Yakking around the world - Simon Hughes

Fed up with dark, frigid English winters and Antiques Roadshow, Simon Hughes seeks a hotter, happier world of sun, seam and sex, travelling to each of the major cricketing nations through 15 winters and bowling for 41 different teams. The result is a sequence of mostly disastrous affairs played out against the alluring backdrop of some of our favourite faraway places. As wayward in love as he is with the ball, Hughes at least absorbs his surroundings to produce a series of funny, acutely observed portraits of popular holiday destinations, asking such probing questions as: why are Australians so pleased with themselves when they live in a vast, useless desert full of spiders? How can West Indians walk so slow and bowl so fast? Why, when England gave cricket to the rest of the world, is the rest of the world so much better at it? And, most importantly, why are men so crap?