Primitive accomodation,dangerous places,bandits,disease and the chance of getting killed on the roads by incompetent drivers. Here, though, in his latest journey, he actually enjoys himself, and as a result the prose leaps to life like a mosaic splashed with water. Kenya seems to him to have gone particularly downhill, the fault of the long-time (mis)ruler Danny arap Moi, but Theroux also dislikes the place for the safari-tourists that visit (and remain blissfully unaware of any sort of true Africa).

Theroux is an ideal sort of traveller: curious, passionate and well-served by his motto of "try anything twice".

On the same subject, we are informed that "whole sections of southern Sudan are uninhabited because of landmines". It takes an elderly British nurse who has spent most of her life in Africa, to put Theroux's naiveté into perspective.

His novels include The Lower River and The Mosquito Coast, and his renowned travel books include Ghost Train to the Eastern Star and Dark Star Safari.But the problem is not, as Theroux says, that Africans are not involved; it is, if anything, the opposite. Theroux, one suspects, could be a headache to travel with; resourceful, courageous and indefatigable, as well as crusty, opinionated and contradictory. Dark Star Safari, a newly formed group featuring Jan Bang, Erik Honoré, Eivind Aarset and Samuel Rohrer present its eponymous recording debut, an evocative song-driven album. They were saving lives - you couldn't fault them - but in general I despaired at the very sight of aid workers, as no more than a maintenance crew on a power trip, who had turned Malawians into beggers and whiners, and development into a study in futility.

His encounters with the natives, aid workers and occasional tourists make for rollicking entertainment, even as they offer a sobering look at the social and political chaos in which much of Africa finds itself. For all its carelessness, Dark Star Safari is free of many of the routine faults of travel books about Africa. There's a great deal of crime here too, and Theroux is more concerned about it (and, naturally, manages to get robbed here of all places).Note: Simon although bitched about his African ventured was bitter after arriving by freighter in South America. And here is Theroux's coup de grâce: "Aid workers in rural Africa are in general, oafish selfdramatising prigs and, often, complete bastards. He mints generalisations and insults at such a clip that they soon begin to outstrip even the most gifted parodist.