#books #travel: Don't Call Me a Crook! A Scotsman’s Tale of World Travel, Whisky, and Crime, by Bob Moore
If you look up the word ‘ bounder’ in the dictionary, you won’t see a picture of Bob Moore (what you will see is the definition ‘a morally reprehensible person; cad’) but you really should.Don’t Call Me a Crook! A Scotsman’s Tale of World Travel, Whisky, and Crime was written by Bob Moore (not the footballer) in 1935 and originally published by the same people that published Mein Kampf. Moore wrote the book hoping to make a packet, although it’s doubtful that he made a penny from the book. It was discovered disheveled and ignored in the ‘Tramps’ section of the New York Public Library by Dissident Books’ Nicholas Towasser and is an absolute cracking read.It starts off brilliantly:
“It is a pity there are getting to be so many places that I can never go back to, but all the same, I do not think it is much fun a man being respectable all his life.”
It then recounts the fantastic globetrotting adventures of a working class Scotsman who makes his way around the world wheeling and dealing, wining and dining, and working as a marine engineer, building superintendent, a moonshine runner and a gun runner.
Moore’s adventures take him to the U.S., England,Australia, Egypt, South America, Japan, and China. The book has an afterword by Booker Prize-winning novelist James ‘Chuckle Chops’ Kelman but don’t let that put you off. Moore and his book are far from respectable. A thief, a liar, a cheat and, yes, a bounder, this is a hell of a yarn.
(I think I should also mention that the copy of the book that Nicholas Towasser sent to me was wrapped in pages from Playboy magazine that featured an interview with Charles Bukowski.)