The Clue Bibliography

Radio 4 comedy shows, especially panel games, don't seem to get an awful lot of tie-in books. The one and only such release for Just a Minute was Welcome to Just a Minute!, Nicholas Parsons' remarkably thorough history of the show from 2014. The News Quiz appears to have had at least one in the 1980s which I might look into at some point (there are a few other books called "News Quiz Book", but the title's so generic they might be unrelated to the radio show). The Unbelievable Truth had a pretty good stab at one a few years back, but perhaps covered too similar territory to the numerous QI books.

One happy exception to this rule is I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, which has had no end of attempts (well, eight) to replicate some of its various rounds in print since 1980. Since there doesn't seem to be any kind of guide to them available anywhere, I thought I'd have a go. (Since it has to expressly tie into the show, I have excluded things such as memoirs or other books by the regular panellists, and I have also reluctantly left out Jem Roberts' fully authorised history of the series, which needless to say you should buy if you haven't already.)

Coping With Nostalgia

I am sure that many readers of the blog around the same age as me will remember these. The Coping With... books, by Peter Corey, did for self-help books what Horrible Histories did for history books -- a terrible analogy, since they actually predated those books by several years, but never mind -- and lasted for twelve titles between 1989 and 2000 (plus a diary for the year 1999), each tackling a different subject, including Parents, Exams and Tests and the 21st Century. Each book follows a broadly similar formula: an introduction to the author and his entirely fictional team of researchers, a history of this book's subject, an A-Z guide to the subject, and then an afterword and appendices. Whilst the books had their tongues firmly in their cheeks, they did offer some sincere advice on the matter to hand. But the humour was what I wanted to cover here, since the books had a habit of getting crap past the radar which stuck in my mind beyond any of the sincere advice. Or, in some cases, just not bothering with any pretence of a radar at all. To cover the extent of said filth, I have decided to find, to my mind, the most risqué/risky joke in each entry of the series.