Nature Notes IV

The world of  Nature Notes  is a place where the great and the good become the small and the furry, the edible, and the biodegradable. The Labour cabinet is a collection of nuts; Ken Livingstone is a newt; Iain Duncan Smith metamorphosises into the "Hardly Ever Spotted Moth." But on the receiving end of the most biting of Brookes' satire is the much discussed Bush/Blair coalition. The Red-necked grebe, genus name "Dubya texassa," does a war dance with the Brown-nosed Blair, and Donald Rumsfeld—Rumsfeld obliteratus—appears as the Hawk Moth. The fourth volume of Nature Notes is a wonderfully revealing commentary on the current obsession with Wars on Terror, the continuing spin of the New Labour government, as well as being a hilarious and incisive succession of merciless character studies.