We are in Italy and have travelled two and half hours through olive groves, vineyards, oleander and the occasional maize crop. The road from Milan to Malcesine is a drive on roads sandwiched between the Alps and the country and then between the Alps as backdrop and Lake Garda on one side and the dramatic…
Travel
Pessoa’s Book of Disquiet
We were staying at the Custom Hotel, a boutique hotel. It was an ash colored building on Lincoln Boulevard. Our room had the double bed in the center. And there was a light that changed color according to our disposition- red, blue, green or via an interactive program into a color that spoke to our…
Loire
At Léré we ate an improbable dinner at the Lion d'Or, much like seeing the Taj Mahal in Walsall. We had come in to moor, as usual, bow in and Jan handling the ropes. The stern turned out before I killed the engine. I shouted out 'I've lost control!' and both our pulses quickened. A…
Empty Quarter
The Middle East is always a challenge to my values, my sensibility. Yet it also intrigues me with its concealment of the transactions, the human intercourse that propagates life. It's a mystery how the electrifying romantic messages that wet the juices are transmitted. The women are, at least superficially, cloistered, veiled and, self-effacing. The men…
Seneca and Books
In Seneca’s Letters from a Stoic he wrote […]this reading of many different authors and books of every description. You should be extending your stay among writers whose genius is unquestionable, deriving constant nourishment from them if you wish to gain anything from your reading that will find a lasting place in your mind. To…
Icelandic Sagas- ways of living and dying
I don’t know whether you know about Nkisi nkodi. It is a Kongo nailed figure, a container or statue of forces directed at an end. It is one of the most potent figures of African art. The nails are hammered into the wood whilst ritual curses are spoken. Each object may have dozens of these…
Continue reading ➞ Icelandic Sagas- ways of living and dying
Scott Fitzgerald’s Connecticut and Manhattan
In Scott Fitzgerald's "The Rich Boy" the action moves from New York Fifth Avenue where "young women were already gliding along Fifth Avenue in electric "mobiles"' to a "big estate in northern Connecticut". This was a Fifth Avenue where "there was a patient flowing of cleaning water along the ghostly pavement...and the shadows of two…
Continue reading ➞ Scott Fitzgerald’s Connecticut and Manhattan
In search of Bernie Gunther
I am standing in front of Hotel Adlon in Berlin. I’m here in search of Bernie Gunther. After Bernie was forced to resign from the Berlin Criminal Police he worked as house detective at the Adlon. The hotel is exactly as I imagined it on Unter den Linden. I am standing with my back to…
Wub, swibble & pizzled- neologisms and meaning
I've cycled to Quarteira from Vilamoura, distance of just under 5 miles. It's a very warm morning. The sun is a strong even searing midday brightness glistening and bouncing off the sea. Even I with my dark eyes, have to squint. This is November but it could easily be midsummer. The restaurants are…
Continue reading ➞ Wub, swibble & pizzled- neologisms and meaning
Neruda at St Brides
I have been re-reading Pablo Neruda, in a collection that Jan bought for me in the USA in July 1982. We were married later in October of that year. The trip to Philadelphia, Washington and New York followed a successful trip to the West of Ireland. At the time I was still obsessed with…
MindReadings 