Having read a handful of Ben Elton's other offerings, I looked forward to another extrapolation of human behaviour full of believable characters and peppered with humour. Boy was I disappointed. In Gridlock, Mr Elton is very clearly still learning his craft and has yet to distinguish the less than subtle differences between scripting his stand up show and writing a novel. There is the germ of a good idea, but it is ruined by his constant sidetracking in to either a moralist lecture or a semi-humorist aside in the `ranty' style for which his 80's stage act was well known. His characters are stereo types with perhaps one notable expectation, unfortunately rather than allow this single well rounded character to teach us the lessons the author has acutely observed the public could do with learning, he cannot resist lecturing us on the prejudice of society and by implication our own short sightedness and therefore I suspect alienates those he thought he would reach. The overuse of shock tactics, in the language, the descriptions of the action, the storyline and in the statistics quoted during the lecture sections assume a total lack of intelligence and in the end numb the reader to the point of ceasing to care about the book and the cause. Ben Elton is a surprisingly good author, but from this offering, you would not guess it. Unless you are a particularly blinkered, sub intelligent, car hoarder - you will likely find this book irritatingly patronising. Put it down and read Inconceivable or Dead Famous instead.