A dip-into book for the bedside table, the beach or the morning train. A collection of travel and expat living experiences, observations of diverse characters, many of them unusual, many of them stubborn or eccentric and yet lovable. A book of alternative definitions and hilarious jots - eg. 'You have no idea how much it cost to keep the old man in poverty' - Mountbatten talking about Gandhi, or, 'Two skeletons copulating on a tin roof in a thunderstorm' Thomas Beecham commenting on the harpsichord. Much more seriously, a book describing the unnecessary hardship and oppression suffered by the ordinary people of Iraq during the 'era' of Saddam Hussein, and the murderous acts of an army captain on the last day of Iraqi occupation in Kuwait.