PG Is The Tops

In times of trouble, we all have something we can turn to for solace. In the absence of a good friend or loved one to ease their bruised heart, most people have a Plan B - something that can be relied upon to relieve sorrow and stress or at least help them to throw a cloth over it for a while.

For some, a good walk in the bracing fresh air helps to clear their mind and blow away some of the crud. Others find relief in a litre bottle of Lambrini, particularly if they get to avoid the empty calories by spewing it all up again later. Both these approaches have their merits and I've indulged in them myself - fortunately, the former far more often than the latter.

But when life just feels like poo on a stick and all I want to do is tear a hole in the space-time continuum, so I can step into a more appealing existence - perhaps as the royal bottom-wiper to Emperor Caligula or something cushy like that - there is only one place where I will find true relief. And it's on my bookshelf, under 'W'.

That's right - by harking back about a hundred years to the work of a man who appeared to have been utterly detached from reality, I find a welcome salve for most of Life's more forcible pokes to the eye. PG Wodehouse's world of ill-fated engagements, policemen's helmets and young men in spats is long gone and probably never really existed at all, but it is a world into which I can at least temporarily disappear and feel utterly at home.

I first discovered the medicinal quality of Plum's work when I was about 12. Having succeeded in skiving off school for the day, I suddenly realised that I was going to catch it when my parents got home and could therefore look forward to a less than rewarding day of excruciating anxiety. Abruptly robbed of my guilt-free leisure, I roamed the house nervously, searching for a way to fend off the constant feeling of impending doom.

Flicking impatiently through a few crusty old books in the bookshelf, mostly refugees from my deceased grandfather's den, I opened one which described an exchange between a privileged young man and his valet. Emerging from his bed sheets with a cracking headache, it became apparent that this chap had got absolutely hammered the night before and that his valet was going to sort it all out with one magical restorative, while quoting a little poetry about Autumn's mellow fruitfulness. I laughed. I goggled at the audacity of it, the turn of phrase, the upper-class slang that added about 150 words to my vocabulary overnight. And I felt, suddenly, better.

The book was a 1941 imprint of The Code of the Woosters by PG Wodehouse and I don't think I'm overstating the case when I say that it changed my life. That original volume sits on a shelf above me right now, next to my burgeoning collection of 'touch and you die' new special edition Wodehouses, having practically shredded countless paperbacks in the years since that first unlikely encounter.

Many years later, when I'd had a particularly discomforting experience at work on a Friday and spent the entire weekend alone, dreading the confrontations that Monday might bring, I turned to Wodehouse yet again. Spending most of the weekend watching the entire five series of Jeeves & Wooster on DVD might sound like a shameful waste of time and it probably was, but it was the only thing that lifted me out of my gloom and took me somewhere nice for a while.

Of course the television series could not quite capture the magic of Wodehouse's prose, even though it achieved a measure of success in pinning down his sparkling dialogue. But Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry achieved a real rarity in TV adaptations - they brought their own delights to the roles and to this day, I cannot think of another pair of actors who could have brought these utterly loveable characters to life with such panache.

Although his stories might be considered light and vacuous now - in fact, they were even in Wodehouse's day by some quarters - I cannot express my absolute and utter love for his work. Which makes me a tremendous ass, but I simply retort 'says you!' and skip off for a couple of stiff ones before heading out under the big blue to toil among God's spiffing creations. Pip pip.