To the Baltic with Bob

The historian Macaulay once remarked that the British navy of Pepys' day was staffed by gentlemen and seamen: the seamen were not gentlemen and the gentlemen were not seamen. Comedian Griff Rhys Jones, and theBob of To the Baltic with Bob, would fall, decidedly, into the "gentlemen" category of mariner: enthusiasts, amateurs in the original sense of the word and therefore, naturally, inept sailors. (Rhys Jones pins the blame for his obsession with all things nautical on Arthur Ransome and on his late father, who made the freezing West Mercia boat park the family's home from home.) Luckily for Rhys Jones, his mate Bob is a marginally worse yachtsman. And in this record of a summer voyage from the Thames estuary to St Petersburg, Bob, the ex-hippie entrepreneur with a beguilingly childlike urge to possess Scando-Soviet tat (canned reindeer, Russian amphibious vehicles etc) is cast as Passepartout to Rhys Jones's Phileas Fogg.

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

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Much more fun than I expected - Rated
I've never been an admirer of Bill Bryson, so picked up this with a degree of anxiety having read so many unfavourable comparisons! I'm now reading it for the second time, having thoroughly enjoyed the first, and can safely say it would take priority over anything of Bryson's I have ever read. Self-deprecating as ever, and delightfully aware of his own failings, I think this is a very enjoyable account of a journey recalled with affection and exasperation, and whilst the humour is not roll-around-the-floor in tone it was enough to have me chuckling away for many an evening. I hope he writes more in the same vein!

Not particularly funny and poor research - Rated
Just like me, I'm sure Griff Rhys Jones reads a lot of Bill Bryson - the style is unmistakable. However, the imitation is not nearly as good as the original, funny though he is at times. One other thing I can deduce about Mr Jones, is that he must have a next to illegible hand-writing. There's no other explanation as to how he manages to misspell so many places and names. I've had to scratch my head on countless occasions to try and think of what places he REALLY means. And I'm from Sweden. Mind you, someone from Wales ought to be more careful, considering how they spell THEIR placenames!

Having grown up sailing through these very waters every summer as a kid, I certainly got a couple of good laughs as my old memories resurfaced, but that was mainly from recognition rather than from much wittiness on Mr Jones' part.

Perfect armchair sailing - Rated
The story of the child of a boat mad father who turns into a mini Captain Bligh when afloat. The perfect book for the armchair sailor, or for those of us whose boats never leave their moorings, or indeed gets off the trailer in the trailer park but who dreams of one day launching it and sailing off into the blue..... Readers of Arthur Ransome will also enjoy the bits where the author picks up Ransome's route on the Racundra in the Baltic.

Disappointment - Rated
I was recommended to read this book by a friend of the author who used to sail with Jones' father. He thoroughly enjoyed every word and said the book was full of laughs.
It came, therefore, as a major disappointment that the book was a litany of complaints and that such a miserable time was had by all.
Rhys Jones obviously has a large fan base and I expect they think anything he does is marvellous.
I have never seen him on TV but read his ramblings in the Sunday Telegraph. This book is about the same standard as his newspaper column.

Like a Christmas Round-robin letter - Rated
I don't suppose Griff Rhys Jones is to be blamed for the quote on the front jacket that there are "3 good jokes on every page", but it is certainly misleading. This is an amiable enough account of a rather grumpy sailing trip, but I doubt there was more than one moment that made me laugh.

The book comes alive briefly in the account of a sailing race out of Kiel, but otherwise there is little to recount. The characters are thinly described and unmemorable and there's no feeling of place - they might as well have sailed around the Isle of Wight. The book seems to be like an overextended round robin letter one receives at Christmas from friends who you've lost touch with.

There is a great book to be written about the history, geography and people of the Baltic....I guess we'll just have to wait for Bill Bryson to take up sailing.