Book Review : Merde Actually - Stephen Clarke**** The sequel to Clarke's first comedy of errors, A Year In The Merde, sees Paul West still stumbling through France, doing his bit for Anglo-French relations (with pretty young ladies at least) and striving to get his English tea room in Paris off the ground. Whilst the first of Clarke's book dwelt more on the differences between the French and the British, their language, politics and work patterns, Merde Actually is more plot driven. It's a lightweight plot, but quite enjoyable. Paul, called Pol (much to his annoyance) by most of the locals, starts off in fine style, crashing the car they have borrowed from his girlfriend's father, then accidently poisoning his future mother in law and spending half his holidays digging a hole for a septic tank. Things don't get much better when he returns to Paris either. The architect, and ex boyfriend of his current girlfriend, doesn't seem to have done any work, the Polish builders are nowhere to be seen and an annoying little man from the Ministry of Red Tape keeps telling Pol he has to translate all his menus into French so the locals will understand what a cup of Darjeeling is. Clarke writes nicely, sitting somewhere in the vicinity of Tom Sharpe and Bill Bryson, and at the end of the book he has left the way open for a trilogy. This wasn't quite as hilarious as the first book though, and although I did enjoy it, I might be wary of buying a third, similar, novel.