I’d love to tell you about all the amazing stuff I saw up on Hadrian’s Wall this week, or the things I have lined up for this blog in 2012, or the places I’ll soon be visiting and writing about, or start telling you about the other major thing I’ll be writing about for the next few months…

But frankly, I’m still recovering from New Year’s Eve.

So, posted a week late (because I’ve been up in Northumberland, getting rained on), here’s what went on in these parts in 2011:

January

• Despairing of Twitter yet again…
• …and telling the story behind my favourite photo.

February

• Busting 5 myths about England…
• …telling you why I love your travel writing (yes, you)…
• …and enjoying a medical emergency.

March

• Remembering a romantic-dalliance-turned-frenzied-sprint-for-the-ferry in Belgium…
• Deciding that virtual friendship is actual friendship…
• …suggesting ways travel tech is really messing us up…
• …on the lookout for Greek harpoons…
• …and mulling over the lessons of the first TBU (Travel Bloggers Unite) conference in Manchester.

April

• Curling my lip at the ending of “Lost“…
• …applauding Gary Vaynerchuk…
• …furtling in hedges, better known as geocaching…
• …suggesting ways to fill your Kindle for free (my most popular post, currently at around half a million pageviews)…
• …the things I’ve managed to get right as a freelance writer…
• …and watching the bikers at Thirsk.

May

• Reaffirming my love of black & white photography with “Trains Lend A Sense Of Perspective“…
• …ranting about the nonsense of “good” or “bad” places, via audio…
• …raising an eyebrow at the concept of ‘authenticity‘…
• …and being led up Austrian mountains by really, really English people.

June

• Coming clean about the many things I’ve got wrong as a freelance writer…
• …taking a look at York Minster‘s eccentric history (including an Archbishop with a taste for piracy)…
• …and flying the flag for Megabus, the cheapest way to get around England.

Part 2 coming as soon as I’ve recovered from yesterday. Just…just give me a while. Thanks.

Images: Tris Linnell, Generationbass.com and Mike Sowden.

Watched or read George RR Martin’s Game Of Thrones? Been captivated by that colossal wrought-ice defensive battlement known as The Wall?

Here’s some news that may interest you.

It exists in our world too.

The Wall, the Others… where did that element of the story come from? Did that grow up as a plot device or is it more?

Well, some of it will be revealed later so I won’t talk about that aspect of it, but certainly the Wall comes from Hadrian’s Wall, which I saw while visiting Scotland. I stood on Hadrian’s Wall and tried to imagine what it would be like to be a Roman soldier sent here from Italy or Antioch. To stand here, to gaze off into the distance, not knowing what might emerge from the forest. Of course fantasy is the stuff of bright colours and being larger than real life, so my Wall is bigger and considerably longer and more magical. And, of course, what lies beyond it has to be more than just Scots.

 - George RR Martin, in conversation with Wayne MacLaurin, 2000

In Martin’s Westeros, The Wall is designed to keep Wildlings, grumpkins and snarks (plus darker, nastier things) at bay, providing a seemingly impenetrable fortification manned by the haggard, stalwart members of the Night’s Watch. It marks the northern edge of the Seven Kingdoms in the starkest sense (pun intended) – a physical deterrent to invaders from beyond the fringes of civilization.

Hadrian’s Wall is far more interesting – and not just because it’s real.

From Bowness-on-Solway in the west to the appropriate named Wallsend on the Tyne in the east, Hadrian’s wall runs the width of England’s northern boundary with Scotland (although not along it – the whole wall lies within England, and while it’s just 1km shy of the Scottish border at Bowness, it’s 110km south of it at Wallsend). It originally ran for 73 miles (117km) of stone and banked turf, 7-10ft (2-3m) thick and between 15 and 20ft high.

(April, 2000)

Well, maybe it’s down aisle 3.

I try aisle 3. Bread. Strange jars of cabbagey, pickly things. More bread. Larger pickly things. Even more bread. Dear god, Latvians like their bread. Sadly, I’m not after bread, I’m after what is apparently the rarest of things in Latvia – a jar of curry sauce. And if it’s in this supermarket, it’s not down aisle 3.

