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It’s easy to spot tourists in Italy. We’re the ones ordering lasagne and cappuccino at lunchtime. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but you might notice a slight snicker suffuse the waiter’s features. And it’s no good saying jingoistically, ‘Look here, Luigi, didn’t we own Italy once?’ We didn’t; I’ve already tried that line. The…
Down on the Somerset Levels, in a hamlet named Stathe, lives a paragon of virtue; a man regarding his peerless body as a temple. ‘They’ve got a brilliant new machine down the gym,’ he says languorously. ‘It does everything – chocolate, crisps…’ What am I doing here in the West Country? Well, I had an…
I nurse my pint of Sprite – a guest ale, not the lemonade – and take in the rampant stallion before me. Pervy Ray brushes a 63-year-old hand through thinning grey hair, takes a sip from his glass and proceeds as interviewee. ‘You’ve heard of The Sex Maniacs Ball, of course?’ he asks rhetorically. ‘Well,…
Pervy Ray, as the nickname suggests, is indeed a pervert. Licentious to the core, you might say. ‘Photo for the blog?’ he asks. ‘Hang on then, I’ll take my trousers off and get my knob out. I’m happiest with my knob out, you know.’ Are you wondering how I, a priggish, naive young musician, meet…
Trudging off to see some mummies in an ancient Irish church – the embalmed variety, not vulnerable single mothers – I get distracted by a sign. “Jazz 4-6.30pm”, it reads. I’m in like a shot. Or rather, I’m barred by one of those enormous bald men that usually stand outside discos looking unapproachable. ‘You can’t…
“Leopard back that way,” yelled a safari driver. He gesticulated wildly, and Nelson wrestled with the stick, struggling to engage any gear in his 40-year-old Jeep. Grinding and clunking abominably – second gear was painfully absent from the box – we turned around noisily, enveloping Yala National Park in a cloud of acrid, noxious exhaust.…
There’s been a complete breakdown in communication since the advent of the mobile phone. Would you agree? It seems we’re now at the stage where we can’t survive without them. Well, cave-dwellers in Papua New Guinea probably manage. And perhaps the odd pensioner venturing no further than the paper shop. Coo, just imagine having to…
Ever been to Munich’s Olympia Park? Built for the 1972 games, it has a multitude of attractions. Adrenalin-junkies can abseil forty metres down the stadium pylons, or take an ‘expedition on the roof’, climbing to the very top of the Olympic Stadium. And footie fans can take an ‘exciting’ tour of the stadium –…
My lunch partner in Copenhagen is American Rob. He’s a fascinating chap, now living in the Windsor area, and full of bonhomie today. We meet romantically on a street corner in a drizzling rain. Our jackets and umbrellas form puddles at the restaurant entrance – it’s a super eatery above the old telegraph station –…
Here you are already skim-reading – you may not want to travel to Marrakech – just in case I’ve written something saucy. Well, I haven’t. So why have I written three blogs on Marrakech, without so much as a token toilet joke? Well, because my notes were originally intended for Wanderlust magazine – an On…
