A book at bed time
Wednesday, August 10th, 2005 02:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
caddymanThose of you who take the Fortean Times may have read a review of a book in the latest issue, which attracted rave reviews and a 20/10 rating by the reviewer.
Not one to sit idly by and allow a recommendation to pass un remarked, I instantly (well, a couple of days later) nipped out and purchased the book. I’m not sure what it was doing being reviewed in the FT, since it’s not even remotely fortean, being instead the story of a rather odd British military expedition into Africa during the First World War, and therefore history, even if entertainingly written.
The book in question is Mimi and Tou Tou Go Forth The bizarre battle of Lake Tanganyika by Giles Foden. It recounts the strange and very amateur expedition despatched by the Admiralty in 1915 to wrest control of Lake Tanganyika from the Germans.
It is the sort of story that has to be true, because no-one could make it up. As it says on the fly leaf:
Learn of the officer known as ‘Piccadilly Johnny’, the man with a monocle and canary yellow hair. The two Scots seamen who spoke little, ate more and responded to the names Gog and Magog. Read of the man addicted to Worcester Sauce, who ensured that two full cases accompanied him on the mission so that he could drink it neat as an aperitif before every meal.
Bloody marvellous.
And it’s true.
Not one to sit idly by and allow a recommendation to pass un remarked, I instantly (well, a couple of days later) nipped out and purchased the book. I’m not sure what it was doing being reviewed in the FT, since it’s not even remotely fortean, being instead the story of a rather odd British military expedition into Africa during the First World War, and therefore history, even if entertainingly written.
The book in question is Mimi and Tou Tou Go Forth The bizarre battle of Lake Tanganyika by Giles Foden. It recounts the strange and very amateur expedition despatched by the Admiralty in 1915 to wrest control of Lake Tanganyika from the Germans.
It is the sort of story that has to be true, because no-one could make it up. As it says on the fly leaf:
It was the First World War and Britain was in trouble. Kaiser Wilhelm had put two warships on Lake Tanganyika in Central Africa, giving him control of the region, and it was vital for Britain that those ships be destroyed. But who could be trusted with such an important mission?
Step forward Lt. Commander Geoffrey Spicer-Simpson – a man court martialled for wrecking his own ships, an inveterate liar and a wearer of skirts. Since no-one else was available, Spicer-Simpson was despatched with a crack team – half of them at least as unhinged as their leader – on a dangerous mission to drag two gunboats through the Congo, and engage an enemy with a few surprises still up its sleeve…
Learn of the officer known as ‘Piccadilly Johnny’, the man with a monocle and canary yellow hair. The two Scots seamen who spoke little, ate more and responded to the names Gog and Magog. Read of the man addicted to Worcester Sauce, who ensured that two full cases accompanied him on the mission so that he could drink it neat as an aperitif before every meal.
Bloody marvellous.
And it’s true.