UK on a G-String

by Justin Brown

Overcome with patriotic fervour, New Zealander Justin Brown bets an Australian mate that the All Blacks will thrash the Wallabies in an up-coming match. They don't. Forced to pay his debt, Justin has to busk his way around England until he earns enough money for his airfare home. Armed with a black duffel coat and a guitar he travels the country in mid-winter, knocking on doors and singing for his supper. Along the way he meets gypsies, drinks with Britains most famous busker, harasses carol singers, plucks turkeys, speaks to J.K.Rowling and gets told to sod off 357 times.

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction, Humor

317 pages, Paperback

First published June 30, 2004

About the author

‘One of New Zealand’s highest profile creatives’ – The NZ Herald, 2018.

Justin Brown is a bestselling author and creative director. For the past 15 years, he hosted a top rating music radio show in Auckland. He has published 31 books for adults and children. Bowling Through India and Kiwi Speak were two of three bestsellers he had in a single year. In 2012 he won a notable books award for his junior novel Shot, Boom, Score!

In 2010 North and South named him Businessman of the Year.

Reviews

[Discoverylover · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this! I laughed out loud lots of times, and winced a bit too!

[Kris Dersch · Rating 4 out of 5]

Delightful and quintessential Kiwi. I picked this up at a bookstore in New Zealand and it was great fun to follow Justin on his journey through the UK in the dead of winter with nothing but his guitar. Justin doesn't take himself or his journey to seriously and as such...delights.

[Robyn · Rating 1 out of 5]

I just couldn't like this. I tried so hard, but I found it boring and repetitive. Cool concept. See Free Country for how a book about traversing England without money should be written.

[Felicity Terry · Rating 1 out of 5]

Described as 'Travel Writing' which according to about.com is defined as 'a form of creative nonfiction in which the narrator's encounters with foreign places serve as the dominant subject'. On these grounds I suppose UK On A G-String is indeed rightfully categorised but in my opinion it takes more than a writer recalling how much the people of certain places responded to his busking door-to-door, harassing them for money, in order to pass as such.

For a book that could have been a tremendously quirky and very different kind of 'travelogue' I'm afraid I found the whole thing ludicrous, the writing conceited and amateurish, the narrative repetitive (given how many times the author wondered about the possibility of 'being beaten up' though not a violent person by the end I almost wished someone had punched him) and as for it being humorous? Well, lets just say I didn't manage a smile let alone a laugh but then I suspect that this is a book that will probably appeal more to a male audience.

Copyright: Tracy Terry @ Pen and Paper.

[Xanthi · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun and very funny book about a New Zealander who loses a bet with a friend and ends up having to busk door-to-door, in Britain, in winter, to make up enough money for a plane ticket to get him home. All I can say is that Brown must be one hell of an extrovert to have been able to kick this one off. I seriously could have done without the parts about murdering turkeys and hating cats, but the rest was an amusing adventure.

[Jade · Rating 4 out of 5]

so far so good...