Description
Witty, thought-provoking, infuriating and entertaining – Bob Lowe is in good form as he follows up the success of That’s Me Without the Tie with the second volume in what he likes to refer to as the ‘the old trilogy’.
His subject matter is loosely divided in three parts – based on his experiences in his parish, in the media, and on those overseas trips in which, as he puts it, his position as freeloader is dignified by the title ‘Tour Escort’.
‘Not,’ he writes, ‘that I would have you believe that this threefold division of interest has resulted in a work of close-reasoned logic. Herein lies no literary banquet – rather a scrambled egg in which odd bits of yolk fall everywhere, some remaining on the author’s face. I shoot off at odd tangents with bits on cricket, rugby, golf, Muldoon, the Pope (I think Rob would approve of that order) and bishops.’
And there are bits on a lot of other matters too. Readers will particularly enjoy the account of a cremation which went hideously awry; the tale of the bibulous English lord who got his just deserts in the end; and the antics of Kiwis abroad remaining staunchly loyal to home and determinedly unimpressed by the likes of Michelangelo and his four years spent painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (‘Try living in a state house and see how long it takes to get anything done!’).
Controversial, filled with hilarious anecdote and enlightened insight, and permeated by a faith which has been ‘battered by doubt, frozen in long winters and reborn in a thousand springtimes’, Sin and Tonic makes good reading.
Hardcover, 167 pages. In excellent condition with the exception of a handwritten inscription inside the front cover.
