{"title":"Matthew Parris","description":"\u003cp\u003eExplore the insightful and thought-provoking writings of Matthew Parris. From political commentary to travelogues, discover his sharp wit and unique perspectives on British society and beyond. Start browsing now!\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"spanish-ambassador-s-suitcase-book-matthew-parris-9780241957080","title":"The Spanish Ambassador's Suitcase","description":"The Spanish Ambassador's Suitcase is a hilarious new collection of diplomatic tales by Matthew Parris and Andrew Bryson  Heard the one about the Spanish Ambassador who arrived in the scorching Saharan desert fully suited and with a mysteriously enormous suitcase? Or the horse they gave Prime Minister John Major in Turkmenistan - which hapless embassy officials had to rescue from the clutches of the Moscow railway? These and other 'funnies', as they are known in Whitehall, are included in Matthew Parris and and Andrew Bryson's glorious new volume of not so diplomatic writing, which accompanies a new BBC Radio 4 series is a follow up to their acclaimed collection of ambassadors' final despatches, Parting Shots.  Drawn from Freedom of Information requests and previously overlooked Valedictories these startling despatches throw a revealing light on how the British have viewed the world - and, unwittingly perhaps, on how the world has viewed the British.  Praise for Parting Shots:  'Parting Shots is unbuttoned, indiscreet and very funny' Yorkshire Post  'Fascinating, if sometimes uncomfortable, reading' Financial Times  'Very funny' Guardian  After working in the Foreign Office then serving as a Conservative MP, Matthew Parris joined The Times in 1988. He writes two weekly columns for The Times and one for the Spectator, and in 2011 won the Best Columnist Award at the British Press awards. His acclaimed autobiography Chance Witness was published by Penguin in 2003. He is a frequent broadcaster.  Andrew Bryson is a radio journalist working in the BBC's Business and Economic Unit. 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Frederick Douglass. Vladimir Lenin. Marie Curie. Frieda Kahlo. Carl Jung. Tupac Shakur. All geniuses who changed the world in ways that still influence our lives today. And all men and women who experienced, in childhood, trauma so severe that it should have broken them completely.   While presenting Great Lives on Radio 4, Matthew Parris noticed a trend in the lives of the exceptional people the programme covered: many of them had been marked by extreme trauma and deprivation. They seemed to have succeeded not only in spite of their backgrounds, but perhaps even because of them.  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Walking in the Pyrenees one spring morning Matthew Parris stumbled upon a magnificent ruined mansion standing on the edge of a line of huge cliffs. Later he was to discover that parts of the house dated back to the 14th century though it had not been completed until 1559; and that it had survived two massive earthquakes before falling into disrepair in the early 1960s.   A few years later, seduced by 'one of those foolish challenges that grip us in middle life', Parris bought the house, L'Avenc, and set about restoring it to its full glory. This delightful book chronicles it all: the original discovery, the attempts to discover its history, and then the long effortful years trying to bring it back to life in the face of scepticism from family, friends and Spanish neighbours. The original edition of A Castle in Spain was published in 2005 when the renovations were a work in progress; this new edition triumphantly records all that has happened since.  'Stands apart... This Englishman's castle might have started as a dream, but it has ended up being an extraordinary reality' Sunday Times  'So infectious is his enthusiasm for L'Avenc and the dramatic, unvisited landscape of Collsacabra, that I wanted to leave at once to explore it ... And it's all just a few miles away from the Costa Brava!' Christopher Hudson, Daily Mail   Matthew Parris had a short career in the Foreign Office where one of his tasks was to distribute incoming valedictory despatches. He was a Conservative MP from 1979 to 1986, since when he has worked as a journalist. He is the author of A Castle in Spain, Parting Shots, and A Spanish Ambassador's Suitcase. 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Up till 2006 a British Ambassador leaving his post was encouraged to write what was known as a valedictory despatch, to be circulated to a small number of influential people in government. This was the parting shot, an opportunity to offer a personal and frank view of the host country, the manners and morals of its people, their institutions, the state of their cooking and their drains. But it was also a chance to let rip at the Foreign Office itself and to look back on a career spent in the service of a sometimes ungrateful nation.  Combining gems from the archives with more recent despatches obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, Parting Shots sheds light on Britain's place in the world, revealing the curious cocktail of privilege and privation that makes up the life of an ambassador.  'Wonderful ... a glimpse of that lost world of private eloquence and erudite candour' Matthew d'Ancona, Evening Standard  'Unbuttoned, indiscreet and very funny' Yorkshire Post  Matthew Parris had a short career in the Foreign Office where one of his tasks was to distribute incoming valedictory despatches. He was a Conservative MP from 1979 to 1986, since when he has worked as a journalist. He is the author of A Castle in Spain, Parting Shots, and A Spanish Ambassador's Suitcase. 