It is, when this is the view. Turtle Cove, three winters ago.
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Jun
I hadn’t realised that Biblical battles were clothing optional. I saw it in the art gallery at New Norcia, the monastery town 100 minutes north of Perth. It was painted during the reign of Queen Victoria: an era remembered for long dresses and covered ankles, rather than hunky naked men.
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Dec
Castle Rock, WA, as opposed to Castle Rock, the Lannister castle in Game of Thrones. Apparently I missed a shark by five minutes.
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Jan
While staying with friends in Yallingup, I got a little carried away with buying raspberries (from Coles, Dunsborough, despite the bag). One day, I stripped the shelves and almost had a shoot-out with an old friend for the last punnets (well, not really). My record in one day was actually 18 punnets, which at $3…
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Jan
2021 marked the first this millennium that I spent an entire calendar year in WA. 2022 may yet prove the same. When it comes to travel, though, I have not been scraping the bottom of the barrel. Rather, the barrel has proved to be deep. From September 2003 to June 2019, I spent a total…
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Jan
I’ve seen queer traffic lights on Avenida Santa Fe, or Santa Gay, in Buenos Aires. It’s also where they have a queer subway station. ‘In a society that educates us to be ashamed, pride is a political response.’
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Dec
I had my first date with an argentino at the Alto Palermo shopping centre in Buenos Aires. We went to the cinema complex at the top of the building. I thought we were seeing an Ashton Kutcher romantic comedy, but it turned out to be a Stephen King thriller about aliens. Is this a First…
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Dec
I think JJ and I (in 2007) took the ferry to Staten Island so I could say I’d been there, and indeed to all five of New York City’s boroughs. Or maybe it was to take a picture of this: I’m less interested now in travelling to tick a box or complete a set. It’s…
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Nov
I’m at Brasserie Petanque, Buenos Aires, in 2007, with my Beef Bourguignon: Even better was Lomo Roll Dashi, a Japanese-Argentine dish, from the Dashi chain of sushi restaurants. Thinly sliced moist filleted beef from the Pampas, wrapped around spinach, oozing melted cheese, blended with mushroom, rice and onion. I don’t know why it was taken…
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Oct
York has views from Mount Brown … … and an historic Town Hall … … but there was something simple, joyful and innocent about the flying fox near the river. The more I travel, the less I want to see the tourist sites and the more I want to have fun with friends and the…
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Oct
I am a little ashamed that I’d been two New York, USA, twice since my previous trip to York, WA. It had been ten years between trips to York, WA. It’ll be a lot less time until my next visit, partly because of some wonderful friends, and partly because of this bookshop. Kitty Kelley, Julie…
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Oct
Looking back, I’ve twice blogged about visiting Old Trafford cricket ground in Manchester – the home of the Lancashire team – oops! – but I’ve never posted on going to Headingley Cricket Club in Leeds, Yorkshire, on the same trip when I was twenty-two. I do have Lancastrian ancestors, so maybe I’m subconsciously biased. Or…
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Aug
In the Canary Islands, drivers stopped for me when I used them. They didn’t in Argentina, unless they were at a set of traffic lights and had to stop anyway.
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Aug
It isn’t very often that you get a beautiful beach to yourself on a Saturday. But I did today at Smith’s Beach.
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Aug
In 2007 and 2017, I saw the Circuito Cultural Barracas perform street theatre in Buenos Aires. The barrio of Barracas felt like an old movie set.
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Aug
… you knew that 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue was a Broadway Flop musical before you knew it was the address of the White House. It’s briefly mentioned in The Street Where I Live – the 1978 memoir of writer and lyricist Alan Jay Lerner. The book centres on his three most famous works with composer Frederick…
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Jul
It means ‘Caliente’ or ‘Hot’. ‘F’ means ‘Frio’ or ‘Cold’.
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Jun
Don’t worry if you don’t. It took me seven trips to get to Café Tortoni, though once there, it was well-attended and well-preserved, and I think they served me a yummy chocolate milkshake.
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Jun
Not too many TV musical productions from 1957 were still being seen (in this case in San Francisco on the stage) in 2016. Then again, not too many musicals had Rodgers and Hammerstein at the helm. Not too many stars of original TV musical productions from 1957 feature in one of TV’s biggest hits in…
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Jun
… is a Lego exhibition in 2017 featuring St Basil’s Cathedral, but I have encountered the world’s largest nation on my travels. At the 1995 Mardi Gras festival in Sydney, I enjoyed Leaving Lenin: a comedy about Welsh teenagers on a trip to post-communist St Petersburg. I saw a Russian play in Brooklyn, New York…
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May
My quest to see all 29 movies at the Spanish Film Festival involved me taking the train to Fremantle to see this low-budget Mexican production with four interconnecting stories about young people. Although the programme called it a comedy, I thought it was too serious for that, even though there were some light and funny…
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May
I took this photo in 2013 on a day trip from Bariloche, in Argentina’s lake district. I’m not sure that the sign would have been much help if there had been an avalanche. Thankfully, there wasn’t.
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Apr
This was the list of entrance fees in 2007 to the national park on the Argentine side of Iguazu Falls: As an adult foreigner, I paid 40 pesos every time I entered. Argentine adult nationals only paid 14 pesos, or half that if they were from the province of Misiones, unless they were from Puerto…
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Apr
My first trip to Washington DC consisted of my friend JJ and I arriving on a night bus first thing and leaving on another that evening. I did the same thing eight years later when I made a last-minute trip from New York City to catch up with some old friends from Antarctica. As you…
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Mar
Here Silvana Benincasa and David Feldman were kidnapped on 2 June 1976. Popular militants. Detained and disappeared by state terrorism. It was just over two months since the coup d’etat that saw the military take power. Some Buenos Aires pavements have plaques like those above and below. Six weeks after the Argentina won the World…
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Mar
I hope not. It took me 46 years to get to San Francisco. Below is not the most flattering photo, but I want to prove that I crossed this bridge and will put up with a close-up of some wrinkles to do it.
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Mar
I want to swim in all the world’s oceans. This is me doing the North Pacific in Muir Beach near San Francisco, September 2015. Note the hoody below. Sunburn was not a concern that day. The North Atlantic was more inviting, but though Muir Beach wasn’t quite the Polar Plunge! Only the Arctic Ocean to…
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Mar
I’m on the road from Broome to Cape Leveque. I’ve always liked this picture, and not just because it was taken 17 years ago. There is an unspoilt beauty to a red unsealed road. The worse the road, the more we could have it to ourselves. Two weeks earlier, I was on the Gibb River…
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Feb
I was born in Australia, and have set foot on all of the other six continents. Yet I didn’t start until I was 21, when I went to Club Med, Cherating Beach, Malaysia, in a mid-year break. I went there by myself, which was probably a mistake, but it forced me to try everything. I…
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Jan
Above I’m at Pin Oak Court, Vermont South, aka Ramsay Street, Erinsborough, looking wholesome. Below I’m at the Channel 10 studios, aka the Wentworth Detention Centre, looking adventurous. And here I’m in Palm Beach, aka Summer Bay, trying to be pensive and sultry.
