Do you really have to pee right now?

Memoirs can be called by many names, but when a humorist of Miloslav Švandrlík's calibre writes a book of recollections, one can expect just about anything.

Back in the days when Dikobraz magazine entertained us every week, with the slogan “With a smile, it's no joke, even work goes better” gracing its masthead, the Master was a regular contributor. You Have to Pee Right Now is proof that he certainly didn't forget humour and wit, even when working on his own memoir.

With a bit of exaggeration, one could say that if Černí baroni (The Black Barons) was a picture of the era, then Miloslav Švandrlík's life is the frame of which the Barons are an integral part, and during the Normalisation period, also a kind of “secret driving force” behind many fates connected to the Master's life. Beautiful memories of many of his colleagues, among whom the most famous and brilliant undoubtedly include the genius Jiří Winter creating under the name Neprakta, Ján Roháč, Alfréd Radok, Jiří Sehnal aka Jetro Mc Intosh after emigrating to the USA… A charming reminiscence written in the “Barons' style” that revives the atmosphere of Dikobraz and all who contributed to its creation, from Václav Lacina and Pavel Kohout to Evžen Seyček, Zdeněk Jirotka, and Honza Vyčítal and dozens of others. However, Švandrlík certainly didn't work only for Dikobraz; from the world of television, let's mention, for example, the wonderful story about the script editor Jan Pixa. The Dikobraz journey ended after the Velvet Revolution, but Miloslav Švandrlík's memories take the reader much further and deeper, leaving no one in doubt that the Master still commands his craft.

The French writer Gustave Flaubert once said that an author should be in his work like God in the universe; omnipresent and invisible.

Miloslav Švandrlík has fulfilled this axiom more than perfectly with his work to date. And now, writing directly about himself, he appears to the reader on the pages of his book as a clearly visible deity of humour, knowingly commenting on himself and the world, using his laughing halo in exactly the same way a phoniatrist uses the shiny reflector on their intellectual forehead.

To see better.