Rotting hull - Rated 
I am glad I came across this book in a library and didn't have to pay for it. The author is xenophobic, narrow-minded and generally the sort of person whom the customs-men at Calais should have turned back upon his arrival. He can write, it is true. But maybe if he'd considered that forty years previously before working for the European Commission we might have been more interested. As it is, swanning about in his boat enjoying his retirement and taking the piss out of everyone and everything except his bloody dog and his wife doesn't make for a good read... I'm fortunate that no canals his narrowboat can navigate reach to where I live. Because like that I don't have to listen to self-edification stories like his. If he had just written about his adventurous channel crossing in a canal narrowboat, that would have been fine, notwithstanding the fact that he didn't know how to fettle his engine if necessity called. But then having chosen to undertake this voyage, then belittling everything and everyone he and his spouse (plus dog) met on their way makes me wonder what they wanted to do it for to start with. If the idea was to prove something to either themselves or someone else, they've failed dismally.
are we reading the same book? - Rated 
I'm absolutely baffled by some of the negative reviews here ... I picked up this book as reluctantly as Jim the whippet (the narrowdog of the title)leaves dry land, but once a few pages in, and acclimatised to the unexpected writing style, loved it. I've been waiting eagerly ever since for the next book, and following the updates on the website.
Brilliantly funny, poking fun at all nations - Rated
We both loved this book, in the library of a holiday home whilst on a wet week's holiday in the South of France it was a happy find: we fought over it, couldn't both finish it and had to buy it ourselves when we got back home. The negative reviews here have surprised me as it seemed to us a familiar narrative style of writing, presuming perhaps on a familiarity with France ... we certainly were entranced, and loved the random jokes (leetle green fish .. the norbert dentressangles .. I couldn't speak with laughing) and anything I didn't understand (the author's general knowledge clearly being greater than mine) I was happy to look up in the glossary.
Deightfully original ..preposterous notion! - Rated 
Delightfully original, the reality hits home hard. All the time. The humour is there in bucket loads, but I think you have to be English to understand it and even then there is no certainty that you will. For those of American origin this book might prove as hard work as "only fools and horses". But the story is of an adventure, and one that is very real. It starts with the preposterous notion of sailing a 17 ton steel coffin, only ever intended to sail on gentle canals and rivers, across one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. Funnily enough the English Channel can get rough, with waves big enough to sink a narrow boat very quickly. The story would have stopped there and then if it had sunk.... From there you enter the world of waterborne Europe. France in particular. It is a lovely story, and very amusing. I am glad I read it, and am looking forward to reading its sequel.
The man needs an editor! - Rated
How on earth could anyone think it was a good idea to publish a fairly bog-standard travel book that completely disregarded the rules of punctuation and grammar? If it was e. e. cummings I would be more sympathetic (though I would be unlikely to read it) - but this is just illiterate.
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