Imagine a person who is portrayed as a morph of Seinfeld and Woody Allen...and you have Dr Max Strummer.

Max is a youngish GP by day, stand-up comic by night...but a 24-hour paranoid. And his perception of how the world deals bad cards to him is apparent form the first chapter when he comes home to find his girlfriend of three years strewn out on the bed in the throes of orgasmic delight...being administered by another woman.

Now personally I couldn't think of a more beautiful and natural scene to behold, but I'm not Max who goes into a tailspin in which his sexual ineptitude and inability to read a situation creates an emotional monster he can't seem to escape from.

Then it seems things might be turning for the better; a hot, nubile, and bordering slutty/nympho new girlfriend, a break into TV, and of course he's a bloody doctor...its a load of bullshit that money can't buy you happiness, I've never met a miserable bloody doctor yet.

I won't divulge too much more than I have already as I would think this snippet will no doubt get you rushing to the local Borders or library. It is a funny-as-hell book and well written.

I do have to knock it back though; it finishes a little predictably and rushed, and as I read all I could picture in my head was Jerry Seinfeld...which is probably not a bad thing as I like the guy.

Written by an Aussie it was interesting to read his bio and notes in that the story was changed to be set in the UK (understandable, no bigger bunch of neurotic whingers, and it is loosely based on his own experiences. Unfortunately he did not expand on his gold mine of lesbian trysts as such (much the shame) but we'll let that one to the masses to decide. ( )