DAVE BARRY IS NOT MAKING THIS UP
(Pan, £5.99)

DAVE BARRY DOES JAPAN
(Pan, £4.99)

So, Gary McAllister, then. Now don't get me wrong. I'm not, not for a moment, attempting to suggest that Captain Gary wasn't one of the primary reasons that Scotland's football team actually qualified for the European Championship earlier this year. And there's absolutely no way that I'd even begin to put forward the suggestion that the Gazster wasn't, and isn't, by far the most naturally gifted player in our squad, consisting as it does of honest, salt-of-the-earth artisans who give it everything they've got in every game (and hey, you can't ask for more than that, right?) but who are, strictly speaking, about as talented in the football department as the contents of a small-to-average-sized broom cupboard. Hell, no. He's a cracking player who any team in the world would be proud to have in their squad, and I am full to the very brim of the truest admiration for his skill, craft and obvious dedication.

But at the same time, I could have taken a better penalty than that with my arse.

I mention this for a reason, but for now I'd like to talk about Dave Barry. And, more specifically, how come Americans have the world's second most useless sense of humour when their top humourist is Dave, a man who could funny in quite literally the finest of international company? (Even, say, some kind of European Funny Championship.) This infinitely perplexing question, which has troubled far more perceptive minds than mine for a long time, is the main reason I'm now going to move right on to the next paragraph.

If you've never encountered Dave Barry before, it's hardly surprising. Save a couple of previous books (Dave Barry's Greatest Hits and the magnificent Only Travel Guide You'll Ever Need, both available in bargain bins near you) and an imported syndicated humour comic (which reprints his US newspaper columns), he's almost unheard of outside the US. This is a tragedy on a colossal scale, as he'll make you laugh so much your face will stay that way. Dave's regular-down-to-earth-guy style is the real theme of all three books, the actual contents of which are all but irrelevant. (But by way of a guide, entries from the 'B' section of the CGTG index include "Banana slug, horrible thing happens to penis of, 34"; "Breasts, inability of guys to stop looking at, 106-8"; "Buick, hurling of via medieval war device, 180" and "Burping, 54").

After while you'll actually sort of stop finding it funny, because you will be thinking just like Dave, and hence simply nodding in knowing unrufflement when he discusses the ethical implications of the Substitute Mummy Filled with Live Weasels Prank. Guys will be pleased to note, in any case, that all three books take the form of collections of Dave's columns, so that even the most epic article takes up no more than 10 pages (of nice big print), leaving plenty of scope for scratching between chapters.

Dave is quite probably the funniest guy you've never heard of, and further proof, were further proof not a complete waste of time as a concept (by definition, any proof proves something, or it isn't 'proof', therefore what conceivable need ever exists for 'further' proof? Eh?), that... that... I can't remember what I was going to say now. Sod. Something about Americans, I think. Anyway, the books are listed at the top of this piece in descending order of funniness, but the distinction is microscopic and the hierarchy of hilarity irrelevant. If you've only got £5.99 in the whole world, then get the Complete Guide To Guys, but in any other circumstances you'd have to be some kind of twat not to buy them all.