An old favourite. Or at least, so I thought. I remember reading the book and finding it really funny, and have fond recollections of many of the episodes in the book, so I thought it was about time to re-read it.

I had assumed that my memories were of a selection of the anecdotes in the book, and that there would be a load of other funny stuff that I'd forgotten. But in fact the bits I'd forgotten were pretty uniformly unfunny, and a bit dull. There were quite a lot of diversions as J ruminates on the history of places they go through, and waxes lyrical on the beauties of the countryside. The first time he did this, involving a multi-paragraph description of the joys of camping outdoors, was OK because it laid the ground for Harris' prosaic "what about when it rains?". But other stuff was just a bit of a chore - e.g. what J imagines the scene was like when the Magna Carta was signed.

There was quite a lot of this filler-type stuff, most of which I paid little attention to, and have consequently forgotten. The funny stuff was good, but familiar. And because it was all familiar, it didn't make me laugh as much as I'd expected.

Bit of a disappointment.

Completed : 21-Dec-2004 (audiobook)