Greenhouse Gases: Romanian Burgers Give me Hope

It’s easy to feel despair about global warming. The IPCC tells us we have less than 12 years to cut CO2 in half — or face devastating consequences. But wherever you look people are driving more, consuming more and those …
Villages Made Me

Villages Made Me

1963. Leeds I was born in a house with wooden floors and an open-plan kitchen. It was located in a rural area by Leeds called Little London. I have flickering memories of a white coat with bloodstains, people standing around …

My last three years in 7 bullet points…

My friend Dave Barnicle runs a bar in Liverpool. But he’s not your typical bar manager who hires and fires and shouts and chucks people out. In fact, Dave’s bar doesn’t even serve alcohol as it’s one of very few...

Big Jack teaching Fats Waller in Lhasa

I felt so lucky to have been asked to look after Roger and Isabella’s flat and I was determined to take this responsibility seriously. The flat had two rooms, a huge bedroom-cum-living room, with a wide array of windows, and …

Hit by hepatitis and cured by Tibetan medicine

This is chapter 34 of my Tibet memoir in which I was laid low (I thought I was dying) by hepatitis, for which western medicine has no cure.  A few days later I got hit by a shockwave of illness …