Thanks for reading. This blog is an opportunity for me to capture some of the diversity of my writing interests. My muse tend to appear on my shoulder as I board an international flight although not all of my writing is inspired by travel and foreign places. These blogs have been the basis of a novel (Flowers of Baghdad) but there are a few other writing projects in progress besides. Please feel free to leave a comment. Or two.
And while we are having expectations dislocated (previous post refers) 1) whoever imagined a Ukrainian (Kiev) Fashion Week would ever exist or that 2) a Ukrainian designer would catch our eye like this? Here is Ukrainian designer Olga Gromova’s collection. At least I was not disappointed by her first name which is in keeping with…
Not by inhaling some of its roadside greenery tamped into a bong but by travel. Which will do that to your mind (if you let it), regardless of where you go. But we usually start with such polarised preconceptions about India that any visit there dislocates our understanding of the place. This picture from a…
Keb Mo warmed us up last night at the Enmore Theatre. 45minutes felt like two, such was his ability to mesmerise us. A lanky blues guitarist who could rip those blues off just as easy as you please.
Somewhere over the Atlantic. I have a bazillion photos taken from aircraft windows and most are as boring as, um, bat excreta! (One of my brothers thinks that stuff is actually very interesting. Strange lad). The one time I flew over Indonesia during the day (the transit is usually done at night) and peered into…
…I’ve been to London to to visit the Queen. Well, if not actually visit her then to wander around some of her parks. Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park to be precise. And what did you find there? Londoners no less. Strange folk, the lot of them.
Yup, you read that correctly. In the middle of a busy Sydney suburb, next to the Pacific Highway, is a snapshot of Victoriana, the discovery of which was totally startling.
Dear Jonathan, It’ s been a year today since you died. A year since that plane accident and the destruction of the indestructible. This letter has been rattling around in my head for a few weeks now as this day approached. Why not write it earlier? I have no idea. “Why write at all?” I…
Sometimes a picture just grabs you. And there is not much to say about it. In fact the less said the better given it stands on its own so well. And then…
It would be disingenuous of me to create an impression that I am a clubber. Far from it. There is a banality about that scene that repels rather than attracts. Each to their own I guess.