Do you have any funny, unusual or interesting memories of Angus Wolfe Murray?
My father has just died, at home, on the west coast of Scotland. I’m in a state of shock but also not surprised as he lived his life in a state of wild defiance of the conventions and norms of ordinary life, and hated the idea of being looked after or helped by...
Ukraine must learn from Bosnia’s disastrous peace treaty
It's hard to imagine what could be worse than the barrages that are raining down on Ukrainian cities right now, but the rocket and artillery fire will eventually stop. A more long term risk for Ukraine, one that will permanently hobble its chances of recovery, is a...
Bosnia’s Unique Wartime Posters
I’m working on an epic book that’s coming out in May this year: Bosnian War Posters, by Daoud Sarhandi. It’s an incredible collection of propaganda and art that he and Alina Wolfe Murray, my ex-wife, collected just after the war in Bosnia Herzegovina. It's taken a...
Why I Moved to Bosnia
Daniel Craig was a good actor before he got turned into a bad-tempered robot for the Bond films. A great film he starred in, before the Bond franchise gobbled him up, was Layer Cake. It's one of those clever-witty-vicious crime films that the English are quite good...
The Psychology of Travel
What does “The Psychology of Travel” mean? Is it some weird form of therapy? Am I a shrink? The answer to these questions is NO, but I used to get mistaken for a therapist as I did freelance PR work for a big Scottish rehab clinic. The psychology of travel is a means...
Travel the Balkans even if Mother tells you not to
I've just been travelling round the Balkans and want to share my impressions in the hope that you will feel inspired to do the same. Accommodation, transport and food are cheap, the people are friendly, parts of it are stunning (see the photo below) and it's as safe...
Belgrade’s Station Disappears
Bewilderment is the word which best describes my feelings when I got to Belgrade's main station and found it to be abandoned. A flimsy wire fence was the only sign that this once-busy station, the hub of rail travel in the Balkans, has been closed down. Was I in the...
Croatia Looks Perfect, but…
Croatia has one of the most spectacular coastlines in Europe, with mountains plunging into the sea, countless islands, and Dubrovnik: the ancient port city that features in the epic TV series Game of Thrones. If you're mega rich, or connected to Croatia's government,...
Visiting Srebrenica: Negative Expectations; Positive Impressions
Srebrenica is so much more than a small town on the eastern border of Bosnia. It's a name that is associated with genocide. The number 8,372 is often mentioned alongside the name of the town, as that’s the number of unarmed men and children who were killed there by...
My mother’s notes from Montenegro
I spent my last month in Scotland going through the residue of my mother's stuff (she died in June 2017 and if you'd like to see how wonderful she was click here). We had a container full of things and I gave most of it away, to family and friends, but some of it had...
My Time in East Berlin
East Berlin was controlled by the Russians until 1989. It no longer exists. I spent some time there many years ago, on my way to Asia. This is how I described it in my first travel book, 9 Months in Tibet. Berlin back then was entirely surrounded by a high security...
If I was Napoleon
If I was planning to invade Russia with a massive land army (Napoleon went in with 635,000 men and emerged with about 20,000) I would set off in the middle of winter. "But zat is madness your Highness," they would say. "Even the simplest peasant in from Bordeaux knows...
Philip Pullman’s storytelling system
Writing about a book of essays is hard because each essay is a complex entity unto itself; each one has a brilliant idea that I'd like to write about – but then I read the next one and I forget what I was so interested in a few pages back. Suffice to say that this...
Travel as a Way of Life
I first posted this article in 2016, but it's so useful for anyone who wants to go travelling that I'm re-posting it again now. In the interim, Darmon Richter has published a book that is well worth getting: Chernobyl: A Stalker's Guide By Darmon Richter People go...
Could Scotland provide the leadership needed to save the planet?
The National newspaper in Scotland just published my comment piece on the hypocrisy of Scotland's leadership when it comes to climate change...You can read it here (without having to subscribe)... The Scottish government is ignoring a once-in-a-century opportunity:...
My view on Scottish independence
Scottish independence is on the cards again and I've just published my view on the issue in The National. You may be wondering why this divisive issue has emerged so soon after the last referendum and this can be explained in one word: BREXIT; a major change to the...
