Now here’s a thing that always puzzles me. Back home in Cairns we have an excellent sea-front swimming lagoon, built to make up for the lack of a town-centre beach. Beside it runs an attractive boardwalk stretching the length of the Esplanade, backed by landscaped parkland and fronting the ocean. It’s a great place for a stroll, particularly at the sun’s rise or set, and large numbers of townsfolk turn out to do just that every day. But here’s the funny bit. For some reason, in order to do so, most of them seem to feel the need to get dressed [View Full Entry]

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Christmas is for the kids. At least that’s what they tell me. Which is funny, as back as a nipper I recall folks banging on about the birth of the baby Jesus, and sending me off to sing carols in cold unwelcoming churches, which wasn’t my idea of fun at all. These days, everyone knows the whole thing’s a sham, solely for the benefit of those two most disparate of parties: the Capitalist Pigs, and those of a less wealthy porcine persuasion, who find it impossible to get a snog anywhere but the Christmas Party. If Jesus was involved at all, [View Full Entry]

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Varanasi, the holy Hindu city lying on the banks of the mighty Ganges, is said to be an auspicious place to die. A curious claim to fame, it has to be said, and in any case not the reason we were going. At least we sure as hell hoped not. To die here means cremation at the sacred burning ghats, said to free one from moksha, the eternal cycle of death and rebirth. I’d always presumed that reincarnation would be something of a bonus, a second chance to experience the glories of life, and reap the rewards for all that lovely [View Full Entry]

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Way back when I was a nipper my Dad did his very best as the dutiful parent, taking time out of his busy schedule to sit us down each night and read a bedtime story, our own personal Jackanory. I’d sit expectantly with my brother and sister in a semi-circle before him, watching the sparkles of excitement leap from their eyes as they lapped up his slow baritone delivery of The Arabian Nights or Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. Personally, I hated it. After all, we had a perfectly good telly in the corner adept at providing endless hours of [View Full Entry]

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New Age. Sounds pretty good, you’ve got to admit. A damn site better than old age, at any rate. Two words, just six letters, promising to banish all past woes and conjure thoughts of inspiration, the dawn of a fresh era, as if everything gone before was fallacy soon to be cast out, summoning in a new epoch of understanding. The truth is, unfortunately, that anything with New in the title is not to be trusted. They all sound so enticing at first, everything just peachy, but before long the taste turns bad and you can’t fathom how you were ever [View Full Entry]

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Incredible India. This is the India Tourist Commission’s slogan for attracting visitors to the heart of the subcontinent. Catchy, concise, and actually very apt. As usual with these sneaky advertising types, though, you have to learn to read between the lines. They never actually say it’s incredibly good. Just incredible. I can attest that my previous visit to Delhi certainly stretched levels of credulity to previously uncharted territory. After the wonders of Hong Kong I briefed Debbie to expect the unexpected; nothing, but nothing, compares to Delhi. It really is incredible [View Full Entry]

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Back when I was a kid I couldn’t wait to grow up and know everything about everything, just like Mum and Dad. If only I’d realised back then that life could be so disappointing. I’ve now been grown up longer than I was ever a kid, and know I’ll never know everything about anything, let alone acquire universal knowledge. So many things still completely elude me. The concept of infinity. The rationale behind fashion, or for that matter religion. The inner workings of washing machines, of women’s minds. Just how to put a Fruit Pastille in your mouth without [View Full Entry]

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We returned to Broome to find it a town transformed. Temperatures had risen considerably over the last month to what were now intolerable levels, and as a result the entire tourist population had decamped back down south to cooler climes, leaving only a smattering of somewhat relieved locals, who were now left with not much to do. We ourselves were also at something of a loose end. We’d left our travel plans deliberately vague, just a list of hotspots we wanted to check out. We’d now ticked off all these boxes, and found ourselves in the particularly hot spot of Broome [View Full Entry]

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What’s your favourite animal? Not a question I’ve been asked in quite a while. Back as a kid it seemed of endless fascination to any number of girls. They’d sidle up next to you completely uninvited, conjure a mechanical origami contraption and promise to tell your fortune. This they did by requesting your preferences over colour, numbers, or best of all, animals, desperate to discover any clues to the inner workings of your mind. Should you accidentally answer appropriately they’d promptly unfold their paper oracle to reveal something called a love-heart, or else [View Full Entry]

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After the traumas of Perth I was keen to get out on the highway again and put as much distance between ourselves and these particular holiday memories as possible. Fortunately recovery seemed to be swift, and after a precautionary day’s delay to make sure all my pipes still worked, we were on our way north once again and it was as if the whole sorry episode had never happened. Actually there was one important difference: a bottle of water was now continually stationed in the drinks holder just by my left hand, which handily gave it something to do, as there’s [View Full Entry]

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