When you think of a book launch you might imagine a high-society affair with wine reception, precocious artisans and pretty socialites sitting in the environs of an upmarket hotel. Publisher Dan Caffrey obviously had such images in mind when he launched his company’s latest book, 100 Reasons to Vote Yes to Lisbon II, at Buswells on Kildare street last night (25/08/09).

Among the cocktail dresses and chit-chat sat the book’s author Nick McGinley, a previously little-known Dublin comedian who had spent the best part of his twenties as a stand-up comedian and radio essayist before he landed a job writing for The Daily Mail, lasting just two months before the establishment realised he wasn’t exactly Daily Mail material. McGinley was living in Dublin planning his next move when he was contacted by Caffrey with a view to writing a book on the Lisbon treaty, taking a humorous and soft approach to the treaty’s many facades.

Like McGinley, Dan Caffrey had been looking for an opening which might give his young publishing house, Trashface, its big break. The result is a refreshing and unique take on a topic which has dominated Irish print media and airwaves over the last eighteen months, often in the form of squabbling politicians and tedious debate. McGinley refuses to be shoved into this model, emphasising the ambiguous attractions of Euronews, the intimidating “Iron thighs” of Carla Bruni and the incentive of annoying the British Conservative Party as reasons to vote Yes. He also addresses areas such as neutrality, taxation and conscription in an effort to dispel the myths which dominated the campaign last time around. His closing argument, “So that Lisbon can go back to being a lovely place and not a byword for tedium”, is as good a reason as any.

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