News from Jupiter
Let’s roll through the Isles
May 15, 2012
Six more months have passed, with not a word from me, but at last there’s news. I am the proud father of another book and though the labour was long and, at times, agonising, my latest offspring has finally gone to press and looks lovely. Because it is all about my journey through the British Isles there are no plans yet to publish it in […]
How I became a foundation
August 20, 2011
Until a few months ago I was just an ordinary bloke, getting on in years, who sometimes rode a bike and tried to find time to tend his garden. Then, quite suddenly, I became a Foundation, the CEO of a world-wide initiative to tell it as it is. I’m still reeling from the shock. What distinguished Jupiter’s Travels from most motorcycle adventure sagas was the […]
Eighty Implausible Years
May 28, 2011
Quite how my mother contrived to introduce me to the world on May the First was never explained to me. If it was by accident (and I very much doubt it) it was a happy one. People tend to remember it. When I was young, that meant more presents. These days it gives me a better excuse to have a party. This year we had […]
Down among the warthogs
December 6, 2010
It was the warthogs I liked the most – impressive ladies with curly tusks dressed in a particularly tasty shade of brown, and always pursued by a fleet of little replicas. All in all it was a fairy tale experience to be in the relaxed company of so many different animals all strolling around in the Sondzela game park. Only now that I have been […]
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 […]