Aaaargh!

In Heaven’s Waiting Room Private Hospital, Nursing Home, Mortuary and Crematorium (‘The One-Stop Mortality Service’), Simon Hamartian dictates his autobiography. This covers his education in England, his eventual National Service in Cyprus, his chaotic lecturing jobs, in Irmskirk, Lancashire, at an unusual African university, and finally Egregius (sic) Professor of History at Boadicea University, Daventry. The provocative theories of his friend, Sir Gregorius Troughmoulder, recently crushed to death by an escaped circus elephant, are frequently quoted. Indeed, several whimsical deaths (usually accompanied by ‘Aaaargh!’) punctuate the narrative. Dictation is constantly interrupted by eccentric medics, and by visitors who eventually reveal the strange truth about both Simon and Gregorius. Aaaargh is a quirky mystery stuffed with subtle humour and bizarre wit; it is also a trenchant comic satire against authority in education, medicine, the army, politics and the police.