Okay, maybe it’s down aisle 4…

A soft, leathery hand wraps around my wrist with a grip of iron, stopping me in my tracks and whirling my handbasket around in front of me, slingshotting a small tub of curry spice towards the checkout. I turn to find – nothing. Then I look down. She’s around 500 years old and wrapped in a shawl, and she’s peering at me with fierce glittery eyes. They nail me to the spot.

“[incomprehensible Latvian]!”

She gestures upwards. I follow her wizened finger.

“Tomatoes? To-Mah-Toes?” I say, slowing down my speech and painfully drawing out each each syllable – because that always helps when the person you’re talking to can’t speak any English.

She stares at me like I’m an idiot, then impatiently shakes her head. I move along the shelf, pointing at adjacent items until she finally nods. Ah, it’s the broad beans. This poor old Latvian dear is too short to reach her broad beans, and needs a relatively tall stranger to help out. I’m happy to assist. It’s the least I can do, love.

“There you go. Now if you’ll excuse me…”

Again the leathery handcuff closes over my wrist. I’m tugged down the aisle. She needs pasta.

After this, it’s onto aisle 7, for pipe cleaners. And onwards.

Quarter of an hour later, I’m getting annoyed. “Look, I know you don’t speak English, but can you understand my tone? I really do need to go….”

“[incomprehensible Latvian, with hint of pleading]“.

We’re back onto aisle 3 now. And I’m now reaching things for her that she could easily reach herself. This is getting out of hand.

“I’m sorry, but I’m supposed to be making curry for my girlf…”

“[incomprehensible Latvian, with an edge to it]“.

I snap.

“Oh, yes, absolutely. I couldn’t agree more, you daft old bat. You think so too? I’m glad we think the same thing. Oh yes, I do love to stand here in the middle of a bloody supermarket agreeing with you, it’s the chief reason I’m here in Riga. Maybe we could do this again tomorrow! If we’re not actually still here tomorrow! Perhaps we could just keep shopping for your crap until one of us dies!”

She frowns and clutches her basket to herself, leans forward – and says, in perfect English…

“You are a very rude young man”.

Then she strides off, her nose in the air.

So if you’re ever in Riga, Latvia, and a 500 year old woman in a shawl comes up to you and gestures towards some pipe cleaners on a high shelf…

Reach out for the nearest stick of bread (there’ll be a few within reach), hit her over the head with it, and then run like hell.

Thanks.

Image: Unhindered By Talent

Yesterday, the travel blogging fundraiser Passports with Purpose met its target of $80,000 – and then kept going. Last I heard, they’d overshot by $8,000. And so for everyone who asked me to curry them (keep an eye on your post-Christmas mail, guys) and everyone who donated so generously…

Thank you.

That money will be building 2 libraries for Zambian children, in association with the non-profit literacy organisation Room To Read. All those donations, generated across so many travel blogs and fished out from so many pockets, will be putting books in front of young minds thirsty to learn about the world, filling heads with ideas and hearts with damnfool flights of fancy that might. just. work.

I started throwing curry around the world because enlibrarying people is a cause that’s important to me – because it touches on the core of who I am. Almost everything I am today, I owe to reading.

Okay. Now, I wrote the above paragraph a few days ago, and immediately rolled my eyes. Yes, Mike, that’s how to start a post. Revel in your Art. Maybe you can put up a photo of yourself swooning foppishly in a chaise longue, all velvet dressing gown and shinned shoes and a carefully maintained pasty pallor that speaks of an aversion to the Outdoors and its associated Common People. Maybe you can wax about your Great Calling and your desire to end your days tragically and syphilitically fighting for some Noble Cause, filching the Parthenon Marbles to return them to the Greek people before being gunned down in a cloud of wig-powder on the steps of the British Museum…

So I deleted it, and replaced it with something less true.

(Sometimes editing, like second-guessing, can make a mess of what you really meant).

The first adult book I ever read was Lord Of The Rings, and it took me 9 months. It sunk deep. Before that, I read things that taught me the basic mechanics of how to read. After that, I read things that taught me how to think.

Sometimes what I thought was “eh?”. I first fought my way through Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance when I was 14, and it might as well have been in Klingon for all the meaning I got from it. But that was part of the fun, the not-quite-understanding. It’s a delicious feeling. It’s why Haruki Murakami is so popular (that and the beautiful, strange, unpredictable way he writes). Reading above my intellectual capacity taught me the value of being baffled. When you’re baffled, your mind is perversely happy. It likes being baffled. Schools think the key to a well-tuned mind is remembering enormous amounts of stuff, but really, you just need a really good baffling on a regular basis when you’re at an impressionable age.

