With his only friend a computer, Walden Yapp has lived a singular life. Professor of Demotic History at the University of Kloone, Yapp spends his days highlighting the corrupt capitalistic nature of the upper-classes, and his nights feeding Doris his computer the information he has gathered So when capitalist Lord Petrefact hires him to write a damaging family history, Yapp seizes the chance to chronicle the corrupt life of the Petrefact family. Spurred on by his expectations of dishonesty and depravity Yapp heads of the town of Buscott, where nobody is what they at first appear to be. Now a pawn in Lord Petrefact’s vindictive family game, Yapp’s presence is as welcome as the plague. From provoking dwarfish marital problems to uncovering an erotic toy factory Yapp’s presence sparks a chain of events that ends in death, destruction and a murder trial. Going through a car wash will never feel the same again.

When Lockhart Flawse is catapulted out of his upper-class and rapunzel-esque life with the curmudgeonly Flawse Senior, he must enter the world of suburbia, and marriage. Rendered an absolute twit in modern society by his medieval upbringing, Lockhart must resort to drastic tactics in his attempt to return to Flawse House. Faced with the horrors of suburbia, he must either terrorise, blackmail and potentially kill an entire street of his tenants, or attempt to find his unknown and elusive father in order to inherit the estate. However, with the belief that he was dropped into his mother's arms by a stork, killing a street of people may be the wiser option for the socially inept young man. He is also under mounting pressure, as it may all be in vain if his gold-digging mother-in-law has her way. Now the wife of Flawse Senior, she has decided that if Lockhart's wealthy grandfather can't have the decency to die on his own, she will take matters into her own hands.

In the wild night hours, or during the heat of the day - whenever man's thoughts whirl feverishly - then truth and fantasy, the past and the future, life and death are indiscriminately mingled on Toorberg, home of the Moolman family. So the magistrate is to learn as he investigates the strange circumstances of the death of little Noah, child of grief, who was not entirely of this world. Every day the case becomes more complex, until it challenges the very foundations of the law. It seems as if the magistrate will have to judge an entire dynasty, both the living and the dead. Everyone's guilt has to be affirmed, or denied, and this means he will have to rip open the lives of all. The Moolmans are a tribe who have long since learned how to deal with their own. Parents cut children out of their lives, shunt them aside to live as stepchildren, scrag-ends of the clan, or as city-dwellers whose names are never uttered. The Moolmans cannot forgive; not when their tribal blood is betrayed.

A South African woman struggles to convince the police that she has murdered her black cook.

______________________________ The 'endlessly funny' novel widely regarded as a classic of comic English literature Porterhouse College is world renowned for its gastronomic excellence, the arrogance of its Fellows, its academic mediocrity and the social cache it confers on the athletic sons of country families. Sir Godber Evans, ex-Cabinet Minister and the new Master, is determined to change all this. Spurred on by his politically angular wife, Lady Mary, he challenges the established order and provokes the wrath of the Dean, the Senior Tutor, the Bursar and, most intransigent of all, Skullion the Head Porter - with hilarious and catastrophic results.

The landscape is flawless, the trees majestic, the flora and the fauna are right and proper. All is picturesquely typical of rural England at its best. Sir Giles, an MP of few principles and curious tastes, plots to destroy all this by building a motorway smack through it, to line his own pocket and at the same time to dispose of his wife, the capacious Lady Maude. But Lady Maude enlists a surprising ally in her enigmatic gardener Blott, a naturalised Englishman in whom adopted patriotism burns bright. Lady Maude's dynamism and Blott's concealed talents enable them to meet pressure with mimicry, loaded tribunals with publicity and chilli powder, and requisition orders with wickedly spiked beer. This explosively comic novel will gladden the heart of everyone who has ever confronted a bureaucrat, and spells out in riotous detail how the forces of virtue play an exceedingly dirty game when the issue is close to home.

Peregrine Roderick Clyde-Brown is a bumbling, naive and savagely dim-witted teenager, who, as his name reveals, cannot possibly be exposed to the evils of a comprehensive school. However, with his penchant for taking even the most innocent command literally, no reputable school will accept the boy who, when told that he must turn over a new leaf, begins fondling the foliage. His parents, with high hopes and a considerable amount of bribery money, search for anywhere that will take their 'late developer.' In a school that time forgot, Peregrine's 'talents' for taking orders and having no discernible individual thought seem perfect for a promising career in the upper ranks of the British Army. It is at Groxbourne that Peregrine meets Mr Gladstone, a man whose teaching style extends as far as using lashings to teach arithmetic. After Gladstone whisks the unquestioning boy off on a hysterical mystery, Peregrine ends up storming a French castle, where he unwaveringly commits mischief, mayhem and even murder!

This book is a course in contrastive linguistics and translation which introduces the basics of linguistic analysis as applied to translation. Translation is presented as a problem-solving activity and linguistic analysis is proposed as a useful methodological tool to identify a wide range of translation problems. The course adopts a method which starts with the translation of words and goes up, step by step, through the different levels of linguistic structure to the level of pragmatic context. Myriad examples and a wide variety of exercises enable readers to acquire and practise some of the most common strategies translators use to solve the problems encountered at the different levels of linguistic analysis. The book aims at providing students with the theoretical and methodological tools needed to reinforce their linguistic and textual competence in the languages involved and make adequate progress along the translation process. As theoretical tools, students are given an overview of basic translation concepts and linguistic tools central to contrastive linguistics and textual analysis. As methodological tools, students are presented with a working method that, at the beginning, will allow them to grasp the principles and strategies that govern general translation, and which they could later extrapolate to specialised translation.