Pistache

pistache, pis-tash n a friendly spoof or parody of another s work. Deriv uncertain. Possibly a cross between pastiche and p**stake. No good writer is beyond parody; that is his tragedy. Few of the bad ones are, either; and that is theirs. From James Joyce s best man s speech to Thomas Hardy s football report, Samuel Beckett s monologue for Ronnie Corbett and John Updike s cookery book - the work of the great and the not-so-great is here sent up with little hope of coming down. Most of these pieces began their life on Radio Four s The Write Stuff, but have been retooled for the printed page. Others, such as Martin Amis s first day at Hogwarts, have been written specially for this book. Philip Larkin s Lines in Celebration of the Queen Mother s 115th Birthday, first banned, then cut by the BBC, appears in its entirety for the first time. This is not a book for the faint-hearted or the deferential. It is a book for the bedside table of someone you would like to sleep with.