America
Hard Times in the Big Easy
If you think Ribblehead (440 yards) and Dent Head (199 yards) are a thrill then you’re going to love the Lake Pontchartrain rail bridge, all 4.4 miles of it. If you prefer to cross your [more…]
Always Worth Saying
Arts
The Swaling, Part Seventeen
We’re at a beach near Tangiers, saved from the worst of the city’s sprawl and its hustlers by being some way around the coast. Tammy has just told me that she assumes our mission to [more…]
Arts
The Swaling, Part Sixteen
We’re in the western Mediterranean, on the North African side. Literally in it, myself and Tammy are embarked upon an afternoon swim having escaped from the ever-present pestering mob of Tangiers hustlers, to the empty [more…]
Arts
Review: First Ever Question Time
Question Time 25th September 1979 Panel: Teddy Taylor (Conservative) Michael Foot (Labour) Fr Derek Worlock (Roman Catholic Archbishop of Liverpool) Edna O’Brien (Writer) Venue: A South London Theatre The first-ever edition of Question Time was [more…]
America
The Biggest Little City in the World
More than a century and a half ago, westbound gold rush settlers had to cross the Truckee River, a few miles to the east of the California / Nevada state line. Ahead of them lay [more…]
Arts
The Swaling, Part Fifteen
After breakfast, myself and Tammy addressed the world beyond the comfort of the Royal Maroc Hotel. We were rewarded by being mobbed, pulled at and tugged. They wanted to take us to shops, the Casbah, [more…]
America
Where the Surf Meets the Turf
In their 1963 hit single, the Beach Boys sang that if everybody had an ocean (across the USA) then they’d all be surfing, like in Cal-if-orn-i-a. In the first line of the chorus, they went [more…]
Arts
The Swaling, Part Fourteen
Rather than being in a nun’s hostel, or a train compartment (with the Spanish army sleeping in the luggage racks), we’re on a balcony at the Royal Maroc hotel in Tangiers, thanks to Tammy and [more…]
America
Why is Portland Like Portland?
If Chicago is “The Windy City”, New York, “The Big Apple”, New Orleans, “The Big Easy” and Reno, Nevada, “The Biggest Little City in the World”, then Portland, Oregon, is “A Big Retirement Home for [more…]