment of steam and petrol-powered vehicles lined up at the start of the trial from Paris to Rouen, motor-racing's colourful history was launched.

A rollicking collection of true stories of the most outrageous monarchs the world has ever known, including the Roman Emperor Caligula, who was unspeakably cruel to his subjects but worshipped his horse, Charles VI of France, convinced he was made of glass, and Frederick William I of Prussia, who recruited Europe's tallest men for his private army.

Stocking a garden with plants can be an expensive business, so there are few things more frustrating than when the prized specimen for which you have paid a king's ransom either online or at a garden centre shrivels up and dies within a year or so of purchase. If you can prove that the plant was half-dead when it arrived, you may able to obtain a refund from some online retailers, but for the most part you have to put it down to experience and make a firm mental note not to buy fussy plants in future.The problem is that many websites and catalogues claim that everything they stock is easy to grow. Herbaceous perennials are a particular minefield. Too often you are told that a certain plant 'will come back year after year' without fail when in reality it is either so tender that the only chance of it surviving an average British winter is in a greenhouse or it is a short-lived perennial that is unlikely to flourish beyond two years anyway - and even then only if the local slugs and snails are on a diet. This book cuts through the horticultural sales pitches by listing 100 plants which, for little care beyond the essential watering at planting time, can reliably be expected to thrive in just about any garden. These plants are all but indestructible - pests give them a wide berth, they will prosper in any reasonable garden soil and will withstand anything that the UK climate throws at them. Divided into sections for shrubs, conifers, climbers, perennials, grasses, annuals, alpines and bulbs and with each entry having a Value For Money (VFM) rating out of 10, this easy-to-use guide will prove invaluable not only for the new gardener but also for old hands who are fed up with wasting time and money on plants that all too rapidly lose the will to live. With these suggestions, you can be assured of year-round colour and interest in your garden for the minimum of effort.

If you refer to your dearest friend as 'Thingy' or have to keep changing your pet's name because you can never remember your online banking password, you need The Senior Moments Activity Book!

Containing a wealth of jokes, anecdotes, quips and quotes from like-absent-minded seniors, across a range of funny and undeniably familiar scenarios, this book will have people laughing out loud in shameful recognition that they are, in fact, getting on a bit.

Funny, fearless and absolutely filthy-nearly 3,000 more uncensored, dirty, sick, and deeply politically incorrect jokes, covering just about every topic imaginable, from adultery to (sex in) Zoos, including an assortment of bad taste lists. A worthy, all-new follow-on to the first bestselling volume.

A collection of 10,000 side-splitting one-line jokes arranged in categories from bestselling humour editor Geoff Tibballs. 'Is my wife dissatisfied with my body? A small part of me says yes.''Letting the cat out of the bag is a whole lot easier than putting it back in.''I read somewhere that 26 is too old to still live with your parents. It was on a note, in my room.'

A humorous collection of hundreds of funny news stories, whacky phenomena, and hilarious blunders and gaffes from around the world, such as: the woman who smuggled 75 live snakes in her bra; the man who held a funeral for his amputated foot; the radioactive cat which got mistaken for a bomb; the human tongue that got served up in a hospital; the X-ray that revealed E.T.'s face in a duck; the youth who woke to find a bullet in his tongue; the tortoise that set a house on fire; and many more.

The Olympics' Strangest Moments recounts the bizarre, controversial, heroic and plain unlucky from the first modern games in 1896 to the return of the games to their birthplace in Athens in 2004.

The biggest and best collection of jokes for all the family to enjoy. 8,000 rib-ticklers, covering every subject under the sun from Aardvarks to Zombies, including chicken jokes, doctor-doctor jokes, elephant jokes, horror jokes, knock-knock jokes, excruciating puns, riddles, school jokes, sports jokes and waiter jokes. Most of the jokes are sharp one-liners but there is also a scattering of slightly longer stories.

With old age comes grey hair, dodgy knees, a sudden passion for re-runs of Murder, She Wrote, and an apparent God-given licence to speak one's mind and be generally offensive without fear of retribution. Under the guise of passing on the benefits of their experience to family members or just casual acquaintances, old people exercise their right to swear, cuss and insult as they please. These feisty philosophers take no prisoners as they use their scalpel-like tongues to dissect modern life and the younger generations. If challenged over their outrageous comments, they'll play the age card: you know the sort of thing - 'I'm eighty-six, I've fought for my country, and if I want to call you a no-good, lowdown, useless fuckwit, then I'll call you a no-good, lowdown, useless fuckwit, Vicar.'Other gems include:It bugs me when people say, 'Life is short.' What the hell does it mean? Life is the longest damn thing anyone ever does! Are they going to do something that's longer? Son, if it's got tits or tyres, you're gonna have trouble with it. We all have our disappointments in life, son, and I'm talking to mine right now.The only way in which life resembles a bed of roses is that you encounter a lot of pricks along the way. Sure I'm surprised you can't get a job, son. I heard the world was crying out for someone who is lazy, has no qualifications but can spit gum into a waste paper basket from ten feet.Don't you think you might stand a better chance of becoming a captain of industry if you got rid of some of that metal shit on your body - like the nose stud and the eyebrow rings? Donald Trump may have a crap haircut but I bet he doesn't have pierced fucking nipples.Son, if life was fair, Elvis would still be alive and all the impersonators would be dead.The secret of a happy life is to run out of cash and air at exactly the same time.

The world has always produced its share of grumpy, moody, pessimistic and world-weary types. They like to groan and grumble, offering their own commentary on the shortcomings of modern life. This is a hilarious celebration of all these grumps, how to identify one, what exactly they find so irritating and why we find their rants quite so amusing.

Quite simply, the greatest compendium of humour ever written! Over 7500 entries.

Never be stuck for a wicked line again! - the ultimate collection of insultsHere is the biggest and best ever collection of insults and sharp retorts for when you just wish you could have thought of something faster. Editor Geoff Tibballs presents over 5000 come-backs, put-downs, snaps, insults, unadmiring quips and quotes, for every occasion. From the most elegant of studied insults to the wickedest of putdowns, from the language of the street to the literary, political, and entertainment worlds, from playground insults to sports, family and marriage jibes - here is every possible barb you could ever need, guaranteed to crack up all those around you. As an outsider, what do you think of the human race? Your mother's so fat, she has her own area code. Are your parents siblings? Anyone who told you to be yourself couldn't have given you worse advice. Is there no beginning to your talents? You'd be out of your depth in a puddle. Don't you need a licence to be that ugly? I'd like to see things from your point of view but I can't get my head that far up my arse. I'd love to go out with you but I have to worm my dog.

'He dribbles a lot and the opposition doesn't like it - you can see it all over their faces' - Ron Atkinson'Rugby is a good occasion for keeping thirty bullies far from the city centre' - Oscar WildeWhether over the moon or sick as a parrot, sportsmen and women can invariably be relied upon to come out with a humorous quote...even if it's not always intentional. The Bowler's Holding, The Batsman's Willey provides the definitive collection of sporting wit, from participants and observers alike.The book covers the full gamut of the sports spectrum and provides over 4,000 side-splittingly funny quotes - some examples of incisive sporting wit, others inadvertent howlers never to be forgotten; ranging from the cutting remarks of Brian Clough and Muhammad Ali to the studied observations of John Arlott and the hilarious gaffes of Murray Walker.The Bowler's Holding, The Batsman's Willey is an absolute must for any sports fan.