Ever said sorry to an inanimate object? Formed a queue... on your own? Or spent the whole night standing naked in a stranger's cupboard because you're too polite to ask for help? (Don't ask.) Being British isn't easy. Especially if you live abroad, where your countrymen aren't exactly famous for, well, blending in. As his beloved homeland goes Brexit bananas, bestselling humourist Paul Hawkins takes on Britishness - how it looks from the outside, how to be British abroad and what you only learn about home once you leave it. In this self-deprecating (and only mildly treacherous) handbook, he reveals the awkward secrets, cultural blind-spots and private oddness of the people he once shared an island with. (Revenge is a dish best served politely, after all...) Part memoir, part cheat-sheet for decoding a nation of well-meaning misfits, The Bloody British is full of hilarious insights about Britishness gleaned (often begrudgingly) from the author's own time as another country's foreigner. What does Europe think of us? Featuring invaluable advice for all Brits, expats, brexpats and visitors to the UK alike, including: · The Brit Abroad Language-Speaking Plan · How to be Rude, Politely (the secret code of passive-aggression) · How to be Mean, Nicely (the unwritten rules of successful banter) · ... plus an illustrated Integration Guide for British Refugees in Europe (just in case) For all fans of Very British Problems, Douglas Adams and Bill Bryson, it's the perfect gift for the socially awkward oddball in your life (especially if that socially awkward oddball is you.) Are you ready to meet The Bloody British?

Britain has an incredible history, steeped in all manner of blood, death, disease and horror. From cannibals to concentration camps, Geoff Holder covers events both great and gory from Britain’s terrible past, with kings, queens and pretenders to the throne; sea battles, massacres and attacks from the air. This collection explores it all, with hundreds of amazing true stories, including seven ill-judged attempts to assassinate Queen Victoria and the Gestapo’s secret plans to bring a conquered Britain to its knees. There will be blood . . .

Britain has an incredible history, steeped in all manner of blood, death, disease and horror. From cannibals to concentration camps, Geoff Holder covers events both great and gory from Britain's terrible past, with kings, queens and pretenders to the throne; sea battles, massacres and attacks from the air. This collection explores it all, with hundreds of amazing true stories, including seven ill-judged attempts to assassinate Queen Victoria and the Gestapo's secret plans to bring a conquered Britain to its knees. There will be blood ...

The past decade in the UK saw the rise of the British National Party, the country’s most successful ever far-right political movement, and the emergence of the anti-Islamic English Defence League. Taking aim at asylum seekers, Muslims, ‘enforced multiculturalism’ and benefit ‘scroungers’, these groups have been working overtime to shift the blame for the nation’s ills onto the shoulders of the vulnerable. What does this extremist resurgence say about the state of modern Britain? Drawing on archival research and extensive interviews with key figures, such as BNP leader Nick Griffin, Daniel Trilling shows how previously marginal characters from a tiny neo-Nazi subculture successfully exploited tensions exacerbated by the fear of immigration, the War on Terror and steepening economic inequality. Mainstream politicians have consistently underestimated the far right in Britain while pursuing policies that give it the space to grow. Bloody Nasty People calls time on this complacency in an account that provides us with fresh insights into the dynamics of political extremism.

O. G. S. Crawford (1886-1957) thought history held the answers to everything. A field archaeologist, he later became a photographer flying over the Western Front during the First World War - an experience that made him a pioneer of aerial archaeology. An impassioned Marxist, it seemed to him that 1930s Britain would soon disappear, conquered by history's inevitable march to world socialism, and he made a photographic study of everyday things - churches and advertising hoardings - as future evidence of how unenlightened British society had once been. Later there came angry disillusionment and a book, too bitter to be published, called Bloody Old Britain. In recounting Crawford's extraordinary story, Kitty Hauser uses many of his photographs and penetrates neglected but fascinating aspects of British life and belief that have themselves become history.

Former soldier Ken Wharton witnessed the troubles in Northern Ireland first hand. Bloody Belfast is a fascinating oral history given a chilling insight into the killing grounds of Belfast's streets. Wharton's work is based on first hand accounts from the soldiers. The reader can walk the darkened, dangerous streets of the Lower Falls, the Divis Flats and New Lodge alongside the soldiers who braved the hate-filled mobs on the newer, but no less violent streets of the 'Murph, Turf Lodge and Andersonstown. The author has interviewed UDR soldier Glen Espie who survived being ambushed and shot by the IRA not once, but twice, and Army Dog Handler Dougie Durrant, who, through the incredible ability of his dog, tracked an IRA gunman fresh from the murder of a soldier to where he was sitting in a hot bath in the Turf Lodge, desperately trying to wash away the forensic evidence. Wharton's reputation for honesty established from previous works has encouraged more former soldiers of Britain's forgotten army to come forward to tell their stories of Bloody Belfast. The book continues the story of his previous work, presenting the truth about a conflict which has sometimes been deliberately underplayed by the Establishment.

Manchester has one of the darkest histories in Britain. From the Screaming Skull of Wardley Hall to an epidemic of deadly factory fires in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, you will find all manner of horrible events inside this book. With coffins washed from their graves and swept away into the city after the River Medlock burst its banks, and the streets of Salford, Gorton and Openshaw overrun by gangs in the latter quarter of the nineteenth century, as well as murders, riots, battles and plagues, the grimmest events in Manchester’s history are all here for you to explore. Read this gory and glorious book ... if you dare!