Engine Punk

I spent a very entertaining evening not so long ago with Peter Tuthill, the motoring historian. He is a terrific enthusiast for anything and everything with wheels and engines and has a vast retentive memory. When Autocar magazine inaugurated the first ever Motormind contest (like Mastermind but with much more interesting subjects) Peter Tuthill was the first ever winner. He's also a very good speaker so if you ever get the chance to see him in action - whether it's about cars, motorsport, local history or the Observer Corps - do go along. Peter's interest began at an early age with an Ian Allan ABC. This featured the addresses of the motor manufacturers so he started to write off for brochures using the headed paper from the family business in Penzance in Cornwall. Soon he amassed an extraordinary collection as he worked his way through this book and then The Observer's Book of Automobiles. The response was almost overwhelming. Peter's knowledgeable enquiri...

I've just had an extremely positive review on BookPleasures.com, the independent internet review site. Read it here! I am particularly encouraged by this coup - I had a sneaky feeling some of the humour wouldn't be got by an American reader. Either the reviewer was particularly clever and understood what I was on about or it's not so abstruse for our transatlantic cousins as I'd thought. At first I never considered how it would appeal to an American reader. People are still people wherever you go but over the years I've heard many instances of British shows being adapted for American tastes. This seems especially true of comedies but it doesn't seem to be a problem for Jaspar Fforde whose very Britishness is one of his keyways to success. Wallace and Gromit also cross this great alleged divide. The Japanese love them especially their tea drinking. It makes for an alternative take on their tea ceremony, I suppose. In case Jaspar's sense of humour ne...