This has been collecting dust on my bookshelves for years. It's based upon a popular BBC comedy series in the 1980s about a cabinet minister all too ably er... managed by the bureaucrats who purportedly serve under him. I think my problem with this book is I know both too much and too little. On the "too little" side, I've never seen the program. I get the feeling there are all these subtle jokes and ironies whizzing by above my head. I'm also not British and have spent only a few weeks in England in my teens. Most of my knowledge about British politics and their parliamentary system comes from reading Archer's novel First Among Equals. Again, I have this sense of acid zingers landing upon my armor of ignorance and dissolving before they can penetrate.And the "too much" part? Well, I worked in campaigns, political science was my major and I interned in the United States Congress. And alas, the points here haven't dated over the decades and don't miss anything in traveling over the Atlantic. I knew exactly where this was going too much of the time; it's as if I knew the punchlines before any ever landed. I find it too true, too very much the real world so that despite the wit and dry humor I can see in it I just couldn't find it funny. My bad. This is rated so low because of my personal reaction to it, which was to depress me more than anything. Not because it's not well-written and the characters well-drawn. If you're young enough to still feel inspired about politics or old enough to be so cynical it doesn't hurt anymore, you might enjoy this. Judging from the other reviews, most do.
This book is obviously for die-hard fans of the show, and I know no bigger fan than myself. Each character's facial expressions and the way in which they delivered their lines are thoroughly etched into my memories. I suspect that I wouldn't have found this book as witty and funny as I did if that wasn't the case and I had never seen the show.For the most part the book follows the script of the show with added commentary and personal thoughts from the protagonists and editors. These additions work well when the authors relate to what extent fiction has mirrored fact. They don't work so well however when expression is given to what would have been a brief look of panic by Hacker after being told he was making a "courageous decision", or when reasons behind a knowing half-smile from Sir Humphrey are articulated. This is where I feel the authors had been a tad lazy and should've ventured beyond the show's script instead of relying on the reader's ability to recall specific scenes from the show to understand the humour (which I had no problem doing).Still, immensely enjoyable, and I'll read the Yes Prime Minister Diaries when I need to relive memories of the show, or remind myself how government and politics really works.
Do You like book The Complete Yes Minister (1988)?
A superbly written series of stories. Apart from the cut-and-thrust banter that the inimitable Sir Humphrey and Woolley get up to with Hacker; what is even more apparent from this imbroglio of the British "functional anarchy" is that we (as Indians) have taken from the Brits what we should have left well alone and left alone what we should have learnt from them and incorporated into our own system. What is heartening though, is that even Thatcher provided inputs to the writers about Whitehall and the political system of the great empire (http://goo.gl/YRjvyJ). A throughly enjoyable and revealing piece of literature.
—Virag Padalkar
This isn't simply a transcript or a novelisation: it's quite a creative approach, by showing a mixture of diaries, memos, etc. Mind you, I think that would make it difficult to read as an ebook, since you'd lose the handwriting and letterhead.I particularly like the footnotes which give historical precedents for the topics raised in the story, i.e. they show that real-life politicians have done the same thing.The main thing I disliked about this book is that the issues all seem trivial: they mostly involve trading favours to cover up someone's mistake rather than actually achieving anything good. This is particularly notable in one chapter, where I'd have preferred Sir Humphrey to "win".
—John Kirk
I forget the name of the band but there's this song entitled "I Slept with Someone in Fall Out Boy and All I Got Was This Stupid Song Written About Me" that I really quite enjoy.Also, I wrote my very first Wal-Mart joke this morning:As I completed my grocery shopping at Wal-Mart I wheeled the cart up toward the series of registers only to notice a sign above each register stating "Tattooed Patrons Only." I stopped the manager and asked him where the non-tattooed patrons checked out. He answered me "The express lane."
—Daniel
