Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs (Oxford Paperback Reference)

First things first, this is not a cookery book! My wife Doreen picked this up assuming it to be about eggs, proving that you should never judge a book by its cover. I was absolutely furious about her mistake at first. Failure may be a stepping stone to success but when it comes to my views on the dish that she prepared, discretion would be the better part of valour. Aside from imparting the knowledge that you cannot proceed without breaking eggs, I am sorry to say that this book left her completely in the dark about how to prepare an omelette.

Still, you win some and you lose some. In the end I realised that I had been making a mountain out of a molehill. Every cloud has a silver lining and her purchase of this book proved to be a blessing in disguise. It is most fortunate that I chose not to look a gift horse in the mouth, because this is an extremely good read. You will not find a more thorough volume of proverbs, for Simpson left no stone unturned when carrying out his research. The introduction states that over two years of intensive work went into producing this volume, but Rome wasn't built in a day.

When I was a lad, my own father was rather big on his proverbs. "Neither a borrower nor a lender be" was by far and away his favourite and he never tired of reciting it to anyone within earshot. Eventually this came back to haunt him however, when our own family fell tremendously into debt (not that this prevented the old stick in the mud from pestering people with the phrase every bit as frequently). Indeed, times were hard after my father was sacked from his position as a mortgage salesman, for persistent failure to meet with official targets.