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Jan
When I went to Brisbane from 17 to 22 December, things were pretty similar to Perth, in that life was going along without many restrictions, and I had to register my contact details when I went to some venues. About the only real difference was that in the Brisbane CBD near Woolworths, the above massage…
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Jan
Cold Rock, on the foreshore of Southbank in Brisbane (pictured there last month), is worthy competition, but one of my Cousin Jo’s Christmas peppermint ice cream sandwiches is the winner. Every Christmas I find excuses to steal another one … or more. One good thing about getting older is I have more and longer traditions…
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Jan
… on the plane on the way to … … Brisbane, just before Christmas. On the way over, I tried to wear one while eating, but took it off for the meal on the way back. I’m not sure how effective it all was. I feel very lucky to live in a city where face…
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Dec
The outside of the Congress building in Washington DC … … does bear a certain resemblance to the Congreso building in Buenos Aires. Or should that be the other way around? Argentina’s constitution is modelled to a large extent on the United States’. Both countries are federations. The United States’ national Congress consists of a…
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Dec
Though not terribly functional. It was too humid to dry my shirt. Ah well… My blog provider is telling me: “This is far below the recommended minimum of words.” Do you need that many words when you have Iguazu Falls?
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Dec
The last time I had a cup of coffee was at Rose Hancock Porteous’ mansion Prix D’Amour in 2002: about two hours before they filmed me in a blue wig and fuchsia gown night for her reality TV show. It came out of a machine with a four-figure price tag. I tell people that no…
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Nov
What does it say about Western Australia when a Bremer Bay beach doesn’t rate in my top ten beaches in the state?
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Nov
When my travelling companion and I took a fresh look at Geraldton in late August, we were impressed by the museum… … and even more impressed by the COVID precautions. It was the first (and so far the only) time I had a temperature check just before entering a public building. I don’t normally take photos…
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Nov
It seems to be a combination of the Eureka, Aboriginal and Australian flags. Eneabba is just off the Brand Highway on the way from Geraldton to Perth.
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Nov
In August, a friend and I tried doing the 8km Loop Walk in Kalbarri National Park, but the rocky path through ended up getting too narrow for comfort. As peaceful as the Murchison River looks in these photos, we didn’t particularly want to end up falling in it.
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Nov
This one’s in the town itself, rather than at a beach on the other side of the cape.
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Oct
Note the different languages. I initially thought that by the time someone from overseas drove to the Tropic of Capricorn, they’d know on which side of the road we drive in WA. But I guess reminders don’t hurt. After weeks in Argentina, I could look the wrong way. Below, the sign in the background may…
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Oct
Above was the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, September 2015. And this was the ‘installation’ on the roof garden. Or maybe it was concrete and weeds.
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Sep
We only stopped in Geraldton because it was too far to drive from Exmouth to Perth in a day. The city’s publicity invited us to ‘take a fresh look’. We laughed at the subtext. The last time I stayed overnight in Geraldton was in 1994, with the Los Amigos Mexican Restaurant, also known as Loss-o…
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Sep
Years ago, I watched an episode of ‘Surfing the Menu’, in which they crossed the Tropic of Capricorn near Coral Bay and Exmouth, Western Australia. When I went that way on a bus tour in 2006, I asked that we stop when we got to the sign, so I could take a quick photo, but…
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Sep
The same day as I saw my first proper sunrise ever, in Exmouth, I had a last minute thought. Why not go to the other side of the cape and see the sunset? So off to a (nudist!) beach I went. I didn’t think the photos would look that good. I didn’t think I was…
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Sep
When I went to Exmouth in 2006, Pete, our suffering tour guide, said it had been a nuclear target when the US base was there. I asked, ‘If they dropped a nuclear bomb on Exmouth, how would anyone notice?’ I take my words back. When I was there in August, I loved lots about it….
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Aug
Times I’ve been to Far North Queensland: 12 Times I’ve been to the Great Barrier Reef: 0 Times I’ve been to Cairns Central Shopping Centre: 2 Times I’ve been to Coral Bay: 2 Times I’ve been to Ningaloo Reef: 2 If I were you, I’d want me to provide proof. This is from a glass-bottom…
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Aug
I feel very lucky to be on a road trip right now. We spent the first two nights in Kalbarri – enough time to see the new Skywalk. The Governor popped in to see it while we were there, but I thought it would have been a bit paparazzi-ish and not at all classy to…
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Aug
In the early nineties, I spent Easter weekends at the Separation Point Caravan Park in Geraldton, sleeping in tents and using the ablution block’s rather basic facilities. Not the most comforting way to recover from an evening at Los Amigos Mexican Restaurant, also known as Loss-o Memory. In the time since, I’ve stayed in a…
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Aug
I was wrong. Entering Chile, to visit Torres del Paine National Park, 2005. This is what I found when I got past American capitalism:
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Aug
… from the ATM near their gift shop in the Capitol! Though not recently.
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Jul
It seems to have first been called Queen Street during the reign of James I, so it could really have been named after his wife – Anne of Denmark – though if the stories are true, it might have been named after James himself!
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Jul
In Sydney, a building with two guys arm-in-arm called The Beat Museum would probably cover something quite different, In San Francisco, it was about ‘The Beats, as in beaten down and beatific … a collective of writers, artists and thinkers that congregated in 1950s San Francisco’, including Jack Kerouac.
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Jul
In 2016, I thought it might be the driver of the most expensive car, but apparently not, according to my Moroccan taxi driver. In Palm Springs, I saw a similar sign at a T-junction.
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Jul
Hollywood/Vine, Los Angeles, 2016.
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Jun
This is a plaque on the sidewalk of Avenida de Corrientes, Buenos Aires: one of the main roads into the city centre and heart of the theatre district: ‘Here Eva Esther Nuñez was hijacked Popular militant Detained Disappeared 15 July 1977 By the terrorism of the State’
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Jun
In 2005, as a way of learning Spanish, I visited tourist sites with Evadne, a Spanish teacher. This is an old prison cell in San Telmo (part of the Museo Penitenciario Argentino). At first glance, there doesn’t seem much of an upside to it. But the guide, a friendly man in his seventies, told me the…
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Jun
… but I could get to one in my own city. I’m growing to appreciate Perth winters. There are get days like today when the sun sneaks out through the patchwork of clouds, and I can walk along the beach without a jumper and no fear of getting burnt.
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Jun
Originally, my travel plans for the next twelve months included cruising the Chilean fjords on the way to Puerto Natales … … writing on the stage at this Buenos Aires bookshop … … popping up to Far North Queensland … … and maybe Melbourne. My revised ambition is to the visit the 24-7 Kmart at…
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May
SPOILER ALERT! If, like me, you’ve watched the new Netflix series called Hollywood, please read on. It’s wildly entertaining, but are the things that happen believable? Let me list some of them. Men in powerful positions in Tinseltown abuse that power by coming onto aspiring actors. Even without the Me Too movement, I don’t think…
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May
Or is it? Some friends gave me these playing cards. With COVID-19, is this the end for cruise ships? Some of you may think yes. I’m not so sure. I once read that ocean liners became more popular after the 1997 movie Titanic was released. ‘They’re so romantic,’ people thought. I actually left the movie…
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Apr
I saw this bike in Jurien Bay in 2017. Hopefully its owner took time to empty the bottle’s contents.
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Apr
I’m looking back fondly on my trip to Buenos Aires in February. This is the Casa Rosada when viewed from the top of the Centro Cultural Kirchner (CCK) … … plus Puerto Madero … … and out to the river … I was with two Argentine friends when these photos were taken. Less than a…
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Apr
For me, part of the art of MALBA – the Latin American Art Museum of Buenos Aires – is the building itself. Recently, it’s been enhanced by – I don’t what they are. Hanging horse hooves, maybe?