Good books resonate. Even if you only read a good book once, you experience it many times over. It comes back to you in strange moments, whispers in your ear about social justice and power and ingenuity and hope and faith and believing in yourself and in others, and it speaks in a language your heart understands better than your head. Good books are felt.

(Good bookmarks are also felt. Or soft leather. Failing that, try a nice big leaf).

I could go on. And in fact I intend to – just not right now. Instead, here are 7 books that sunk so far into me, for all sorts of reasons, in part or in whole, that I’m indistinguishable from them. They’re not necessarily the ones I found most enjoyable or thought-provoking, and I’m not claiming they’re a Top Ten of any kind. But they have influenced me, deeply. And so these books are keys to why I’m here right now, as Me.

What’s it all about? Oh come on.

Why is it so important to me? My first adult book was an epic journey, and it intoxicated me. I gurgled happily at every page, and the story filled my mind, right to the corners. And perhaps, just perhaps, that’s why I love to travel. If that’s the case – I may end up owing a career to this book. That’s a nice thought.

What’s it all about? The way we argue.

Why is it so important to me? Arguments are important. We need a way to convey differences of opinion. Problem is, most arguments are broken. Either they’re a battle for supremacy or they’re a way of reinforcing already-held opinions. Ever done the thing where you’re not listening to someone because you’re thinking up your next clever retort? Me too. Ever replied to something with the phrase “yes, but…”? After reading this book, I noticed how people do that all the time. “Yes, but…” is usually our fear and insecurity taking over our mouth, closing an open loop in our minds without bothering to explore what’s in it.

“Yes, but…” is how dreams die.

What’s it all about? A boy ends up in a mythical realm in the body of a full-grown knight.

Why is it so important to me? Because, as is usual with Gene Wolfe’s work, it’s effortless to read and challenging to follow. Wolfe has been described by Neil Gaiman as “the finest living male American writer of SF and fantasy – possibly the finest living American writer” – and hey, Neil Gaiman said that. So why is this book so important to me? Because it feels so utterly new in a genre so hackneyed. I’ve spent 30 years loving a genre that spent most of its time Xeroxing its master work. This is different, partly because it’s Gene Wolfe, but partly because it’s just so damn different. Read it. You’ll see.

(Just be prepared to reread it if you want to even partially understand what the hell’s going on).

You know about Passports with Purpose, right?

Because I was a little preoccupied over the last month with this and that, I didn’t register as one of the contributing bloggers, and therefore didn’t enter a prize.

You know about the incredible amount of amazing (no, really - amazing) prizes to be won, right? All you have to do is donate a little spare change and pick the prize you’d want to win. It’s that simple.

As I write they’re a quarter of the way to their goal of $80,000.

And since it’s a fundraiser on behalf of a cause that’s very dear to my heart – building libraries for those who need them, via the international non-profit organization Room To Read – I figured I’d be involved in some way.

So I’m offering curry.

This is Rafi’s Spicebox. Voted one of the top 50 gourmet shops in Britain (and most beloved by food experts) by the Independent newspaper, it’s a shop in York that builds curry from the ground up. Are you bewitched by the colours, textures and aromas of spices? Then stepping into this shop may unhinge your mind. Oh, you’d love it there. Next time you’re in York (or Sudbury, in Suffolk, where the original store is located), you should pop in.

A lot of you haven’t been to York, and aren’t planning to, so you won’t be able to try out Rafi’s tastebud-seducing curry mixes.

But that’s okay.

Because I’m going to send you some.

HERE’S THE DEAL

• If you contribute $20 or over to Passports with Purpose between now and 11:59 PST on Friday 16th December, a little over a week away, I will send you one of the Main Dish dry curry mixes (consisting of just the spices – you have to add the meat or veg) in either a specific variety of your choice, or just pot luck.

• I wish you could see these mixes being put together – because they’re not prepacked, they’re built, in front of you. A little of this, a pinch of that, a whole heap of these, chop-chop-chop-chop some of these into it, and a nice gloopy spoonful of this. It’s a magic trick with food. (One of these days I’m going to YouTube it).

