Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #151379 in Books
• Published on: 2001-04-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
As a cricketer Simon Hughes enjoyed not immoderate success as a bowler with a championship-winning Middlesex side. As a writer, his previous effort A Lot of Hard Yakka, a tale of the life of an English county cricketer, won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award in 1997.

Nowadays, Hughes can be found filling the role of "The Analyst" on Channel 4's test match coverage. Clearly a man of more than one talent, Hughes has now chronicled his travels around the cricketing globe as player and journalist. And as a success, Yakking Around The World stands comfortably amongst his other achievements. Having visited every test-cricket-playing nation, Hughes narrates his odyssey in whites with much aplomb. From London to Lahore via the Leewards, and many other exotic locations, he spices his recollections with memories of the local people and hospitality, with most specific and humorous reference to varying degrees of success with the native womenfolk. Cricket has often been twinned with travel writing, but rarely can it have been married with stories of red-blooded sexual desire! Hughes shakes all three into a splendidly funny cocktail and comes up with a winner. --Trevor Crowe

Synopsis
This is a wry, acerbic and very funny trip around the world offering real insights into national and cricketing cultures while exploring male attitudes to sex, love and marriage and ultimately revealing what constitutes Englishness. Simon Hughes, a professional cricketer (Middlesex and Durham), played a season in every other major Test match playing country during his 10 1/2 year cricket-playing career - from Australia and New Zealand, South Africa and the West Indies, to India, Pakistan, Malaysia and Zimbabwe. There are fascinating insights into cricket as well as witty observations and hilarious experiences of life abroad, women, bad food, worse accommodation. There are the encounters with the great cricketers from overseas - Richards, Warne, Azharuddin and Ambrose - as well as an evening on the beach with a Sri Lankan homosexual, the fatal attraction of a New Zealand divorcee, managing a double identity in Australia, as best man at an arranged marriage in India and many more strange and funny encounters.

From the Publisher
Discovering the world on and off the wicket
Discovering the world on and off the wicket
In 1979 at the end of Simon Hughes first Summer as a professional cricketer, he realised he faced a winter without a job, sun, girlfriend or cricket. For the next eleven years he went in search of a hotter, happier world where the girls were game and the pitches were perfect – he was looking for sun, seam and sex.

Four continents, 28 countries, 34 towns (from Colombo and Durban, to Wanneroo, Woolloomooloo, and even Whakapapa) and 58 different addresses later, playing for a total of 41 different teams, he looks back at the joys, disasters, and the unpredictable adventures he faced both on and off the field.

YAKKING AROUND THE WORLD is an alternative travel guide to the world’s faraway places, by a man who really lived in some of the world’s most exotic locations. Along the way Simon tries to explain some of the world’s greatest mysteries: Why are New Zealanders always stoned? Why are Australians so self-satisfied? Why do South Africans sound like they’ve wired their jaws up? And how do West Indians manage to walk so slow and bowl so fast?

As Simon tries to find his perfect utopia of fun people, great beaches, excellent cricket and beautiful women he learns about himself and how the English are seen around the world, mixes with cricket greats such as Imran Khan, Gatting and Defreitas, and tries to explain why, when England gave cricket to the world, is everyone else so much better at it than us?

YAKKING AROUND THE WORLD is the tale of one man’s seeing the world, growing up, settling down and still managing to miss the ball.

Simon Hughes is a presenter on Channel 4’s cricket was a professional cricketer for Middlesex (1980-91) and Durham (1992-93). He won four county championship medals and five one-day trophies and took over 750 wickets. Since retiring from cricket he has become a well-known sports writer for The Independent, Daily Telegraph, The Cricketer and G.Q. (where he is a commissioning editor). He is a reporter and ‘The Analyst’ for Channel 4’s Test Match coverage and a commentator for the 1999 World Cup. His earlier best-selling A LOT OF HARD YAKKA: A Cricketer’s Life won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award.

Customer Reviews

Aussies will not be best pleased!
Fantastic
Another gem from Simon Hughes. It was great to see somebody willing to speak honestly about his time in other countries (and without political correctness). In particular, Australians should be very wary of reading this book as they come in for some well aimed observation of their character, and as the author himself points out, despite the many great things that country has to offer theyquickly take umbrage at any outsiders attempt to "Take the Mickey". I can speak with some authority on that subject.
Likewise, South Africans come in for a real serve, whilst Kiwis will be pleasantly surprised.

A cricket biography without the cucumber sandwiches
Cricket... that fine game you either love or hate. If you hate it, you are probably not reading this review. If you love it, you may well remember Simon Hughes as a county cricketer (mostly at Middlesex) who has since become a TV commentator analysing batsmen and bowlers during a game.

Yakking Around the World is Hughes account of what it's like to be a county cricketer, what you can do in the English winter (ie. when there's no cricket to play at home) and basically how to get through the career. Rather than focussing too much on the cricket, Hughes describes all the places he has had the chance to play cricket and using his own calculation figures out which place is best... understandably this complex calculation is made up of what he thinks of the people, the cricket, the beaches, but most of all how often he got laid!

I found this book to be a great read, very entertaining, not too bogged down in cricket. This was the first book I read by the author but I will certainly be reading others. His style of writing is very relaxed, not at all in-your-face, and very readable. One of those books that you read on the train and you suddenly burst out laughing much to everyone's amusement.

genuinely sharp and funny
Not too many books make me laugh out loud but Simon Hughes wonderful observations and sharp humour certainly succeeded. Australians and South africans should tread carefully. The author's opinions of them are pretty mixed to say the least, which is refreshing and probably in line with more observers than these over proud countries probably appreciate. But there is a lot more too it than that. Serious observations of the great game mixed with a woody allenesque love life and nuerosises and more than a few strange adventures contribute to a fantastic read.