Genes and dogs
Slowly, step by step, I am walking up Casterton Fell in North Yorkshire. My son is somewhere ahead of me. My wife and daughter are – surprisingly – somewhere behind. [...]
Ich bin ein Berliner
I’m in Berlin. Rather, we – the family Gray - are here, in Berlin, at the end of our six-day holiday. We chose Germany because both sides of our family [...]
Buying a Language School in Spain
It’s 8:30pm, on Sunday 21 May 2023. I’m sitting, alone, on a bench in Puerto De La Cruz, North Tenerife. The photo above is my current view. I landed just [...]
Fiction: Anywhere But Bangkok
Disclaimer What follows is pure fiction, written by me twenty years ago when I was running a backpacking NGO, Voices for Burma, and after completing a travel writing course at [...]
The Sick Man of Europe
(Written during take-off from Tenerife South, Airport) Travelling on a rickety bus in rural Thailand, back in 2000, I had my only epiphany. The vast distance from home - [...]
Duolingo and the Future of Geopolitics
For those who don’t know, Duolingo is an awesome app which helps you to learn a language. Each day, for the last 112 days (as Duolingo tells me), I have [...]
Almost Lost in Translation on the Longest Day (in 2004)
Below is a copy of my email to some friends, which I sent in August 2004, from Yunnan Province, China. That day, I had saved an American’s life. As I [...]
