Why do actors make such a mess of pirate accents? Is the Australian shock jock an endangered species? What sort of music stimulates the creation of fiction? Why is everything in the supermarket 'Moroccan' these days? This collection of short essays by Stuart Campbell, a former professor of linguistics and an independent fiction author, answers these questions and more as he reflects on writing, film, language and culture. As Raymond Saucisson, editor of Charcuterie Monthly, has said in his introduction to the book, 'This is cutting edge writing'.