Europe, after a while
You’d think that Brussels, Belgium has a lot going for it. It has after all more Michelin Star restaurants per capita than any other European country, it’s the briefcase capital of Europe, and it’s here where the richest countries in Europe enthusiastically cede their sovereignty to the EU, a body that appears to be out of control and answerable to no one. That aside, once you’ve done a couple of circuits of the Grande Platz in the capital and looked politely in the windows you begin to find yourself glancing at your watch and wonder if nine-forty-seven in the morning is too early to start drinking.
Being European demands that you drive a small car, live in a little house in an ancient town and love soccer, and be relatively unmaterialistic, law abiding and have drafty hotel rooms and cosy inviting places to eat and drink. This aside, you can never be sure of anything in Europe. When I first visited Europe I realised it takes a special kind of vigilance to make your way across a continent on which people voluntary ingest tongues, kidneys, horsemeat, frogs’ legs, intestines, sausages made of congealed blood, and the brains of little cows.
However, when I arrived in Amsterdam I was briefly cheered by its openness, its tolerance, its relaxed attitude to dope and sex and numerous other sins. But I found it oddly wearisome that the people of Amsterdam were rather stuck with their tradition of tolerance, like people who take up a political stance and then have to defend it no matter how untenable it gets. Because they’ve been congratulating themselves on their intelligent tolerance for all these centuries, it is now impossible for them not to be nobly accommodating to graffiti and burned-out hippies and dog shit and litter.
It’s possibly an inevitable part of life – like the weather in England and the ability of Britons of all ages and social backgrounds to get genuinely excited by the prospect of a hot beverage, and their ability to go without, and the fact that they actually like their pleasures small.
Nothing about Africa surprises me anymore
As the road to Mombasa uncurled before me I became aware of passing increasing numbers of pedestrians, striding of to somewhere beyond the horizon. Curiosity got the better of me so I stopped by a roadside salesman selling second-hand toilets and quizzed him. In the next village, which was near 12 miles away, he claimed there to be a tribal witch doctor that had “… powers when throwing of the lotaola”. He claimed the spirit of the bones spoke with the Sangoma and told him which potion to mix for his patient, who would dutifully drink this muti and supposedly be cured of AIDS.
As if sketched with the honest simplicity of a child’s hand, the road to Mombasa threads through a make-believe land of the most picturesque African villages, especially when passing through Tsavo National Park – one of the largest parks in the world. Here I encountered a group of Masai warriors riding bicycles; their tartan robes billowing in their slipstreams, spears clutched in one hand, and with the other ringing their bells in greeting as I passed. Nearing Mombasa, as the afternoon drew to a rich, cooling, melancholy close I passed hundreds of cyclists. I paused at a busy cross road and was fascinated to see a cyclist in a giant bird costume passing in front of me. Strangely though, this vision evoked no reaction from the locals. The giant bird raised his fist at me in a black power salute.
From Morocco with love
“Come,” Farid, an elderly Marrakech shop-keeper implored, “I make beautiful Berber.” Never one to stand in the way of progress on went a rich cocoa coloured dress edged with tiny silver bells, and to cover my hair a sapphire blue silk veil trimmed with the finest wisps of silver thread. Farid brought it together below my chin and twirled it up around my head, draping it rather seductively across my face, revealing only my eyes; I was further garnished with traditional Berber jewellery.
Time dissipated between dress changes and Farid's tales of his childhood caravan treks across the Sahara. His oyster eyes were enlivened and his leathery face beamed at his recollections; his hand regularly found mine when I understood his jokes.
The only dangers travellers face in Morocco's souks are irresistible sales pitches and charming sales techniques. If you remain disinterested you stand to pick up a bargain, particularly in the specialist markets deep inside the larger souks - the only place to go for a truly Moroccan shopping experience. If you don’t haggle they’ll think you’re rich and crazy which tends to spoil it for the rest of us who are poor and crazy.
From Morocco with love
“Come,” Farid, an elderly Marrakech shop-keeper implored, “I make beautiful Berber.” Never one to stand in the way of progress on went a rich cocoa coloured dress edged with tiny silver bells, and to cover my hair a sapphire blue silk veil trimmed with the finest wisps of silver thread. Farid brought it together below my chin and twirled it up around my head, draping it rather seductively across my face, revealing only my eyes; I was further garnished with traditional Berber jewellery.
Time dissipated between dress changes and Farid's tales of his childhood caravan treks across the Sahara. His oyster eyes were enlivened and his leathery face beamed at his recollections; his hand regularly found mine when I understood his jokes.
