Littlejohn's Britain

Richard Littlejohn''s cast of characters ­ including Two Jags, the Wicked Witch, Captain Hook and the Mad Mullah of the Traffic Taliban ­ are now part of the fabric of the nation. He ridicules the country Britain has become over the past ten years - the barmy bureaucracy, the surveillance state, the petty interference in our lives, the suffocating regulations, policemen and judges who think they''re part of the social services and the insanities of the ''elf ''n'' safety industry, which has created such idiocies as forcing revellers celebrating Guy Fawkes Night to watch a bonfire on a big screen.

''Littlejohn has been ... a vivid exponent of a great British columnar style that stretches back five centuries or more. He''s a distant, bastard cousin of Thomas Nash, Daniel Defoe and Alexander Pope. Cassandra and Bernard Levin might justly buy him a pint in the Cheshire Cheese. Like or loathe him, he''s the real, talented deal.'' Observer