Category Archives: Travel notes

I have been in Paris most of the week (half term). Hence no contemporaneous blogging, and some notes now on all the culture around which I was dragged by the more refined members of the family: The Centre Pompidou –- … Continue reading → Continue reading →

I had meant to return Cicely Hamilton’s Modern Sweden to the London Library yesterday, but I started to reread it on the train down, and I could not quite bear to return it. It is an account of a journey … Continue reading → Continue reading →

I don’t know what happened to the divine Mrs Tilton. But this is in her spirit, for she used to post subtle recipes for incredibly calorific German food and, while looking for things to say about the Swedish elections, I … Continue reading → Continue reading →

A lovely story out of Svenska Dagbladet that a cookbook has been published, in Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish simultaneously, containing twelve recipes for seal. There is a more detailed treatment of this important story n Expressen, where the editor of … Continue reading → Continue reading →

From Svenska Dagbladet today A family of wild mink is persecuting swimmers at Ribersborgs coldwater swimming pool in Malmö. Last week a man had to go to hospital after being bitten on the big toe. The mink also crap all … Continue reading → Continue reading →

for travelers of a bohemian disposition, is here. I know you may be expecting larger or more dramatic travel notes, but I decided that either I dumped my diary here more or less whole, or I did nothing much. So, … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Sometimes I think that the only two places I want to live in the world are Lapland and San Francisco. Then I remember Vienna. The odd thing about Vienna and San Francisco is that they both have excellent wine and … Continue reading → Continue reading →

It’s been years since I flew a full-price airline anywhere in Europe. This is partly because i live only about fifteen miles from Stansted, Ryanair’s hub airport; partly because the cheap airlines are so very much cheaper if they are … Continue reading → Continue reading →

I didn’t have a very cultural time, since I had a nasty ear infection that made walking exhausting and music pointless. But I managed one good photograph, and saw enough of the city to remind myself how very much I … Continue reading → Continue reading →

There is a story in yesterday’s Guardian that would be incredible were it not for the video evidence. Vladislav Chebayev, a gangster in Samara, 600 miles south-east of Moscow, needed to silence a witness whom he had earlier beaten so … Continue reading → Continue reading →