Travels as a Brussels Scout [Hardcover]

Nick Middleton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1998

This text follows a trail of modern-day sights and experiences that every well-rounded, late-29th century Eurocitizen should encounter. This latter-day "Grand Tour" takes in the musts of modern Europe, from the Channel Tunnel to the casino at Frankfurt Airport, from Eurodisney to the Parthenon, and from Legoland to the Vatican City. Travelling on Eurocheques and speaking only English, Nick Middleton is the stereotypical Englishman abroad.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Overturning the stereotype of the staid, stay-at-home geographer, Oxford geography instructor Middleton (The Last Disco in Outer Mongolia) takes readers on an irreverent tour through Western Europe in 1995, with the ostensible aim of gauging Europeans' support of, or indifference to, the European Union. Mostly, his wisecracking journey is a lark, filled with witty, shrewd observations on cultural contrasts. The egalitarian, law-abiding Swedes' civic discipline seems worlds apart from Rome's deranged traffic snarls, which the author considers symptomatic of Italy's borderline-anarchic disregard for authority. Middleton, who was underwhelmed by the Louvre's Mona Lisa, Copenhagen's Little Mermaid and the Lisbon metropolis ("the closest a European capital comes to the Third World"), is a wry traveling companion, and his intellect is wide-ranging. He seems equally at home explicating Austrians' obsession with death; the sanitized pseudo-reality of Paris's Disney park; Belgians' allegiance to their regions and cities rather than to the country as a whole; and the benefits of the E.U., for which Middleton expresses measured support. Despite the author's lighthearted tone, his serendipitous journal speaks volumes about the state of Europe today.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Nick Middleton was born in London. As a geographer he has travelled to more than 50 countries and teaches part-time at Oxford University. As a travel writer he has been accused of drug smuggling and spying but has never spent a night in jail. He has been fined for dropping a match in China, mugged in Moscow, conned in Casablanca and kidnapped in Outer Mongolia, but hasn't tired of t

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: George Weidenfeld & Nicholson, Ltd. (January 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0297817930
• ISBN-13: 978-0297817932
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.5 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #465,973 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #56 in Books > Travel > Europe > Belgium

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nick on form as is usual, September 18, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Travels as a Brussels Scout (Hardcover)

NIck Middleton as usual delivers the goods. He carries on where he left off delivering a humorous account of the current EEC. His political and economic insight to the region is witty and informative, but as usual he writes with a subtle sarcasm, never shying away from providing the reader with an informative view of the European continent. I would also thoroughly recommend trying to get hold of his earlier work "Last Disco in Outer Mongolia".

4.0 out of 5 stars Pre-PC Age, Actual Funny Observant Scouting, October 24, 2011

By 

Crorivco - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Travels As a Brussels Scout (Paperback)

This book is hilarious in parts. I mean you could say the author is bit stereotypical, but that is what cultures are, items or actions that are at the forefront and most prominent. Some chapters as I recall are brief and you want more. His descriptions though are priceless.
And they are true, first-hand mostly accounts, so they did happen.

If you have done any traveling to Europe, especially during the EU build-up, pre-EU, or even after, you can certainly identify with some things and if not you can certainly see the absurdity of some of the things of making this overnight almost amalgamation into a single entity while trying to deal with every nations' separate culture, pet peeves, ideals, and thoughts on the other cultures.

It's a good read because there is no book I know of really like it and it has that same American call-it-like-you-see-it feel of Mark Twain traveling Europe. Some is grostesque, harsh, funny, dead-on, dead-pan humor, some is light hearted admiration of some things. He gives most nations a fair shake and just plain calls out the others.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars EU? P.U.!, December 5, 2000

By 

Robert (Chicago USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Travels as a Brussels Scout (Hardcover)

Yikes! What were the Boys in Brussels thinking?!

Bravo, Mr. Middleton!