Trawler is without doubt the most febrile travel narrative since the bats appeared in the desert somewhere round Barstow in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Its pages pitch, roll, sway, heave, surge and yaw, like ships at sea experiencing what Redmond O'Hanlon calls their 'six degrees of freedom'.

The set-up is cursory. O'Hanlon, with hls trademark self-deprecating shtick, is living Hobbit-snug in his safe, calm Oxfordshire home when he receives a call hm marine biologist Luke Bullough. Luke has found a trawler, the Norlantean, willing to give O'Hanlon passage. Most importantly, the boat is headed straight into a