Author: CT Grey
Publisher: MacMillan
Rating: worthy
Fifty Sheds of Grey is quite plainly and simply hilarious. It's a small format hardback designed for all those who wish to shed their inhibitions and out their hibitions, and it comes replete with pictures (grey scale, of course) of assorted garden sheds, gardens, garden tools and gardenias (at least he thinks that's what they were, he confesses with a shrub of his shoulders). But it's the sly text interspersed with the pictures which is more than enough to make you exclaim "Garden Bennet!", and then for your exclaim to come around and get your ticker going ninety to the dozen so you can claim it on your tocks return.
It's a parody of course (which contrary to popular opinion is not a cross between a parrot and a chickadee), but the irony (no, that's not a condition of the patella and it certainly has nothing to do with Pat or Ella, so they claim, but offend in knee is a friend in deed) is that it's doubtlessly better than the original.
I haven't read the original, but I did read Jasper Fforde's Shades of Grey which was also hilarious, so it at least qualifies me to have a laugh at their expense account.
I think the best way to recommend this book is to pass on a few quotes (unless the poor things have passed on already), so as Mrs Forficula said to her philandering husband, earwig go:
"Are you sure you want to do this?" I asked. "When I'm done, you won't be able to sit down for weeks."
She nodded.
"Okay," I said, putting the three-piece suite on eBay.
She told me it turned her on to have her movements restricted when she made love. I looked around - I was going to have to get a smaller shed.
As we stood there naked in Ikea, we came to an important decision. Next time, only one of us would wear a blindfold.
"I'm a very naughty girl," she said, biting her lip. "I need to be punished." So I invited my mother to stay for the weekend.
In short, I highly recommend this for a laugh or to be or not to bean. It makes a great bathroom book, or even a book to keep in the shed.
