I had never felt more relaxed while watching England play football. Born just two days after its one and only global triumph, 55 years have taught me to expect the worst. It has become a kind of self-preservation technique. However great the anticipation, there was always a Polish goalkeeper, a divine hand, or any number…
This was going to be a travel story. And then the world changed. Leafing through the pages of my journal, the varied memories of last summer’s self-directed tour through seven European countries jumped from the pages; vivid and distinct again, as if each event had happened this morning. The lines of often illegible scrawl and…
I’m generally not the type of person who finds symbolism in the world around me. On the rare occasions I display even a vague awareness of my surroundings, I am more likely to infer the arbitrary workings of coincidence than I am to acknowledge the possibility of a deeper, allegoric significance. So it was that,…
What follows is a transcript of the President’s planned remarks for the 2017 Presidents’ Day celebrations. I am merely the messenger; the “facts” are all the President’s … Welcome everyone. Thanks for coming. We had an amazing victory. A truly great victory. More like an annihilation, really. We had great crowds, I mean, spectacular crowds…
The obituary for 2016 will be full of obituaries. However, contrary to popular belief, we won’t only be mourning the year’s incongruously large loss of people we made famous. We shall also be grieving for things more fundamental; the loss of our decency; the loss of our humanity. It was a year when we lost…
Standing behind the reception desk of a hotel in south west Iceland, the clerk was being as polite as his utter bewilderment and exasperation would allow. He was wearing the expression of someone who has just suspected he is the victim of a prank. His haunted eyes scarcely blinked as they flitted around the room,…
I am high above you right now, looking down. I see one world. Its raging oceans are sheets of glass, erratically molded around the globe. Its highest mountain ranges but crumpled pieces of paper, imprecisely flattened. Its most hostile deserts are as forbidding as a pristine beach on a late summer evening. Its dark, impenetrable…
Journeys And 