Mark Wallington has a dream. He is going to change the face of British comedy. Unfortunately for the residents of north London, he's going to finance this dream by becoming a gardener. The result is The Day Job, an account of a year spent working in other people's gardens: people like Mrs Fleming who is convinced there is buried treasure in the bottom bed; Mr Walters who is trying to create a fascist state policed by gnomes in his well-guarded plot in Gospel Oak; Mrs Glover who is probably the most attractive woman living in Britain; and poor Mr Nugent, who likes to save his urine in jam jars and pour it over his compost. Over four seasons Wallington crosses Hampstead Heath from job to job. He survives brushes with the evil contract gardeners who keep trying to knock him off his bicycle. He strives to impress literary agent Herman Gapp who might represent him - depending on what sort of job he does on Gapp's Alpine Terrace. He even finds time to fall for a housecleaner-cum-actor named Helen, as he becomes part of a strange band of artistes, each with a day job of their own, all waiting for that first break. This is the story of long nights spent in the back room of a pub trying to write unsolicited scripts, and of much longer days spent trying to understand the British and their strange obsession with gardening.

The original Boogie, reluctant hero of the South West Peninsular Path, was the Mongrel from hell. Mark Wallington's New Boogie, like New Labour, appears a much trendier and more wholesome incarnation - until, that is, Mark gets him on the Pennine Way. This is the big one in every sense. Clearly Boogie will do fine - but will Mark be up to the task?

Travels with Boogie is the story of two city slickers - one an unattractive but streetwise mongrel from Stockwell, the other the long-suffering author - and how they came to terms with England's countryside and waterways. First they had to survive against all odds as they embarked on a heroic journey up hill and down dale, with rucksacks full of Kennomeat, along Britain's longest coastal footpath - from Somerset to Devon, from Cornwall to Dorset. And they did it. Then, undaunted, they took on the treacherous waters of the Thames. Not exactly as Mark had planned, however: this time his companion was to be the delectable Jennifer - but she was held up at the office, and when Boogie was dropped off at the kennels the other dogs complained. Travels with Boogie is a witty and fascinating account of a mismatched couple and of the people they meet and places they visit.