Pepys understood

Surprise winner of Pepys memorial award | News | Guardian Unlimited Books

A history that does not mention Britain's great diarist once has won the Samuel Pepys award. The Noble Revolt by John Adamson, a study of the political crisis that led to the overthrow of King Charles I, was awarded the prize, which is given for a book that makes the greatest contribution to the understanding of Samuel Pepys, his times or his contemporaries.

Did the clown who wrote this (Michelle Pauli) not read all the way to her own first paragraph. There's no need for the prize-winning book to mention Pepys. And it's perfectly clear to any fule that a book on the overthrow of Charles I is likely to improve understanding of Pepys' times, as well as his contemporaries.

So where exactly is the "surprise"?

Coming up next: the Turner prize goes to an artist who's never painted a seascape. And the Nobel Prize goes to an economist who wouldn't know a stick of dynamite if you shoved it up his arse.