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Mar
On one side of Avenida San Juan in Buenos Aires are the Museo Moderno … … and MACBA (the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Buenos Aires). On the other side is a wall with modern street art … … though some of the recycled materials are no longer modern. The above piece seems to be…
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Mar
I am an example of the success of Star Wars. I’ve never been a fan, yet I saw the original 1977 film twice as an eight-year-old at the Hoyts Cinema in Wanamba Arcade off Hay Street Mall in Perth: once on a school excursion organised by our music teacher Mr Southwell. Three years later, I…
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Mar
Yesterday I saw resurrections both in the afternoon and the evening … … plus two creations … … at the Tierra Santa religious theme park in Buenos Aires. I also bumped into another Adam and Eve … … and became a centurion. I’d been there before and was ready to make fun of it, but…
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Feb
Air New Zealand now has a Pride channel in its in-house entertainment. A good way to spend eleven hours from Auckland to Buenos Aires. Or would have been, if the woman sitting next to me hadn’t been so much fun to talk with. Instead, the Pride channel will be something to look forward to on…
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Feb
In 2007, I found out about street theatre in Buenos Aires, in a part of the city where tourists don’t go. Ten years later, I went back.
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Feb
Dear Nestor, I never thought that when we posed for this photo, it’d be the last time we’d ever see each other. You were seventy-five when we lost you last year. You still had lots of living to do, but I’m glad the cancer got you quickly, because you would have hated years of lingering…
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Jan
The Madres de Plaza de Mayo started out as women in the late 1970s publicly questioning Argentina’s military government over what happened to their children who’d been taken off the streets and never seen again. I’ve visited their centre in Buenos Aires mulitple times. In more recent years, this map dominated one of the walls,…
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Jan
For some, Argentina is about Evita … … or Che … … or tango … … but for me, it’s as much about having a French onion soup at Brasserie Petanque, just south of Plaza de Mayo. It’ll be my eighth trip to Argentina. It’s kind of an addiction, but for the rational part of…
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Jan
I stress the words ‘did’ and ‘some’. Things are much safer now than when I first visited Buenos Aires in the noughties. But back then… GO. SPEED UP AND GO. SLOW DOWN A FRACTION, LOOK AROUND AND GO IF YOU CAN. IT’LL BE GREEN IN A SECOND, SO GO.
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Dec
In 2003, I got to see three countries at once. I took this photo from Argentina. Ahead to my right was Brazil. But forward in the distance, was the glimpse of skyscrapers in an elusive Paraguayan locale. At one stage it was known as Puerto Presidente Stroessner, but after President Stroessner fell out of favour,…
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Dec
Let me take you back a dozen years to another country. Why did the people in the photo above dress up like this on a Buenos Aires evening in 2007? What were they trying to achieve? What good were they hoping would come from it? I don’t know, but I can say from my own…
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Nov
In Argentina, the Falkland Islands are called Las Malvinas; their capital is Puerto Argentino (Argentine Port) rather than Stanley. The Buenos Aires subway station of Juramento (the Spanish word for oath) has a cabinet with a model of Puerto Argentino during the 1982 war over the islands. Plus a set of rosary beads.
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Nov
On my many trips to Iguazu Falls, on the border of Brazil and Argentina, I’ve seen this: And this: Not to mention this: But I never saw the nearby Guairá Falls, on the border of Brazil and Paraguay, because they were destroyed to make Itaipu Dam. I visited Itaipu in 2007 when it was the…
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Nov
Iguazu Falls are well-known for this: The nearby Salto Arrechea hardly has the same power. Yet that, plus the walk there, add to its charm. A relatively secluded place to swim while enjoying the surrounding South American jungle, but not too far from the main attractions.
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Nov
If you want job security, being an Australian Football League coach is probably not for you. I suspected that the same applied to baseball managers in the United States. To test this theory, I did a Google search of baseball manager fired and got 23.4 million results. I was going through some drafts, found this…
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Oct
‘No taxation without representation’ was one of the complaints that American colonists had against the British government in the eighteenth century. They had to pay taxes, but weren’t allowed to elect representatives to the Parliament in London. This slogan has got better with age. At the time, it was a privileged white man’s fight, as…
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Oct
Foggy Bottom is a part of Washington DC that starts a little west of the White House. It includes the Kennedy Center, where great gays can come of the closet in a coffee mug … … and the Watergate Complex, best known in history for the break-in that led to Richard Nixon’s downfall … ……
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Sep
Australia is currently playing the fourth cricket test against England at Old Trafford in Manchester. They’ve spruced up the ground since my friends Rory and I popped in when we were touring the north of England and Scotland in December 1991. They’ve probably spruced up the security as well. Although it was the off-season, it…
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Sep
… the 24/7 KMart at Eaton Fair, just outside Bunbury, Western Australia. But now I have at least been outside. Like Moses, I have seen the promised land, but not entered it. And yes, I have literally been to paradise, namely Paradise Harbor in Antarctica:
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Aug
Queen Elizabeth I said that the word ‘must’ is not used to sovereign princes, even though, in reality, she did a lot of things she didn’t really want to do, like sign the death warrant of Mary, Queen of Scots and submit to medical examinations to see whether she could bear children. In my view,…
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Aug
I’ve been copping a lot of flak because in my eleven visits to Far North Queensland, I’ve never been to the Great Barrier Reef, though twice I’ve made it to Cairns Central shopping centre. One problem is that practically everyone else has been (to the reef that is, not the shopping centre) and I don’t…
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Jul
I don’t think that the Tigre delta is a reason to go to Argentina, but if, like me, you’re having an extended stay in Buenos Aires, it’s nice to get out of the noise and fumes every now and then. And Tigre is close by, although don’t believe anyone who says it’s only an hour…
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Jul
Tourists don’t go to Ituzaingó. It’s too far into suburban Buenos Aires. Run down commuter trains stop at the run down station … … but it has a shopping street with a nice bookstore … … leading to a community park. But on the other side of the railway line are the remains of Mansión…
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Jul
I normally found that bread in Buenos Aires was too dry and hard, but last trip my friend Amy suggested I try Salvaje Bakery. One reason to hang out in Palermo, though everyone seemed more hip than I.
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Jul
The first time I went to MACBA (El Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Buenos Aires) it was like … oh well, good for half an hour, glad I’m only staying round the corner. The second time, I got lost in spiders … enough to make me want to go a third time.
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Jul
The city of Bariloche is known for its skiing, lakes and chocolate, but it’s also the only place in the world I’ve seen grey ice cream. It may have been its very unattractive-ness that made it attractive. Would it taste better than it looked? I actually don’t remember.
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Jun
The Gran Meliá Iguazú – formerly the Sheraton – is in Argentina, but has views of Brazil and is down the road from Paraguay. Guests from who knows how many other countries come to see this: So it has power points for everyone. It may not seem like a big thing, but this is one…
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Jun
Most people go to Iguazu to see this … … and this … … but it’s only a few hours’ drive from the San Ignacio Miní mission ruins. I took a day tour there in 2005. They’ve built a town around them, including a Coke sign. The film The Mission, starring Robert De Niro and…
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Jun
When I went to Peru in 2007, I saw Machu Picchu at dawn, learned to play backgammon with an American lady from Aspen, and ate roast chicken and apple crumble at an unashamedly western restaurant called The Real McCoy. Unfortunately, I also had my camera nicked (hence the lack of photos to prove these things)…
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May
One downside of visiting the same city seven times in sixteen years is that some of my favourite places one trip are gone the next. The upside is that when mourning the loss of one of those favourite places in Buenos Aires, I noticed something a block or two away: the Our Lady of Mercy…
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May
The Ancient Greek play Oedipus Rex featured Jocasta: a woman who liked being a wife and mother, until she found out that she was the wife and mother to the same person. I probably should have been suspicious when the latest movie at the Spanish Film Festival (The Projectionist) began with a quote from the…
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May
On the afternoon I arrived in Buenos Aires for the seventh time, someone asked me if I planned to drive there. I said, ‘I’ve never driven on the right hand side of the road, and I don’t think central Buenos Aires is a good place to start.’ Wearing seat belts, stopping at red lights, using…
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Apr
It was at Iguazu Falls. Sadly, the humidly meant this wasn’t an effective way of drying my shirt. This was how I’d got it wet in the first place: A worthwhile trade-off, methinks.
