Was the Battle of Hastings a French victory? Non! William the Conqueror was Norman and hated the French. Were the Brits really responsible for the death of Joan of Arc? Non! The French sentenced her to death for wearing trousers. Was the guillotine a French invention? Non! It was invented in Yorkshire. Ten centuries' worth of French historical 'facts' bite the dust as Stephen Clarke looks at what has really been going on since 1066...

What if teleportation was really possible? Englishman Richie Fisher is about to find out… Richie and his wife Clara have won a weekend in New York in a newspaper competition. While Clara is off blowing their spending money, Richie wanders aimlessly, chewing on a veggie-burger, ending up in a gift-shop where he finds himself standing in front of an instant transporter machine. It looks nothing like the open-plan teleporter on Captain Kirk’s Starship Enterprise; in fact, it seems more like a glorified microwave oven.Richie places his burger inside, hits the return key on the linked-up computer — and the burger disappears. But if he can teleport a half-eaten veggie-burger, what else could you do with the machine? For criminals, the possibilities are endless. Who could catch you if you beamed drugs into nostrils a hundred miles away? And how much would illegal immigrants pay to be teleported into the rich host country of their choice? Richie buys a teleporter and takes it back to England, where the chaos begins...

Englishman Paul West has just received an offer he can't refuse: two weeks in the sun, all expenses paid, with a beautiful blonde called Gloria Monday. M, as Gloria likes to be known, is down south to report on caviar trafficking but it soon becomes obvious that she s interested in something a lot more fishy than caviar. Meanwhile Paul s best friend Elodie is marrying a French aristocrat, and Paul is asked to do the catering. Cooking for the French is a risky assignment at the best of times, but Paul, who is starting to feel a bit like James Bond, assures her that nothing can go wrong. Or can it? As Paul is sexually harassed by an English hen party, picked on by French commandoes and arrested by excitable gendarmes, he realises that events are spiralling out of control. And when he discovers that M s real target is France s biggest fish of all the new President and that he s coming to Elodie s wedding, Paul knows that the merde really is about to hit the fan.

DON`T GO TO FRANCE WITHOUT READING THIS BOOK!

A year after arriving in France, Englishman Paul West is still struggling with some fundamental questions: What is the best way to scare a gendarme? Why are there no health warnings on French nudist beaches? And is it really polite to sleep with your boss' mistress? Paul opens his English tea room, and mutates (temporarily) into a Parisian waiter; samples the pleasures of typically French hotel-room afternoons; and, on a return visit to the UK, sees the full horror of a British office party through Parisian eyes. Meanwhile, he continues his search for the perfect French mademoiselle. But will Paul find l'amour eternel, or will it all end in merde? In his second comedy of errors, Paul West continues to sabotage the entente cordiale. Author's apology: I'd just like to say sorry to all the suppository fans out there, because in this book there are no suppositories. There are, however, lots of courgettes, and I see this as progress. Suppositories to courgettes — I think it proves that I'm developing as a writer. Stephen Clarke.