Rebel fighters, kidnapped children, mutilation -- war zones are no joke, so when comedy writer Jane Bussmann embarked on an account of conflict-torn northern Uganda she had one rule: all the laughs would be at her expense.

"The Worst Date Ever: War Crimes, Hollywood Heart-throbs and Other Abominations"starts off in Tinseltown where Bussmann is getting more and more jaded with having to ask celebrities what they wear and making up quotes for magazine articles for a living.

Read our review of the book.

Following is Q+A with Bussmann:


Q: Why did you write the book?

A: I just wanted to prove a point. I was told by almost every single media organisation that no one cares about these issues, and I think people bloody would be, if a) you told them what was really going on, and b) told them in the way you actually think, rather than in the filtered and boring way you've let yourself get tricked into using.



So rather than writing in a dry news style, I wrote it as though you were having an insane conversation in the pub. I tried to make it not overly wordy or pretentious, just a story that gets more and more out of hand and ludicrous. I wanted people to be entertained far more than I wanted to lecture anybody.


Also I wanted to expose celebrity journalism because I was sick of the whole bloody lie of it. I was sick of pretending that these people had lives that we should aspire to, that any of the things were true, that the interviews had even happened in the first place and that we still subscribe to it. I was sick of being sent to ask people how fat they were.



Q: Has there been any backlash?

A: I was staggered, I was expecting everyone to start screaming at me but instead all the people I used to work for said - well done, good one you, you told the truth, you explained what it's like! I think no one had been at quite at rock-bottom as me and was prepared to say - you know what? I don't care! I'm going to tell the truth. I've got nothing to lose. I just went to a third-world country for a date.



Q: Had you been to Uganda before?


A: No



Q: Weren't you terrified?
A: I promise you I had done no research. I tried to sell the story by reading the things off Google. One time I really did have to pretend I'd been cut off because I had no idea what I was talking. I'm literally on my way, I'm about to get on a plane and I decided to talk to someone who's actually been to Uganda -- a documentary filmmaker and he said you'll get dragged into a bush and get macheted. At that point I'm thinking no, I'll be fine because John'll be there and he'll look after me when we're married in 48 hours.



Q: What were some of the most funny or surreal moments in Uganda?


A: I think probably the moment when I thought this is quite nuts was when I tried to use a latrine and I suddenly saw myself from space and I suddenly saw this girl from Muswell Hill, north London, squatting on the ground, trousers around her ankles, doesn't even know which direction I should be facing. I'm too scared to close the door because it's dark and I'm alone with the flies and so I lean forward and open the door and instantly all these baby chicks run in. I'm swatting them away so they don't die and I'm thinking oh God, I'm trying to fish a chick out of the latrine, what is going on? We take for granted going to the loo. I'm never going to take for granted going to the loo again.



Q: How did you strike a balance between writing about something so serious and using humour to tell your story?

A: The boundaries I set myself were I was never going to get preachy and I wasn't going to make jokes at the expense of people with AIDS. All the jokes are on me.

The rule I had all the way through was that I would always say what I was thinking and I think the reason why people like the book is because they have thought it too. And that's why I think I got away with it. If you're talking to 900 school children at
9 o'clock in the morning under an African sun, you're not thinking 'I'm so privileged to be here', you're thinking 'sun damage'. When some guy is literally sitting on your lap on the bus, and he's smelly, everyone's thinking ‘why do I always get the bloke with bad breath sitting right behind me and why has he decided to clutch both my shoulders?’

There were a couple of times I wrote something and I was quite shocked myself about how rude I had been and there's one line in there about Joseph Kony. I wanted to cut through the mumbo jumbo Westerners use as an excuse for not doing anything about him. Academics and politicians say we have to tread softly around Kony because he claims he is a prophet and we can't offend local cultures by attacking someone of mystical proportions. In fact he’s a con artist who gets his moves from Chuck Norris movies. So I wrote, “There was nothing mystical about Kony’s cock as it raped six dozen kidnapped girls in rotation.” That was about as angry as I got. You could call it a joke but my point was deadly serious and that's something humour lets you get away
with. Hopefully a line like that will stick in people's minds.



