Since my last email I took night sleeper from Bangkok to Chiang Mai in the north for a lovely three days. I’ve written before about Chiang Mai, a beautiful city with a feel more relaxed than Bangkok. (Viv, I got … Read More »
Yesterday I was struck for the first time, amazing though that now seems, by a simple thought. I turned eighteen in 1970. Had we a Tony Blair in Downing Street at the time it’s not too fantastic a stretch – … Read More »
Not just white boys: the final part of my previous email ended with a reference to the ‘white boys’, mainly Americans, who killed and died in Vietnam. But black boys came too and – for reasons obvious to anyone who’s thought … Read More »
A twenty-five minute flight from Phu Quoc had me on the mainland town of Rach Gia before ten am on Sunday in good time for buses to Can Tho, hub town of the Mekong Delta. The first bus smelt strongly … Read More »
Getting off a small island isn’t always easy. I wanted to fly back to the mainland today but can’t get a seat till tomorrow. I’m condemned to sit out another day under a coconut palm, sipping juice to the rolling boom … Read More »
Hello UK! I heard about your snow from Cal and Viv. Hate to rub it in but on Tuesday I took a light engined propellor job from Saigon to paradise. We flew due south over a Mekong Delta thick brown … Read More »
Some though not all of the content of this post is also in the photo-essay, Out of Abyssinia With a cranial capacity of four hundred cc, roughly a third of yours, she’d neither bore you with small talk nor go … Read More »
“Oh that magic feeling; nowhere to go”. I don’t know whether the Beatles were singing about homelessness or just how it feels to be in a place you’ve never been before and having no idea of your next move. If … Read More »
Arguably the most important film release this year, Snakes on a Plane rests on the rock solid premise that for any self respecting criminal mastermind, called upon to neutralise a threat from the witness box, the method of choice is … Read More »
Most drugs harm their users and some harm the wider community through antisocial behaviour. These reasons are commonly given for outlawing recreational use of many substances. Oddly enough, the two leisure drugs most countries do permit are alcohol, a frequent … Read More »