Alert the international press!  My long awaited second appearance in book print has finally occurred with the release of What Color Is Your Jockstrap?, the latest in a series of travel humour anthologies by tireless editor and poker socialite Jen Leo. This was the first Leo venture to allow submissions from…

I’m suffering on several fronts at the moment.  After the unremitting exhaustion, panic and exhilaration of my final three weeks on the LP write-up, the past two weeks have been a bit of a bummer.  I’ve been slowly poking at two non-travel articles on Sarajevo and Bratislava for Global Traveler,…

Well, thats the headline I would have written.  Got you to click on the link, didnt I? Instead the BBC chose a more tactful line:  “Europe under ‘rendition’ cloud”, an uninspired title that I wouldnt  have clicked in a million years if it werent accompanied by a naked photo of Salma…

On Saturday June 10th, I will turn 36 years old.  I love getting older.  Each year I get wiser, blissfully more deranged and, reportedly, better looking.  I’m told that I am afflicted with the ‘George Clooney Effect’ where, although I wasn’t unattractive when I was younger, I somehow become better…

Now that there aren’t people on three continents tapping their feet and looking at their watches, waiting for me to turn in my LP manuscripts, I’ve gone about the task of re-training my body to sleep past 7:30am. It wasn’t easy, but after a solid week of staying up until…

Have I mentioned that I’m a juggler?  Yep, for, oh god, 24 years now.  I started young and as such I was one of those punks that learned everything five times faster than the adults, who mostly loathed me as a result.  There was a window of opportunity somewhere in…

You know, the supposed ‘culture shock bell-curve’ is a bunch off ca-ca.  Some weeks it feels more like the ‘culture shock perfect storm’.  I’ve suffered another overpowering wave of pessimism recently.  Some of you may have noticed that I have a streaky love-hate relationship with my second home and I’ve…

That’s right, I mounted those word count demons, rode them like a drunken camel and prevailed! (With careful guidance from my editor, of course). Thus concludes my duties with the Romania and Moldova chapters for Europe on a Shoestring 5 and Eastern Europe 9. Jesus does it feel good to…

Very quickly…  I am in the last-ditch, “where the hell is it?” editing phase now.  If it weren’t for the one week deadline extension that I lobbied for and received back in March after suffering several delays due to bad weather and bureaucratic impasses, I’d be in the LP gallows…

I normally spend a ludicrous amount of time in front of my laptop, but the past three weeks have been particularly intense. So much so that I think my eyeballs sinking into my skull, trying to retreat from the screen as a natural defence. Moreover, for the past week I’ve…