Theodore Dalrymple is a psychiatrist and expert-witness in murder trials. After working as a doctor in Africa and the Gilbert Islands, he returned to Britain and worked in prisons and hospitals in the East End of London, the Midlands, and Birmingham. He is a contributor to The Times, Telegraph, Wall Street Journal, Spectator, and an Oldie columnist. He is the author of several books, including the acclaimed Spoilt Rotten, The Knife Went In and In Praise of Folly.

* CRITIC, Sebastian Millbank 'A thoroughly entertaining read.... If Evelyn Waugh wove tragic satires..., Dalrymple repeats them ... as a fat, tattooed, absurdly self-forgetting country rolls blindly into the civilisational sunset.... The many absurdities, cruelties, and stupidities we now take for granted in modern life are made searingly visible.... The emperor not only has no clothes, but a pendulous belly and a very unflattering sleeve tattoo. In a society that puts up with, and even celebrates, mediocrity, ugliness and individualism, this is a refreshing corrective.' * DAILY MAIL, Peter Hitchens 'Lays bare a litter-strewn nation... the vandalising of Britain... [and] how deeply our governing classes have surrendered.' * TABLET 'Very funny... particularly good on the misuse of language... elegant prose meets Alexander Pope's definition of wit.'* Virginia Ironside 'I love [this book].'