Benedict Le Vay is a national newspaper sub-editor who has worked in four continents but wrote his first book, Eccentric Britain, more or less by accident after collecting oddities about his home country. He says he was 'staggered' by the response, which included media attention from the Shetland Times to Gulf Radio and publicity tours in America and New Zealand. He describes himself as a frankly rather ordinary father of two, and is hard-pressed to think of anything eccentric about himself. 'At a push, I'd say, yes, I'm Honorary Secretary of the Friends of A272, and I've asked for my ashes to be blasted from the chimney of my favourite steam locomotive at my funeral. Hasn't everybody?'