A PLACE FOR SIDEWAYS TRAINS OF THOUGHT
Last year I stood on a corner at a crossroads in Hanoi where a stream of motorcycles, scooters and mopeds was going east to west and another south to north and both flows were heading for each other. A crash seemed inevitable, unless one stream suddenly gave way. But as if it were a baffling... Continue Reading →
Every time I board an Alitalia plane to fly to Rome, where I live, I wonder who thought it would be a good idea to name the in-flight magazine after Ulysses, a person who took all of ten years to make it home.
Many years ago I spent several weeks in the Sahara desert. One part of the trip was a journey from Tamanrasset to the oasis of Djanet. About seven hundred kilometres as I recall. There was no road then, just pistes and only four or five places along the route where one could get water. One... Continue Reading →
This is the third time this has happened to me. I open the Rome bus app (Roma Bus), click on the tab to check the route of a bus (it was the 32 this time) and a screen appears with a map of a large part of North-West Africa. Are there secret bus routes running... Continue Reading →
After a moment, I heard Baron Pips laugh quietly and asked why. He said : " You sound just like Count Sternberg." He was ancient and rather simple-minded Austrian nobleman, he explained. When he was on his death-bed his confessor said the time had come to make a general confession. The Count, after racking his... Continue Reading →
I have an irrational passion for phrase- books. Whenever I go to a country where I don't know the language I take along a phrasebook. I often take one with me even when I go to a country where I do speak the language. Sometimes in a foreign country I suddenly stop in the middle... Continue Reading →
Mexican bus ride was the US title given to a Buñuel film called Subida al cielo (Ascent to Heaven). What follows is about a Mexican bus ride of my own and has nothing to do with the film, I just liked the poster and it is always worthwhile mentioning Buñuel, but you can see an excerpt here.... Continue Reading →