The Irresponsible Traveller
First-hand destination reports, news and editorial
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Sri Lanka
The LTTE, or Tamil Tigers, were routed by Sri Lankan government forces in May 2009. On the back of a later 2009 visit the following piece was originally published by The Sunday Herald in April 2010. Apologies for the ‘kilt’ on the story, but in the light of Sri Lanka’s recent Commonwealth Summit I thought
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Egypt – it’s all about the long game…
A couple of weeks ago I found myself in discussion with a UK-based lawyer, a frequent business traveller to Cairo, who sought to make sense of Egypt’s incomplete 2011 revolution, and its recent rather more emphatic military coup. ‘There were people in Egypt, ordinary professional people, women, minorities – Copts and others. They went to
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Blog Roll Despair
It’s time to update to my blog – once a year, regular as clockwork… What has predicated this further prodigious outpouring? An earnest need to record social injustice, a duty to highlight an humanitarian catastrophe, an epiphany that the world should know Dubai is not after all a sterile, air-conditioned prison of bars and spas?
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Smells like festive spirit…
To be clear from the outset, I don’t like Christmas. Even if a vestigial spiritual aspect remained I’d be unmoved. In common with Norwich I have no religion, not even Jedi. However, I’ll agree that when mornings are dark and days short we all need to be cheered up and if rituals involving eating and
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Tunisia – Desert Dreams
‘After the revolution we thought all the young people will have jobs. But it’s just the same.’ exhaled Walid. We walked on through the dunes, Walid barefoot, wearily leading the camels, our happy band of trekkers following. 100km across a sandy finger of the Sahara’s Grand Erg Oriental lay our destination, the fort and oasis
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From each according to his need, to each according to his ability…
I was invited to dinner the other day by some folks not long moved up from Buckinghamshire. It’s happened before. A neatly turned out Sasha or Duncan meets my wife alone, presumably decides she sounds quite jodhpurs, ponies and private schools and is charmed by a false sense of shared values. Sight unseen they extend
The Irresponsible Traveller 