Richard Ingrams delights in fictitious elephants • Christian Tyler dons his corduroys • Frances Donnolly takes a train to Istanbul • John Keay celebrates the Indian novels of R. K. Narayan • Jonty Driver watches things fall apart • Clive Unger-Hamilton runs a rogue male to earth • Rowena Macdonald jumps the fence with Riddley Walker • Charles Elliott unmasks some book crooks