• How do you get me to send you a curry mix? By forwarding me confirmation of your donation (with your private info edited out, of course) to hunter.sowden AT gmail.com. Seems to me your options here are a JPEG screenshot, or a forwarded copy of the PayPal confirmation e-mail you received once your donation has gone through. Do that, and I will curry you with wild abandon.

• Once you’ve convinced me that you’ve made a donation of $20 or over – let me know your curry-pack preference (type? heat?) and I will put it into a parcel and send it to you – wherever you are. Short of McMurdo Station in Antarctica and the International Space Station, I will try sending you curry, no matter how far-flung you happen to be. I will do my very best, and postage be damned. (Curry spices are, thankfully, quite light).

DISCLAIMER AND SUGGESTIONS

1. This is being done completely off my own back. This is not being done in association with Rafi’s Spicebox or anyone else. It’s all me.

2. These packs often do contain some semi-liquid contents – but they’re sealed. I’ve successfully sent packets of Rafi’s mix to San Francisco and Beijing. They travel. I can’t fully guarantee they’ll get through customs at your end, but I’ve never had any trouble. (And if they can get into China, hell, that’s saying something).

3. Pro Tip: when your curry mix arrives, do not eat your curry on the same day of cooking. Unpack your spices, add your ingredients (meat or vegetables, coconut milk etc), cook your curry up, let it cool, refrigerate – and reheat it the next day. Really, truly do this. Your curry will be good on day 1 – but it will be orgasmic on day 2. This is what Rafi’s Spicebox recommends to its customers, and it’s absolute truth: good curry is a day late.

4. If this becomes enormously popular – say, someone puts up a page on Facebook saying “donating to PwP already? Tell this sap [link] and you’ll get free curry LOL!” – I will burn through my allotted budget, at which point, I will stop mailing curry spices. I’m not bankrupting myself just to fill your stomachs. (Sorry).

5. I reserve the right to put strange, random things in your parcel on a whim, such as Yorkshire teabags, Thornton’s chocolates and oddly-shaped biscuits, depending on my mood. Sometimes you’ll get nothing. It’s nothing personal – it’ll just reflect the kind of mood I’m in that day.

So – do you want me to curry you?

DONATE HERE

Image: meaduva and Joi.

Master entrepreneur-maker Chris Guillebeau has just released his second manifesto, in which he draws comparisons between building a successful career and playing a game like this.  I recommend grabbing a copy (it’s free) and having a read. Thinky stuff.

It also says a lot about why good computer games are as addictive, or even more addictive, than “real life”, and that’s a fascinating topic. People seek spiritual solace in games because they’re deeply structured, have a progressive trajectory (“levelling up” and the like) and have a clearly defined end point the player strives towards. That’s a really appealing alternative if your career aspirations are in a fuzzy place right now – and I know I’m not the only writer who has to be careful that his casual videogaming habits don’t turn semi-pro. (I remember reading that author Iain Banks apparently had to remove Civilization II from his PC’s hard drive so he could get his manuscripts completed on time).

But even though videogames offer an escape from more difficult and more rewarding activities (not knocking them, mind – we all need some amount of escapism)…they also have lessons to impart regarding real-world thinking. Chris’s manifesto fleshes out a number of these. I’m going to talk about one he doesn’t mention directly.

Namely, tank-rushing.

There’s a point in many modern games where I feel compelled to give up. It most commonly happens with RTS (real-time strategy) games, such as the Command & Conquer franchise. And it goes like this:

1. Start from scratch, with few resources. Everything is difficult and novel and shiny – and addictive as hell.

2. Things get blown up. BLAM! Hey, this is fun.

3. New ways to blow things up are unlocked (KA-BLAMMM!), and this is great fun.

4. The games gets harder and harder and more frantic…

5. …and the governing rules become clearer and clearer.

6. There comes a point where you understand the underlying mechanics of the game. The enemy is doing this, governed by that, and to beat it you have to do this and this and some of that. Suddenly, it’s not about outthinking or outsmarting the enemy – it’s about gathering enough resources and firepower to punch a hole through its defences. And those resources are available. And it’s just a matter of time. And the easiest way to do it is just to build a fleet of the most powerful units available, and throw them at the enemy in one great big rush. Blam, blam, BLAM.

