Is it possible for two men to escape midlife crisis in a floating garden shed? Not if they can't get the engine working.
Take two men with a rudimentary knowledge of sailing, who only went to Amsterdam because it was in a straight line, who tried to beat the Germans at their own Regatta but almost sink in the attempt. Then, add a boat that's nearly fifty and incontinent and you have TO THE BALTIC WITH BOB, an out-of-the-ordinary travel memoir by Griff Rhys Jones that charts an off-the cuff sailing trip he once made into the lockers of the Nordic soul.
And just so you know, it was all Bob's idea.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
The pair are assisted on their journey by Baines, a technical wizard whose abilities, as Jones says, "certainly drew attention to our own deficiencies". Rick, an anally retentive chartsman, is also around until the point at which, like a commissar in a Politburo photograph, he vanishes following a testy disagreement with the author about "Baltic surge".
The wayward sea, estuary and canal route through Holland, Denmark, Latvia, Finland, Russia and the Turko Archipelago--"so topographically complex that it was expedient not to draw it"--results, predictably, in a slew of map-prodding nautical mishaps and encounters with intransigent boat repairers, officials, restaurateurs and Estonian lap dancers. As is to be expected, from one half of television's Alas Smith and Jones (or Snow in My Cottage, as Finnish viewers knew it), Rhys Jones writes very amusingly. The petty on-board squabbles and reminiscences about his boat-blighted youth are funny and, intermittently, affecting. The contrasts he draws between the "practical, modest" peoples of Scandinavia and the swaggering pomposity of ex-imperialist nations such as Britain and Russia are well made. But, at over 400 pages, the book is flabby, bloated by extraneous incidentals and verbatim renderings of conversations of the "oh, do you remember the 1970s" variety. When, on page 370, Griff asks Bob: "Can you even remember Helsinki?" some readers may find, they too, have to think twice before answering. --Travis Elborough
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Is it possible for two men to escape midlife crisis in a floating garden shed? Not if they can't get the engine working. Take two men with a rudimentary knowledge of sailing, who only went to Amsterdam because it was in a straight line, who tried to beat the Germans at their own Regatta but almost sink in the attempt. Then, add a boat that's nearly fifty and incontinent and you have TO THE BALTIC WITH BOB, an out-of-the-ordinary travel memoir by Griff Rhys Jones that charts an off-the cuff sailing trip he once made into the lockers of the Nordic soul. And just so you know, it was all Bob's idea. The book has been read, but is in excellent condition. Pages are intact and not marred by notes or highlighting. The spine remains undamaged. Seller Inventory # GOR007416199