RUSS To Get A Copy!, 22 Feb 2002

It is written in an entertaining and engaging way. Glover's writing style is consistent with the tone of her broadcasting. If you've enjoyed her BBC work then you'll probably find something here that will amuse and entertain you. Her passion for radio comes across clearly and it is infectious.

Unfortunately, the book is let down by a conspicuous lack of editing. As another review here highlights, certain anecdotes just don't stand up to being in the final draft of the book. (The non-event involving Art Bell being a case in point). Also the coverage of Radio Five Live seems a bit too parochial for any reader who might be coming to the book cold.

In the acknowledgements, Glover extends a "walloping thank you to my editor". Some kind of walloping is certainly in order, but I'm not sure it should involve gratitude. (Perhaps a carefully aimed haddock would be more in order). Repeated references are made in the book to someone called Russ Limbaugh. Is Russ related in any way to the much better known American broadcaster RUSH Limbaugh?

Turning Rush in Russ Limbaugh gives him an added dimension that I'd not previously considered. As Rush, I had simply pictured him as being the intemperate poster child for angry white men. As Russ, I wonder if he's also in charge of a Mad House where he's mean to Bella Emberg and dresses up as Basildon Bond.

Also, the United States presented in this book appears to exist in some strange parallel universe, where born and bred Americans speak British English for no obvious reason. Examples:

- Joelene from Dallas says "Aah - sod off".

- Diane from Mississippi says "Yup - one in between as well - but the baby has knackered me right out".

- A Chicago radio presenter talks about how "we go back to sleep and have a kip before we come in here".

- A New York producer writes up several callers' problems as involving their "mum".

It is disappointing that Glover writes Americans with all the authenticity that Dick Van Dyke acts Cockney. If this were fiction, you might just put it down to someone not tuning into how their characters really would speak. However, this is suppossed to be a factual book. These quotes - more Dalston than Dallas - break faith with the reader.

If you're going to put something in quotes it should at least be a reasonable approximation of what the person actually said. The above examples did leave me wondering just how authentic the rest of the details in the book were. I think that's a shame because Glover's obvious sincerity does come through in many other ways.

I certainly think that Glover has the ability to develop into being a good writer, either of more travel books or of fiction. She just needs to get herself a more discerning editor and needs to recognise that not all your research warrants inclusion in the final work.

Finally, I'd recommend checking out the writer's publicity photograph on the back cover. This appears to be have been taken while she was dressed as a member of Singapore Airlines' cabin crew. Why this may have been so, only Fi Glover can say. Perhaps that's how she funded her globe-trotting.

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Two-fingered Glover salutes world radio, 4 Sep 2001

As Glover freely admits, she's a bit of a radio anorak. She enjoys nothing more than tuning in her radio wherever she is in the world to find something (preferably in English) which will help her find her bearings in a strange place. The World Service can do many things, but orientation is not its forte. It is Glover's obsession with radio in all its forms which prompted her to write this entertaining travelogue-cum-homage to radio.

The book is helpfully sub-titled "Travels with my Radio", so as not to raise false hopes that Glover is perhaps a sea-going vessel or, indeed, completely bonkers. Travelling round Europe and the rest of the world, she exposes radio myths, trade secrets and the occasional vignette about the rich, famous and pompous (or Jeffrey Archer, as he is otherwise known).

More surprising is Glover's ability to convey the atmosphere of each location whilst remaining very much an outsider with an outsider's curiosity and appreciation of a strange land. Nowhere is this more true than in her descriptions of travels in Lebanon, where her expectations are jolted hard.

Self-deprecating, witty and humorous, Glover is a consummate broadcaster, becoming one of the BBC's rising stars whilst in her 20s. Now the presenter of Radio 5's late-night slot, she proves herself as ascerbic - and talented - a writer as she is a broadcaster.

This book is laugh-out-loud funny in places, and is the ideal introduction to the peculiar world of radio, but is also an affectionate take on the innocence of the tourist abroad. And, if you're wondering about the title, it's explained at the end of Chapter One.

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