The Last Man Lunching and Other Such Tales

The Last Man Lunching and Other Such Tales’ is a glorious romp through the fictitious world of AJ Frobisher, an Officer and a Gentleman, and, in the true spirit of P.G. Wodehouse’s Bertie Wooster (only this time on steroids), it is a triumph of adversity over triumph! Each chapter contains a separate story, spun from one of the many, many incidents in his shambolic life and range from his days as a mere youth in post World War II England to an age when he really should’ve known better! It is daft; it is silly, but, more than that, it is highly amusing, as Frobisher battles with love, life and fate and everything else that gets in the way and anything that can go wrong usually does, but, undaunted, Frobisher faces each challenge with the tenacity of a limpet clinging to a sinking ship!

‘The Last Man Lunching and Other Such Tales’ is a glorious romp through the fictitious world of AJ Frobisher, an Officer and a Gentleman, and, in the true spirit of P.G. Wodehouse’s Bertie Wooster, only this time on steroids, it is a triumph of adversity over triumph! Each chapter contains a separate story, spun from one of the many incidents in his shambolic life and range from his days as a mere youth in post World War II England to an age when he really should’ve known better! It is daft; it is silly, but, more than that, it is highly amusing, as Frobisher battles with love, life and fate and everything else that gets in the way and anything that can go wrong usually does, but, undaunted, Frobisher faces each challenge with the tenacity of a limpet clinging to a sinking ship! A run-down of each chapter gives you a flavour of the madness to come! The book opens with ‘Great Aunt Dotty’s Will or How to Lose a Fortune Without Really Trying’, a cautionary tale of bodysnatching and skullduggery between rival factions of Frobisher’s family, as he tries desperately to help his father inherit Great Aunt Dotty’s fortune under the eccentric terms of her will. ‘Two Cups of Tea and a Slice of Revolution, Please or How to Lose an Election and Win at the Same Time!’, is a sobering tale of revolutionary, political intrigue and scandal, involving blackmail, mad monks, Groucho Marx and, of course, sex, as Frobisher attempts to get elected to his local Parish Council to stop it closing down the village pub, his home from home, due to the disorderly behaviour of its clientele. ‘The Last Man Lunching or Death by a 1,000 Cold Cuts!’, is an essay on how to scrounge a free lunch under even the most unfavourable circumstances when the chips are down and disgustingly greasy and served up with a soggy fried egg and a dollop of congealed baked beans on the side. It is the ultimate proof, though, that there’s no such thing as a free lunch! ‘An Expensive Lesson To Learn or a Bit of a Boob or Two!’ takes Frobisher back to his prep school days for an early lesson in lust and how the temptations of the flesh can lead even the most innocent of lads astray, fortunately! In the end, though, he loses more than just his innocence in a deal with the Devil, in the guise of Fatty Johnson, the school lowlife! On the other hand, ‘Times Past, Times Forgotten, Times Remembered, Times Roman’ is set decades later, long after the first flush of his youth and brings back into his life the memory of a long, forgotten fling or rather the offspring of that flung fling in the form of a mystery blonde called Daisy. It is while unravelling her tale that Frobisher discovers more about his past than even he thought he knew! ‘Me and Khrushchev or Down and Out on My Cuban Heels’ charts one man’s valiant attempt to survive the Cuban Missile Crisis on just vintage port and the last of his Havana cigars. As America and the Soviet Union stood eyeball to eyeball on the brink of mutually assured destruction, Frobisher, suffering his worst hangover for ages, dispenses advice from his cellar to the ‘Powers-That-Be’ who fortunately return it, unopened, address unknown, otherwise, who knows, we might all have gone up in smoke! Lastly, ‘The Case of The Missing Vegetable or Thrilled to the Marrow!’ demonstrates the depths of depravity that gardeners will descend to in order to win the coveted, first prize in class trophy at the Annual Village Produce Show. No trick is too diabolical or too low not to be used and Frobisher’s bid to snatch top spot in the Best of Marrows competition from rival, arch vegetable grower and ex-military man, Major Barstow-Jones, aka Major Blunderbuss, is about as diabolically low as it can get! ‘The Last Man Lunching and Other Such Tales’ is a fun-packed, often hilarious, collection of tales that displays the British sense of humour at its best. It will keep you amused from start to finish!

After a lifetime of songwriting, Tony Craig has finally written his first book, ‘The Last Man Lunching and Other Such Tales’, the humorous memoirs of the book’s fictitious hero, AJ Frobisher, an Officer and Gentleman. The book chronicles some of the catastrophes and disasters of a shambolically-lived life, (and, no, it is not autobiographical!). Tony, a former Londoner, now lives full-time in France and, much to the amusement of his French neighbours, drives a car from yesteryear, a 1968 Morris Minor Traveller, (occasionally on the wrong side of the road, too). He tries to grow vegetables and fruit to eat, but mainly uses them to keep a large population of snails and slugs thriving in his back garden. He also writes a blog on his website, http://tonycraig.org, describing the perils of living as an Englishman abroad and has a web page devoted to his music and his work involved in the music industry. In his time, he had songs recorded on virtually every major record label from EMI to Polydor to A&M to Sony/CBS to RCA etc. He even has a Gold Disc! He also wrote advertising jingles for his sins (well, also for money!) and, if you ever bought Dutch Butter in the 1970s in the UK, it was probably him who helped persuade you to do so! He is currently struggling to get fit enough to keep fit and would welcome any suggestions that don’t involve exercise. Apart from that, he still shouts at politicians on the radio, usually those being interviewed on the Today Programme on BBC Radio 4, which he continues to listen to in France on long wave, though he does begrudgingly concede that the Council Tax going up yet again in the London Borough of Brent has no longer any relevance to him, now he lives somewhat abroad. However, it is the principle that counts, although he couldn’t tell what he pays in local, French taxes either, as it’s all in euros and makes no sense whatsoever to him! As for things like education and qualifications, it’s a lifetime ago. He has enough trouble these days just working out his change in the supermarkets, let alone being able to remember some obscure Law of Physics that he once knew by heart. He did pass exams, but he would have to take a degree course now to remember what they were! However, he is particularly proud of his French Driving Licence, which he was awarded by virtue of handing in his old English one to the appropriate Motoring Authorities in France and which he did without once embarrassing himself by saying the wrong thing in the wrong place in his version of the French language. He loves ‘la vie française’. He hasn’t quite yet got a beret, but he can be seen wandering back from the bakers with a baguette under his arm. He thought he would miss London, but there is a lot of culture where he lives and a vibrant theatre scene. When he now goes back to London, it is as a tourist. He even gets lost on London Underground and as he no longer has deadlines or needs to get anywhere by a certain time, he can even smile and sit back smugly when the train he is on gets stuck in the tunnel! Living by the sea where rush hour traffic is all of three cars can de-stress anyone! Finally, if he had to give one Trivial Pursuit question about himself that no one would ever get right, it would be, “What was the name of the artist, who recorded one of his songs, which was to become his first ever 7” single record to be released, back in the good, old days of vinyl?” The answer is Clare Torrey, the wonderful singer, who gave that amazing, virtuoso, vocal performance on ‘The Great Gig In The Sky’ on the epic Pink Floyd album, ‘Dark Side of the Moon’. (Ah! Now everyone knows the answer!)