The game has now fully unlocked, in your mind. There is nothing left for you to explore or grapple with. All you have to do now is the hard, plodding, dulling, routine slog of building up your forces and then overrunning the enemy in one armoured deluge. In short – the game’s challenge has been replaced with a chore. It just turned from Chess to Farmville.

The really crazy thing is that so many people continue playing games beyond this point. Sure, there’s the achievement of having completed the game, getting all those Steam Achievements, seeing that endgame animation. But in way too many games, that moment of intellectual disillusionment occurs as early as halfway through the game. Beyond it, your brain can switch off; its work is done. All you need to do is click your mouse button, mash your trigger and rely on your reflexes.

I’ve been in plenty of jobs like that.

Of course, it’s a little different in the real world. There’s money involved – that thing you need to earn a certain amount of to stay alive, and that always requires a certain amount of vocational trigger-mashing. Sometimes that’s also the only way to get the routine side of meaningful work done. But too much of it, and your brain – hell, your very soul – starts to die. When you’re tackling projects using tank-rush thinking, when you know how to do them before you even begin, when the end of your working day comes without surprise or novelty and their associated emotional payoffs, when you’re mashing your inner trigger all day long…

That’s not what you’re for.

So find a better game to play.

Image: Will Merydith

Every year I set myself a birthday challenge – something that looks feasible from a distance but turns into a living hell close-up. Last year, I wandered across the North York Moors in an 8-hour October rainstorm (and ended up writing it up for the San Francisco Chronicle). On my birthday this year…well, I was busy. Too much writing, too much on – something had to hit the wall.

So, two months late….I’m hitting the wall.

I’m walking this:

And I’ll be sleeping in one of these:

No – the one on the right.

It’s called a bivvy bag.

Its unofficial name is “the GoreTex sack of misery“.

Here’s a photo of the last time I was at Hadrian’s Wall:

This is what it looks like in July.

Here’s when I’ll be walking it this time:

From Ronald Turnball’s magnificent Book Of The Bivvy:

“What happens when it rains?”…..The answer is surprisingly simple. What happens is, you get wet.

But everything will be fine. After all, what could possibly go wrong?

Images: paul.mcgreevy, Wikimedia Commons, Stu & Sam, Greg Pye and Mike Sowden.

Here’s a story about how I found a folk band in my living room.

If it’s seemed quiet in this blog recently (and let’s face it, you could have heard a pin drop in here most days), that’s because I’ve been wondering what the hell I’m doing with my career. A month ago, the answer would have been easy – I’m working for a travel blogging magazine. A steady gig, a steady wage, a good bunch of people to work with, and a vocational platform for long-term globetrotting. A month later, I’m a freelance writer once more, complete with an irregular freelancer’s income, guided by little more than a love of travel, of writing, of travel-writing and of paintstrippingly-strong coffee.

There’s no need to question my sanity – I’ve done enough of that for the both of us. And that’s made it a tough month. (Try slamming a door in your own face sometime. It’s an education). I took a leap of faith, and for a while I fell, waving my arms and legs around and shrieking like a cheerleader. (Felt good, frankly. Try that too).

Then various things unexpectedly clicked into place. They clicked externally, giving me the capital to take off on some important trips in early 2012, including to Umbria in Italy for the third Travel Bloggers Unite conference. And they clicked…internally. I’m not questioning my decision anymore, because I’ve chosen the work I truly want to be doing. I’m a travel blogger and fiction writer, or, put another way, a storyteller. I share Brene Brown‘s reluctance to use that term, but it’s true: I want to tell stories. True ones, false ones, fatuous ones….and even more fatuous ones. That’s my thing.

And stories matter.

If you’re of a Zoe Williams way of thinking, you may be raising your eyebrow at that last sentence – but I believe it so much, I’m putting it at the heart of my plans and founding a new business on it. Yes, that’s a teaser. (Sorry).

Over the last fortnight, as I realised that in fact I probably wasn’t insane after all, I’ve been quietly relearning the value of turning up for work.

