In 1984, my husband picked this book up from a sale table outside an English language bookstore on the left bank in Paris. At the time, the jacket was a cartoon of a sexy, bikini-clad female sitting under a beach umbrella. I assumed it would be a 'beach read' for him. The book made him laugh so much that I decided to read it as well. What could be funnier than sending an uneducated, recently-made-wealthy, bigger-than-life English pig farmer and his very loud family on a visit to France, home of perfect manners, high judgement calls, easy offense and the pince-nez? Bate's character analysis is so on point that it just made me guffaw.The story is the second of a series of 5 books (The Pop Larkin Chronicles) written about the farmer's family, but can be read without the others.