One metre above sea level
So if it’s an orange––it looks like an orange, it tastes like an orange––but it’s green... is it an orange? Dodunduwa, the small town on the South West coast, which translates in a way to orange-island, or green-orange-island, gave us plenty of time to debate the terms…
A type of hyphen
There have been other departures, but none probably quite like this. There have been other arrivals too, but here, squinting at 8ish in the a.m. alighting directly onto sunbaked tarmac, it was amazing how quickly ridiculous my all black everything seemed…
Melbourne, may we meet again
In ‘98, I knew. Then in 2006, I left Sydney behind and made the move South of the border. I was younger, fitter, blonder and my teeth were most definitely whiter. Nine years later, with a respectable dependence on coffee and red wine, I'm leaving as a true, wintery-city convert…
Up a ladder, buzzed, with a stanley knife
Think of something you could do or make or sell in Asia, now. Hong Kong is hardly Asia proper, and I'm certainly no analyst, but I know enough to know that this is the future, and if you're prone to surprise––say you were shocked by anything leaked à la Assange and Snowden…
First ask ‘are you choking?’
There are icebergs floating down the Hudson, the city’s a giant slushy. It’s been snowing in the Tri-state for a record number of weeks and the news out of Jersey is that ‘salt supplies are critically low’. The sanitation department is under armoured guard…
Another trip, c'est fin
Taman Jaya LRT, sweating like crazy, towering over the school kids waiting to be picked up. In zooms Mrs R with a very pregnant RR in the passenger seat of their Proton (Malaysia's car of the masses). I was whisked off to Shah Alam for more courses of food than I could bear saying no to…
Then across the pond to Paris
Weeks seven and eight got weird - kicking off in Paris, winding up in Hong Kong and bidding farewell to the babes in Kensal Rise in between. I still haven’t met a Russian and am no clearer whether lip balm is a cream or a liquid or at what point a cream becomes a liquid or when served scones which should technically be spread first…
And a dip into Stockholm
Who was that tennis player? Not Bjorn Borg, the other one. The question came to mind on the Arlanda Express and no I couldn't let it go. So our weekend in Stockholm began by exercising the old grey matter... I managed to extract an 'S' but was beaten to it by Al…
Wax on, wax off
So I've settled in and even developed a fondness for the Kilburn High Street with its scarcity of teeth and its profligacy of third-rate British chains like Poundland, Iceland and Cashino (there is a second Poundland…
London, late March, 2014
After planning, delaying and planning the trip again, I couldn't quite believe I was taking off from Melbourne Airport, then KLIA, then being quizzed at Heathrow at 5am, I fumbled through my explanation…
Jamon. No es carne!
Pre-trip trauma, like a fugly passport photo, unhelpful consular staff, incompetent customer service from my bank/superfund/insurer and ludicrous exchange rates had me thinking I might have tired of this…
Incommunicado
‘Uff, thank goodness the key has stopped'. Key/rain, llave/lluvia, an easy mistake to make. Thankfully my barista is gracious and patient with my early morning small-talk…
Movimiento Okupa
Lunch at 4pm is common, dinner at 10pm the norm. Clubs list 3am and 5am DJ sets, so exceptional stamina or siesta is a necessity. But seriously – the whole siesta thing – I did it twice and felt worse for it both times…
A por ello
There’s a joke about the Andalusian accent… that the alphabet in Southern Spain has five letters: A, B, TH, D, E, E, E, E… It definitely doesn’t get anywhere near S, and with Euro Cup football fever at full pitch…
Losing my maturity
As Monday brought the year of the dragon into effect I braced myself against the wind and the wilds of New Zealand's North Island to reach the rim of the Red Crater in the Tongariro National Park. At 1900m, I peered into the depths of the Earth…
Overseas – or straits
The year kicked off with overseas travel, said sea being more correctly a strait, but what’s the difference anyway? It was a body of water, I was on a plane, and I was going somewhere... Where? Hobart. To work at a festival called MONA FOMA…
Darwin life, Larrakia country
Down south the sun sets on another 12-degree day, so I board a plane chasing it, finding five hours later in Larrakia country, it was here all along. In Darwin it's the fourth of six seasons: Gurrung – when the weather is hot and dry…
Blue sky biohazard
Australia: blue skies, big open brown spaces, lots and lots of minerals and one, particularly nasty one... Chrysotile was once mined to make asbestos – a popular, cheap housing material used in Australia in the 50s, 60s and 70s. It's now widely known that asbestos is highly toxic…
Auspicious? Suspicious.
Auspicious gave us just three weeks for three wedding celebrations in three different countries. So I stocked up on Punjabi suits from the Chennai Silk Palace in Klang, packed the gastrolyte and set out from KL with RR and a small touring party of friends and relatives…