The Done Thing - Softcover

Fanshawe, Simon

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099484374 ISBN 13: 9780099484370

Publisher: Arrow Books Ltd, 2006

Synopsis

This is a book for those who unashamedly want manners in the world. They are the essence of living together. And we are struggling to find rules that we can agree on in a new world where change and uncertainty are a way of life and personal responsibility is at a disastrous low. No-one wants to bow and scrape to the rhythms of outdated etiquette any more.We need to seek out the original social purpose of manners and apply the principles to life today. We need rules of respect for each other and an agreement to stick to them. Combining an appeal to history, anthropology and common sense with a witty disdain for the sillier snobberies of the traditionalists, Simon Fanshawe has borrowed the format of Erasmus's great work on behaviour, De Civilitate Morum Puerilum, and created a modern basis for good manners. So it doesn't matter if you pass the port to the right or the left as long as it goes in one direction and that way everyone gets a drink. Hold your knife any way you want except as a weapon so strangers will never feel threatened at your table. Date, eat, work, speak, dress, talk on your mobile, tip, text, take your children to eat out in any way you like as long as you do it in a way that respects other people. This is a campaign. Join now and march.

About this title

About the Author

Simon Fanshawe is a Perrier Award winning comic, writer and broadcaster. He has his own series on Radio Four - Fanshawe Gets To The Bottom Off- - as well as working on other series; The Reference Library, Live From London and guest hosting, Loose Ends, Quote Unquote, and Word of Mouth. He writes for the Guardian, Observer and Telegraph and is about to start a new series for Radio Two - Powerfully Funny - interviews with famous comedians. He lives in Brighton, where he is chairman of the Economic Partnership and was instrumental in Brighton's campaign to become a city in 2002.

From the Back Cover

This is a book for those who unashamedly want manners.

The world is changing and you can either sit on your behind and moan or you can do something about it. We are not going to hell in a hand basket assaulted by the chav-nots and the pushy middle classes trashing manners. Most of us know the right and wrong way to behave. We have just lost the confidence to apply it.

No one wants to bow and scrape to the rhythms of outdated etiquette any more. So it doesn't matter if you pass the port to the right or the left so long as everyone gets a drink. Hold your knife any way you want except as a weapon. Date, eat, work, speak, dress, talk on your mobile, tip, text, take your children to eat out in any way you like, but what really matters is that you do it in a way that respects others.

This book is a campaign. Join now and march. The slogan reads: Good Manners are the foreplay of social intercourse.

'Good jokes and crisp writing ... great fun' The Times

'Fanshawe's wit and knack for observation make this book worthwhile for even the crudest yob or most cordial gent' The Good Book Guide

Edition details

• Publisher: Arrow Books Ltd
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0099484374
• ISBN 13: 9780099484370
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 336