Glitzch!

"Shome mishtake surely? One heaven-sent misprint turns Horatio into publicity agent for Hamlet (or "Helmet", as Hugh Kellett has it). Puns, slips of the tongue, Freudian or other, have a long pedigree as a source of innocent mirth and imaginative fun. A spoonerism, probably apocryphal, has the Warden of New College Oxford call, on Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee, for "Three cheers for our queer old dean". Hugh Kellett takes this a stage further in Glitzch!, where similarly VR, DF emerges as "Queer Vicar" and "Offender of the Fairy" (surreal, since Disraeli (her "Primary Monster" did actually call her "The Faery". Bishops turn plausibly into "Bisons" and the Bible begins (not ends) with "Nemesis". The predictive facility of Hugh's computer goes into glorious overdrive in mischief-making, and e-communication (excommunication?) is enthroned as the modern Lord of Misrule. The dedication "To my daring wife" appears on the title page above the standard admonition, which ranks with Spooner: "All tights reversed." Britain, land of "trial by Judy", fought the "Crimson War" against the "Ruffians", where the pioneer of modern nursing was "Floral Nightgown". And so on. Plenty of goodies (some rather rude) in this beautifully produced and illustrated cornucopia of linguistic fantasy. Bromo, High! Keep a tub!" - Anthony Lentin, Professor of History at Cambridge University "What would our history books look like if they had been recorded using this often unreliable texting system? [Glitzch!] imagines exactly that - with some hilarious results." - The Sun "Mr Kellett from Cambridge, came up with the idea a few years ago when he sent an "exceptionally rude" text message to a friend by mistake. Since then he has been testing what alternative readings of history are offered by predictive texting - and noting down the funniest." - The Daily Telegraph "Ballsy and bombastic, full of Freudian slips and Chaucerian bawdiness, and already being compared with Spooner, this is "Brutish hysteria" (British history) as you've never seen it before." - BristolMedia