August is often a cultural wipe-out for anyone chained to British shores. This year though, it’s been the weather that has been the wipe-out. Otherwise things are pretty lively thanks to media obsessions, whether it’s the (at last named) UK recession, American electoral shenanigans (currently immobilised on Palin’s strident note of “hockey-mom”, whatever that is), the Russian foray into Georgia, or endless English bravura with regard to that rain. Yes it’s bucketed down almost non-stop since my last post three weeks ago. Luckily, there’s loads on the arts agenda to compensate.

All that stuff about credit crunch (but let’s call a spade a spade, it’s a recession) has meant that the UK travel supplements have recently orgied on the joys of British holidays, above all seaside ones. Dripping nostalgia, there is much talk of Nivea- and ozone-perfumed streets, fish ‘n chips, chintzy sofas and of course that grey sea that encircles our isles, fringed by even greyer shingle. It’s amazing what a touch of poetry can do to such an experience. So last week I set off with my partner for a reality check.

This is our friends’ idyllic garden cottage where we stayed, down Snape-way. I remember watching it being built 20 years ago, and as it’s soon to be demolished to make way for an extension to the main house, this will be my ode. At least it will live on in cyber-space. Bon voyage little house, you treated this guest well over the years.

With too much to write for work, the easiest way to capture some highlights of this trip to Australia is by lazily posting a few snapshots. To kick off, here’s a slice of paradise up on the north coast overlooking the Timor Sea, at Faraway Bay.

A pretty eccentric, very hands-on set-up, divine food, superlative views and a mixed bag of Aussie guests - plus a barefoot bushman who took us way out into the bush to some extraordinary rock art sites. Then came a boat-trip along the spectacular King George’s Gorge, one of those red sandstone marvels of the Kimberley region, rich in minerals like silica, manganese, potassium and iron ore, and about 350 million years old. That’s peanuts for Oz.

As dawn cracked through the clouds drifting across the southern hemisphere, the flight from London finally landed in Melbourne. That was several hours ago. A strange time of year for such a jaunt you might think, as downunder it’s pretty grey and drizzly, but I was lured to this side of the world to take part in the first edition of the Melbourne Festival of Travel Writing. This is an ambitious attempt to turn the act of travel-writing into something worthy of audiences and serious thought. The Aussies have always been some of the best and certainly most experienced travellers, so it’s somehow not surprising that they’ve dreamt up this two-day ‘festival’, much thanks to a local university lecturer. One of Melbourne’s biggest claims to fame in travel terms is its role as the honourable ’seat’ of Lonely Planet operations, with Tony Wheeler and his wife Maureen now long-term residents - when they’re not on the hop that is. On Sunday I’ll be hosting his talk about the Irrawaddy Delta and Burma. Meanwhile, here’s a pic from my hotel window in the heart of Melbourne’s CBD - an impressively modern cityscape echoing the infrastructure.

So there I was innocently strolling through bucolic Highbury Fields (that’s a plane-tree packd park near where I live in London), when suddenly I landed in the middle of Outer Mongolia. There were yurts, people in pointy coloured hats, men in brocade gowns and turned-up boots, though I’ll admit it, most women were in jeans and sunglasses.


The USP was that they were all Mongolian, gathered to support a charity rally from London to Ulan Bator. Obviously Brits figured too, a few of them particularly fearless when it came to attempting Mongolian wrestling. This was the exciting bit, though thanks to a fast expiring battery in my little compact, I have no great visuals of it. But here comes a champ…

Anyway, Mongolian wrestling goes like this: two very muscular (and I’ll say it, often pretty paunchy) men in tiny bikini-bottoms, big leather boots and a kind of half-bolero tied with strings at the back, take to the ground. Warily they circle round each other before finally bending forward and locking arms in combat - just like fighting bulls locking horns. Rules are not complex - basically the first man to hit the ground is out. So round they turn, gripping each other’s jacket strings, sometimes for 10 minutes or so, until finally there’s a jerk, a twist, action takes off and one of them, inevitably, hits the dust.

From Athens it takes nearly four hours to drive across the Pelopponese peninsula (via a region by the name of Arcadia - what expectations…) to the south-western corner, near Koroni. This is where my partner and I hid out last week, holed up in a pretty little swamped by olive-groves (www.saintfridays.com) while temperatures outside rose and rose - and rose to 40•. Scorching, but compensated for by the stunningly clear, cool and calm waters of the Gulf of Messina down below. Here’s a watery view on a rather hazy morning, The outline of the Taygetus mountains of the Mani peninsula opposite is just visible. That’s for the next trip. Next minute (or 15) I was down there, afloat in the transparent water - bliss.

Don’t worry - that’s not the new museum below. Patience. The first time I went to Athens I remember selling my blood. Those were my 1970s student days of drifting across Europe and running out of money - pre-credit-card, pre-email. All very footloose and fancyfree but it does make me sound like a dinosaur. However what everyone savvy knew at the time was in Athens you recouped your finances by selling a litre or so of haemoglobin, which we did on the way out and the way back. Very naughty. The other budget ploy was to sleep on a hotel rooftop for a few drachmas. I can’t remember how or where that was, but it was comfortable enough to give us a couple of days seeing Athens’ sights before we hit Piraeus, the ferries and the sybaritic islands.

I’ve just spent a foodie afternoon in the middle of Regent’s Park which, in a quick floral aside, I’d like to note is looking stunning. Colour-coded flower-beds no less and zingy green lawns. Thank you rain. But back to affairs of the palate, Taste of London (an annual food fest) has certainly gone into overdrive with a line-up of over 40 top restaurants beside an army of food and drink producers. All these have escaped from their usual settings to man swish little stands under huge tents. One stand even housed repro Chesterfield sofas, maybe a sop for the exorbitant £25 entrance fee.

As usual, London seems to go into over-drive before putting on the brakes for the long, inevitably cool English summer. I’ve had an inspiring past week, from seeing Akram Khan’s Bahok, with dancers from the National Ballet of China, to the brutally moving documentary on torture in Afghanistan, Alex Gibney’s Taxi to the Darkside. In between there was the opening of the brilliant Cy Twombly retrospective at the Tate Modern (that reminds me of a successful Italian gallerist I met the other day who seemed to think retrospectives are only for dead artists - “shame on you” to borrow la Clinton’s words) and the extraordinary play, The Pitmen Painters, at the National. And here’s the sleek Tate Modern exit just to whet your appetite…

Like a rocket, Viva la Revolucion! is now out there, not exactly in outer space or the ether, though it is on a few websites, but certainly in the public eye. Last night, on a balmy summer’s evening, the launch party kicked off at the Mexican Ambassador’s residence, a consummately chic mansion on Belgrave Square. It was an exhilirating send-off, nourished by trays and trays of delicious Mexican morsels and flowing margaritas. (Now I’m going to cheat a bit for this post & insert pics from Mexico itself - as you can imagine, I had no time to snap last night. This one is of a divine chilli and prawn ceviche)