George's father worked hard and traveled frequently, and so the boy spent much more time with his mother than his father - acquiring in particular her lacerating wit.

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association dared to let Ricky Gervais come back and host the Golden Globe Awards, a year after he insulted the organization and nearly everyone in the star-studded room with his lacerating wit.

There is precious little sympathy for the dead man, however, at his post in Vicenza, an insulated pocket of American life and attitude that the author, who teaches English on such a base, flays with a lacerating wit.