Stephanie Wolfe Murray: elfin, beautiful, passionate, courageous
The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography just published Timothy Neat's lyrical description of Stephanie Wolfe Murray. This is a draft copy. The publisher as minstrel. Elfin, beautiful, passionate, courageous, driven by a wish to serve – the life of Stephanie Wolfe...
Travelling in the Time of the Coronavirus
My heart goes out to everyone who's stuck at home feeling bored and worried. I'm the only person on the train from Brighton to London. Usually you can't find a seat at this time of the morning (10:42 departure). The only people at the station were railway workers and...
My Coronavirus Diary
At first I was like Trump – in denial – but when it became clear, except to the most diehard conspiracy theorists, that this wasn't just another seasonal flu I realised that self-isolation and lockdown were essential. "Easy," I thought, "I've been here before. I've...
Hitching is eco-friendly and fascinating
My Romanian sister in law was rather horrified to hear that I wanted to take her 12-year old daughter hitching. But she’s open-minded enough to realise that the chances of robbery, rape or abduction -- or any of the horrors that the media feed us -- are negligible in...
I use Time Travel to Cut my Emissions
When I was in Romania last month I discovered time travel. I know this sounds ridiculous -- isn’t time travel a futuristic, high-tech impossibility used by the likes of Doctor Who and the crazy professor in Back to the Future? Well yes, time travel is a popular device...
Near Miss in Romania
I was cycling down the hill so fast I thought I might fly, like those kids in ET – Steven Spielberg’s classic film – when the alien enables the kids to fly their bikes through the night sky. It’s incredible what speed you can reach when going downhill on a good bike,...
Do Romanians understand tourism?
Since I first came to Romania in 1986, it's been clear to me that Romanians don’t understand the full potential of the tourism business. Over the 17 years I lived in Romania I’ve had countless conversations with people who own pensions, hotels and restaurants; village...
Greenhouse Gases: Romanian Burgers Give me Hope
It’s easy to feel despair about global warming. The IPCC tells us we have less than 12 years to cut CO2 in half -- or face devastating consequences. But wherever you look people are driving more, consuming more and those who say we must change our ways are often...
Open Letter to Boris Johnson
Dear Boris, Did you know that you’re facing what may be the biggest political opportunity of our generation – to turn the world green. A majority of the Great British public realise that global warming is a problem and you could appeal to a large slice of the...
Villages Made Me
1963. Leeds I was born in a house with wooden floors and an open-plan kitchen. It was located in a rural area by Leeds called Little London. I have flickering memories of a white coat with bloodstains, people standing around and a little sink. 1968. Scottish Highlands...
Boris Johnson Reminds me of Slobodan Milosevic
This week, in the English village of Flore, I was quite shocked by the tabloid headlines about increasing prison sentences and realised that Boris Johnson is similar to Slobodan Milosevic: he is a blatant opportunist. Both of these leaders can be explained by this...
When Joseph Beuys met Jimmy Boyle
If a great artist met a convicted murderer I wouldn’t expect much to come of it. In most cases, I assume, nothing more than an ordinary conversation would happen for the simple reason that the prisoner wouldn’t be open to the artist. The prisoner might view the artist...
Skull
He leaned into me, blue eyes wide, face twitching. ‘My elbow’s fucked mate. I can barely open it further than this.’ An arm extended, palm facing up. ‘It’s from plasterin’ mate. Plasterin’ and wankin’. His skin was blotchy and sagging. Bags were grey and oily under...
My last three years in 7 bullet points…
My friend Dave Barnicle runs a bar in Liverpool. But he’s not your typical bar manager who hires and fires and shouts and chucks people out. In fact, Dave’s bar doesn’t even serve alcohol as it’s one of very few “dry bars” where addicts in recovery can hang out...
Big Jack teaching Fats Waller in Lhasa
I felt so lucky to have been asked to look after Roger and Isabella’s flat and I was determined to take this responsibility seriously. The flat had two rooms, a huge bedroom-cum-living room, with a wide array of windows, and a kitchen. Tibetans tend to decorate with...
Hit by hepatitis and cured by Tibetan medicine
This is chapter 34 of my Tibet memoir in which I was laid low (I thought I was dying) by hepatitis, for which western medicine has no cure. A few days later I got hit by a shockwave of illness and it was so bad that I was convinced I was about to die. All I could do...
My Chinese friend
This is chapter 33 of my Tibet memoir in which I make friends with a Chinese guy who's English was not only self-taught but it was a lot better than many native speakers. One of Sir Woo’s visitors stood out from the others. Not only was he taller than the rest but he...
