Dodging Landmines in Nagorno-Karabakh
In the spring of 2005, to gather ideas for my second unfinished book The Anti-Guidebook, I travelled, solo, to Armenia. Why Armenia? Because, I had “done” South-East Asia and [...]
Money
I’m typing, 36,000ft in the air, on my return flight from Milan to Gatwick. Guess how much my flight cost, just for me, without a bag? £12. Two hours, plus [...]
Trump and the Massacre in Goa
Oops: I should have applied sunscreen today. My face is red. Silly me. I’m typing in a hotel bar, then sipping my first Venezuelan rum. Here in North Tenerife, [...]
The Sick Man of Europe
(Written during take-off from Tenerife South, Airport) Travelling on a rickety bus in rural Thailand, back in 2000, I had my only epiphany. The vast distance from home - [...]
Cuban Missile Crisis 2.0
We are living through a more dangerous period than the Cuban Missile Crisis, yet nobody is talking about it. With Russian ground forces getting pulverised, with its air force still [...]
Seven Recent Observations
On the Budget from Dumb and Dumber As I highlighted in my penultimate blog, Truss is an ideologue. She doesn’t hide it. Her recent budget was a piece of work: [...]
Duolingo and the Future of Geopolitics
For those who don’t know, Duolingo is an awesome app which helps you to learn a language. Each day, for the last 112 days (as Duolingo tells me), I have [...]
Ukraine
Like many people, these last few weeks, I have been glued to the news regarding Russia’s appalling invasion of Ukraine. I have read and watched vast amounts about the conflict [...]
Almost Lost in Translation on the Longest Day (in 2004)
Below is a copy of my email to some friends, which I sent in August 2004, from Yunnan Province, China. That day, I had saved an American’s life. As I [...]
Voices For Burma (Wikipedia entry)
(What follows is my Wikipedia entry for the organisation which I co-founded in 2003: Voices For Burma (VFB). Wikipedia removed the entry, so I add it here for posterity. Hopefully [...]
