WANDERLUST MAGAZINE    Lizzie Kendon

Three stars: "JR comes across as a genuine inquisitor, willing to risk acute embarrassment and injury for the chance to experience a piece of British eccentricity ... a suprisingly enjoyable read"

I'm going to come clean and confess that an audible groan escaped my lips when I first saw this book-a hysterical look at the 'crazy' things we Brits get up to in the name of tradition, all written by a bemused American (and one who calls himself JR, at that). Quite refreshing, then, that JR actually turns out to be a former Fleet Street journalist, has lived in Britain for over a decade and has a healthy dose of our in-bred cynicism and dark humour. He even pre-empts any reader-sceptics by apologising for being American at the end of his introduction.

To be fair, a tour of Britain's strangest traditions probably needed to be written by an outsider, one who could see beyond the very British response of 'because it's always been done like that' to the inevitable question: 'Why?' And JR doesn't just stand on the sidelines with his notebook-he strips down to his undies to go snorkelling in a Welsh bog, enters the shin-kicking competition in Chipping Campden and risks his life by 'swaying the Hood' in Haxey.

But it's not all gung-ho bravado. JR comes across as a genuine inquisitor, willing to risk acute embarrassment and injury for the chance to experience a piece of British eccentricity and to meet the string of passionate characters who would do anything to keep tradition alive. Add some well-researched passages on the origins of these bizarre practices and you have a surprisingly enjoyable read about a host of centuries-old traditions that face an uncertain future in these days of obsessive health-and-safety restrictions, legal claims and political correctness.