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Apr
Before the Kardashians… … there was Noelene. ‘Sylvania Waters’ was the first Australian reality TV show in Australia, before they even called it reality TV. It centred around the real-life Noelene Baker (later Donaher) and her real-life family, except her daughter, who pulled out at the last minute and was never spoken of. Noelene lived…
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Mar
When I first went to Argentina, Nestor Kirchner, the governor of an obscure Patagonian province, was running for president. He only got twenty-two per cent of the vote in the first round, but when his main rival pulled out, it was enough to slip into the job. The Kirchners spent the next twelve and a…
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Mar
In 2013, some friends in Hull, Yorkshire, took me to the Ferens Art Gallery to show me a Constable painting, but I was more intrigued but what was beyond this sign. There was a screen split into quarters, with each segment showing a different person vomiting. Martin Creed’s works push the boundaries as to what…
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Mar
When I was twelve, the TV series The Love Boat landed in Australia. I cringed when the opening titles featured Elizabeth the Koala and Tiny the Kangaroo. Julie the Cruise Director was in love with this guy who must have lived on a nature reserve or something. That’s how they incorporated the animals into the show. The…
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Feb
… the modern house that you saw being built, that you grew up in, is no more.
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Feb
I have a thing for gift shops in public buildings. I never know what I’m going to see in them. I was surprised that you could make plush dolls out of the Sydney Opera House … … or that the US Library of Congress contained an extensive collection of Wonder Woman memorabilia. Washington DC also…
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Jan
Gaucho’s, in central Adelaide, is not a fully authentic Argentine restaurant. Thank goodness! When I last visited Argentina, I didn’t find the beef as tender as it once was. I understand that the cattle are now fed differently. But it’s juicy at Gaucho’s! Gaucho’s wouldn’t get away with serving typical Argentine salads, which are usually…
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Jan
I don’t remember the cause for which this man was collecting money in a Buenos Aires square. But whatever it was, I didn’t need much persuading to contribute. It’s not the greatest photo, as there’s a shadow over my face. But for some of you, my face may not be the main focus. I’m looking…
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Jan
The facade of the Haigh’s Chocolates Visitor Centre, just south of Adelaide’s city parklands, is unassuming. The chocolates inside are not. They cry out to be slowly, specially, succulently savoured. Only Spellcheck, which has put a red line underneath ‘succulently’, is immune to their aroma. Yes, they are expensive, but here’s a hint. If you’re…
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Dec
How do you attract people to your winery? Making good wine is one way. But if that’s not enough, construct a five-storey building in the shape of a Rubik’s cube … … put in clown faced urinals … … mirrors in the Gents … … lifts … … views … … and things that are…
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Dec
This is a song from my show HOW TO WRITE A TASTEFUL NOVEL, sung (or, more accurately, spoken) to the tune of ‘She’s Always a Woman to Me’. I’ve included most of the photos from the slideshow that played during the song. Please click on them, for links to the posts that discuss them in…
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Dec
If you’ve seen my show, thank you so much! Please feel free to post photos and comments on my michaelfromperth Facebook page. You can send me a message, including if you want to read the missing three paragraphs of the scene with the housewife and Latino hunk (but if that’s what you’re after, please don’t give…
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Nov
In my recent trip to far north Queensland (well, actually, in my two recent trips up there, long story), I learned the lines for How to Write a Tasteful Novel (tickets still on sale!) by walking up and down the beach, listening to myself on a tape recorder. Yes, one of those things from the olden…
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Oct
Rio de la Plata – that very wide estuary between Buenos Aires and the Uruguayan city of Colonia – is mud-based. That’s why it’s tinged with brown. Nothing to do with its quality. That’s what we said when Lisa and I swam in it. It’s not like there’s any pollution in Latin America…
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Oct
If you’re going to catch a plane together, it’s best to be early, because planes can run on time. I say ‘can’ because thanks to Latin American strikes, baggage issues, weather and who knows what else, I’ve gotten to know airports in outer Buenos Aires, inner Buenos Aires, Santiago, Lima and Iguazu much better than…
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Oct
When visiting Buenos Aires, it’s best to go to Recoleta Cemetery to see Evita’s grave… … otherwise everyone will nag you about why you didn’t. You may choose to ignore this advice, since it’s come from the man who’s been to Far North Queensland eleven times… … and still hasn’t been out to the Reef….
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Sep
After having cataract surgery last year, I often wore sunglasses, even indoors. I also went to Argentina. The CCK (Centro Cultural Kirchner) … … had an installation which combined the work of David Lynch (Twin Peaks), Patti Smith (singer and co-author of ‘Because the Night’) and Argentine artist Guillermo Kuitca. I liked the resulting pictures,…
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Sep
One popular day trip from Buenos Aires involves taking a ferry over the (very wide) river to Colonia, in Uruguay. You can visit the UNESCO Historic Quarter… … have lunch at one of the many outdoor eateries, enjoy the fresher air … … and take the ferry back as the sun is setting. Just be…
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Sep
King James I of England, who was also James VI of Scotland, was a much underrated monarch. After surviving the Gunpowder Plot, he held on to both his thrones, dying of natural causes at the age of 58: more than 20 years above the average of the time. This may not seem all the remarkable,…
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Sep
The brochure to the Museo Evita (Evita Museum) in Buenos Aires said it was ‘A place that tells about the life and work of one of the most important women in Argentine history showing the truth with historical rigor.’ When I went, I heard archival footage of Evita speaking, and saw some of her dresses,…
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Aug
In the United States, when I didn’t see the original, there was the Spanish version … … and the parody … I hadn’t heard of this story in Australia, but it’s a big thing over there.
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Aug
This is the southern end of the Pan American Highway, which goes all the way from Tierra del Fuego to Alaska … sort of. I say “sort of” because, for instance, there’s no bridge across the Magellan Strait, though my bus got across fine on a ferry. There’s a gap of about 100 kilometres in…
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Aug
Have you visited a country if you’ve been in transit at one of its airports? If so, this trip in 2008 was my sixth time in New Zealand. If not, it was my first. By this stage, I’d taken to kissing the ground of new lands with tongue, such as Antarctica earlier in the year.
