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Mogadishu, Somalia “Somalia will return one day,” said Burhaan. “Right now it is chaos. But remember, we have a history that goes back even further than yours.” It was the end of a long working day as I glanced across at my companion. He was a born and bred Somali and we were sitting side-by-side on the flat roof of a building that looked out over Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital. The travel advice was clear. Give the country a wide berth, especially Mogadishu. Insurances were invalid, drought was underway, measles and dengue fever[...]

Alnwick, United Kingdom “When I last looked at a flying saucer,” I declared, my tone matter of fact, “its feet had spherical protrusions that would have fitted those depressions.” I pointed at the long, flat, Northumbrian rock before us. It was barely three strides long, even less in width, and our group of nine had been studying the neolithic carvings on its surface. There were circles, cups, grooves, and channels, distributed in patterns that made no sense. Unless, of course, you believed in flying saucers. The group turned towards me as one.[...]

Alnwick, United Kingdom “It’s been a bad year,” said the guide. “We’ve only enough ricin to kill 18,000 people. Normally it would be more. And strychnine? We cannot obtain the seed.” It was a drizzly day in the Alnwick Poison Garden, said to house the world’s most dangerous plants. The guide was fully in his stride. “Shame about the strychnine,” I noted facetiously. The guide nodded and wandered on. Strychnine is the product of the Strychnos nux-vomica plant, which is boring in appearance, but a favoured poison of Agatha Christie. A glug of strychnine[...]

Winchester, United Kingdom “Why are you here?” I asked the woman. We were attending the same course and it seemed polite to make conversation. “Ritual killings,” she said. There was nothing I could usefully reply. It was Winchester and once again I was a student. This time it was a world called osteoarchaeology, which is the study of ancient bones. Winchester is a good place for this, as the city, which was built in 70AD, was a Roman stronghold known as Venta Belgarum. The last Roman soldier left Britain in 407AD, but[...]

Troutbeck, United Kingdom “If the weather is like this,” he said, “then I’ll be walling. But it’s no use in the frost.” I looked at the Lakeland hill farmer, as I tried to extract a commitment from him. I wanted to establish if he would be building a dry-stone wall the next day, as I hoped to join him and learn about walling. An established delivery company had only just texted me to say my parcel would appear at 9.13 a.m. Surely a hill farmer could be as precise? But hill farmers[...]

Bodelwyddan, Clwyd, United Kingdom “If you want to hear a ghost, you need silence,” said Ifor, as we downed several pre-pandemic beers. We were in London, at a time when few had ever thought about coronavirus. “You’ll hear them best towards evening,” he added. Thanks to Ifor’s words, and a year later, I found myself in the gloaming beside a normally busy A-road, on the outskirts of a North Wales town called Bodelwyddan. The coronavirus was at full pitch, a second wave was underway, Wales had closed its borders to all but[...]