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Ozzie's Cocaine Breast Milk

Customer Rating:

The comedian and political activist takes on the gun trade in this book and shows how a good mind for Cluedo, a knowledge of legal loopholes and a telephone is all he needs to sell arms to Zimbabwe or any other dispicable regime. It's so easy in fact that as part of his experiment a bunch of school kids and a Catholic Nun also set themselves up as arms dealers and can ship mines and grenades across the world. As one of the reviews on the back of the book says this is "John Pilger with jokes" and the book is laugh out loud funny, though it is laughter tinged with despair given the seriousness of the topic at hand and murky grey morals of the world Thomas manages to infiltrate. In between chaining himself to buses or embarrasing politicians he manages to trick Indonesian generals into admitting to war crimes on camera or flog torture equipment and manacles with the tagline "As Used on the Famous Nelson Mandela". His righteous anger is suffused throughout and yet to his own surprise he grows fond of the minder sent to keep an eye on him at an Arms Fair, feels doubt about shopping a dealer (who lives in Brockley!) to the authorities as he believes the dealer has a young daughter and whilst out in Western Sahara he finds his own expectations confounded when he thinks he's supporting a noble and just cause against imperialism and foreign occupation but see's also that the rebels glorify in the deaths of their enemies and hoard trinkets taken from the dead bodies of Moroccan troops. Thought provoking and eye opening. I look forward to, especially as someone with Colombian heritage, the next one in which he turns his gaze towards the Cola industry

Who said Politics was boring?

Customer Rating:

I have watched Mark Thomas on television for years now and have always thought he was brilliant. This is his first book and his writing style is very like his stand up routine. As I read the book I could almost see him standing up on stage reciting the words. The book charts Mark investigates Britain involvement in the armaments industry and how much influence the arms companies have over the government here. It is a brilliant read very informative the only thing I would say is that it would be good if he had an action plan for people to get involved.

Startling, Informative, Hilarious, Essential Reading!

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It's not often that "Arms Trade" and "Satirical Comedy" get mentioned in the same sentence, but those phrases would sit fine with this book. Mark Thomas has transformed from a stand-up comic that went on demonstrations into a political activist that does stand-up, and in a way this book documents that. His C4 show, the Mark Thomas Comedy Product, used to poke fun at the police and his stand up shows would announce his great plan for getting junk mail reduced (get all the freebies sent to Michael Heseltine's address). As his ideas developed, they got wilder, until he had this idea of attending an arms fair as a PR man. And so the book begins. Being able to describe such a subject matter with humour is an awesome achievement, and the description of the Penis of Peace is just one example of taking the sublime to the ridiculous in the space of a page. The encounter with the man who sold Michael Ryan his gun is intrigiung, and the stand off with the Hindujas is engrossing. If you like proper political satire, and you want the facts that BAE don't want you to know, then you need to read this book.

Brave, well-written, funny, important, a must-read

Customer Rating:

A well-written account of Mark Thomas' investigations into, and brave confrontations with, arms brokers up to 2006. It's important to note that this is arms brokering rather than arms use and so while there are guns and torture weapons on display, this book isn't set in a warzone- it is set in the bizarrely convoluted and loophole-ridden world of British politics, EU embargoes, Channel 4 exposes and large arms trade fairs at London's ExCeL centre. It's more jaw-droppingly staggering than it is funny, but it is funny. The humour is mostly one long string of incredulousness ("can you believe that these schoolchildren were able to buy these grotesque sting sticks just from a few phone calls?"), as well as coming from some of the variety of characters Thomas meets- both arms brokers and activists- who Thomas will warmly laugh with, as well as laugh at. The sheer warmth and obvious importance of the subject is easily enough to get you through the occasional slightly dense paragraph of lists or regulations details. Thomas throws in just a little introspection and self-depreciation for good measure, as he talks about trying to come to terms with this new position working for "the Man" instead of his previous absolutely anti-Government point of view. Overall a brilliant book. Book readers and everybody else in Britain would be better off if there were far more people writing like, but most importantly behaving like, Mark Thomas.

Serious Comedy Product

Customer Rating:

A hearty recommendation. Thomas is a likeable narrator and his mix of anger, despair and hope at the world and the morals of its inhabitants is touching. The book chapters his (somewhat successful) attempts to change legislation on arms trading, weaving facts and figures with a narrative of his visits abroad, to parliament, to arms fairs and to police stations as he switches between posing as arms brokers and buyers and participating in direct action against them. Stand-out sections include his recruiting school-age 'arms dealers' to shame the Irish government and his accompaniment around an arms fair by an affable minder who is able to knowledgably and loudly describe the killing potential of various displayed weapons as Thomas films on his camcorder, much to the discomfort of the stallholders. Superb!