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Jul
I bought two of these coffee mugs at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC. After pouring in boiling water, the black rectangles went away to reveal pictures of gay celebrities such as Oscar Wilde. Not the best in dishwashers …
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Jul
Later this week, I’m visiting Far North Queensland for the tenth time. On my previous nine trips, I went to the Great Barrier Reef … never. Should I take the plunge this time? I don’t think so. It’ll always be there (well, maybe), and I just want to get some sun and work on my…
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Jul
When I was in my first year of high school, Hey! Hey! It’s Saturday used to play the video clips of the latest hits. I was upset that a weird, classical sounding song had knocked ‘Mickey’ off the number one position. The song was ‘I’ve Never Been to Me’, 12 years before it opened the…
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Jul
I’ve written in some exotic places – like Antarctica! The ship that took me there was named after Lyubov Orlova. There was a photo of her in the bar, with a brief explanation that she was a popular Russian actress. Her IMDb biography, combined with a knowledge of history, is more illuminating. Born in 1902, her…
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Jul
When I visited New York City in 2007, I didn’t see the stage musical version of Xanadu, but I caught it five years later when the students at WAAPA (the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts) put it on. Xanadu is an example of the public getting it right … repeatedly. The original movie did not do…
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Jun
On my first trip to Argentina, before Skype, before international roaming (or at least before it was affordable), before prepaid calling cards, before you could phone on Messenger, before WhatsApp … if I wanted to call home, I went to one of these: In a pokey booth like this … … a meter would clock…
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Jun
One of the installations I saw last year in Buenos Aires at the Centro Cultural Kirchner (CCK).
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Jun
The bottom part of this photo is Argentina. The top left is Paraguay. The top right is Brazil. I spent the first 660 million seconds of my life (and then some) entirely in one country – Australia – so to see three countries in one second was a bit of a thrill, even if the…
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Jun
You walk upstairs to this … … then into this: It’s La Catedral Club, a tango milonga in Buenos Aires. It would not be totally untrue to say that I have danced professionally. People did pay to see the first preview of my show The Sound of a Social Climbing Nun, where I bootscooted to…
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May
I’ve previously told you that President Franklin D Roosevelt once said: ‘The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.’ And how he clearly hadn’t been in as many Buenos Aires taxis as I have. At traffic lights, for some taxi drivers, this means go fast: This means go faster: This means slow down, have…
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May
Some of you may remember this image from the show My Argentina: Learning Spanish and Loving Thatcher: But you may not know the unbelievable sacrifice I made to get that. Every September, New York City has the Broadway Flea Market & Grand Auction. Different musicals have their own table, where they sell memorabilia, not necessarily…
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May
The Casa Rosada, which literally means ‘Pink House’, is where Argentine presidents have their office, though they live elsewhere. It’s at Plaza de Mayo (May Square), which I walked through in 2011 during a riot when they burnt down a giant Christmas tree. And I was there at the start of the 2005 Pride march,…
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May
I saw this at MALBA – the Latin American Art Museum of Buenos Aires … … in their gift shop. The designer is VACAVALIENTE – or ‘Brave Cow’. Don’t be put off by the price. $375 here meant 375 pesos. In 2001, one US dollar could buy one Argentine peso. When I visited MALBA last year,…
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Apr
If I’m ever asked, ‘Where’s Virginia Beach?’ I answer, ‘It’s in Virginia, and it’s at the beach.’ I’ve been there three times, to visit JJ’s family. While there, I’ve been to the International Sandsculpting Championship … … and I’ve swum in the North Atlantic Ocean … my fourth ocean, or perhaps only my third, depending…
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Apr
When I’m in Argentina, I often try to immerse myself in the Spanish language. I succeed up to a point, but it’s very difficult to escape from English. To demonstrate this, last year I chose a short block on one of Buenos Aires’ main avenues, away from the tourist areas. I looked in the shop…
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Apr
Although I’m posting this on April 1, this is not an April Fools’ Day joke. The only day I’ve ever spent in Manchester (apart from passing through on the train) was indeed both sunny and in a December. Better than driving in fog on the M62. They left the gates open for us to go…
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Apr
I don’t mean the Hollywood with the Bowl I visited in 2016: I mean Palermo Hollywood in Buenos Aires: the part of the barrio of Palermo with TV studios. And some places to eat. Dashi is a chain of Asian fusion restaurants in Buenos Aires. One of them is in Palermo Hollywood (Fitz Roy 1613, at the corner…
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Mar
I’m not normally very good at capturing sunsets, but Puerto Natales, Chile, 2005 was my favourite: Until now. I didn’t go much to the beach in the Perth summer just gone. So I popped down to Swanbourne this evening. At first, I thought I’d missed the sunset. Glad to be wrong.
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Mar
Some Buenos Aires residents refer to Avenida Santa Fe as Santa Gay. I’ve seen queer traffic lights in Munich and Trafalgar Square. And now on Santa Gay. I almost got myself run over there, which might have been the most fitting near-death experience since a glitter-ball almost hit Boy George. This is what BA traffic lights normally look…
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Mar
Twenty-three years before we were in the above photo, my friend Paula flew home from Perth to Buenos Aires, via: Sydney Auckland Tahiti Easter Island and Santiago. On my first trip to Buenos Aires in 2003, I was happy when I only had to stop at Sydney and Auckland. Ditto for 2005. Even happier on…
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Mar
Last year, a friend looked down at my feet and said, ‘I see you’re wearing your contraceptive shoes.’ Many of my clothes would not be out of place in a contraceptive wardrobe. But I know a thing or two about travel outfits. Note how I’m wearing trousers here: … and shorts here: Detachable cargo pants…
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Feb
Argentine beef has become expensive. I also don’t think it’s as tender as it used to be. Apparently, the cattle are fed differently. Is this partly why, for the first time in seven trips, I saw these words last year in Buenos Aires?
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Feb
When I did my shows at Fringe World, I put on previews. they were a chance to iron things out before opening night. They also meant that I had, in a sense, two opening nights: one official and one unofficial. A preview isn’t meant to be quite the final product, so the ticket prices are…
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Feb
This is the ‘Pumpkin with Cut Tip’ by Ricardo Gabarito. I saw it at MALBA – the Latin American Art Museum of Buenos Aires.
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Feb
Queen Mary is having a bit of a revival. A friend is soon to leave Fremantle on the Queen Mary 2. If I go on Netflix, I can see her prominent appearance in the first season of The Crown. But for me, she never went away, as this picture from Madame Tussaud’s in 1991 demonstrates….
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Feb
I was at Salto Bossetti, Iguazu Falls, during my recent trip to Argentina. I first saw the bride and groom nearby. I didn’t think they’d end up here:
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Jan
My first trip to Europe was in winter because it was the only time I could go for three months. Although I wouldn’t do that now, it had several advantages. One was that we could be more spontaneous. When five of us, in a tiny hire car, got to Exeter, we thought – no! Instead, we…
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Jan
Before Skype, before prepaid calling cards, before mobile phone plans offered free international calls, before Samsung S8s, Messenger, the Book of Face and WhatsApp … on my first trip to the United Kingdom, the way to call home involved a cold phone booth and a bag of coins, or only a few coins and saying,…
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Jan
It’s actually pronounced ‘Mor-ONN’, but even still… The suburb is the tenth stop on the Sarmiento railway line that tourists rarely take… …though the municipality takes in a larger area.
