* Work hard. * Appreciate what you've got. * Especially if it's a great family.... (read more)
"I'm not about to pretend that I'm the leading expert in this field, so I tell him a fable that I remember my dad passing on to me, about the Cherokee Indian teaching his grandchildren.... (read more)
From David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest - "You burn to have your photograph in a tennis magazine." "I'm afraid so." "Why again exactly, now?"... (read more)
"For many, particularly those who enjoy cosy English villages hidden amongst the finest, gentlest, most bucolic scenery this country has to offer, the 13.5-mile stroll down the Esk Valley from Glaisdale to Grosmont is simply the best section of the walk . . . But first you have to get to the valley, and that means getting down off the moors . . . parts of this short-cut are extremely boggy - up to waist-deep, in my experience - and unless you want to end up like the dead sheep that occasionally litter this part of the moor it's probably safer to stick to the roads."... (read more)
Truly ideal weekend: Friday evening I met up with my mates, as per always on Friday evenings, though this time out in the provinces (Egham). But it was well worth the trip. We laughed an awful lot.... (read more)
So, I've had a heck of a 12 hours. First I fell out of bed - it was inevitable, my bed is 8 feet off the ground, in a little loft.... (read more)
The hop from Amboseli to Nairobi was painless, and our quick drive-by of downtown Nairobi tended to underscore why we weren't being dropped off in the city proper. Lamentably, these days, Nairobi is literally one of the most dangerous and crime-ridden cities on the planet. ... (read more)
Serengeti, and Ngorongoro Crater, that's what reason we have for leaving. In Tanzania, the town of Arusha is the gateway to these places, and that's where we're heading today. But first a few last orders of business in town.... (read more)
We woke with the dawn - to beat the heat, and ideally to meet the animals, who were also beating the heat. We quickly spotted more red litchri, splashed with steeply slanting sunlight, as well as a lonely elephant in the (far) distance.... (read more)