Here’s what happened on a day trip to Antelope Island on the Great Salt Lake, Utah. When you think of America as an outsider, you think of certain places: New York, Las Vegas, New Orleans, Chicago, San Francisco. They’re shown in movies and TV shows all the time, recognised by their skylines or by their…
The Pink Granite Coast in Brittany on the north coast of France isn’t real. Or rather, it doesn’t look real. It looks like the set of a bad fantasy film; all the rocks look like they’ve been crafted out of plasticine and then painted. I looked at it and I thought I was in someone…
I had dinner with one of my college professors while I was studying at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Now, I know what you might be thinking and, no, there were no candles, no footsie under the table, no raunchy taboo love-making back at her two-car, leafy suburban home and she certainly wasn’t…
I was a father for two weeks. Every day for a fortnight I looked into those adorable little eyes and held those adorable little hands and found some comfort and unconditional affection in a terrible, loveless world. I loved them and they loved me and everything felt like it had a purpose and a meaning….
I bet you take roads for granted. You use them in your car, on your bike, you might even skip down the middle of them at 4 a.m. after a particularly frivolous night out. You don’t think anything of them unless there are potholes and roadworks and traffic lights that are conspiring against you. You…
Everyone has a horror story about dealing with a particular company or organisation. A severed ear in your KFC bucket, a seven-year wait for a new kidney on the NHS, too much head on your pint at your local, the list is endless. But some companies are hated more than others. Ryanair, for example, is…
I like quiet places. I like libraries and bookshops, I like cycle rides into fields full of cows and big skies, and I’m pretty sure I’d like the eerie aftermath of a nuclear explosion. And talking of eerie, I also liked Lake Erie, the smallest of the Great Lakes in North America. Here’s what happened…
Apparently Niagara Falls is a popular honeymoon destination. I wouldn’t know, but I trust Google (probably a little too much). Having spent a day at Niagara Falls I find it astonishing that newly-weds want to go to Niagara Falls to have some steamy consummating sex to the sound of roaring water. I mean, lots of…
It seems Israel and Palestine are once again busy trading rockets and getting people killed on both sides like a playground fight that got way out of hand. In the latest conflict, the death toll stands (as of writing) at 3 Israelis and 86 Palestinians which, to me, suggests that if you are going to…
There’s only one book that’s ever made me cry. Winnie the Pooh came close, The Koran left me right on the verge, but it was Jack Kerouac’s On the Road that put me over the edge. It wasn’t like Toy Story 3 crying, and not even your-team-getting-relegated crying, it was just a bit of face moisture. If I’ve…