Book excerpt: This is the story of Sam Small, a man from Yorkshire who wakes up one morning and decides that he can fly on his own two hands. So he does. This is for all those who know that dogs talk, Sundays can be repeated seven days in a row so that Monday never comes, and other dreamy escapism. You'll have to read to believe how he learned to fly like a bird, by faith; how he changed a dog into a girl and back again; how he coped with the two selves of his split personality; and how he was called upon to explain the tricky foreign phrase, droit de seigneur, which said in effect that the duke of the neighboring parish was required by law to go to bed with Ian Cawper's Mary Ann the night of their wedding. Here are fun humourous fantasies and shaggy dog stories by the author who would create "Lassie."