The Cat that Could Open the Fridge - Hardcover

Hoggart

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1843543575 ISBN 13: 9781843543572

Publisher: Atlantic Books, 2004

Synopsis

The advent of the home computer has made Christmas round robin letters ubiquitous.

Where once the hot news about Tamsin's A levels would be sent in a short note, now it's not unusual to get a letter that includes several pages of misery - emergency operations, dead relatives, sackings, rainy holidays and so forth - decorated with jolly snowmen and smiling Santas. Some people go further and send out whole booklets. Computers have also made it possible to include photographs of the family eating paté in their Provencal garden, or sitting in a hot tub in California.

Simon Hoggart gets hundreds of round robin letters sent to him every year and has collected the funniest, most irritating, most surreal extracts into this hilarious short book. Along the way he considers why people hate these letters so much and what they tell us about the British middle classes. What, exactly, lies behind the impulse to write about Roger's decision to cycle to work for health reasons, or Jeremy's trip to Tasmania, or the replacement pet rabbit?

About this title

About the Author

Simon Hoggart is the parliamentary sketch-writer and diarist for the Guardian. He also writes about wine and TV for the Spectator and is the former host of Radio 4's News Quiz. Atlantic Books published Don't Tell Mum: Hair-Raising Messages Home from Gap-Year Travellers in 2006 and The Christmas Letters in 2007. His collection of parliamentary sketches covering the Blair era, The Hands of History, was published in 2007.

Edition details

• Publisher: Atlantic Books
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1843543575
• ISBN 13: 9781843543572
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 145