Any Excuse to Travel

Stories from travels in

April 2013

Moving city

It’s been a long time since I’ve visited a city I thought I might live in. No matter how fleeting the thought, it was there.

The door to hell

I was under the impression that the KGB had disbanded in 1991 – but apparently, it, or a version by the same name, is still

Sublimimal messages

As I was reading Henning Mankell’s The dogs of Riga in January, I never guessed for a minute that I would end up in the

The hedgehog in the fog

I don’t think I’ve been this far north in Europe before. Yes, I’ve dipped my toes in the Arctic Ocean but that was in Alaska.

A bookie’s money is only ever on loan

Civilization is drugs, alcohol, engines of war, prostitution, machines and machine slaves, low wages, bad food, bad taste, prisons, reformatories, lunatic asylums, divorce, perversion, brutal

2013 Grateful 37

One of my favourite TV sitcoms of all time is Cheers!  For years I had a thing for that Boston bar, and the incorrigible Sam

A matter of perception

I wasn’t born a Catholic, but I may as well have been. I was baptised into the faith of my father (and mother) and have

2013 Grateful 39

I’d never given much thought to the difference between a concentration camp and an extermination camp until I visited Terezín, about 60km outside Prague, last

So … I might have been wrong

For years I’ve been rather mean to the city of Prague. Not because of anything it did to me or because of anything bad that