Jaspistos
Hard sell
In competition No. 2488 you were invited to write a publisher’s press release for one of the following: Weeds in a Changing World; Bombproof your Horse; How Green were the Nazis?.
In competition No. 2488 you were invited to write a publisher’s press release for one of the following: Weeds in a Changing World; Bombproof your Horse; How Green were the Nazis?. The assignment was inspired by the contest for the Oddest Book Title of the Year, run since 1978 by the Bookseller. Bombproof your Horse (helpfully subtitled: Teach your Horse to Be Confident, Obedient, and Safe No Matter What You Encounter), a serious manual for equestrians by Rick Pelicano and Lauren Tjaden which sells a steady 400 copies a month, stormed to victory in 2004. The prizewinners, printed below, get £25 a piece. Alan Millard’s brew of cliché and hyperbole, infused with breathy excitement, perfectly demonstrates the PR’s gift for using a lot of words while revealing very little, but the extra fiver goes to G.M. Davis, champion of the spindly-limbed and concave-chested.
Weeds in a Changing World examines the contemporary cult of muscular masculinity from the days of Charles Atlas and ‘dynamic tension’ to Sylvester Stallone’s and Brad Pitt’s pumped-up torsos, with particular reference to an alternative physical type, the ectomorph. The author foresees a new line of development in ideal male body images, taking its cue from such slender, cave-chested figures as Montgomery Clift and Jarvis Cocker. Brute strength, he argues, has had its day, finally discredited by America’s global bullying and ‘shock and awe’ tactics. The weedy loser who once got sand kicked in his face will be the hero of tomorrow — unthreatening, cerebral and sensitive. Like Harry Potter, he will be attuned to spiritual forces. Soon the protein-heavy man with the ‘six-pack’ will be an obsolescent freak. This radical thesis, so relevant for our times, is sure to stir debate and will attract the thoughtful, unprejudiced reader.
Widely tipped to be a literary bombshell bursting on the market with unparalleled success, Professor Pratt’s latest masterpiece is destined to become the publishing sensation of the century. With a title guaranteeing universal appeal, Bombproof your Horse is undoubtedly a ‘must-buy’ for everyone who relishes a riveting read. Facing up to our greatest twin fears — the terrorist threat and the rising cost of motoring, the author explores every possible remedy, and finally produces the perfect solution which, without giving too much of the plot away, turns out to be ‘the bombproof horse’. Readers wondering why horses are bombproofed will not be disappointed. The intriguing secrets of different carbon and graphite composites tested on horses in hypersonic shock tunnels are revealed with awesome dynamism. Does he succeed? Will bombproofed horses be stabled in every garage across the globe? Reach the final chapter and you’ll be blown away!
In this searing indictment of horticultural elitism, Doug Trench goes to the root of the deeply embedded prejudice against plants in the vegetational underclass. Demonised for centuries by gardeners, they have survived relentless attempts to exterminate them by every means, from ruthless uprooting to chemical attack. Trench’s unflinchingly controversial polemic traces the source of this sub-genocidal tendency back to the malign biblical distinction between wheat and tares. Such texts, he contends, have given generations of horticulturalists a scriptural licence to kill while the rest of society looked studiously the other way. But now the tide is beginning to turn. By redesignating weeds as ‘not yet appreciated plants’, Trench challenges discriminatory attitudes and opens up the possibility of a more sensitive 21st-century tolerance of these indomitable species. Weeds in a Changing World is set to transform the gardening landscape. Read it and you’ll never pick up a hoe again.
If weeds have survived the disfavour of man for millions of years, perhaps we can learn something from them. Numerous species have survived famines, locusts, pesticides, wars and urban blight. In this persuasive book, rural sociologist Pete Moss of the University of Northern Florida, sets out the reasons why their wide cultivation is necessary for a balanced ecosystem. As well as analysing integrated growing systems throughout the world, he illustrates his various arguments with amusing anecdotes and weedy facts. Were you aware of the following? That President Bush got the Bureau of Land Management’s Toxic Plant Database confused with Iraq’s WMD? That the most noxious weed of all, the shepherdspurse, can cure impotency? That the strawberry, of Wimbledon fame, is actually a flower? That marijuana is not a weed but a form of turf? 879 pages.
Hot on the heels of autumn’s runaway success, Mothproof that Meerkat!, Lester Hobday’s Bombproof your Horse, from the same stable, is a cert for spring. The author’s meticulous study results from close collaboration between the MOD and the Jockey Club. This work is required reading for equestrians in all fields: police, the military, farmers, foxhunters — even the gymkhana and jodhpurs set. Terrorism threatens both urban and rural communities: in chapter three, ‘The Stallion Batallion’, we learn how state-of-the-art technology is deployed in the protection of what are, in essence, priceless investments. Chapter nine, ‘Cavalry, Chivalry, Rivalry’, gives us a glimpse into a clandestine world of oneupmanship, protocol and shameless backstabbing. This book will be a sure-fire bestseller, alongside Hobday’s Ring-fencing Rhinos and Captain Morelli’s Pangolin. The going is good: make Bombproof your Horse your nap selection.
In this challenging study of the Third Reich, Hans Downe reveals the explosive truth that Hitler’s scientists were working not only to conquer the world but to save it. He explores how the obsession with ‘purity’ extended beyond eugenics to lifestyle and climatology, and discloses the copious party files which sought to eliminate the use of fossil fuel, to recycle food, and to protect the ozone layer by firing huge mechanical shields into it. Plans had been drawn up to cleanse the air by using a revolutionary system of suction, and the Waffen SS were engaged in a careful study of how to run Panzers on renewable fuel. Slowly but surely, Downe discloses the startling (and) inconvenient truth — if Hitler, a five-a-day vegetarian with a perfect cholesterol count, had won the war, the world would undoubtedly have been ecologically a far, far safer place.
No. 2491 Metamorphosis