It's virtually impossible to give a proper flavour of this amazing book, but here is the original blurb in the first edition...

The following is an extract from the Millennial General Meeting of the Surrealist Sportsmen's Club:

...the Id recalled the rugby match against Mars when an impending defeat of approx. 996,481 to 0 was narrowly averted by Englebrecht's volunteering to get inside, rather than 'on to', the ball. The Oldest Member, rising, made special mention of the plucky way in which Englebrecht, swollen to bursting with snake-bite, rode Medusa to victory in the Grand Cosmological against a field that included such formidable opponents as Lady Godiva, Bucephalus and the Night Mare. Lizard Bayliss, speaking as E's manager, reminded the meeting of the battle with Grandfather Clock behind the gas works which made Engelbrecht 'Champion of All Time'; of the occasion when E. wrestled all night with the Octopus in a tank of water; of his heroic conduct on the Great Witch Shoot down on the Id's country estate. Whereupon the Meeting rose like one man and voted Engelbrecht, the Dwarf Surrealist Boxer, 'Sportsman of the Millennium' (Stormy Applause).

Further, in view of E's celebrity, it was recommended that certain portions of the records be made available to the public. A sub-committee, under the chairmanship of the well-known phantom all-rounder A.N.Other, to be set up to prepare a Volume for publication in which Interminable Golf Courses, Voting Witches and other Surrealist Sporting Phenomena should be adequately represented.

Said committee to be empowered to co-opt the services of Mr. Maurice Richardson (Assistant Editor of Lilliput and crime rationer for The Observer) and Mr. James Boswell, the latter to illustrate the Volume in the manner he thinks most fitting.

This motion was passed in uproar, with cries and counter-cries of: 'Certify them! Certify them! - Sane! Sane!'