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David Frost's Book Of The World's Worst Decisions

David Frost,

Michael Deakin

3.07 · Rating details · 14 ratings · 2 reviews

From the back cover: "....a rich haul of truly appalling decisions....From the fields of politics, business, sports, show business, science, the military, and everyday life, the authors have assembled a collection of anecdotes that while far from reassuring, are sure to entertain." ...more

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Hardcover, 126 pages

Published May 1983 by Crown Publishers

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Apr 03, 2020 Christian D. Orr rated it really liked it

Ofttimes too tragic to be truly humorous.....

My Dad (God rest his soul) borrowed a copy of this book back in circa 1984, when I was 9 years old. Back then, (bearing in mind that this book is classified in the Humour genre), I did find the incidents described therein as rather funny, especially (1) the ill-fated British K-boats of WWI and (2) the story of James Barthes, the South African hang glider who made a lewd gesture at a nude sunbathing lady and got blasted out of the sky by her submachine Ofttimes too tragic to be truly humorous.....

My Dad (God rest his soul) borrowed a copy of this book back in circa 1984, when I was 9 years old. Back then, (bearing in mind that this book is classified in the Humour genre), I did find the incidents described therein as rather funny, especially (1) the ill-fated British K-boats of WWI and (2) the story of James Barthes, the South African hang glider who made a lewd gesture at a nude sunbathing lady and got blasted out of the sky by her submachine gun-wielding jealous husband for her troubles.

However, re-reading the book now from an adult perspective, while the Arnie Levin cartoons are certainly funny, I find of the stories in her too damn tragic to be humorous, from the 1969 “Soccer War” between Honduras and El Salvador to the horrific ravages of Josef Stalin to the fall of Singapore to the needless death iconic blues singer Bessie Smith to that idiot bulldozer operator Mr. Keenan who destroyed the historic Monkspath Hall Georgian mansion.

Though in fairness, the reader can share in the proverbial last laugh of historical icons like Albert Einstein and Sir Winston Churchill, who, as the author describes, were denigrated by their early childhood teachers as being lacking in intelligence and potential, or Emily Brontë, Beatrix Potter, and Frederick Forsyth, who all went onto become successful authors in spite of initial rejections by clueless publishers and literary critics.

—p. 83: Describes the Battle of Chillianwalla (during the Anglo-Sikh Wars) in 1849 as “an unprecedented disaster,” but actually it was an indecisive battle with both sides taking heavy casualties and both sides claiming victory.

—p. 86: Seriously, the Alamo and William Bart Travis make Mr. Frost’s list? And the author’s’ assumption that this was about simply “teaching the natives a lesson?” With all due respect to the late, great Mr. Frost (God rest his soul), what a gross oversimplification(!): while Travis and his fellow Texans were indeed wiped out at the Alamo, the Mexicans under General Santa Anna won that battle but ended up losing both the war and the territory of the Republic of Texas. And Frost also conveniently overlooked the many Tejanos who fought on the side of the Texians against Santa Anna!

—p. 118: Okay, this one’s pretty funny:
“Always a Mistake
INVADING RUSSIA
MARRYING HENRY VIII
ACCEPTING A CABINET POST IN IRAN OR IRAQ”
...more

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Oct 03, 2015 Angie rated it really liked it

This is a coffee table book with some VERY interesting facts!!

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About David Frost

David Frost

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Sir David Paradine Frost, OBE is a British journalist, comedian, writer and media personality, best known for his serious interviews with various political figures, the most notable being Richard Nixon. Since 2006, he has been hosting the weekly programme Frost Over the World on Al Jazeera English. He was portrayed by actor Michael Sheen opposite Frank Langella's Richard Nixon in the 2006 Peter Mo Sir David Paradine Frost, OBE is a British journalist, comedian, writer and media personality, best known for his serious interviews with various political figures, the most notable being Richard Nixon. Since 2006, he has been hosting the weekly programme Frost Over the World on Al Jazeera English. He was portrayed by actor Michael Sheen opposite Frank Langella's Richard Nixon in the 2006 Peter Morgan stage play Frost/Nixon, and in Ron Howard's subsequent 2008 film adaptation.

Whilst living in Gillingham, Kent, he was taught in the Bible Class of the Sunday School at his father's church by David Gilmore Harvey, and subsequently started training as a Methodist Local Preacher, which he did not complete. At Cambridge, where he graduated with a degree in English, he edited a student newspaper, Varsity, and a literary magazine, Granta. He was also secretary of the famous Footlights Drama Society, which included actors such as Peter Cook and John Bird.

After leaving university, he became a trainee at Associated-Rediffusion and worked for Anglia Television. Frost was chosen by writer and producer Ned Sherrin to host a pioneering satirical programme called That Was The Week That Was, alias TW3. This caught the wave of the satire boom in 1960s Britain and became a popular programme. A 30-minute American version of TW3 featuring Frost ran on NBC from 10 January 1964 to May 1965.

Frost fronted a number of programmes following the success of TW3, including its immediate successor, Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life. More notable was The Frost Report (1966-1967), which launched the television careers of John Cleese, Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett. He signed for Rediffusion, the ITV weekday contractor in London, to produce a "heavier" interview-based show called The Frost Programme. Guests included Sir Oswald Mosley and Rhodesian premier Ian Smith. His memorable dressing-down of insurance fraudster Emil Savundra was generally regarded as the first example of "trial by television" in the UK. On 20 and 21 July 1969, during the British television Apollo 11 coverage, he presented David Frost's Moon Party for LWT, a ten-hour discussion and entertainment marathon from LWT's Wembley Studios, on the night Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.

In 1963 a tribute to the recently assassinated President John F. Kennedy on That Was the Week That Was had seen Frost's fame spread to the United States. His 1970 TV special Frost on America featured guests such as Jack Benny and Tennessee Williams. From 1969 to 1972, Frost kept his London shows and fronted The David Frost Show on the Group W (U.S. Westinghouse Corporation) television stations in the United States.In 1977, he met US President Richard Nixon in a series of interviews for American television.

During the 1990s, he presented the panel game Through the Keyhole, which featured a long running partnership with Loyd Grossman. After transferring from ITV, his Sunday morning interview programme Breakfast with Frost ran on the BBC from January 1993 until 29 May 2005. The programme originally began in this format on TV-am in September 1983 as Frost on Sunday until the station lost its franchise at the end of 1992.

As of November 2006, he works for Al Jazeera English, presenting a live weekly hour-long current affairs programme, Frost Over the World, which started when the network launched in November 2006. The programme has regularly made headlines with interviewees such as Tony Blair, President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, Benazir Bhutto and President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua.

Frost was instrumental in starting up two important ITV franchises: London Weekend Television in July 1968 and as one of the Famous Five who launched TV-AM in February 1983.

Frost is the only person to have interviewed eight British prime ministers serving between 1964 and 2010 (Harold Wilson, Edward Heath, James Callaghan, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron) and ...more