Sometimes when you buy a book you don't
quite know what to expect, but for some reason
your drawn to it like
a fly toward a carcass or a moth towards the light, you just can't
help but buy it, your sure you'll enjoy it. That's exactly how I was
thinking when I bought Sour Gripes from The Works for £2.99, it had
a draw, but I wasn't sure what it was, it could have been the idea
that it was going to be funny, it could have been the fact it looked
innocent, or it could have been the feeling it was just going to be
good. I judged it on it's cover.
Written by Simon Carr the
book looks at the
compensation culture in the UK and how bizarre some
of the claims are in fact the book tries to weigh up the idea that we
are living in a growing society of compensation claims. Despite the
fact that the pay outs were very rare when he was working in industry
and how now they seem overly common ranging from the controversial,
the shocking, the stupid and the overly compensated. The book
interlaces his argument of a growing compensation culture with the
best cases as the book moves through several themes in it's chapters
before taking some of the best American examples (always better than
the British ones).
The book then sprinkles it's self in Carr's
own humour that adds a rather soft humour to it all with out
destroying the books seriousness. Though when Carr does go on one of
his almost rants about how theirs is a compensation culture and it's
growing despite official comments saying otherwise he often seems
like he's writing propaganda as it misses the other half of the
argument on a regular basis. This is sadly one of the few down sides
of the book, that is otherwise an enthralling read that will have you
giggling at some peoples gall.
Some of the cases look at the
bizarreness of the courts which award a man compensation for the
death of his son at a Scouts trip after the scout leader had told the
boy not to enter a cave whilst his father had said it was fine.
Though far from the most bizarre case, the court argued that the
Scout leader should have used physical force to prevent the father
from taking the son in to the cave. The book also looks at the bad
back culture found in the Police force who take early retirement
instead of being put behind a table filling in the police paper work.
This all adds up to a good argument to show that the culture is
becoming that of a compensation one, where every accident needs to be
blamed on someone or another and recompense is always due.
Overall
the book is a good fun read, though don't let Carr's personal views
(which are rather strong) dictate your own opinion, he's right with
out a doubt there is a growing compensation culture in the UK but
it's not taking over as he seems to think so. A lot of the cases in
the book are the most extremely silly examples he can find and not
the normal sort of thing people due sue over, though it does expose
there is a lot of flaws with the system, he doesn't seem to answer
how to stop it from being the problem he seems to think it is. I'll
be honest I enjoyed the book even though at times it did seem a
little rant-ish to me, I enjoyed his humour and research, but it
still felt a little like propaganda as opposed to a fully fair look
at the system.