Culture and Food in Chiang Mai
Chiang Mai, the largest city in Northern Thailand was established in 1296 as the capital of the Lanna Kingdom. The Three Kings sculpture in the historical centre is a landmark…
Celebration time – November 2024 in Chiang Mai
In the same month that Donald Trump is elected the 47th President of the United States, the biggest city in Northern Thailand is unperturbed. Despite the global shock waves reverberating…
Ljubljana – the cutest, most compact capital in Europe
Foreigners Everywhere Part 4 London, Paris, New York … Ljubljana? I love capital cities for all the sprawl, noise and attention that the world’s greatest examples demand. Slovenia’s capital and…
Trieste – the blended city
Foreigners Everywhere Part 3 Travelling northeast by train from Venice we find ourselves in the seaport of Trieste, close to the border with Slovenia. Proudly Italian I’m told, but a…
Hungry for more – what we ate in Venice
Foreigners Everywhere Part 2 It’s an unfortunate truth but in a city literally overflowing with water, tourists, and restaurants it can be difficult to find that genuinely authentic Venetian eating…
Foreigners Everywhere Part 1
The 60th International Art Exhibition, Venice 2024 We have been coming to Venice regularly since the early 2000s when our eldest son was a fine art student and could enthusiastically…
Lockdown inspires author’s ‘bite-sized’ travel memoir
Suffolk Free Press, published 23 December 2021 Bite-sized World available in paperback and ebook https://amzn.to/33KpEDH
Bite-sized World
Travel, eating out and live entertainment - the activities that enrich our lives - are celebrated in this entertaining, but unexpectedly nostalgic memoir of recent times. From adjusting to expat…
The Great Escape
The Daily Telegraph's feature on moving from a city to a rural location features Ruth and Tim Badley as one of three case studies. The journalist was kind enough to…
Boogaloo Down Broadway
As I’m writing this, I hear that Bruce added ‘The Ghost of Tom Joad’ to his Broadway show, in protest at the inhumane treatment at US Borders. This was the first set change for 146 shows and was warmly received by the audience.
I look at my Twitter feed and learn that MSNBC newsreader Rachel Maddow broke down on air whilst describing the forcible separation of babies and young children from their migrant parents at the US-Mexico border and the use of ‘tender age shelters’ by officials of the Trump administration.
Making light of my own immigration ‘inconvenience’ in no way diminishes how I feel about this disgraceful treatment of families and children – or the subsequent inadequate statements by the Trump administration in the face of international condemnation.
‘And what is your reason for visiting the United States?’
Welcome to immigration at Newark Liberty Airport. Obvious irony alert in the name but let that pass. After two merciless hours in a queue, the question comes as a blessed relief. It’s the one I’ve been waiting for.
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