The only dangers travellers face in Morocco's souks are irresistible sales pitches and charming sales techniques. If you remain disinterested you stand to pick up a bargain, particularly in the specialist markets deep inside the larger souks - the only place to go for a truly Moroccan shopping experience. If you don’t haggle they’ll think you’re rich and crazy which tends to spoil it for the rest of us who are poor and crazy.
From Morocco with love
“Come,” Farid, an elderly Marrakech shop-keeper implored, “I make beautiful Berber.” Never one to stand in the way of progress on went a rich cocoa coloured dress edged with tiny silver bells, and to cover my hair a sapphire blue silk veil trimmed with the finest wisps of silver thread. Farid brought it together below my chin and twirled it up around my head, draping it rather seductively across my face, revealing only my eyes; I was further garnished with traditional Berber jewellery.
Time dissipated between dress changes and Farid's tales of his childhood caravan treks across the Sahara. His oyster eyes were enlivened and his leathery face beamed at his recollections; his hand regularly found mine when I understood his jokes.
The only dangers travellers face in Morocco's souks are irresistible sales pitches and charming sales techniques. If you remain disinterested you stand to pick up a bargain, particularly in the specialist markets deep inside the larger souks - the only place to go for a truly Moroccan shopping experience. If you don’t haggle they’ll think you’re rich and crazy which tends to spoil it for the rest of us who are poor and crazy.
From Morocco with love
"Come,” Farid, an elderly Marrakech shop-keeper implored, “I make beautiful Berber.” Never one to stand in the way of progress on went a rich cocoa coloured dress edged with tiny silver bells, and to cover my hair a sapphire blue silk veil trimmed with the finest wisps of silver thread. Farid brought it together below my chin and twirled it up around my head, draping it rather seductively across my face, revealing only my eyes; I was further garnished with traditional Berber jewellery.
Time dissipated between dress changes and Farid's tales of his childhood caravan treks across the Sahara. His oyster eyes were enlivened and his leathery face beamed at his recollections; his hand regularly found mine when I understood his jokes.
The only dangers travellers face in Morocco's souks are irresistible sales pitches and charming sales techniques. If you remain disinterested you stand to pick up a bargain, particularly in the specialist markets deep inside the larger souks - the only place to go for a truly Moroccan shopping experience. If you don’t haggle they’ll think you’re rich and crazy which tends to spoil it for the rest of us who are poor and crazy.
Things I am not
I’m into power napping. Be it on aircraft, trains or more recently, behind the wheel of my car, whilst waiting for the lights to change. Some people simply should not be allowed out unescorted and I’m seriously beginning to consider myself as being part of this ilk.
An incident I recall when travelling to London involved one such power nap. I’ll be honest here, one thing I’m not is an elegant sleeper (in fact I wish someone would be kind enough to discreetly cover me with tarpaulin). I startled awake, flailing wildly in the quick, gasping, suddenly alert way of all people who have lived through an African war. From my chin to my belt buckle I found myself mired in a cobweb of drool. Three people were gazing at me in a curious dispassionate manner. Instantly I recalled another public humiliation in Hungary - a public bus, me waking to find three snot-nosed open-mouthed kids staring at me. The memory of them fleeing in terror at the discovery that the dribbling hulk was alive immediately caused me to emit and insane chortle.
Of all the things I am not very good at, living in the real world is perhaps the most outstanding. I am constantly filled with wonder at the number of things that other people do (without any evident difficulty) that are pretty much beyond me. I cannot tell you the number of times I have gone looking for the lavatory in a cinema, for instance, and ended up standing in an alley on the wrong side of a self-locking door. Whilst in NYC earlier this year I went through a spell of returning to the hotel’s front desk two or three times a day and asking what my room number was.
Something else I don’t do well is taking instructions from my GPS. Even if I’ve never been to a place before I am of the resolve that I know better, which of course I don’t and invariably leads to arguments.
Another thing is sophistication- I could never be accused of that. You have no idea how I ache to be suave - just once in my life I’d like to rise from a dinner table without looking as if I have the dogs dinner on my lap; or drive off in my car without leaving ten inches of coat outside. I cannot wear light-coloured trousers as I always find that at some point in the day I’d either have sat in chewing gum, brushed up ice cream or been splashed with motor oil.
But getting back to the power napping scene at the traffic light – I tried to explain to the policeman (a stick of a man that looked as if he’d not smiled since 1960), that I had not been drinking and that I was not driving under the influence of a narcotic drug. “On the contrary,” I exclaimed, “this is possibly due to caffeine deficiency.”
