Have It All

Mad, Bad, Dangerous to Know?

It’s pretty obvious reading this book that Political and Correctness are not words that occur close together in Attrib’s vocabulary. Have It All is in places very funny, and at times very rude. Despite its unremitting lack of seriousness (apart from one chapter some way into the book when the author pulls off a disturbing switch of tone) there’s a subtext that gives the book real depth, and though at times the humour comes close to desperation, and the rudeness gets close to the bone, it’s because there are solid bones below the surface. Clearly his targets deserve the ridicule they get here - an NHS that has lost its way, cynically manipulative politicians, psychiatrists and other experts who do more harm than good, farmers covering up food scandals, the swathe of small-minded and self-interested middle-classes - it’s a shotgun attack on modern England, however any suspicion this is the usual leftie propaganda packed especially tight is dispelled when a small but avaricious foreign trollop thrusts herself into the plot to outdo the natives in bad behaviour.
The plot? Well it involves mad cows, health service privatisation, disputed inheritances, extra-marital affairs, a couple of bizarre murders, and - as you might expect with all this going on – it moves at a fast pace to hammer everything in. At times it does drift into caricature and teeters on the edge between farce and satire, and the targets are so wide-spread that focus is sometimes lost in favour of easy jokes, but all in all I have the feeling that if Joe Orton were still alive he’d recognise a kindred spirit.