In A Foreign Country, Nigel Pantling takes us to some strange places - the exotic, the imaginary and the rediscovered past - and for each he serves up a heady local brew, equal parts memory, invention, wit and menace. Here, North Korean tourists rub shoulders with Syrian adventurers, the newly dead with a City lothario, Popeye and Olive Oyl with Cold War warriors. Surprising and unsettling by turns, these poems are a whistle-stop journey though different times, countries and customs, enriched by deep personal experience.