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Engelberg, Switzerland I have caught them out. Easy really. Caught the Swiss red handed. I can only hope the nation handles its finances more honestly than their cattle control.You see it is all to do with electric fences. There’s me, sauntering down a Sound of Music slope fit, almost, to burst into song. Mind you, you have not heard me singing; it is not something I would recommend. Meanwhile from the field beside me drifts the dainty tinkle, occasional clang, of cow bells. I cannot see the animals as it is misty but when[...]

Weggis, Switzerland It really is the last thing I expected of Switzerland. I mean they are so terribly clean, aren’t they? Everything is tidy, everything is precise and everything, well almost everything, is so terribly punctual. Switzerland is definitely the type of place anyone would wish to live until…until…well until the fly. For reasons that escape me the Swiss appear to have mastered most things in life but, for whatever reason, they appear not to have mastered the house fly. Once is bad luck, twice is misfortune but three times or more?[...]

Cape Town, South Africa What is it about custard? I just love it. Not cold, you see, but warm, even piping hot. And when it develops that thick, slimy skin on its surface, I immediately enter my second Heaven. It is probably the years spent in boys’ boarding schools thanks to parents who lived overseas, or perhaps even my time in the Army. Yet custard and I are best friends. I simply cannot have enough of it. So when I came across a vat full of the stuff in a South African[...]

Nalut, Libya It is my birthday. Lying in the primitive intensive care unit of this hospital, deep inside an area of rebel-controlled Libya, are three young men. None is over 25 years old. They look almost identical. Each has perfectly cut, military-style short hair, each is sedated, each is dripped and catheterised, each is in pain, and, yes, each is a pro-Gaddafi soldier. They are Libyan, not central African, and they are most certainly not mercenaries. Each has a mother, each has a father, and each demonstrates the futility of war.I should know all[...]

Prague, Czech Republic Oh dear, I have done it again. That sign of increasing age, of gradually increasing infirmity, of publicly stating that the ageing process is beginning to take its toll. No longer is it just a matter of keeping an eye out for the nearest gents – a phenomenon that hits so many males after the age of 50 – on this occasion I fell asleep in public.It was in Prague, addressing a conference of likeminded surgeons, although my own particular session had been slightly earlier. I had escaped from the main[...]

Vail, USA So we have done it. The challenge was made, the offer accepted and 17 days of backcountry skiing later, the record has been set. I am now expert on the beetle fall, the pinball turn and avalanches turning safety into danger. My skis feel as natural as feet. The challenge? Crazy in one respect, simple in another, so perhaps I had best explain. Spread around and between the skiing towns of Colorado’s Vail and Aspen is a massive six million-acre expanse of part-forested and mountainous wilderness. This is the home[...]