My dayjob is weekday afternoons, leaving me the mornings until 11am for freelance work, and so I’ve been portioning up that time, squeezing in all the things I need to be hacking into, every single day. And some days, what has resulted is utter crap. A week ago I spent an enthused hour developing a subplot outline for part of my book, and the next day realised it wasn’t the least bit funny. This was a problem, as my novel is a comedy. Was I trying to subvert the genre? No – I was attempting the literary equivalent of a protracted Christmas Cracker joke. I spent the rest of the day with my head mentally in an oven. And then the next day, I tore that page out of my notebook, took it into work and ritually fed it into the shredder. I never, ever had that idea. There is no evidence. Prove it. You can’t!

In the middle of all this, my housemate dragged me out to see a folk band.

So I’m sat there in York’s National Centre For Early Music, feeling gently weirded out because I’m about to listen to live music in a Grade 1 Listed medieval church (and forgetting for a second that medieval places of worship were probably anything but silent). And in the back of my mind, I’m fretting about my Subplot From Satan’s Crackers and the hole that its removal has left in my story…

Then, suddenly, something like this happens.

So after a while everyone picks themself up off the floor and dazedly staggers out, while I go in search of my jaw. I’ve not seen live music like this before. These guys are on fire. Really – how do you wind your nervous system up so you’re performing with that kind of energy and intensity? They’re superhuman. It’s like Heroes: The Musical. It’s almost depressing how amazing these people are. I love them. The bastards.

And then I go home.

And I find them sat in my living room.

The Urban Folk Quartet (Joe Broughton, Paloma Trigas, Frank Moon and Tom Chapman) look understandably knackered. I make them cups of tea, racked with guilt that we’re out of biscuits because I ate the last of them yesterday. “Would anyone like a drop of something a wee bit stronger?” I ask, moving towards the whisky cabinet.

The room temperature drops enough for icicles to form on the curtain-rail.

It turns out that the Urban Folk Quartet is running at considerably less than full strength. York is their penultimate gig (the final gig being the 29th of November, in Derbyshire) and the 16th in a 17-show run. They’ve been doing this since October 30th. On top of that, last night was apparently a very good night for a couple of them, followed by a less than joyful morning and a day-long wish for the world to be really quiet please in case my head falls off. And on top of that Paloma, who has spent the evening flashing a smile that would light up Mordor, has a heavy head-cold.

But they still turned up. They stuck it out, like professionals. They turned up for work and did their job, unfailingly, and the result was a room of delighted – and subtly changed – people, myself included.

I’ve just discovered Steven Pressfield’s The War Of Art, a book that has been kicking artists in the pants since it was first published in 2003. I recommend all aspiring writers grab a copy (and I’ve been cheerleading it to other writers). Here is Pressfield’s take on the power of turning up:

..playing the game for money produces the proper professional attitude. It inculcates the lunch-pail mentality, the hard-core, hard-head, hard-hat state of mind that shows up for work despite rain or snow or dark of night and slugs it out day after day.

The writer is an infantryman. He knows that progress is measured in yards of dirt extracted from the enemy one day, one hour, one minute at a time and paid for in blood.

When you turn up – even if you create something that belongs in Satan’s crackers – you get better. And eventually? You get to do what you do best in front of your audience, even if you’re hung over and full of cold, and by then you’ll be So  - Damn – Good at what you do….

…that the audience won’t even notice.

Doesn’t that sound like fun?

(So – why were they in my living room? I must have forgot to mention that Tom Chapman is the brother of my housemate. And hey, it looks like I almost completely kept my housemate K out of the story just to avoid giving that away. Apologies about that. Although look, I am the kind of guy that has bands hanging out at his house after gigs. That’s me all over, that is. Oh hell, you bet, baby).

Image: eflon

(2008)

The voice coming over the loudspeaker is beginning to struggle.

“Uh – on platform 6, the Treno Notte to Roma will be leaving in approximately…”

“SHOW ME TH’WAYDA GO-OME…..CAZZ I’M TIREDANA WANNA GOHDA BED…”

I can’t make out exactly what’s being said, of course. It’s in Italian. I don’t speak a word of Italian, barring “pizza”, and “gelato” (which should keep me alive, albeit unhealthily and therefore not for long). Regarding Italian trains? I’m a dead loss. Hell, I don’t even know the Italian for “train”.

But it doesn’t matter. The tone says it all.

