News from Jupiter
Winter Madness
September 19, 2021
I asked you last week what I must do about climate change. So first of all I need to apologise for dragging you into this quagmire, when what you really wanted was happy tales of adventure and twisties in paradise. Secondly I apologise for asking an impossible question. Eighteen of you were kind enough to indulge me, but we all know that there is nothing […]
There’s No Planet B
September 11, 2021
If you read my book Jupiter’s Travels you might remember that as I was riding south through Africa in 1974 I became disheartened about the effect the human race was having on the environment. I compared us to a cancerous growth. I knew nothing then about climate change – I was concerned about our effect on wild life and the environment in general. That […]
Parties in the streets
August 30, 2021
I haven’t forgotten you. Some kind people are worried that I might have fallen off my bike or succumbed to the virus. Not at all. I have simply joined the French masses in their delightful habit of taking August off – well, sort of. I have been working at the book, but it’s been hot, and people have been having parties in the streets, and […]
Raring to go again
July 13, 2021
It’s five weeks now since I was knocked flat on my back in the street. There’s no question that this ninety-year-old carcass got severely shaken up. A fractured spine, a bruised rib, and a sprained wrist were just the recognisable consequences. I’ve been X-rayed and scanned, I’ve opioided myself for aches and pains, and I’ve wondered whether I would ever feel whole again, whether this […]
As I walked out one afternoon . . .
June 14, 2021
Aspiran, where I live now, is an old wine-growing village in the south-west of France. Estate agents call it quaint and some visitors call it Aspirin as a joke or by mistake. It’s beautiful in the way that everything down here is beautiful because it’s made of stone, with terra cotta roof tiles. Some of the buildings were intended to be beautiful, but most are […]
The Final Stretch
May 23, 2021
I have come at last to the end of “An Interrupted Life” – my life before Jupiter. It has taken me three years and I hope I haven’t taxed your patience too much. The work has been quite absorbing as I rediscovered so much I had forgotten. I also understand much better what happened and why. I am not at the end of this process, […]
A Fabulous Memory
May 11, 2021
A hundred or so people celebrating a birthday across five continents with a cake made in France and an edible decoration made in England . . . . what could possibly go wrong? Well, the people arrived on Zoom. The amazing edible motorcycle XRW 964M commissioned and, for all I know, tasted by Tiffany Coates in the West country arrived at my house on the […]
Turning Ninety
April 30, 2021
Well, tomorrow’s the day when your favourite anti-hero turns ninety. I know, it’s only a number, but for some reason we have to measure out the remorseless flow of time. Seven years ago, in California, I had to go to a hospital in Stanford for s diagnosis of some small thing, although I was generally in rude good health, and while there I passed […]
Goodbye To All That
January 17, 2021
I am sorry for the long interruption of my interruptions. This has been a wild time for me and the country. In fact, it’s been an annus horribilis for everyone (and you can blame the Queen for introducing that fancy phrase). First I allowed myself to be swindled out of a huge amount of money, and then the house burned down on New Year’s Eve. […]
A New Year Interruption
January 5, 2021
Happy New Year to you. I hope you enjoyed the festive season and that you’re optimistic about 2021 bringing with it a positive change in our collective fortunes. Here in France, I said bon voyage to 2020 under rather unfortunate circumstances. While celebrating New Year’s Eve with a neighbour, a fire broke out in the kitchen of my partner’s beautiful place next door. We discovered […]