Have fun go mad

Somewhere between Aussies in uniform, sweaty boys in Bintang beer singlets, plentiful cheap beers, we had stepped through a black hole to an Australia that never quite existed. It was 4pm. We could stay here all night.

There was only one little problem with this genius plan.

Read Article →

Why is a raven like a writing desk?

The relevant double-page of my diary looks like three drunken spiders had bathed in ink then played Holi there: ‘mum arrives’ is scrawled in blue next to the smudged black ink of ‘print Alice tickets!’ near ‘Wales? 1pm?’ in hesitant green. I had my first real visitor and I was determined to show her as wide a spectrum of London as I possibly could. Apologies if this post reads like a shopping list of London activities. That’s how it felt.

Read Article →

#MyHiddenTreasureChest, a weekend in Budapest

We’re here for Chandler’s thirtieth birthday. He’s been given a big gaudy birthday badge and he isn’t shy about tapping it and issuing birthday commands. His first? Everyone must order a full litre of the local beer, Dreher at lunch. This, plus a Weiner schnitzel the size of birthday boy’s face apiece, costs each of us about 3000 Hungarian forent, the equivalent of less than ten quid. It’s a revelation. After being persistent paupers in London, we feel like emporers in Hungary.

Read Article →