“And…and on platform 4 is…”

“….AN’ IT’S GONE RIGHT TO MY ‘EDDD! HAHAHAH!”

Somewhere in this station, an undoubtedly harried-looking announcer is trying to give updates in front of a window she can’t close, behind which is a very loud, very jovial drunk who is expressing how delighted he is with his life so far. She’s much closer to the microphone – and he’s still drowning her out.

Around me, everyone is giggling. I glance around, catch someone’s eye, and we share an unspoken, language-transcending appreciation of people in charge being made to look like fools.

All it takes is a crinkling around the eyes, a shared grin. That’s all it takes. I’ve spent the last 5 hours failing to connect with anyone – partly through choice, exhausted as I am from overnight-training from Paris, partly due to the guidebook on Rome I’ve been lost in…but partly because Italian mannerisms have baffled me. They’re so alien. Nobody is doing anything reassuringly English. Tiredness has heightened my sense of isolation. I can’t eavesdrop on conversations, I can’t make smalltalk. I’m a ghost lugging a backpack.

But now, a moment’s connection with a stranger – and it’s like sunlight laying across my face – just for a moment. It’s enough. I’m part of the world, once again.

Image: Alessandro Capotondi 

So, a few months back I was involved in the founding of a travel blogging news magazine called Travelllll.com, henceforth called T5, lest I break my “l” key. And I worked over there for a month, writing 30+ articles on press trip opportunities and the enviably clever things travel bloggers are up to, and rather transparently cheerleading my love of the mechanics of travel writing….

If you’re a regular reader – and Google Feedburner reliably informs me that I have a couple of those when the wind is in the right direction – you’ll know what I love doing and thinking and ranting about, and the bulk of it comes loosely under the category of “creative narrative-driven travel writing”. (I’ve recently been informed by a kind reader than it also fits the category “pretentious nonsense”. Well, it’s good to know I’m finding my niche at last). And I feel very strong that I should be doing more of that, in all sorts of places that accept travel writing, until I’m good enough to earn lots of money from it eat regularly. So that’s what I’ve decided to do – and that’s why I stepped away from T5.

And now? T5 came along at a time when I was shaking up all my work plans, and now I’m no longer writing for them every day, I’ve thrown myself back into planning Big, Ballsy Things – one of which may involve Cyprus…

So – T5. Here’s a little of what I was writing about over there.

DANGER: TRAVEL BLOGGERS AT WORK

• Michael “@mobilelawyer” Hodson, Nora “@hobonora” Dunn and Jeannie “@nomadicchick”  Mark, intrepidly clattering their way from Lisbon to Ho Chi Minh for the Ultimate Train Challenge…

• Torre “@fearfulgirl” DeRoche releases “Swept: Love With A Chance Of Drowning” on Amazon in Kindle format, the book gets 5-star reviews…and now publishers are chasing her. How about that for a successful business model?

• Diana June (@indiana_june) is cycling from Britain back to her home country of New Zealand, and she’s a little hazy about the exact route she’ll take…because that’s up to her readers.

• It’s time for another Passports with Purpose – and a whopping $80,000 target for two libraries in Zambia. Think you can help? Get cracking.

DEAR [COUNTRY], I’VE HAD THIS GREAT IDEA…

• Dear Britain…

• Dear Japan (1 and 2)…

• Dear Kenya…

THE OLD WAYS ARE THE BEST WAYS!

• Tablet? Laptop? In my day it were notebooks or a sound thrashing. And I chose both.

• Maps? You were lucky. When I were 7 I were abandoned on Rockall with nowt but a piece of chalk and a kazoo, an’ I were expected to conclusively prove beyond all doubt that the world were flat and then get mesself rescued before nightfall. An’ I did, too, & got a proper walloping for being too clivver. You wouldn’t get that nowadays. Soft, all of ye.

GOOD WRITING ISN’T A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH – IT’S MORE IMPORTANT THAN THAT

• 5 Ways To Unlock Travel Writer’s Block

• 7 Ways To Read Better

UNFORTUNATE TRAVEL

• Leaving booking your British rail tickets until the last minute? Financial suicide. Cue wide-ranging rant.

I recommend you keep an eye on what T5 are up to (I certainly intend to) – and I wish them all the best.

Images: William A. Franklin, raneko, x-ray delta one, avhell and ryan tir.