A Word in Your Ear: High Society; News From No Man's Land

We're all aware that Britain has never been more under attack from criminal mafias making millions from drugs, illegal immigrants and prostitution, but the extent to which the forces of law and order, policemen and politicians are involved remains a moot point. Ben Elton's High Society (Random House, 3hrs £9.99) finds corruption absolutely everywhere, even in Canary Wharf and Downing Street. Crudely sexual, cynical, funny, ultimately heart-breaking, it makes compulsive listening, though the storyline is hustled by the abridgement. Rik Mayall is the perfect choice as reader, emerging as a vocal changeling, as adept as Tommy Hanson, laddish pop-hero, as he is as North Country Jessie, fighting to kick dependence on pimps and heroin.

John Simpson is a Reithian to the core, but he begins the third volume of his global reporter's memoirs by admitting that he enjoys the liberty of the first-person pronoun – banned by the BBC's founding Director-General. News From No Man's Land (Macmillan, 3 hrs, £9.99) brings us almost up to date, beginning two days before 11/9/2001 and revealing the mix of determination and happenstance that gets Simpson into apparently impossible places at exactly the right time: in this case, Taliban HQ. Given space for his own ideas and opinions, Simpson commands even more respect than he does when issuing succinct news soundbites.