Irreverent, informed and downright eclectic books and reportage from South Asia and beyond
I see visions of sleeping peaks
erupting …
releasing all hell that
will shake the Earth from end to end
And this ain’t bad news, good news,
or any news … it’s just the truth,
Better save your souls while
you can
Jimi Hendrix - Valleys of Neptune
Am currently on the Red Sea coast in southern Egypt, not far from the Sudanese border, [...]
Southern Germany is conservative and a bit too far away from the real world for my liking, but while people look pretty stiff and sullen on the street, they are friendly, noticably so after a trip around Europe.
Tried to get a tram from Mannheim to Heidelberg a while back and had no change for [...]
Mellow street cafes, crammed with grinning old-timers slurping pastis and in the cities, bistros frequented by scores of beautiful young things in skimpy but fashionable outfits, all create a cultural street-life and unique joie de vivre in one of France’s most attractive and homogenous regions – Provence.
Provence means different things to different people [...]
Move over James Bond and let Fantomas terrorize the world’s richest men.
I have been watching the 1960s Fantomas movies with Jean Marais - one of France’s best known leading men and a man who is as camp as camp gets - as the famed face-changing bad man battling it out with France’s [...]
In 2005, I drove from Dallas to Lubbock.
Fleeting impressions of Texan roadside spectacle stick to the mind like the cotton wool buds that sometimes swishes across the highway like tiny clouds. Townes van Zandt, Roky Erickson, ZZ Top, Texas sounds. The smell of oil wafts across the fields. Every burger joint by the highway is [...]
Switch on the TV, go to a newsagents or visit a market, and one popular British cultural trait will immediately assault your sensibilities.
As every British person knows from Faulty Towers - Don´t Mention the War. Yet barely a joke, comedy sketch or low brow publication in contemporary Britain can do without the decades old obsession [...]
I attended a Thai festival at Bexleyheath in South East London last weekend.
Much to my surprise, one of the performers on the festival stage was the fantastic Georgia from Bangkok´s equally fantastic Ad Here Blues Bar. Georgia did some Blues and Jazz standards for a crowd of several hundred Thai and local punters…a great day [...]
Rainer Krack and Tom Vater’s Thailand Handbook, published by Reise Know How Verlag in Germany and currently in its 14th edition, has been published by Bezdroza in Poland.
And I just got a copy. The book looks great, photo reproduction is good, and it´s a 100 pages slimmer than the ever-growing German edition.
Tom Vater polowe swego [...]
I tried to buy a weapon in a Wal-Mart supermarket in Lubbock, Texas, a few years back. I wanted the genuine American experience. I´d traveled thousands of miles for this. I almost managed.
These are the two guys that prevented me from becoming a devil´s reject on their parking lot with a semi-automatic cross-bow or some [...]
Am currently staying in Southeast London, living on the 20th floor of a 1960s council tower block. Great views over the ghetto. I lived here for many years, so the heart is heavy with nostalgia and longing for the street vibes of the 80s and 90s. The state has pretty much abandoned the people who [...]