Alistair Fury is out for revenge. No more running errands. No more being called ' Alice'! It's payback time for his embarrassing mum, his bone-idle dad, & his constantly teasing older brother & sister.

Only Alistair's two best friends
- & this, his private diary
- share his secrets. Culminating in a scene involving a snake, a toupee & a live TV broadcast, Alistair tries to wreak spectacular revenge but it doesn't exactly go according to plan...

In lively & accessible diary form, this is a story of family life at its funniest, packed with schoolboy humour.





...

Alistair is fed up at being treated like a slave while the rest of the family is ill. Not even lacing his brother & sister's medicine with washing-up liquid gets him off nursing duties!

He's still busy trying to hatch the perfect plot for revenge when they're all dragged off to Ireland for a family funeral. Soon, Alistair's plans are full of spooks, spirits & bones. But his brother & sister have similar ideas... !

In lively & accessible diary form, this is a story of family life at its funniest, packed with schoolboy humour.



...

Alistair Fury is out for revenge. No more running errands. No more being called ' Alice'! It's payback time for his embarrassing mum, his bone-idle dad, & his constantly teasing older brother & sister.

Only Alistair's two best friends
- & this, his private diary
- share his secrets. Culminating in a scene involving a snake, a toupee & a live TV broadcast, Alistair tries to wreak spectacular revenge but it doesn't exactly go according to plan...

In lively & accessible diary form, this is a story of family life at its funniest, packed with schoolboy humour.





...

Alistair Fury is out for revenge. No more running errands. No more being called ' Alice'! It's payback time for his embarrassing mum, his bone-idle dad, & his constantly teasing older brother & sister.

Only Alistair's two best friends
- & this, his private diary
- share his secrets. Culminating in a scene involving a snake, a toupee & a live TV broadcast, Alistair tries to wreak spectacular revenge but it doesn't exactly go according to plan...

In lively & accessible diary form, this is a story of family life at its funniest, packed with schoolboy humour.





...

Alistair Fury is out for revenge. No more running errands. No more being called ' Alice'! It's payback time for his embarrassing mum, his bone-idle dad, & his constantly teasing older brother & sister.

Only Alistair's two best friends
- & this, his private diary
- share his secrets. Culminating in a scene involving a snake, a toupee & a live TV broadcast, Alistair tries to wreak spectacular revenge but it doesn't exactly go according to plan...

In lively & accessible diary form, this is a story of family life at its funniest, packed with schoolboy humour.





...

Alistair Fury is out for revenge. No more running errands. No more being called ' Alice'! It's payback time for his embarrassing mum, his bone-idle dad, & his constantly teasing older brother & sister.

Only Alistair's two best friends
- & this, his private diary
- share his secrets. Culminating in a scene involving a snake, a toupee & a live TV broadcast, Alistair tries to wreak spectacular revenge but it doesn't exactly go according to plan...

In lively & accessible diary form, this is a story of family life at its funniest, packed with schoolboy humour.





...

Alistair Fury is out for revenge. No more running errands. No more being called ' Alice'! It's payback time for his embarrassing mum, his bone-idle dad, & his constantly teasing older brother & sister.

Only Alistair's two best friends
- & this, his private diary
- share his secrets. Culminating in a scene involving a snake, a toupee & a live TV broadcast, Alistair tries to wreak spectacular revenge but it doesn't exactly go according to plan...

In lively & accessible diary form, this is a story of family life at its funniest, packed with schoolboy humour.





...

Alistair Fury is out for revenge. No more running errands. No more being called ' Alice'! It's payback time for his embarrassing mum, his bone-idle dad, & his constantly teasing older brother & sister.

Only Alistair's two best friends
- & this, his private diary
- share his secrets. Culminating in a scene involving a snake, a toupee & a live TV broadcast, Alistair tries to wreak spectacular revenge but it doesn't exactly go according to plan...

In lively & accessible diary form, this is a story of family life at its funniest, packed with schoolboy humour.





...

Alistair Fury is out for revenge. No more running errands. No more being called ' Alice'! It's payback time for his embarrassing mum, his bone-idle dad, & his constantly teasing older brother & sister.

Only Alistair's two best friends
- & this, his private diary
- share his secrets. Culminating in a scene involving a snake, a toupee & a live TV broadcast, Alistair tries to wreak spectacular revenge but it doesn't exactly go according to plan...

In lively & accessible diary form, this is a story of family life at its funniest, packed with schoolboy humour.





...

How did the Texas cattle rancher Samuel A. Maverick end up contributing his name to the language? What is the connection between a rather unflattering item of clothing & the French trapeze artist Jules Léotard? Which filling did the Earl of Sandwich opt for when he made his great culinary invention? & was there really a Sir Oswald Binge whose week-long feasts were notorious for their excess?

The Reverend Guppy's Aquarium answers these & many other questions drawn from the remoter corners of the English language, exploring the lives of an extraordinarily diverse range of people who happen to have one thing in common: by chance or deliberately, they have left their names deeply embedded in the language & consciousness of future generations. Each figure has something to tell us about a particular moment of history, or a discovery or invention, whether it's László Biró & his pioneering writing implement, or Mercédès Jellinek, who lent her name to a certain make of car, or Étienne de Silhouette who, having fallen from grace at the French court, spent much of the later part of his life mournfully cutting out paper shapes. Not to mention the Reverend Robert Lechmere Guppy, fish-discoverer extraordinary.

Each life in The Reverend Guppy's Aquarium is quirky & often bizarre. Few of them would merit a footnote, let alone an entry, in the history books. But they all reveal that the prospect of immortality is only a fluke away. In an age of instant 15-minute celebrity, that's a reassuring thought.



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