Sunday Times May 2013

(Central Kalahari Game Reserve)

The earth beneath me is far away, I can touch her and yet I am enclosed, this is a retinal experience, visually sensuous, no sound but the engine, no smell but perspiration, no taste but salt, 5500 feet above the ground and I look out. Arid semi desert below me, blue sky surrounds; an uneven landscape, small hills that are shrubs, bumpy green, and the sky, an uneven blue; hills in the sky, scatterings of cloud. (continue reading…)

He calls himself Rillke, after the poet Rainer Maria, he has just added another ‘l’ to the name, words are a game,
and this game is a killer, a cryptic clue, he plays with words as he plays with
people, all names, (continue reading…)

A brown dog walks along the sun path, red tongue to the ground, panting. In the brightness of the sun, he sits, on the veranda; (continue reading…)

Toumbouctou

The Sunday Independent October 2012For most people, says Monsieur Jaro, when you say Toumbouctou, it is like the end of the world, for others it is a place that is not there, but that is not true. I am from Toumbouctou, and I can tell you that we are right at the heart of the world. (continue reading…)

In the 16^th century, the technological wonderment that is Tokyo, was a small castle town called Edo. In 1603 Tokugawa Ieyasu, a militarily powerful shogun, established his feudal government there and so it became Japan’s political centre. In1868, during the Meiji Restoration, the emperor moved his capital from Kyoto to Edo. He renamed it Tokyo, the Eastern Capital.

Tokyo today is Tokyo: blazing violent electric stars, (continue reading…)