It looks as though the Australia I’ll be travelling through on the Indian Pacific from Sydney to Perth (4,352kms or 2,698 miles) will be lusher than I expected.  Farmers of grain and fruit are all complaining of unseasonal rain. According to today’s Sydney Morning Herald (Wed Dec 1), spring rainfall has been well above average [...]

A colleague of mine used to collect examples of the “dangler” — “a word or phrase that’s in the wrong place at the wrong time”, as Patricia T O’Conner, former editor of the New York Times Book Review, once put it. She offered a couple of great examples: “Born at the age of 43, the [...]

I was looking forward to writing about Colombia and not mentioning the word “drugs”. Bit tricky now that I’ve been suspected by the police at two airports of being a smuggler myself. Or did they take me for a terrorist? Returning from Cartagena after researching a preview of the Telegraph Hay Festival, I was handing [...]

Reading up on Colombian history for a forthcoming trip to Cartagena, I learn that Belisario Betancur won the presidential election of 1982 after campaigning with the slogan “Sí se puede” (“Yes, it can be done”). Sound familiar? There’s no mention of whether he subsequently had trouble with a Tea Party . . .