Publisher's Synopsis
A hilarious skew on the origins of the world and the events in its bygone times.
The book takes the planet from its formative days - "The Earth is approximately one-third of the age of the universe, although the universe has been known to lie about its age to make it look younger to other universes on the Internet" - and then gives a brief (and very surreal) narrative on some pieces of history of each country. For instance:
"Andorra is so small that it does not have newspapers. Instead, Mr. Claude DeStump goes around each house every morning and tells people what happened the day before."
"Denmark is the happiest country in the world. Famous Danes include physicist Niels Bohr, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Extreme Happiness in 1950. Other Great Danes include Scooby Doo, and his lazy brother, Scooby Don't."
"The French government attempted to solve its financial crisis in 1784 by introducing a Blow-Off Tax, which imposed a levy ranging from one centime for a small, ladylike bum-pump, up to 5 francs for a duvet raiser. The fact that the standard food for peasants was onion soup did nothing to quell the disquiet in the lower regions, nor in the people who lived in the lower regions."
"Stone tools indicate that early humans were present in France at least 1.57 million years ago, while stone toilet paper indicates that they were a hardy bunch." ....
The amazing true fact about the book is, that it was written when the author was in the throes of deep depression following turmoils stemming from his Army days, and he used the laughter generated in writing the book as a means of clawing his way out of the mire of despair.... "As it says at the end of the book, one dark night of the soul someone said to me, 'All this family has left going for us is love, and your sense of humour.' - 'Light bulb!' The next day I thought of a subject - it was a joke about the oldest joke in the world: 'My Sphinx has got no nose' 'How does he smell?' 'Terrible' - and took it from there. Every day I would sit down and write 5 or 6 pages of jokes; nothing else on the planet was making me laugh, so I had to do it myself. And now it exists to make other people laugh as well."
Publisher Update: A final tragic twist to the tale was that, shortly after completing Part Three of the series, '...Extremely Unlikely History of the United Kingdom', Paul was struck down by Vascular Dementia, losing the ability to create new humour almost overnight. His comedy books remain a legacy of an amazingly creative imagination; his poetry books remain a legacy of a romantic with a keen social conscience; and his children's books - his own personal prides - remain a legacy of a man who loved the sound of children's laughter above all other sounds, and a man who treasured every second of his all-too-short time with his son and daughter.
