The Jordan: 17th century and formed by the western edge of a hemisphere of concentric canals: Herengracht, Keisersgracht, Prinsengracht. Its houses, their foundations reclaimed by the finest Dutch engineers – world masters at cheating the seas and taming the polder … Read More »
My super-smart former colleague and pal Mick and the lovely Mags – they spend their days wandering Britain’s waterways on a narrow boat, Rose of Arden – took three months out on the Costa Brava. I joined them for a … Read More »
Photo essay – making noodles on the Mekong, January 2013. Emails from Vietnam, March 2014. Emails from Vietnam, March 2015. Photo-essay around Kon Tum, March 2015. Photo essay around Buon Ma Thuot, March 2015. Photo essay around Da Lat, March … Read More »
photo-essay here
A week in Southeast Scotland, with trips across the border to Holy Island and Berwick. Slideshow here.
All lies and jest; still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest. Paul Simon: The Boxer This is nothing so daring as an attempt at summary; just my quirky take on what the Ho Chi … Read More »
The road to a good time is paved with good intentions. I’m pissed. Again. May Allah strike me down, I’d every intention today of settling in a quite coffee house, cool and airy, to pass a few hours perusing my … Read More »
My mission takes me deep into the covered market. I pass though its outer quadrangular layer of dried fish – pungent but not unpleasantly so – and lethal ironmongery, into the penumbral heart where more banal items are sold by … Read More »
On a bicycle with “up yours Germaine!” emblazoned on its belly, it could not look more incongruous. Insinuating its all-things-considered remarkably graceful path across the tarmac to my feet, the eighteen inch Mekong Catfish dodges tyre and sandaled foot alike … Read More »
I see friends shaking hands, saying ‘how do you do?’ They’re really saying, ‘I love you’. I don’t suppose I’ll live to be a thousand but it’s scarcely less likely that, if I did, I’d see anything more beautiful than … Read More »