Just when you thought it was safe to go back to church again, he's back. As HM's Church of Scotland minister, Jolly is in residence at Balmoral. You can tell because the flags at half-mast. But when Jolly's fair midden, Ephesia, wrecks the Braemar Highland Games, the Church sends him off on a secret mission. This is Jolly as we've never seen him - laughing at danger, saving the world and a total babe magnet . . . sorry, that's 007. This is Jolly as we've always seen him: hiding from danger, saving his pocket money and with a Mickey Mouse magnet on his fridge. Not so much mean, moody and magnificent as morbid, miserable and morose, with a permanent drip on his nose. Jolly's back. And this time he means business.

The Rev I M Jolly & Friends is a tribute to the genius of Rikki Fulton. Year after year he brought us characters that were hilarious and true to life, and perhaps his most famous incarnation of all was the Reverend I M Jolly, star of Scotch and Wry's 'Last Call'. Jolly's appearance on TV at Hogmanay was one of the events of the year, eagerly awaited by a public who couldn't get enough of 'Last Call' and the Rev. Jolly's unique words of wisdom. And along with the other unforgettable characters from 'Last Call' like the African missionary Ida Closeshave and the Reverend W E Free, The Rev. I M Jolly & Friends is a treat for all his many fans. With the death of Rikki Fulton in 2004, Scotland has lost not only its favourite comic actor but also the legendary characters he created. The Rev. I M Jolly & Friends encapsulates Rikki's unique sense of humour and is testimony to a comedic appeal that is destined to stand the test of time.

Is your weight hazardous to your health? According to public-health authorities, 65 percent of us are overweight. Every day, we are bombarded with dire warnings about America’s "obesity epidemic." Close to half of the adult population is dieting, obsessed with achieving an arbitrary "ideal weight." Yet studies show that a moderately active larger person is likely to be far healthier (and to live longer) than someone who is thin but sedentary. And contrary to what the fifty-billion-dollar-per-year weight-loss industry would have us believe medical science has not yet come up with a way to make people thin. After years spent scrutinizing medical studies and interviewing leading doctors, scientists, eating- disorder specialists, and psychiatrists, Professor Paul Campos is here to lead the backlash against weight hysteria—and to show that we can safeguard our health without obsessing about the numbers on the scale. But The Obesity Myth is not just a compelling argument, grounded in the latest scientific research; it’s also a provocative, wry exposé of the culture that feeds on our self-defeating war on fat. Campos will show: How the nation’s most prestigious and trusted media sources consistently misinform the public about obesity What the movie industry’s love affair with the "fat suit" tells us about the relationship between racial- and body-based prejudice in America How the skinny elite—with their "supersized" lifestyles and gas-guzzling SUVs—project their anxieties about overconsumption on the poorer and heavier underclass How weight-loss mania fueled the impeachment of Bill Clinton In this paradigm-busting read, Professor Campos challenges the conventional wisdom regarding the medical, political, and cultural meaning of weight and brings a rational and compelling new voice to America’s increasingly irrational weight debate.

While history has painted most pirates as abominable brutes, capable of the worst cruelties and driven by insatiable greed, the author of this study insists that pirates have gotten a lot of bad press, mainly by popularizing writers who were trying to sell books. He notes, for example, that Henry Morgan always carried privateering commissions signed by the Governor of Jamaica, and that many pirates bought commissions and pardons from one or other of the governors of the American colonies. With this in mind, Mr. Pringle tries to separate fact from fiction in chronicling the activities of the infamous men and women who sailed under the black flag during the great age of piracy. Starting with Sir Francis Drake, the "Father of Modern Piracy, " he examines the lives and deeds of such criminals as Morgan, Kidd, Blackbeard, and Mary Read, as well as lesser-known scoundrels, finding, for the most part, that the myths about these maritime marauders are largely overblown.