Bachelor Brothers' Bed and Breakfast

Sidney Allinson is a Victoria-based communications consultant, Canadian
news correspondent for Britain’s The Army Quarterly and Defence, and
author of The Bantams: The Untold Story of World War I.

Only after several pages does it become clear that this quirky book
(winner of the 1993 Stephen Leacock Award for Humor) is a work within a
work, transcripts of a series of broadcasts by personality Bill
Richardson on CBC Radio’s Gabereau show. The book’s origins as
spoken prose come across in the style of writing—easy to read,
conversational, self-consciously literary at times, yet oddly flimsy.
Words that help while away a drive home through rush-hour traffic seem
to fall flat on the printed page.

The essays reflect the laid-back musings of the coyly anonymous
brothers Hector and Virgil, who preside over a B&B on one of B.C.’s
Gulf Islands. Though engaging enough, and agreeably harmless, their
preoccupations do not range far beyond twee gossip on the stoop of a
vacation cabin. An acquired taste, perhaps best enjoyed by the
narrators’ loyal radio listeners.