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Dec
These pictures prove I’ve gone there! Here are the capitals (national, state and provincial, etc) I’ve been to since I was last in Canberra (in chronological order): Sydney Melbourne Perth Adelaide Buenos Aires Hobart La Plata Ciudad del Este Puerto Natales Punta Arenas Ushuaia Singapore (to change planes) London Munich Richmond (to change buses) Washington DC…
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Dec
The Madame was, of course, Tussaud. The year was 1991. Some years later, I wrote a tasteful novel. One problem with writing fiction is that you can’t always base your stories on real events, because some things are so out there, your readers can only believe them if they’re told that they’re true. Imagine a…
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Dec
More pics from my first overseas trip: Club Med, Malaysia, 1990. If I have to, I can still brush up OK without a shirt, though it involves some serious short-term chocolate deprivation. Last year, in a kind of coy routine, I took mine off on five different nights at the Pirate Bar during my show…
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Dec
On the weekend, I was due to fly back Economy from Argentina on Air New Zealand, but they sent me an email, saying I could put in bids for upgrades. It was up to me how much I bid, but they had a dial showing how strong (or otherwise) a particular offer would be. I…
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Nov
Mae West once said: ‘It was a toss up whether I go in for diamonds or sing in the choir. The choir lost.’ I thought about this when I booked last week’s trip to Iguazu Falls. It was a toss-up whether to stay in town at the Peter Pan Youth Hostel … … or spend…
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Nov
The reality was worse than hell. The couple with this pram had five children aged four or less, though from what I saw, they were well-behaved. Despite my protestations, I do like children, but Argentina brings out the extremes. Iguazu Falls isn’t the best place to bring toddlers. Although some paths are wheelchair-friendly… … there…
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Nov
Meet Mirtha Legrand. She does a talk show in Argentina every Saturday and Sunday. I’m telling taxi drivers that every time I come here, I’m two years older, and Mirtha is five years younger. She celebrated her ninetieth birthday on 23 February 2017.
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Nov
I am loving Buenos Aires since I arrived yesterday, which is fortunate, as I’ve spent almost all of it awake! My friend Gary told me that the Dreamliner helps prevent jet-lag. I’m not so sure… If I can’t get back to sleep early in the morning, because of jet-lag, I like to get up and…
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Nov
This monologue inspired me to write a tasteful novel, which in turn inspired me to perform my show HOW TO WRITE A TASTEFUL NOVEL. I wrote it in 2007, when Perth’s mining boom meant it was impossible to get tradesmen (and they were always men) to come around, and same sex marriage was a bit…
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Oct
I stayed here, close to Rennes, with some family friends, during my first trip to Europe. Good writing sometimes involves knowing when not to write, and letting the scenery speak for itself.
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Oct
When I was 24, I flew to Derby, in the north of WA, for a court case, and had enough time to do what visitors there do. The mud flats… … the jetty… … the boab tree… … and the longest cattle trough. I’m wearing a t-shirt that my Argentine friend Paula sent me, almost…
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Oct
Because when I tried, there was so much wind, a gust of sand blew into it! It was much calmer on the treks out of town.
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Oct
My first five trips to Argentina were all during, or just after, elections. I photographed the posters above on my first visit, during its 2003 Presidential election. Eva Perón was supposed to be a reason to vote for Carlos Menem, pictured below. Exactly why a woman who’d been dead for 51 years should make people…
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Sep
I can’t say that the place our city is named after is terribly exciting. Small, peaceful, quiet and dull – well, maybe not so unlike its Western Australian counterpart! I actually felt quite homesick being there – only worse – because Perth, Scotland isn’t pronounced “Purrrth” – it’s “Pearth” – so it didn’t quite seem…
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Sep
There were the pupils in the eyes of Christ the Redeemer, at the Brickman Wonders of the World exhibition in the Perth Convention Centre. There aren’t any in the statue in Rio de Janiero, and as a result, they look creepy.
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Sep
Lord’s Cricket Ground in London, home of the MCC (Marylebone Cricket Club), with the urn containing The Ashes for which England and Australia compete every two years. Traditionally, the ashes are of a burnt bail, but there’s speculation that they were actually the remains of a stump, ball or even a woman’s veil. And whatever they were…
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Aug
Me with Mrs Thatcher at Madame Tussaud’s, London. I took my first trip to Europe, including the United Kingdom, from November 1991 – after my final year Law exams – to February 1992 – when I had to start work in a solicitor’s office. Apart from two weeks in Malaysia, this was my first trip…
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Jul
On my first trip overseas, I took an afternoon off from Club Med to visit the Malaysian city of Kuantan. I probably went because a lovely widow I’d befriended was going. In hindsight, looking at myself in a rickshaw, I seem like a relaxed remnant of the British Raj. I don’t think the publicity material…
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Jul
Above is Robert Burns at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow, 2014, the month before the Scottish referendum on independence. The description with the picture says: Today, Burns is an icon of Scottish identity. He is shown here as Che Guevara, the heroic Latin American revolutionary. Below is Che Guevara at El Revolucionario Bar, Buenos Aires,…
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Jul
Last year, I performed a show that featured ‘Loving Thatcher’ in the title. It was going to be called My Argentina: Learning Spanish and Loving Mrs Thatcher, but that was 51 characters, including the colon. Fringe World required titles to have no more than 50. I toyed with ‘Loving Ms Thatcher’, but no-one ever called her that,…
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Jul
I’ve previously posted about the highest toilets in Australia. These were the most easterly. Cape Byron, 1997. The following year, I turned down a job around here. I don’t regret that, because the timing was wrong, but I do wonder what’s happening in the parallel universe where I took it. I probably wouldn’t be writing…
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Jun
One night in Argentina, my friend Paula’s cousin asked me about some places in Australia he was thinking of visiting. Uluru? Oops, I hadn’t seen it. (I’d only ever been the Northern Territory once, for five or ten minutes, before Wonder Woman turned up.) The Great Barrier Reef? Sorry, not there either. (Since then, I’ve…
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Jun
If Paula hadn’t asked me to her wedding, I probably never would have gone to Argentina. Nor New Zealand. I met Craig in Buenos Aires in 2007. The following year, said he wanted to take a cruise from Sydney to Auckland, and would I like to come? The basic price for a mid-range cabin on the…
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Jun
This is a typical departure list at Dubai International Airport. Okay, it ‘only’ has cities on five different continents above. There’s no South America, but in January 2013, I passed through Dubai on the way from Perth to Buenos Aires. Hardly the most direct route, but it didn’t cost me that much over $2,000 return. When…
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Jun
I seem to have done everything but go to Wales. The first time I left Western Australia was on the Indian Pacific when I was four. We ended up in New South Wales, and I later lived there for a year and a half. When I was twenty-two, a bunch of us drove in a…
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Jun
I’m afraid I was yet to learn some basics of photography in New York City in 2007. The last two words of that sign are “each floor”.
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May
Stanley’s Winery was on the road between Mildura, Victoria and Wentworth. New South Wales. Not too many people have heard of Wentworth. It’s where the Murray and Darling Rivers meet, so was very important when boats were the main form of transport. For a time, its main industry was poker machines. People from Mildura used…
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May
I’ve driven on it, walked on it, taken the train on it, climbed it, taken the ferry under it, seen the sunset behind it, watched it from a friend’s bedroom window, been to the museum, flown over it, walked under it … though unlike a Peter Isaacson, I’ve never flown under it … seen it in…
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May
I have vague memories in my first year of primary school of our headmaster, Mr Godley, explaining whether ‘God Save the Queen’ still was Australia’s national anthem. For a while, it wasn’t clear what was. When Australia won gold medals at the Montreal Olympics, they played ‘Waltzing Matilda’, only they didn’t, because Australia didn’t win…
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May
I’ve previously bemoaned about the difficulties of finding printable material about San Francisco in a family-friendly blog. But who doesn’t like inflatable dragons? I found one in a shop on Castro Street. As for some of the other shops…
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May
There are some specky (is that a word?) sights in the far north of Western Australia, but what resonates more for me is the calm, quiet openness. These photos were taken over 12 years ago. I don’t remember much about the specific circumstances, but the feeling of peace is still there.
