Mea culpa. I haven’t exactly been churning out the blogs recently - there’s just been too much going on plus a lot of work. Big trips nada, but lots of short ones round these isles that I know so little of. And plenty of London’s usual gourmet culture - from Juliette Binoche dancing rather brilliantly with Akram Khan, Kenneth Branagh returning to the stage in Chekhov’s Ivanov, Francis Bacon at Tate Britain, Rothko at Tate Modern to last night’s session of Mark Thomas‘ hilarious but no less forceful attack on the mighty Coca Cola giant - with some extraordinary, humbling stories of the Samson & Goliath variety.

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.

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.

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)

So where in the world are we? This snap taken a couple of days ago should qualify as one of those quiz pics. Answers on a postcard please. There’s something of the Wild West about it - the light, the pines, the distant bare ridges. And the answer is… Morecambe Bay, more precisely Arnside, in Lancashire. Trains regularly cross the estuary at low tide, eventually head west to Barrow then turn right to trundle north to Carlisle. OK, that’s enough for the train-spotting chapter.

Arnside itself is a low-key seaside village boasting one pub with views and one great landmark - the Knott. Not a knot of nets, but a rather large knoll scattered with wild scrub and wind-swept trees. At the summit, fabulous views sweep across the vast bay down to Morecambe, site of the tragedy a few years ago when 21 Chinese cockle-pickers died, caught unawares by the treacherous tides. So the view has a bitter-sweet taste to it.

Funny how you can spend years whizzing round the world without really knowing your own country. Big mistake I’m at last realising. So for once, tucking away my carbon bootprint, I headed north from London by road and, again for once, the partner was in tow. Or rather he was towing me. We drive very differently. I tend to go hell for leather and catch up on lost time burning up motorways, while he, of a distinctly more patient frame of mind, deals with city traffic ten times more efficiently. My other big wheels forte is twisting through hills and, in the case of this little sortie, dales. These Yorkshire specialities nestle between spectacular moors, so I was in my element.

With the rain tipping down and London snuggling down into post-christmas blues, with underground trains delayed due to suicides on the line and a surfeit of sociability, it’s the perfect moment to catch up on cinema. You can’t beat those moments of pure escapism in front of the big screen. So this last week I’ve really indulged, enjoying vicarious travel to Afghanistan (The Kite Runner), Shanghai (Lust, Caution), the American south in the 1930s (The Great Debaters) and Rumania (4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days). The week before it was a quick hop to Mexico in the mesmerising Silent Light.