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Part participant, part bystander, Matthew Parris describes what it was like to be so close to the centre and remain an outsider.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49525164146961,"sku":"GOR001343438","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":49962872242449,"sku":"CIN0670894400A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50300683747601,"sku":"CIN0670894400VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50359685808401,"sku":"CIN0670894400G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50936080531729,"sku":"GOR011093725","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51681155842321,"sku":"GOR001710484","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0670894400.jpg?v=1751360112"},{"product_id":"parting-shots-book-matthew-parris-9780670919284","title":"Parting Shots","description":"When leaving a foreign posting, Britain's ambassadors were encouraged to write a valedictory despatch until the practice was abolished in 2006. 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Based on a very successful BBC radio series, Matthew Parris, who once worked for the Foreign Office and had the task of distributing the despatches, and Andrew Bryson have compiled an always entertaining and frequently hilarious volume of the best of them.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49528621007121,"sku":"GOR002214553","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49800883601681,"sku":"CIN0670919284G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51876394959121,"sku":"GOR010527610","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52471664640273,"sku":"GOR003194176","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0670919284.jpg?v=1751437210"},{"product_id":"great-parliamentary-scandels-book-matthew-parris-9781861050618","title":"GREAT PARLIAMENTARY SCANDELS","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49531401765137,"sku":"GOR003086655","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51123372785937,"sku":"GOR007446513","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1861050615.jpg?v=1751155352"},{"product_id":"spanish-ambassador-s-suitcase-book-matthew-parris-9780670921034","title":"The Spanish Ambassador's Suitcase","description":"The Spanish Ambassador's Suitcase is a hilarious new collection of diplomatic tales by Matthew Parris and Andrew Bryson  Heard the one about the Spanish Ambassador who arrived in the scorching Saharan desert fully suited and with a mysteriously enormous suitcase? Or the horse they gave Prime Minister John Major in Turkmenistan - which hapless embassy officials had to rescue from the clutches of the Moscow railway? These and other 'funnies', as they are known in Whitehall, are included in Matthew Parris and and Andrew Bryson's glorious new volume of not so diplomatic writing, which accompanies a new BBC Radio 4 series is a follow up to their acclaimed collection of ambassadors' final despatches, Parting Shots.  Drawn from Freedom of Information requests and previously overlooked Valedictories these startling despatches throw a revealing light on how the British have viewed the world - and, unwittingly perhaps, on how the world has viewed the British.  Praise for Parting Shots:  'Parting Shots is unbuttoned, indiscreet and very funny' Yorkshire Post  'Fascinating, if sometimes uncomfortable, reading' Financial Times  'Very funny' Guardian  After working in the Foreign Office then serving as a Conservative MP, Matthew Parris joined The Times in 1988. He writes two weekly columns for The Times and one for the Spectator, and in 2011 won the Best Columnist Award at the British Press awards. His acclaimed autobiography Chance Witness was published by Penguin in 2003. He is a frequent broadcaster.  Andrew Bryson is a radio journalist working in the BBC's Business and Economic Unit. 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'A backpacker's classic: atmospheric, touching, instructive and compulsively readable' THE TIMES","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49541752619281,"sku":"GOR001024603","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49733301698833,"sku":"NGR9781857990768","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50176352911633,"sku":"CIN1857990765G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50258822627601,"sku":"GOR000953744","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50279863976209,"sku":"CIN1857990765A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51418010321169,"sku":"CIN1857990765VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1857990765.jpg?v=1772704917"},{"product_id":"scorn-book-matthew-parris-9781906251284","title":"Scorn","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49541977964817,"sku":"GOR001990918","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49663886524689,"sku":"GOR002048237","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1906251282.jpg?v=1750769627"},{"product_id":"great-parliamentary-scandals-book-matthew-parris-9781861057365","title":"Great Parliamentary Scandals","description":"Scandalously it's been business as usual in parliament despite Tony Blair's promise of a new dawn over Britain in 1997. Conmen, secret home loans, walks on the wild side, liars, ridiculously expensive wallpaper and a jailed peer-cum-celebrated author have joined the prostitutes, gropers, shady share dealers, rent boys and Soviet spies that have been such a colourful feature of politics for five centuries. 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