The Travels of a Fat Bulldog - Softcover

Courtauld, George

3.9

21 ratings by Goodreads

9780349108438: The Travels of a Fat Bulldog

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0349108439 ISBN 13: 9780349108438

Publisher: Abacus, 1997

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George Courtauld is a Queen's Messenger, a sort or Royal courier who takes Her Majesty's letters (sometimes with kippers and marmalade and other necessities) to British embassies around the world. In the long hours waiting for flights, Queen's Messengers usually take up a hobby- embriodery for example, or water-colour painting- or become world experts on seashells. Not Gerorge Courtauld. Whenever he finds a spare moment, he takes off on a local adventure- white-water rafting in Costa Rica, searching (unsuccessfully) for the Limpopo in the dark, complaining (justifiably) about being installed in a brothel in Liberia and sampling a disco in Ulaan Bataar where he thrills to the sounds of Mongolia's favourite rock group, HONK! Infectiously interested in everything with an acute eye for the absurd, George Courtauld has written one of the funniest travel books to appear for many years.

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Review:

'A diarist almost as compellingly readable as Alan Clark...every page has some passage that makes one want to laugh aloud.' TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT ** 'Excellent... a special pleasure.' SPECTATOR ** 'Lively and hilarious... a thumping good read.' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 'A witty and at times bad-tempered travelogue that is sterling stuff.' MAXIM 'Up until his recent retirement, George Courtauld worked for the Foreign Office as a Queen's Messenger. If you're not sure what that is, reading this book will leave you none the wiser, for Courtauld--bound by the Official Secrets Act--confines his subject matter to places and people. This adds an air of mystery to the book, and leaves room for more of the Fat Bulldog's tales. Fans of Courtauld's previous books The Travels of a Fat Bulldog and The Fat Bulldog Roams Again will already know the drill, but will be sad to know that this third instalment is to be the last. Reading this book is like reading choice extracts from a most extraordinary diary. In Zambia, Courtauld is taken out to "spot game" at one of the biggest national parks in the world. His host, one Colonel Hawfinch, describes their guide as an "armed incompetent" and his driver as "too stupid to understand my comments on his wretched driving". This is confirmed when the vehicle stalls before 200 charging buffalo and the guard accidentally disconnects the headlamps. As entertaining as these anecdotes are, what really brings them to life is the author's brilliant use of language. The South African wildebeest, for example, is described as "a ridiculous antelope with a long face and a funny little pair of horns perched on the top of its head like a girl's sunglasses pushed up into her hair.' DAREN KING, AMAZON.CO.UK

About the Author:

As a Queen's Messenger for 14 years, the High Sherriff of Essex, or farmer and businessman, George Courtauld takes an interest in everything around him: whether botany, ornithology, history, the arts- and particularly homo sapiens.

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