Martin Bell OBE has been many things
- an icon of BBC war reporting Britains first independent MP for 50 years a UNICEF ambassador & the man in the white suit
- a tireless campaigner for honesty & accountability in politics. But as his new book reveals hes also a poet of light verse & here Bells poems continue his war by other means on duplicitous politicians our all-consuming media the venality of celebrity culture & much more. Oscillating between trenchant satire & touching honesty often poignant autobiography spiced with gentle humour Bell presents poems on Tony Blair & Iraq on Radovan Karadzic the Serbian war criminal whom he met on trial in the Hague on his hero Reuters reporter Kurt Schork killed on assignment in Sierra Leone & colourful episodes from his work & life from the chart-topping calypso written about him in St Lucia to his being a guest at Idi Amins wedding:
- that by God / Was well worth doing if distinctly odd. Topical timely
- the book will include poems on key events in 2011
- & with Martins irrepressible guiding voice For Whom the Bell Tolls will be the perfect fireside companion this Christmas from the man convinced that life begins at three score years & ten.