As an antidote to more sober accounts of Scotland's history, Ian Crofon offers a colourful chronology of the eccentric, the infamous, the bawdy, the horrific and the hilarious people and events that have spattered across the pages of our nation's story.

From the Royal High School riot to Marocco the Wonder Horse, from the War of the One-Eyed Woman to the MP cleared of stealing his ex-mistress's knickers, Scottish History Without the Boring Bits includes a host of little-known tales that you won't find in more conventional works of history.

Ian Crofton's alternative history of Scotland looks at the country's seedy underbelly with a quizzical eye.