Archive for August, 2007

• Melbourne’s lovely Vic Market

  I’m an absolute sucker for markets partly because there are so few back home in the UK. There’s a wonderful farmers’ market in my neck of the woods in Wye, but only every fortnight. Other than that it’s off to London to go to the gentrified and deeply overpriced Borough Market by London Bridge Station.
  Melbourne’s [...]

  Posted on 31/08/07 | no comments | read on

• The great Melbourne Writers’ Festival

  Here’s the view from my 39th floor full length window at the Sofitel, Melbourne (I don’t suffer from vertigo, honest, I just want to close the shutters once this photos taken). I’m finally at the major date of this tour and at an event that is a masterclass in how to run a book festival. [...]

  Posted on 29/08/07 | no comments | read on

• Barramundi please

  The last time I was in Australia a friend in Melbourne introduced me to a very Australian dish: barramundi, or giant perch, a fish that’s native to the country and one I’d never encountered anywhere before.
  It’s a big ‘un. The one at the top is lazing around in a tank at Sydney Aquarium at this [...]

  Posted on 28/08/07 | no comments | read on

• Darling Harbour, not so great

  When you’ve been in Asia, even for a week, you land back in the west with a jolt. I got into Sydney this morning, slept, woke, worked, then went down the local ‘tourist attraction’ of Darling Harbour for a bite to eat in the evening. What a shock.
  Back in Hong Kong and Bangkok you may [...]

  Posted on 27/08/07 | 2 comments | read on

• The right way to do public transport

  Public transport makes or breaks modern cities. One of the delights of Rome is the cheap system of subway, overground trains, buses and mini-buses. People complain about them but they’re everywhere and they’re cheap.
  London, on the other hand, now has single journeys on the Tube costing £4 and a congestion charge for anyone mad enough [...]

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• Shop till you drop

  It’s Saturday in Hong Kong. Ask anyone what they’re planning to do and I bet the answer is: ’shop’. I just spent the morning messing around in Central (I’d planned a hike on Lamma Island but didn’t like the look of the weather - and sure enough it is raining cats and dogs now). On [...]

  Posted on 25/08/07 | no comments | read on

• Time for save-hk.org?

  The story of save-wye.org seems destined to follow me around the world. It’s a tale about a tiny rural community in Kent beating off some nasty publicly-funded developers. But my does it travel. During my chat at Post 97 I met a couple of people who knew people in Wye who’d been involved in the [...]

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• Hong Kong makes the literary dinner interesting

  The term ‘ literary dinner’ usually gives me palpitations. Writers like me - simple story tellers with wide audiences - tend to be frowned upon in ‘literary’ circles, in favour of people who write more opaque tales with a less broad readership. Snobbishness? I couldn’t possibly say, but it is a very Brit thing and [...]

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• Service Hong Kong-style

  One thing that bothered me in Bangkok was my little camera, a Casio Z1050. I like having a shirtpocket one for carrying around for general snaps, particularly in Rome. The Casio replaces an earlier model I thought was great. This one…. Let’s put it bluntly. It’s not that sharp. Yes, you can fiddle around with [...]

  Posted on 23/08/07 | no comments | read on

• Service Thai-style

  Being the world’s worst packer one of the first things I end up doing on any trip is opening my case at the other end and working out what I’ve forgotten. The answer for this trip is: shirts. What was I thinking? Then my one and only belt, a big brand one bought in San [...]

  Posted on 21/08/07 | no comments | read on