A Darkside Downunder – MONA magic (Hobart, Australia)
I'm in Tasmania drinking with Dave; a giant of a man with broad shoulders and no neck. He's lived alone all his adult life, and sits at his normal spot at the bar, in brown flannelette shirt and singlet, jeans and mud-caked Blundy boots. "Changed? Yeah, sure has...
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Almost Lesotho – seeking Shangri-La (Drakensberg, South Africa)
`...didn't you ever want to know what was on the other side of the mountain?' - James Hilton, Lost Horizon. Funny to find an Antipodean neighbour way out here: a beanie-clad, mumbling, red-head New Zealander in the middle of Africa; him having asked about...
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Jigsaw Days – secret pieces (Picardy, France)
From Berlin I've flown to Paris late winter, driving north for two hours and overnighting in the hamlet of Behen, a classic French Chateau with stately entry paved for WW2 German tanks, towers and walls from 15th and 18th centuries, the stables once bombed by American...
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The Lion King – wandering ways (Skeleton Coast, Namibia)
There's another white dual cab propped on the wrong side of the road. I wind down the passenger's window to ask if all's OK. A khaki-clad man pauses, narrow-eyed and hesitant way out here, water bottle pulled from an open, dust-laden tailgate. We're in Namibia –...
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Calling on Kittelsen – demons, ghosts and ghouls (Norway)
Four metre waves batter our ferry on the fiercest piece of water in the world. We’re 100km west of the Norwegian mainland and this is the Maelstrom, first mentioned by the Greeks 3000 years ago and immortalised in the iconic writings of Edgar Allen Poe and Jules...
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Clarisse of Arabia – teaching the children (Helsinki, Finland)
Outside the station I squint in late summer sun, a grand entrance clad in grey Finnish granite and guarded by lamp-holding titans: stern-faced stone men far too serious to be the animated rap stars of railway advertising campaigns. At their feet, there's a kid busker...
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Postcard from Lagos – a white Christmas in black Africa (Nigeria)
I've been stuck in Johannesburg traffic for an hour now; finally pulling off the treadmill of Rivonia Rd, and into the Nigerian Consulate compound - open Tuesday and Thursday mornings only - to be greeted by a mountain of a security man casually swinging a...
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Lost Pearls and Pomegranates – from red towers to whitewash (Andalusia, Spain)
The phone rings late afternoon: my girlfriend having just arrived. We meet and trudge uphill from Granada station, through the 15th century Gate of Pomegranates to this Alhambra citadel – ruddy stone towers, roses, oranges and myrtles – a garden-fortress built to...
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Something from Nothing – mystic gifts (New York, USA)
There’s something about these multi-coloured cocoons, the plaque on the wall `Judith Scott: 1943-2005’. I adjust my glasses and lean closer, scratching my head and struggling with the notion of an artist not only deaf and mute, but also stricken with the effects of...
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A Tale of Three Cities – once upon a town (Soweto, South Africa)
It is early morning, The Healer a tall woman with the short-cropped, knotted hair of her people. I lean closer to hear her words, those bloodshot eyes blurred but vacant. She talks of `home’ – and the importance of family – before suddenly falling silent. We’re...
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