Rereading Anthony Buckeridge's Jennings stories is much like slipping on that once favourite jacket from the back of the wardrobe you know will never be fashionable again; but a. you're not bothered and b. it feels just the same as it did the first time you wore it.
I found The Best of Jennings going for a song in a local bookshop and it immediately went straight to the top of my incoming pile. Sorry John Harvey, Pete Townshend et al - I'm not taking calls right now.I mean, where else would you get lines like: "Yes, rather, said Atkinson ghoulishly. "He made me write out the passive of 'Audio' twenty five times once; it nearly killed me."
To borrow the strap-line from the slip jacket - with 'four utterly wizard adventures all jolly well complete and unabridged' to get through, I'm hunkering down for a blinking good read. There is one thing puzzling me though: why, when translated into French, did our favourite schoolboy prankster transmogrify into Bennett? But, hey, that's a question for another day. Maybe his best friend CEJ Darbishire would know?