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Umm Suqeim, UAE The solution is simple. They should predict my errors, I should not have to try. After all, the manufacturers of modern, high-end technology must by now be aware that idiot doctors at the end of idiotically long days are bound to be exhausted. So knackered, so exhausted, incredibly tired, barely making sense, that the most natural thing in the world is to drop a dictating machine into an undrunk mug of healthcare coffee. Dear me, healthcare coffee, now there is a topic for debate. It was a latte, steaming,[...]

Como, Italy There is something happening in Italy, at least in Como as I sit on my lakeside bench. Around me are the seeds of change. I can feel them, sense them, smell or even hear. The Italy I once knew is slowly vanishing, replaced by a newer version that I can only hope is fit for the transformations lying ahead. Hope is not always reliable. Ask David Cameron at the Brexit referendum. Could it be the nearly 200,000 migrants, mostly economic, who crossed the waters only last year, the 150,000 the[...]

Troyes, France This should be seriously spooky but for some reason it is not. It is early, 6.15 in the morning, the city of Troyes in France, and I am alone. Dawn is brightening the windows and last night’s dinner is still lying heavily in my gut. It is the bread, you see. What is it about French bread? Hot, cold, crisp or crumbly, seeded, smelly or normal, I cannot keep away. The moment breadbasket hits table, the bread does not stand a chance. Within seconds I am shovelling it in, slice[...]

Sidlesham, Sussex, United Kingdom Why is it when I sniff sea air I behave like a zombie? Why does the seaside make me feel drugged? The moment I see a wave or gaze at chalk-white cliffs, I instantly fall asleep. Perhaps it is because my life is so urban, my system accustomed to toxins, emissions and strange vapours. Or, could there be something in coastal air that makes me relax? It astonishes me that my country, the once Empire-based United Kingdom, became such a global power. Surely being a maritime nation would[...]

Alonissos, Greece “No,” said the girl, somewhere in her thirties, and looking at me intently, “I do not want you to take your clothes off. But I do want you to put these on.” She stretched out her arm, proffering a pure white T-shirt top and raggedy maroon pyjama trousers. “I think they’ll fit,” she added. I could see her thinking for a moment, her tanned, Greek face studying me microscopically, “what are you? Large? Let me see…mmm…perhaps extra-large for you.” There was no sense in my explaining that because I was[...]

Helvellyn Mountain, Cumbria, United Kingdom I am not used to swearing on mountains, unless it is me with cut finger, leg, perhaps ankle, or damage to something awkward. So, imagine my surprise on Striding Edge, that challenging approach to the Lake District’s Helvellyn, when from nowhere I heard words of vehemence, “Ouch! Double blast and damnation!” Okay, you guessed it, the words were way worse than that. It was a female voice, rising from behind one of the many volcanic sandstone rocks that makes up this knife edge scramble. Striding Edge is[...]