News from Jupiter
From My Notebooks In 1973: A Missing Chapter from Palermo to Tunis
November 9, 2025
A missing chapter. For those of you bothering to follow this series of notes chronologically I have to confess that I mistakenly left out a section of notes about the ferry from Palermo to Tunis. Because I think it was significant and reads rather well, I’m going to interrupt the story and tell it here: On the ship between Palermo and Tunis, the second […]
From My Notebooks In 1973: Libya
November 2, 2025
On the road to Benghazi. Wednesday, October 31st, Marsa Bregha Oil refinery and tankers. Aircraft parked in the desert. No houses. Eerie. On to Benghazi. Run dry within sight of it. Fortuitous. Two good young men. Give me petrol. Take me into Benghazi. Buy me a tankful!! Take me for coffee. Help look for elusive Sabecol. [The Sunday Times had a point of contact […]
From My Notebooks In 1973: Heading for Libya
October 26, 2025
Chased out of Tunis by the police, and heading for Libya. Tuesday 23rd October Drive through Tunisia. Wet. Confusions at Sousse. Wrong name for the train conductor. On to Gabes. Hotel de la Poste. Letter to Peter. Right or wrong? Frenchman at Atlantic. Was there in war to put up radar station. Germans no good at electronics – except Siemens. Italians did nothing for […]
From My Notebooks In 1973: To Tunisia
October 19, 2025
I took the ferry from Palermo to Tunis. Sunday, October 20th For some days I’ve been travelling on the brink of Africa. From London, perhaps, Tunisia seems no great distance, just a package flight away. For myself I can only tell you that after 2000 miles travelling towards this immense continent, speculating on what lies ahead, I feel a very long way from home […]
From My Notebooks In 1973: Into Sicily
October 12, 2025
If you read last week’s notes about Zanfini, you would probably like to know what became of him and his project. I returned to Roggiano in 2001 and wrote about it in Dreaming of Jupiter. I have reproduced some of that at the end of this week’s notes. For more you might like to buy the book. Friday October 19th , Leaving Roggiano Now […]
From My Notebooks In 1973: Zanfini’s Story
October 5, 2025
On October 18th I was still making my way down Italy to Sicily, and the ferry that would take me to North Africa. With my eyes firmly fixed on the unknown world ahead of me I wasn’t expecting to experience anything much worth recording, but in Roggiano, Calabria, I was reminded that the adventure can begin anywhere, when Giuseppe Zanfini made his operatic appearance in […]
From My Notebooks In 1973: Italy
September 28, 2025
The last ten days have been a fairly comfortable prelude to the adventure, through familiar country, although I oddly failed to note the night outside Florence where, refusing to go to a hotel and finding all the camp sites locked I spent the night sleeping triumphantly on the bike under my umbrella. Tuesday November 16th Left Rome. Stopped in Latina for coffee. Too hot. […]
From My Notebooks In 1973: How It All Started
September 21, 2025
The journey began in confusion. At the time I had no place of my own in London and was staying in Putney with friends, John, Graham and Diane, who had to put up with my chaotic preparations. In my room I had the three fibre-glass boxes that were attached to the bike and spent endless hours assembling, and sorting and often discarding the eclectic assortment […]
From My Notebooks In 1977: Turkey
September 14, 2025
With this excerpt I’m only days away from the end of a four-year journey, approaching the Mediterranean coast of Turkey, still in the company of Ted Holst and Mina on their BMW. Still Monday June 6th At Mersin a fertiliser factory is producing the worst smoke pollution I’ve ever seen. A pall of salmon smoke completely obscures the road and the country around. Trying […]
From My Notebooks In 1977: Iran and Turkey
August 10, 2025
Leaving Iran. Wednesday, June 1st To border, meeting Ted and Mina by roadside. Then the endless snake of lorries lined on road – maybe a kilometre – waiting to be processed at border. They watched with non-committal eyes. Balkan drivers in shorts and short-sleeved shirts and sandals. Mostly Bulgarians. They pioneered the route – according to Ted. But what do they carry? The Iran […]