With a few exceptions I try to avoid writing on my travels of things you can find out yourself in books or online. For instance the walls of Hue’s Forbidden City are ‘crumbling’ due to ferocious US mortar fire in … Read More »
‘Everybody hates a tourist’, sang Jarvis Cocker, the one phoney note in the most inspired song ever to emerge from my home town. It isn’t true. Tourists who engage – and part with much needed dollars – are liked and … Read More »
The officials at Guangzhou (‘Gwongchow’, Canton in old money) International can smile but it doesn’t happen often. That’s not due to some People’s Republic edict; still less surly disposition. The first time I was there they pulled all the stops … Read More »
slideshow here
slideshow here
http://steelcityscribblings.uk/slideshows/1208%20andalusia.pdf
Workers of the world: they always did know how to enjoy themselves given half a chance. Here a Bank Holiday Monday, spring tide, bracing wind and gorgeous sunshine all came together on the Yorkshire coast at Hornsea – and the … Read More »
Late evening at the Seven Olives. Mesfin and I eat chickpea stew with Ethiopia’s ubiquitous injera. Mesfin – below, with Daniel and my tripod on his right – casts a baleful eye over a table on the far side of … Read More »
Thoughts now, on my last day in this wonderful, maddening, deeply civilised country. I’ve just seen (not for the first time) a grinning young man, buff naked and hugely endowed, walk down the busy Addis street outside the internet shop … Read More »
When Sisay was six his family abandoned their mountain hut and headed down to Lalibela and a better life. There in the holy town they scratched an existence on the streets until, after a year of zero progress, Sisay’s parents … Read More »