I found this book so funny that I bought half a dozen (they're dirt cheap and there's probably boxes full of them lining the walls of the authors house) and left them on trains on the Hereford to Birmingham New Street line. I spend a lot of time on these trains, mostly reading anything I can get my hands on, especially abandoned books, surrounded by a good cross section of the people and things which make up some of the subject matter. As a result it's the only dictionary I have read from cover to cover.
I thought at first that this was a book for Brits who like to laugh at Americans, until I figured out why it's called The Septics Companion. I still have a quiet chuckle at the thought that Americans would not understand the title unless it was explained to them, and then some still wouldn't, and very few would understand the underlying subtlety of the slang.
The book is riven through with the distinct and consistently gentle humour of the author, which is strange unless he contributed all the entries himself.
I can almost picture myself sitting in a pub listening to him talk, which is something I would very much like to do , except that I would probably be appalled by his ridiculous American accent or, God forbid, Scottish accent.
Buy this book, read it, enjoy it, leave it on a train.
