Geoffrey Willans

need hardly tell you the esential thing about a football i.e. nobody need tell me to get rid of it. i do not want it in the first place. Wot is the use of having a soaking wet piece of leather pushed at you? Give me a hadock every time, at least you can eat it. Poor Nigel Molesworth is back at St Custard's, being snarled at by Grimes and forced to endure the good old footer season. But despite the distractions of hideous Molesworth 2 and weedy fotherington-tomas, he will still share all his secrets to passing exams and being a grown up. But what's this? A resolution to be good? And to luv gurls? Is this the end of the Nigel Molesworth known and loved by millions - or will he be bored by teatime?

With one mad yell the mob, armed with stumps and bits torn from desks, surge away down the pasage, trampling the masters under foot. A buket of water fall on GRIMES and the term end in a series of wizard rags and japes. Cars arrive, driven by parents with drawn, white faces. Nigel Molesworth is dragging St. Custard's into the 20th century in the company of 'felow pupils, their doting maters, pompous paters and any others who are interested', via the Elizabethans and the Wild West. Most importantly, he has some important lessons in how to treat Girls, what to do with a tee-vee, what a holiday will really involve, and how to survive the uranium age that is sure to hit any time now. CAVE!

If headmasters were honest a prospectus would be a book which sa how many kanes he hav, contane a warning about the skool dog and the amount of prunes and rice served during the term. Nigel Molesworth may not be the best student St Custard's will ever have, but he is certainly able to express his feelings about his beloved school - not to mention botany walks and foopball. With his handy guide to Masters at a Glance (Know the Enemy) and Lessons (chiz chiz) and How to Avoid Them, no noble brave fearless etc. boy will ever have to suffer at the hands of the 'swots, bulies, milksops greedy guts and oiks' ever again WIZZ.

Nigel Molesworth non será o mellor estudante do St. Custard's, pero é quen de expresar os seus sentimentos cara o seu amado colexio e de crear unha guía para recoñecer dunha ollada o inimigo (os profesores), para evitar as clases, ou para torturar os pais. "O único bo do colexio son os RAPAZES que son nobres balentes intrépidos etc. aínda que tamén hai varios chapóns, habusóns, miñaxoias, gordos cebados e pailáns ós que non me queda máis remedio que haturar. De feito calquera colexio é unha cousa desastrosa."

Una de les creacions més políticament incorrectes que s'han escrit mai sobre el món escolar i, alhora, un clàssic genial de la literatura juvenil il·lustrada.