Doctor Who has his Tardis, Tom Tyme has his … Portaloo. No this isn’t a Cornish seaside resort (we do get to visit Tintagel, however) but a machine for travelling in time and space, though there’s not much space inside it, as it happens, and the flush doesn’t do what you’d want it to.

And that’s just for starters in this richly comic novel, which involves a talking moggie, King Arthur’s sword Excalibur and mistaken identities — from which you’ll gather it’s pointless giving a plot summary. My copy of the book, by the way, was inscribed by the author “Beware the grannies!” Too late, I’m afraid, as I’m married to one, but luckily she in no way resembles the extremely dangerous clones of Monty Python’s Hell’s Grannies that pop up here from time to time.

As in many comic novels with strong fantasy flavourings there is some rather twisted logic which it doesn’t pay to examine too closely, plus dialogue and description with lashings of sarcasm and understatement, all of which may or may not be to your taste. After a slowish start hampered by adjectival indigestion the action picks up, with sufficient twists and turns aided by short jumpcut chapters to keep the reader interested.

The finished product could have done with some decent editing, excising typos and overuse of ‘mayhap’, but after all’s said and done the dedication says it all: “For Fun”. At least nothing like this happened on my sixty-fifth birthday — these days you don’t have to go in person down to the post office as it’s all done electronically. ( )