Gets better - Rated 
I almost gave up on this book several times as it appears, to me, to be nothing more than an account of Trustafarian, old-etonian, Hugo and Marcus types galavanting around the world on a whim.
It gets better from the mid-point. Ocassionaly funny but more often than not it's only mildly amusing. There are some interesting accounts of places around the globe though.
Go for 'Fatty Batter'. It's 10 times better.
a fabulously funny read - Rated 
to the travellers on the metropolitan line can i apologise for my constant laughter whilst reading this book over the last week or so.
a superbly observed book written with a beautiful passion, as someone who has played team sport for along time this really did find my funny bone from the very first pages and a smile was on my face until the last few pages which were then replaced with a few tears!!!just about the funniest sports book i have come across, you will not be dissapointed....and its put me off ever using british airways again.bloody brilliant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hilarious and poignant - Rated
Charming, witty and frequently laught-out-loud funny. Harry Thompson's book is a tale of a group of oddball friends all sharing a total addiction to village cricket. But things really become strange when they embark on a worldwide tour that will see them play cricket on every continent in the world. Cricket fans will adore this great little book but even those, and I include myself in this category, who have never watched or played a minute of cricket will be charmed and delighted.
Nooooooooo - Rated
This book has gripped me so much that I have finished it in two days, but the ending has RUINED MY LIFE!!! SOB SOB SOB SOB SOB
A fitting legacy - Rated
Harry Thompson, who died in November 2005 aged just 45, deserves to be a comedy legend ranked with the performers he helped to launch - Sacha Baron Cohen, Angus Deayton, Harry Enfield, Ricky Gervais, Nick Hancock, Ian Hislop, Mark Lamarr, Paul Merton, Paul Whitehouse, etc, etc. But because he stayed behind the cameras, and largely in the transitory field of topical comedy, the public recognition for a remarkable career remains slight.
Penguins Stopped Play, which belongs in the 'Englishmen doing eccentric things abroad' subgenre inhabited by the likes of Tony Hawks, confirms that Thompson was a very, very funny man in his own right. He was the founder of a legendarily bad cricket team called the Captain Scott XI, begun for those who wanted to play but had never actually done so. The book covers the genesis of the team and its development into a vaguely competent outfit, and then the chaos that results after someone has the insane idea of a cricket tour taking in every continent. If even half of it is true, it was quite a trip - and Thompson's record of it is consistently hilarious.
Admittedly, a lightweight comedy travelogue about cricket might not seem the most representative legacy for a man of Thompson's achievements, but it seems likely it was what he would have wanted. In a heartbreaking little postscript, his widow, Lisa, says that he was buried with his cricket bat.
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