Living with Tibetans
This is chapter 33 from my Tibetan memoir, in which I manage to avoid the law (and the backpackers) and stay with local Tibetans... Although the Import Export people didn’t give me a job everything started happening at once. Life seems to work this way; once inside...
Trekking from Gyantse to Samye
When I’m walking alone over a long distance, with no need to adjust my pace for other people, my subconscious takes over; it works out how far I have to go and then sets my body at the optimum speed – usually pretty fast. I felt myself powering over that mountain as...
A double life in Lhasa
This is chapter 30 from my Tibet memoir in which I make the transition from a debauched life in Lhasa and head into the mountains... What followed was a nightmare. I could hardly control my feelings of panic and confusion; how was I supposed to make a lesson out of...
New Yorkers in Tibet
This is Chapter 29 from my memoir about hustling for work in Tibet in which I describe my American friends, some of whom you might not approve of... The next morning I hung around the Cheese Factory and kept a sharp eye on proceedings. I put a reservation in with the...
Trying to make a phone call in Tibet
At the Kirey Hotel, the most expensive place to stay in the old town, I met a charming Tibetan who had been educated at an English-style private school in the Indian city of Chandigargh. Hundreds of thousands of Tibetans had fled their homeland since the 1950s and...
Tea in Heinrich Harrer’s house – podcast
This is chapter 27 from the eBook version of Tibet memoir. Podcast above, text version below. Hope you like it. I was surprised that they let me back into the Pemba truck stop and even more surprised when they gave me my own room. It wasn’t a room, more of a...
You can’t get a job here! Podcast
This is chapter 26 from my memoir 9 Months in Tibet. If you click on the thing above you can hear me reading it -- it takes less that four minutes -- or you can read the text below (or you can go back to what you were doing before). As always, I'd really...
A three dog attack — PODCAST
This is my second podcast. I got some encouraging feedback to my first podcast and decided to do another one from my Tibet memoir. I'd be so grateful if you would leave a comment under here. Feedback from readers of this blog feels so valuable and encouraging....
Bird Island
This is Chapter 24 from my Tibet memoir in which I walk into the wilderness, stay a night with nomads and find a surprising level of comfort in a cave... The road into the mountains got steeper and the truck got slower. As we approached the high pass we were crawling...
The travellers’ co-op in Lhasa
This is Chapter 23 from my Tibet memoir which describes the most unusual Tourist Information Centre I'd ever come across... Before the end of my first week Lhasa had me hooked and I knew I should stay, settle down for a while and find something to do. The finding of...
The casual exuberance that is Lhasa
The new place we went to was a grimy truck stop with Tibetan pilgrims from all over the country, people who looked weather-beaten and dangerous in their long woollen coats. Some of them had swords. The manager was a barrel-chested bandit with a laugh that could have...
A critical look at backpackers
As I looked out of the window of my dormitory I thought this must be the smallest capital city in the world. The only traffic was an occasional tractor, or a truck, moving at walking pace, and lots of bicycles. There was so little traffic that pedestrians didn’t...
The trucker’s mate had a sword
The next morning I set off early and within an hour reached the massive turquoise lake I had seen from the hilltop the previous day. Some time later an old truck rattled past and ground to a halt ahead. It had big rounded wings at the front, in the pre-war style, and...
The turquoise lake
The next day I walked out of Gyantse in the direction of Lhasa. After a few hours I came across a scruffy old bus that was full of Tibetans and parked by the roadside. I stuck my head in the door, pointed eastwards and said Lhasa. They nodded and so I climbed aboard....
Cities in the wilderness
It was another day of walking and there were very few vehicles; about one truck every hour, none of which even slowed down. Storm clouds approached, the temperature dropped and I was walking up a long, seemingly endless hill. Rain had started to pour down and the wind...
My first podcast – what do you think?
Click on the player above to hear chapter 17 from 9 Months in Tibet, read my me. I've been posting short chapters from my Tibet book onto this blog, and recently a friend suggested I post a podcast version instead. "But I hate the sound of my own voice," I replied,...
I wanted to weep and scream with joy
The plateau stretched out across vast distances, with each horizon serrated by mountains. It was an uninhabited desert, alive with colours and strange sounds made by the wind, much more inspiring than the rather static photographs one sees in the National Geographic...
