News from Jupiter
Revisiting myself
July 18, 2010
People keep asking me how I can be riding around on an iTune, and I have to explain that Piaggio, for their own mysterious reason, called their weird new scooter with two wheels in front an MP3. It didn’t take long to get used to it. At first I was worried about leaning over with two wheels in front of me, but they lean like […]
Getting knotted
April 22, 2010
This news is long overdue, but there is so much to tell that I haven’t known where or when to begin. The most unlikely, delightful and, in a sense, preposterous item is that I am going to marry. A Ukrainian beauty, no less, so I hasten to add that I did not acquire her through the internet. We have known each other for seventeen years, […]
My other life
March 28, 2010
Why was I able, in my forties, to take four years off to ride around the world? Because I had found a way to lead a life that cost very little to maintain. At the time I lived in an ancient ruin that I’d bought for $1000, in a beautiful but primitive part of France. Food and wine were cheap, and life was so satisfying […]
Down Under
January 2, 2010
I’ve been on a two-week motorcycle tour of New Zealand, and the first thing to say is that riding with groups is not something I do. Normally I ride alone, I figure out the route, find places to stay, deal with the problems, bump into people (figuratively speaking, usually) and write about it. This can be demanding and tiring and productive. It’s not always fun, […]
The Best of Health
October 28, 2009
Six weeks after the accident I described above I made my way to Germany on the bike and then, by air, to England. A doctor friend had suggested earlier that it would be a good idea to get a CT scan, just in case, so in London I wandered into the ER of a big London hospital, and it turned out that I had a […]
Anatomy of an accident
August 3, 2009
We all have accidents of one kind or another from time to time and I’m not claiming that there is anything particularly riveting about this one, other than that it happened in Ukraine. verge on either side. Here and there people at the roadside sell mushrooms or other things gathered from the woods. On July 23rd I was on my way to Poland, expecting to […]
More running around
July 14, 2009
I left England a very happy man at the end of June. I had the opportunity to show my films four times, in Dorchester, Wales, Stroud and at Horizons Unlimited in Ripley, and they seem to have passed the test. The audiences were packed, and tried very hard to make me believe they were enjoying themselves, so I shall pursue this format and make more […]
Running around
May 13, 2009
I’ve been back on my old F650 for six weeks and I want to say again how happy I am with the old girl. I brought her out of her dusty retreat after two years, brightened her up with a new battery, and sailed off down the autobahn to Stuttgart to celebrate my 78th birthday. The next day we went further south to Bavaria where […]
My life as a con man
May 12, 2009
In 1951, when I was struggling to stay alive in Paris, the newspaper I had just started working for shut down. They were generous and gave me three months’ pay in lieu of notice. It wasn’t very much, but it was more than I’d ever had in my life. I decided to take a holiday in Spain. I packed two small suitcases with clothes and […]
Royal Rides
April 12, 2009
This morning I heard to my surprise that King Abdullah II of Jordan had found relief from the tormenting questions of Arab-Israeli relations by riding a bike to Harper’s Ferry and on to Gettysburg. According to NPR’s Michele Kelemen, who interviewed him after his meeting with the President, he is an enthusiastic adventure rider. And then I thought, Why is this surprising? And I recalled […]