P.G. Wodehouse is remembered best for introducing us to the ever-resourceful Jeeves and his employer Bertie Wooster, but among his many other fictional characters the devious Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge (pronounce those last two 'Fanshaw' and 'Yewk-ridge') looms large. The author himself once said that of all the figures he ever created, Ukridge was his favourite.

Apart from an early novel in which he appeared but briefly, Ukridge took centre stage in only one book ('Ukridge', 1924), comprising ten short stories. There were nine further short stories in subsequent books, all collected in 'The Ukridge Omnibus' (1975). But a closer look at the 1924 volume will suffice.

Ukridge was the Arthur Daley of his day - a likeable enough fellow as long as you weren't rash enough to show him a fiver (which he was sure to ask to borrow - and never return), full of disastrous get-rich-quick schemes much to the despair of his long-suffering pal Corky who usually had to bail him out, and in fear of nobody except his formidable Aunt Julia from Wimbledon. He was full of wonderful ideas, be it an accident syndicate, opening a Dog College, or managing the prize-fighter Battling Billson, nearly always with catastrophic results. The need to make himself (and Corky) scarce is usually presaged with a suggestion to 'Shift-ho, old horse'.

As ever, the stories are full of Wodehouse's elegant turn of phrase. A barman does 'a sort of backward foxtrot across the pavement'; a giant of a man asleep on a sofa 'overflowed it in every direction', and has a hand 'like a strayed ham congealed into stone'; while another experiences the complex emotions of a nervous man who is called upon to make a public speech and 'realizes too late that his brain has been withdrawn and replaced by a cheap cauliflower substitute'.

Though Wodehouse's books are usually rooted firmly in a time
less, indeterminate inter-war middle England (and sometimes the US), they may be a little old-world for some tastes, and alongside the black farce of Tom Sharpe and others, some readers can find them a touch bland. Nevertheless Stephen Fry (renowned for bringing Jeeves to the small screen), Danny Baker, Tony Blair, Bob Geldof and the late Kaiser Wilhelm are or were all keen fans. Ukridge is an often-overlooked figure in the author's canon, and a BBC series in 1969 starring Anton Rodgers was not a great success, but the stories are still extremely funny.

Once you've exhausted the Jeeves and Wooster or Blandings Castle saga, they're still well worth reading. Moreover, like all the best short stories, there's often a twist at the end.