Category: Blog
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Last Days
I’m writing this post from the Royal Suite at the Bangkok InterContinental Hotel. It’s the largest suite in the hotel. I’m seated at a glass coffee table in the lounge; there’s a lavish entryway, a 12-seat boardroom, a kitchen, a massive bathroom with a sunken bath, a dressing room, and a bedroom larger than all […]
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God mode
I met Calvin in Siem Reap on 27 December. It had taken me two days to get there from Athens. A flight from Athens to Dubai, which was delayed a couple of hours due to fog in Dubai; a night spent in the First Class Lounge in Dubai, since it was too late to get […]
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καλά Χριστούγεννα
Most of my last post was written on the ferry to Patras. I had decided to spend two nights there, not because there’s anything particularly cool about it, but because it the first place where I could see The Last Jedi in English. (English films are usually dubbed in Italy.) I saw the film a few hours […]
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Bari — Episode II
If you asked me right now to name my favourite Star Wars film, my answer, without hesitation would be Episode VII: The Force Awakens. It’s the funniest of the Star Wars films, it has likeable, charismatic, well-drawn characters, and it carries on the overwrought intergenerational Skywalker saga in a satisfying way. Plenty of people dismissed […]
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Sorrento things
It’s raining like crazy today, so I’m postponing my visit to Pompeii until tomorrow, which is my last full day in Sorrento. I arrived here on 3 December. There have been plenty of day trips since then, but also a lot of relaxing and doing nothing. So, this post will be mercifully free of narrative. […]
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ἐκκεκώφωκε τὰ ὦτα καὶ ἐμπέπληκε Λύσιδος
I’ve made a lot of mistakes in the past few months. Here’s one. I’ve been booking the cheapest possible hotels on trivago.com and booking.com. I can’t afford to stay in lovely five-star hotels every night for two months: I need to find cheap hotels reasonably close to the action in whatever city I’m staying in. […]
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Phase III: Dolce Far Niente
I never really planned this holiday. Calvin booked the plane tickets and the hotel accommodation at the start and the end of the trip, and helped me to buy my Eurail pass. But I always intended to just make things up as I went along. But I did have one thing I really wanted to […]
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o quid solutis est beatius curis
Sirmio, jewel of islands, jewel of peninsulas,jewel of whatever is set in the bright watersor the great sea, or either ocean,with what joy, what pleasure I gaze at you,scarcely believing myself free of Thyniaand the Bithynian fields, seeing you in safety. Catullus 31, translated by A. S. Kline Sirmione is a peninsula — nearly an island — that juts out […]
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Le wifi antibois
Tonight I’m staying on the Côte d’Azur, extremely annoyed at the quality of the wifi access. This is the end of my first full day in Antibes. I’ve never been here before: coming here was entirely Angela’s idea. I’m not sure I had even heard of it. I had always assumed that I would need […]
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61.6%
11.30 PM I bounce my arse over to the next stool at the bar, next to the American boy with the goatee. His name is Aaron. I haven’t spoken to him yet. It’s noisy here, and so I have to shout to be heard by the pretty South American barman. His name is Hector. “Hey. […]