h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

What about Wodehouse then? Doesn't anybody read Wodehouse? Even Douglas Adams reads Wodehouse.

Just trying something out here: :-p

Other funny others I simply must mention are:
Tom Sharpe (Riotous Assembly, Wilt)
John Kennedy Toole (Confederacy of Dunces, Neon Bible)
Donald E Westlake (Hot rock, Why me?)

Tom Sharpe - Wilt. That's funny. Have you read that?

Multiple times! I love it! Same as with Riotous Assembly, it's excellent!

I love Bridget Jones' Diary but then I am thirty-something so that explains it!

I love Bridget Jones' Diary but then I am thirty-something so that explains it!

Haven't read it. Will look it up on Amazon.

I am, I freely confess, a sad man, but I do find the writings of Bill Bryson very amusing. And Joseph Heller's Catch-22 is the ultimate in adult humour (adult in the sense of "for grown ups" rather than "using adolescent profanity")

Don't laugh - but the last book that had me laughing out loud was 'Who on Earth is Tom Baker' - his autobiography. Not specifically a humour book, but definitely very funny in places (and touching in others).

Ah, yes, the retired monk. A very funny man.

Tom Baker, eh? I shall have to look that up. Also, I would like to reach out a sympathetic hand to you, Jim, for having to work on sa Sunday. When the revolution comes, your employers shall be the first to be pressed up against the walls...

And mine! and mine! Here, let me pass you the blindfold!

125 hours in one week.

Well, obviously your employers too. Twice, I think...

Now here is a humorous thing. According to the new working time directive, I am not allowed to work more than about 48 hours per week on average. In August I went to the HR people to say I had to sign a waiver on the working time directive, or I would be unable to come back to work until November - otherwise *they* would be breaking the law (not me).

They refused to allow me to sign a waiver. For the best reasons, the HR director is an excellent bloke, but let's remember here: I had already, in 4 months, worked over 7 months' worth of maximum hours. And the response was "you're not allowed to do that." Er, I already had. And unless I continueed to do so, things would go badly pear-shaped. (Shakes head in bafflement)

I think you will find this is happening all over the place. The directive is all well and good but they don't seem to have considered how to enforce it. In the UK we work the longest hours in the EC so other countries will find it much easier to comply with this one! If you worked 125 hours last week , and I am not doubting you did, how did you also manage to find time to be on here? I would be dead!

The answer, Watson, is simple: the 125 hours was a couple of weeks back. I am now working out my notice and have cut right back to 60 hours per week or less. I can surf over to H2G2 in the odd moment when a large view is rebuilding or an agent is running. Since I have an ISDN router at home this is a simple process

And all this just beacause Jim put out a posting on a Sunday. Don't do that again, Jim, you see what happens?

LOL! Careless talk costs lives, y'know

I've always found the working time directive a bit odd, since I have often worked single shifts longer than my weekly contracted hours. I also find that traffic on the M3 is fairly light at 3am.

Once I was driving home listening to a programme on the World Service about how computers give us more leisure time and make us more productive. This was at 4:15 am, and I was going home having started the previous day 1t 7:15 am. I thought it quite amusing at the time....

Hey I'm not that old and I like Bill Bryson! I've just read Notes from a Small Island and am in the middle of Walk in the Woods. He makes me chuckle out loud and annoy my family.