Eccentric Britain : The Guide to Britain's Follies and Foibles (Bradt Guides) [Paperback]

Benedict le Vay (Author)

Book Description

Series: Bradt Travel Guide Peruvian Wildlife | Publication Date: June 1, 2000

Eccentric Britain brings together the fascinating follies, bizarre buildings, peculiar pubs, curious ceremonies and mad marquesses that make this country unique.

Editorial Reviews

Review

A wonderful barmy guide. The Daily Telegraph.

From the Back Cover

A bizarre figure like an alien stalks a Scottish village - a West Country farmer who has built a medieval siege machine as tall as a church loads a car into it and gleefully fires it high into the sky - on a Surrey road a driver storms past at 60mph on his sofa, a standard lamp flapping in the wind. In some countries these characters would be called crackpots. In Britain, we respect them and call them eccentrics. Eccentric Britain brings you all these, together with the fascinating follies, bizarre buildings, peculiar pubs, curious ceremonies and mad marquesses that make up this unique country. For the visitor wanting to know where to expect the unexpected, or how to find the strange secrets off the beaten track, Benedict le Vay's Eccentric Britain is ideal. But its also a book to pick up and read, to make you wonder, to make you laugh out loud. (5 1/4 x 8 1/2, 256 pages, illustrations, color photos)

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Bradt Travel Guides; 1st edition (June 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1841620114
• ISBN-13: 978-1841620114
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,711,088 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Let this be your travelogue for a unique vacation, July 29, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Eccentric Britain : The Guide to Britain's Follies and Foibles (Bradt Guides) (Paperback)

I'd often heard that Britain had a tolerance for eccentrics, but I never knew to what extent. Some of these people are really, really weird, and they put more effort into bizzare hobbies, old local customs, and freaky sporting events than you would think possible. Wouldn't it be interesting if Americans spent more time going to blood sausage throwing contests than kid's sports tournaments? Together with Bill Bryson's "Notes from a Small Island", you could spend a extremely interesting vacation in Britain without ever going near any of the usual tourist haunts.

5.0 out of 5 stars See, Britain Has More Colors Than Just Gray..., September 10, 2006

By 

Notnadia (Currently upstairs.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Eccentric Britain : The Guide to Britain's Follies and Foibles (Bradt Guides) (Paperback)

Britain. Wow, what a place. End to end it's colorful (hence the gray thing in the title, little reference to the weather, you know) it's weird, and it's not afraid to celebrate its peccadilloes. It's so interesting there it makes me wonder, as I always do, why the locals ever felt the need to leave and, oh, I dunno, bug the Irish so much. That said (hey, it was my sworn duty) this seriously is a neat book and I enjoyed it a lot. It's full of stories almost too odd to be real and places that call out to you to visit. From cursed chairs in innocuous pubs, to aliens and crop circles, to festivals that merrily commemorate the droolingly insane side to life---shin-kicking contests and Guy Fawke's Day---this island has it all and this book tells you about it. When and if I go next summer for the first time in nine years, I'm going to check out as many as I can of the freakish locales Benedict le Vay (any relation to Morgan le Fay, I wonder?) writes about. Read this book and come away with more respect than ever for the eccentric-loving people who gave us Eastenders, "classic" literature, and one darn cool flag (quite honestly worn over there as underwear) the Union Jack.