The No9 Bus to Utopia, by David Bramwell

David Bramwell's Italian girlfriend left him for someone "younger, but more mature".

Ouch! That's got to hurt. And it did.

So, he decided that he would tackle his commitment issues and general ennui with the city of Brighton by going to visit all the off-the-wall communities he could find, looking for Utopia.

He limits himself, quite wisely, I think, to all those communities that he could find in the west. A fear of bad hygiene, tummy upsets, and a deep phobia of tie-dye rules out a lot of places.

I simply adored this book. Part travel memoir, part philosophy treatise - and, above all, very funny. I'd heard of a few of the places that he travels to - and the ones that I hadn't left me open-mouthed.

Did anyone else know that the Italians had tunnelled secretly and illegally into the mountains near Turin and built a temple underground the size of St Paul's? And they built a time machine, too. Who knew?

His time in Scandinavia, Scotland, America, and a whole host of other places left me chortling with laughter at some of the more outlandish belief systems.

But it also really got me thinking. Take away the time machines and some of the dippiness, and it struck me that we could all do with a bit more Utopia in our lives and a more enlightened approach to living in a community.

Can't stop. I'm off to catch the No9 bus.