Q: Were there any aspects of celebrity journalism and comedy writing that helped you as a foreign correspondent?


A: I don't think I would have got locked into a secret meeting with Kofi Annan if I hadn't agreed with a racist security dude. You're so used to agreeing and nodding politely as a celebrity journalist - 'that's amazing, I never thought of that, wow' - and suddenly I'm in a meeting with Kofi Annan.... But there was turning point when I was interviewing the mum of this girl (kidnapped from boarding school by the LRA) and I
was still in celebrity journalist-mode - 'so tell me what happened, tell me your story, wow, you look great' - when I suddenly realised she's been without her kid for eight years, and she thought it was her fault because she had scrimped and saved to send her girl to the best school, I thought oh my God, that actually happened...this is real, this is not something that's hilarious and that's when I thought I've got to pull out all the stops and write something.



Q: Do celebrity humanitarians such as Angelina Jolie do any good?


A: John Prendergast said it well. He said basically people listen to them, they've got a platform. The question is it's all very well if they've got a platform, what are they talking about. What's true of Angelina Jolie is she could have made Tomb Rider 4, 5 and 6 and been stinking, stinking rich but instead she chose to traipse around some quite miserable places. I've been to some of these places -- the problem is they are sweaty and hot. Most actresses spend the whole time trying not to look shit and she's been to places where you can look quite sweaty and unpleasant. She walks it like she talks it and everyone can tell you from MSF down that if she turns up she's done her
homework and it's not lip service. Whereas, MSF in particular, tell you they get clapped-out celebrities all the time telling them 'I'm going to do you a favour. I'm going to offer to be the face of Doctors Without Borders'. Do you have any idea who

Doctors Without Borders are?



Q: You said you wanted to join the ranks of the Useful People. After spending six weeks among them, what's your take on them now?



A: For every one brilliant Congolese woman from Doctors Without Borders there are five repulsive girls called Alexia who are basically taking time out before they open boutiques to hug AIDS babies and it's a competition to see who can hug the most diseased child. I found it revolting.



Q: Where has aid failed to improve the situation in northern Uganda?

A: Take one example. The World Food Programme bought grain to feed the victims of war from the Ugandan president's daughter. Why should he end the war, if his daughter made money out of it? When I did a piece for From Our Own Correspondent, the BBC contacted the World Food Programme and their spokesman denied buying grain from her. Well, I kept digging away and finally I got this very shirty email from the WFP telling me ok, yes, they did buy grain from her, but it was only a comparatively small amount, a few thousand dollars worth, and only the one time. Well, a) it's not a small amount of money in a land where Kony’s rape survivors are forced to work for 60p a day putting cow poo up a wall, and b) have you any idea what damage that has done symbolically? That information is on the ground. Why should Ugandans trust their president to stop Kony raping their girls if they know his own daughter made a profit from the situation?



Q: What's wrong with the way donor aid is given to Uganda?


A: Three words: direct budget support. You could do so much good with microfinance, why are we still putting money directly in the coffers of a regime that somehow can’t catch one rapist even after he kidnapped 20-65,000 kids? And why should the Ugandan government catch Kony, when the cash keeps coming? No wonder Museveni went for a third term and banged up the opposition leader on charges of rape and treason during the election. Charity -- and a lot of Africans will say this -- is as much about making the person who gives feel good. But why don't
we look at where it's going?



Q: What are you working on now?


A: One is the script of this which will be the same but naughtier. The book's a lot easier than scripts because with scripts the audience have got to guess what you might be thinking so they can give a shit but with books you can rant your head off.



Q: Who's going to play you?

A: I'm really hoping - if I say it out loud it's going to curse it - but I so hope it's going to be Robert Downey Jr. It's the one thing he needs to grab that Oscar back. It's so overdue. Chaplin was nothing compared to lovelorn British girl crying for a bloke she hasn't got a hope in getting.



Q: What's the other project?


A: I'm doing a pilot, so we'll see, but it's a big stonking mini-series with a lot of sex and rude words and filth and it's set in the Congo and it's about charities.

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