What a charmer

Okay, this is definitely one of those "laugh so you don't start crying" things, but if you're looking for a (possibly microscopic) silver lining to Boris Johnson becoming the British Prime Minister, at least we're getting to enjoy this delightfully scathing review of Johnson's "novel" Seventy-Two Virgins:

"The novel’s attitude to women is so sexist that, if Johnson fails to gain the premiership, he could be a good bet to screen-write the recently announced new string of Carry On movies. I counted 20 occasions on which women enter the narrative. Each time, the narrator or a character looks them up and down, phwoaring over, to take a representative selection, “tits out”, “lustrous eyes”, “long legs”, “a mega-titted six-footer”, “loads of pretty white teeth”, “good teeth and blonde hair”, and an “unambiguously exuberant bosom”. One woman’s comment is attributed to “premenstrual irrationality”. In this context, appearances from a “girly swot” and a woman who looks “like a lingerie model, only cleverer and, if anything, with bigger breasts” count relatively as feminism."

Thanks, book critic Mark Lawson (whoever you are)! You brought joy to a dark time.