The verdict is in

A while ago I said I'd ask for a second opinion on Tom Holt's book about custard. I was worried that I might have been far too negative because I was jetlagged and I had to come back to work after fabulous holiday and it was surprisingly cold and I CAUGHT a cold as well.

Three weeks later, my mate said that she couldn't be bothered finishing the book. Even when she couldn't sleep last night, she preferred to stare at the ceiling. She thought it was "laboured" and said that it was trying to laugh at bureaucracy without really understanding it. The phrase "He's no Douglas Adams" was used. Then she went on to quote embarrassingly large slabs from the Hitchiker's Guide and Red Dwarf series(es?) in a way that made me glad my colleagues were mostly already at lunch. Can't have people thinking I'm some sort of sci-fi nerd, can we?

But Boys'-Own rollicking seafaring adventures are quite another kettle of fish! When I couldn't sleep last night after poor Edgar gasped his last on 24*, I devoured half of Patrick O'Brian's The Thirteen Gun Salute, in which Lucky Jack Aubrey is FINALLY restored to HM's Navy with the rank of captain and the seniority he would have had if he hadn't been so scurrilously disgraced. Interestingly, the ship's company is served with albatross with no ill-effect.

This is exactly the sort of book I hated when I was a teenager so it's a delight to find them now. There's only about another dozen or so. Hurrah!

* I'm not a 24 nerd either. Really. I didn't see most of the last season and I'm only watching about 30 minutes of the four hours** they're showing a week of the current season.

**I actually prefer it this way because the real time scenario was getting really tedious.