Nobody likes to intrude into a private joke. Seven pages of [Monty Python's Big Red Book] (there are only 64) are taken up with letters and telegrams expressing the supposed reactions of BBC and ITV notables to a supposed foreword by Reginald Bosanquet, the ITV newscaster. It's a fair enough jest, and should convulse all whose names are mentioned, but is it worth so much of the admission money? There are further references to Bosanquet sprinkled about the book.

'What's behind it all?' the suspicious reader may wonder. 'Am I missing out somewhere? Is there something terribly funny about Bosanquet I never noticed—something that everyone else knows about?' Moodily, this wary reader begins to study some of the other jokes, which include a mock advertisement, asking: 'Why not be different this Christmas? Why not send your friends a lump of cold sick?'; a full-page study...