Faintheart

Charles Jennings

"In the Bill Bryson mould" it says on the back. Easy enough to get yourself labelled the "new Bill Bryson". Much harder to deliver a genuinely entertaining piece of humorous travel writing. And Faintheart fails miserably to deliver. Mrs Harry (who knows a thing or two about Scotland having dated a Scot - long before my time - and travelled up there to meet his folks and had more adventures in one day than Charles Jennings manages in several weeks) was asking me what it was about and why it was so poor.

It's like this, I told her. English author travels round Scotland. Visits Edinburgh and gets rained on, doesn't like it, visits Aberdeen, really doesn't like it, visits Dundee, doesn't much like it, gets rained on some more, thinks about visiting Shetland and the Orkneys, decides they're too far away, thinks about visiting the Highlands, decides it's too far away, thinks about visiting the Western Isles, decides they're too far away, worries about visiting Glasgow and getting into a fight, visits Glasgow, quite likes it, doesn't get into any fights.

Someone needs to tell Charles Jennings that finding yourself on the first floor of a department store and MOMENTARILY not being able to locate the stairs to get down again DOES NOT A RIVETING ANECDOTE MAKE. Admittedly he has come up with a good title for his book but spoils even this by devoting a couple of pages near the end to the whole business of coming up with a good name for your book. Note to all authors: Discussing your title shortlist with your readers invariably ends up looking like padding of the most desperate kind.

Buy the book, if you must, for the entertaining description of the Darien scheme (independent Scotland's ill-conceived colonial adventure in 1698) with which the book kicks off. Oh, and for another airing of P.G. Wodehouse's quote about Scotsmen, grievances and rays of sunshine. You know the one.