Feature

Al Minya, Egypt The problem with Egypt, I have now discovered, is nothing to do with its antiquities. Nowhere else on the planet can better them. It is everything to do with the police, the security and, to put it simply, the weaponry they have on display. It does not help being ex-Army but wherever I have gone since my arrival, and I write this 200 kilometres south of Cairo, anyone and everyone in uniform appears to be tooled up. There are weapons being waved about like confetti. Actually, it is a[...]

San Francisco, USA Please, someone, give me a logical explanation why anyone should spell the word “color” without a U? Yet here in San Francisco, right in its very centre, so many of its signs show my native language has been adapted in a way that defies explanation. Some say the Americans have got it right and we Brits have it wrong. Far from losing a U, in America the English are accused of adding one. Despite this, somehow, our two nations like one other, each fascinated by the other’s ways. It[...]

San Francisco, USA Each time I travel I pretend I am immune and each time I journey it catches me. Most call it jet lag. I call it, quite simply, brain/time disconnect.Travelling to San Francisco is a classic. Eight hours, yes a full eight, of time difference exists between Brit and Yank. Night becomes day, day becomes night, and my body hasn’t a clue. The hotel’s gym demonstrated this perfectly in a way that perhaps I had best explain.The other morning, two days into my US trip, I awoke from what I was sure[...]

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia I sense the time is right for a new classification of hotels. Forget one-star, two-star, three-star and beyond. Forget recognition by travel and motoring organisations with the granting of rosettes, badges, pyramids and other art forms. I suggest we start by dividing hotels into one of two categories; those where wet bath soap stays on the bathroom shelf and those where it simply slides off. My hotel today, in the heart of Addis Ababa’s Bole District, is a slide-off not stay-on establishment. In fact, there are two shelves in[...]

Newcastle, United Kingdom It was as I bent over I knew it would happen. And then it did. A ripping, tearing sound, followed by an immediate blast of fresh air to sensitive parts as my trousers ripped from very front to very back. Oh no, why me? I had travelled to the north of England, Newcastle, to help the locals with an operation and was changing out of my theatre blues into a jacket and tie, ready for my journey home. It was a day trip and I had not a stitch[...]

Paris, France I am sorry but I must complain. You see it is all to do with Paris. Paris, that Mecca for all travellers, certainly a centre for romance and a capital city so close to London we Brits could almost call the place our own. The problem is simple. Paris has changed, actually France has changed, and not always for the better. I remember the days - OK I am as old as time - when I could wander the Parisian streets, ride the Metro, even get on a wobbly bicycle[...]