Colloquial Hungarian

I don't wish to be indelicate, but if you are to make sense of what follows, you need to know that I make use of serious reading material in the mornings when I obey my mother's instructions to keep myself "regular", if you catch my drift.
Years back, so far back that I can scarcely remember the reason, a buxom girl called Joely, whose father got out of Hungary in 1956 just before the Russian tanks rolled back in, lent me her copy of Colloquial Hungarian by Arthur H Whitney, publ Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, 1944. I still have it, and it is currently on sennapod duty in the throne room.
The reason I am telling you about this book is because it is the worst DIY language book I have ever dipped into . It is so bad it is appealing, in the way that William Mcgonagall, poet and tragedian of Dundee, wrote poetry that fascinates by its sheer awfulness:
Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That ninety lives have been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember'd for a very long time.
I will not quote from Whitney beyond giving you a sample of his "Small Change" section of useful phrases, such as: "He has no equal", "I was quite done in" and - my favourite - "The whole thing's ruined".
You can say that again.