The Teatime Islands: Adventures in Britain's Faraway Outposts

Welcomed with open arms, derided as a pig-ignorant tourist and occasionally mocked mercilessly for his trouble, Ben Fogle visited the last flag-flying outposts of the British Empire. With caution, dignity and a spare pair of pants thrown to the wind, he set out to discover just exactly who would choose to live on islands as remote as these and - more importantly - tried to figure out exactly why. Landing himself on islands so isolated, wind-swept, barren and just damned peculiar that they might have Robinson Crusoe thinking twice, Fogle: almost becomes lunch on the appropriately named Carcass Island; gets deported from Pitcairn for being both a spy and a smuggler; uncovers the story of the tyrant who became St Helena's most unwilling and least popular guest; and, witnesses a shark attack from a respectable distance. Why he went, what he did when he got there and how exactly he got back in one piece makes for an eye-opening but affectionate look into life in these unique, peculiar places.