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May
In 2004, I did a 12-day bus tour of the Kimberley. Half way through, we had a free day, so I hired a car, driving to Wyndham in the morning and Lake Argyle in the afternoon. The turn-off to Lake Argyle was only seven kilometres from WA’s border with the Northern Territory. I’d never been…
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Apr
Purmamarca, in the northwest of Argentina, reminded me of Cuzco, Peru. Both in the South American Andes, both near 4,000 metre peaks (and then some), both around some specky scenery. But in Purmamarca, even as I walked around the market, no-one hassled me. In Cuzco, a walk down the main streets and I was always…
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Apr
I discovered this fact at the Western Plains Zoo in Dubbo, when I went there in the mid-nineties. I was working in Sydney at the time, but I had opportunities practically every month to visit somewhere in regional New South Wales. I don’t think everyone liked doing that, but I always found something fun about…
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Apr
My friend John had been to the southernmost and easternmost points of Australia. He and I went to the highest point – Mount Kosciusko (when they still spelled it that way) – which meant going to the highest toilets. They’ve since installed a permanent set. This photo was taken 21 years ago, yet neither of us…
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Apr
This map of San Francisco is in the foyer of the W Hotel – not a place for the budget traveller, but then again, very little in that city is! When I was there last year, my backpacker accommodation cost me more than I’d pay for a mid-range (or better) hotel in most cities. In…
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Mar
If you saw my show The Sound of a Social Climbing Nun, you might suspect that I am a little obsessed with musicals. I’ve asked some unbelievably important questions about them. If you click on a question, you’ll get the unbelievably important answer. Why should Eliza Doolittle have married Mrs Higgins? (And why did Mrs…
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Mar
Fun Home was the first of three Broadway musicals I saw in 27 hours last August. The ‘Fun’ stood for ‘Funeral’ and the plot centred around a closeted gay man who commits suicide. (No spoiler there. It was mentioned early on.) It’s since finished its New York run, but is on tour in the United…
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Mar
In 2007, my friend JJ and I went to the Victoria area of London to see Billy Elliot. nearby, Wicked was playing at the Apollo Victoria Theatre. We didn’t see it there because we went to the Broadway production a few weeks later. Last September, I was passing the theatre, and it was still on….
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Mar
It didn’t take long to work out what show to see last night at the Adelaide Fringe with my old friend Justin. ‘Livvy & Pete: The Songs of Olivia Newton-John and Peter Allen’ at the Garden of Unearthly Delights leaped out of the program. I expected Michael Griffiths and Amelia Ryan to sing beautifully, and they…
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Mar
My friend Rebecca (plus her friend Linda, who’s now become a friend of mine as well) and I have kind of started a tradition of going to Original Joe’s restaurant after baseball games in San Francisco. I say ‘kind of’ because we’ve done it twice in less than a year. The second time, it was…
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Mar
The Falklands (known in Argentina as Islas Malvinas or Las Malvinas) are an archipelago, roughly the size of Wales, largely sheep farms, about 550 kilometres east of the South American mainland. They never had an indigenous human population, though there were, and still are, plenty of penguins. In 1982, the United Kingdom and Argentina fought a…
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Feb
Last September, outside the Tate Modern, and a little further down the Thames.
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Feb
It’s been a while since I’ve posted something on Antarctica. Let me take you back to Deception Island … … where I took the Polar Plunge. In the background is the old whaling station, where they used whales, amongst other things, for margarine. We could only go inside one of the buildings. Click here to…
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Jan
An evil New York City food critic, who locks her teenage child in the cellar (when she isn’t breastfeeding her), meets a barman/barista. That was the improvised musical I saw Impromptunes perform at Fringe World. Light, clever, funny, a bit naughty, but not offensive. With a Stephen King showstopper… Impromptunes – The Completely Improvised Musical…
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Jan
The musical Something Rotten! had its last performance on Broadway on New Year’s Day. This surprised me, because it had been playing for less than two years. That’s longer than Allegiance, but musicals are so expensive these days that they normally need much longer runs if they’re going to make any decent money. My niece…
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Jan
My wallet says a lot about my 2016. It has public transport cards from Melbourne … … Sydney … … Washington DC … … London … … and LA … … but no Perth SmartRider … … though I do have a Luna Palace Cinemas card …
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Dec
Leicester is known for its Indian population, but it also has a Chinese influence.
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Dec
Yes, I am an old queen. In London in September, I thought about seeing The Play That Goes Wrong, because it sounded different. I chose instead a revival of a 47-year-old comedy – How the Other Half Loves – because Jenny Seagrove was in it. I remembered her from a Barbara Taylor Bradford mini-series in the…
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Dec
I am not a very good gay man. Last year, instead of going to Perth’s Pride March, I stayed home and watched the episode of Game of Thrones that featured Cersei Lannister’s Walk of Atonement. It became my latest obsession. I’ve even persuaded two people to change the ring tones on their phones to ‘Ding-ding-ding….
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Dec
When my friend Caroline and I visited the US Library of Congress in August 2016, there was a special exhibition of the composer Marvin Hamlisch’s awards, which needed a considerable amount of room, largely as a result of three amazing years. At the Oscars in 1974, Cher called him Marvin Hamschmish, then Hamilschmish. But when he won his…
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Dec
You decide, but I think they beat the teddy bears from the US Supreme Court … … and those from the US Library of Congress … This one’s called Sid. I also like this … … though this one from the Museum of Modern Art in New York City is still my favourite: The gift shop…
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Dec
Although I am yet to succumb to The Phantom of the Opera, in September I finally saw a play that’s been running continuously on the West End all my life, plus another sixteen and a half years: performance number 26,500, or is it more?… of Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap. That performance set a new world…
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Nov
In August, my Antarctic friend Caroline and I visited the United States Capitol – the Congress building, or, as Google Maps describes it, the ‘Legendary home of the US legislature’. We could have bought chocolate bars … … or chocolate Congresses. Milk … … dark … … or white.
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Nov
When I was in Munich in late August, they had lesbian and gay traffic lights (sadly now gone). In Trafalgar Square the following week, the lights were lesbian … … and gay … … and transgender … … and even straight! There’s something reassuring about how they all blend into the lions and double-decker busses.
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Nov
I saw them in August, but they’ve since gone, alas.
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Nov
In retrospect, the next musical I saw after My Fair Lady at the Sydney Opera House was never going to seem remotely as good. My Fair Lady was based on a play by George Bernard Shaw, using large amounts of his words, superbly augmented by Alan Jay Lerner – one of musical theatre’s greatest ever writers….
