Stiff Upper Lip (ePub)

Imagine if P.G.Wodehouse was a diplomat: Durrell's hilarious foreign office sketches are 'sophisticated funny, but wonderful, and bonkers' (Joanna Trollope)

'A rewarding cocktail based on two parts Wodehouse and one part Saki ... So much fun.' New York Times

'Whatever wars there may be and whatever crises, there will still, please heaven, be the diplomatic corps, with its protocol and formalities and a field for humour which I have never seen better used than in these stories.' John Betjeman

After a lifetime serving that most delightfully British of institutions, the Foreign Office, Antrobus can't resist musing over old times in Vulgaria at his London club - or should that be cringing ... His memories of farcical gaffes and comic diplomatic misadventures star a mad inventor, a tragic cavalry officer, foreign ambassadors, embassy bachelors, a mischievous chef plotting to bring down the empire with garlic ...

Celebrated British novelist, travel writer, and member of the real-life family portrayed in The Durrells in Corfu, Lawrence Durrell experienced the absurdities of mid-century diplomacy firsthand. Lampooning English etiquette, empire, and eccentricity, his charming jeu d'esprit about the diplomatic corps is classic satire: but be warned: there's a point where laughter can become painful ...

'Antrobus is a delight to listen to, and his stories are wonderfully funny.' Atlantic
'My goodness it is funny.' The Daily Telegraph