“Oh, stewardess, I speak Jive.”

Ever want to know how to say, “Once you go Black, you’ll never go back” or “You look like a biotch” in Japanese? Wonder no further.

“OFF THE HOOK”, a Dictionary of African American Slang. In Japanese. Being sold in the remainders section of a WHSmith in a sleepy provicial Norfolk town.

The weirdness quotient was just too high, and the price (only £2!) was too low not to buy it. Plus it’s author, Randall C. Miller Junior, looked cool!

I wasn’t disappointed. In fact I think, per penny, it’s one of the funniest books I’ve ever bought. I really wish I was Japanese, so I could use this book in anger. Just picture a Japanese tourist walking into a black neighborhood clutching this book.

I just wish I read Japanese.