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Nov
I broke a four year self-imposed ban on visiting Sydney to go to a friend’s 50th birthday party, and to see Opera Australia’s production of My Fair Lady, directed by Julie Andrews, who starred in the original production that opened on Broadway in 1956. My friend JJ came over from New York, Cousin Jo and…
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Nov
… at the Smithsonian American Art Museum / National Portrait Gallery
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Nov
At the Hollywood Museum … … I saw the bottle from I Dream of Jeannie … … Lucille Ball’s Emmy awards … … and another pair of ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz. (I say another because of the two I saw in Washington DC last year.) But I also spotted some errors. Mistake #1: The character…
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Nov
In 1972, the lavish Broadway musical Follies closed after losing close to a million dollars, despite obsessive admirers and a Tony winning score by Stephen Sondheim. At the time, Sondheim may have been surprised if he’d been told that 35 years later, a British techno version of one of the songs from that show (‘Losing My…
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Oct
Last month, I walked through Battersea Park … … to The Latchmere pub. I met my old friends Myles and Pete… … for a spinach and ricotta ravioli and chips (and more chips, walk negated). We went upstairs to Theatre 503, one of London’s fringe venues. The play was about Turkish Cypriots (or were they?), a…
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Oct
… but not for long. The gardens in question are of Leicester Cathedral … … which now houses the tomb of Richard III. Being the last Plantagenet king, he probably knew a thing or two about dynasties ending, though I guess he only realised it was about to end when he was surrounded and about to get his head hacked…
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Oct
As I was in Leicester for the wedding of my friends Sam and Susie, I went to the Richard III Visitor Centre, then to the Cathedral opposite … … where the king’s remains were recently re-interred. Richard wasn’t the only king in that time who had trouble holding onto his throne. His brother lost his in 1470,…
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Oct
As a lawyer, I’ve been to many court buildings. The US Supreme Court, which I visited with my Antarctic friend Caroline in August, is the first to have a gift shop. Apart from teddy bears, here’s some of what it sells:
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Oct
Skeletons of notorious English kings don’t often get dug up in car parks, which is what happened in 2012, when Richard III was found in Leicester. It must have been difficult to know what to do with him. I’ve always been a bit of a fan. He wasn’t like the man in the Shakespearean play. He made…
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Oct
Dame Julie turns 81 today. Two months ago, one of the first things I did after landing in LA, meeting my friend JJ, getting a chip for my phone, bussing to our hotel and buying flip-flops (to make up for having two left-footed sandals) was to walk to Grauman’s Chinese Theatre … … to see where Julie…
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Oct
The Watergate Hotel’s website homepage wisely doesn’t have exterior photos. Otherwise, it might contain these: But the inside is imaginative and luxurious. My Antarctic friend Spencer and I had a late lunch there in August, and were sucked into the allure of the cubic fries, though I was less excited when I heard they were…
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Sep
Shakespeare’s statue in Buenos Aires shows his influence on the world … … but the North Americans take it several levels higher. I’ve previously posted about how they market Shakespearean insults … … and ‘To Be, or Not to Be’. Here are more items for sale at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC:
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Sep
Normally I come up with my own titles for my posts, but the name of this play is so original, anything on my part would be redundant. When I saw it last year in New York, it had already been running for 11 months. I didn’t blog about it because it was just so good, I couldn’t…
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Sep
The National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC doesn’t just have portraits. It also houses Katharine Hepburn’s four Oscars. When I saw them in August, she and Henry Fonda were also part of an exhibition called Hollywood and Time: Celebrity Covers. Hollywood has never been known for its kindness to ageing actresses. Bob Hope, Bing Crosby…
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Sep
In August, Lisa‘s wonderful parents Bill and Sally took me to the UCSD (University of California, San Diego) to see a travelling troupe of The Second City: the comedy organisation that helped the careers of Tina Fey and Bill Murray. Their show Free Speech (While Supplies Last) was two or so hours of sketches: some…
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Sep
I know that’s not a photo of a beach, it’s of me during one of my thinner Buenos Aires moments. I don’t want to ruin the surprise! The story starts in Brazil. Rio de Janiero doesn’t just have Copacabana Beach. I also went to São Conrado … … and Ipamena. Buenos Aires also has a…
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Sep
Wonder Woman and I have had a long association. I was not shocked to see her at the 2005 gay pride march in Buenos Aires. But she turns up in unexpected places. When Caroline and I visited the US Library of Congress last month … … we saw the Main Reading Room. The gift shop contained books ……
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Sep
In Washington DC, the Kennedy Center’s gift shops sell Shakespearean merchandise about love… … but seem to stock more about insults …
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Aug
I’ve previously posted about my 12 different opportunities to see The Phantom of the Opera, and how I still haven’t. This month was the closest I’ve come. When my Antarctic friend Spencer and I visited the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, they were about to start a performance, but we took a tour instead. We heard it…
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Aug
I’m on my fifth trip to Germany, and I feel guilty that I’ve only just learnt the word for ‘please’. Nowadays, I usually travel to countries where I speak the language, but Germany is an exception because I know lovely people here and have a good time. I found today, when shopping, that I wasn’t…
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Aug
In my blog, I try to be original. This post isn’t, but what the hell! JJ and I have just watched three Broadway musicals in 27 hours: I’ll talk more about them later.
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Aug
Caitlyn Jenner side-by-side with her ex-stepdaughter on a New York City newsstand. I posted this very briefly last year, but took it down because I thought it a little too naughty. I’ll be back in New York City later this week…
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Aug
The gift shop (if there is one) is usually my favourite part of a visit to a significant building. Last year, I liked The Wizard of Oz merchandise at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. On Thursday, it was Leninade at the International Spy Museum.
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Aug
Sometimes when I get bored while watching a movie, I start listing, in my head, lists of Best Picture, Actor and Actress Oscar winners from 1950 to 1990. Yet I was never in a rush to visit Hollywood. I finally made it there at the end of last month because I was going to the…
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Aug
In the Golden Age of Hollywood, it was perfectly acceptable for a woman to have several lovers, just so long as she was taken to a psychiatric institution (A Streetcar Named Desire), drove off a cliff (Butterfield 8) or fell through ice into a lake (Flesh and the Devil). Similarly, not so long ago (eg last year),…
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Aug
Between us, my dear friend Rebecca and I have worked as a rocket scientist and a lawyer, but our attempts to pick ‘cheap and cheerful’ restaurants in San Francisco have met with mixed success. Last weekend, we took Lisa to Fang (660 Howard St, near the W). Cheap? Not particularly (though it might be when compared with a…
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Aug
Watching the San Francisco Giants last Sunday, with my Californian friend Lisa next to me. I was also with two other Californian friends, who I’ll post about later.
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Aug
On Sunday at AT&T Park, on my way to the baseball.
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Aug
On Friday, my friend JJ and I saw A Chorus Line at the Hollywood Bowl, a musical which has seen an unusual, relative reversal in fortunes. In 1975, it opened the month after the original Broadway production of Chicago. A Chorus Line ran for 15 years, getting a record; Chicago for two. When I visited New York City…
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Aug
… or you may find yourself using part of your 23 kilo baggage limit on these. Thankfully, San Francisco, where I arrived yesterday, has an Ecco store, though so far it hasn’t been sandal weather.
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Jul
My strategy for flying from Perth to Los Angeles in cost-effective comfort has been: Take the 7.30pm direct flight to Auckland, so I wouldn’t have to sleep on the plane. Sleep for five hours at the Jucy Snooze hostel in Auckland’s city centre. Bid for an upgrade to Premium Economy for the Auckland to Los…
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Jul
So you think sunset in Puerto Natales isn’t a good enough reason to travel overland from El Calafate to Ushuaia? How about Torres del Paine National Park, in Chilean Patagonia? I just did a day trip in November 2005, but you could easily spend a week there.
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Jul
When I flew last year from Perth to the United States and back, two advantages of going via Hong Kong International Airport were (a) it was the only stop and (b) I didn’t have to go from domestic to international airports and back again to domestic. The biggest plus was that the in-flight entertainment included all ten episodes of the fifth season…
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Jul
With the Rio Olympics approaching, I expect we’re soon going to see a lot of the statue of Christ the Redeemer. When I viewed it up close in 2013, I thought the blank eyes were rather creepy… … but what a view from Sugarloaf Mountain!
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Jul
One of the many delightful things that came out of my Antarctic trip was meeting up with the wise Caroline last year in Washington DC. On the second of two hectic days, she took me to the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial. At the start of his record four terms as US President, Franklin D Roosevelt announced:…
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Jul
More from the International Sandsculpting Championship, Virginia Beach, 2015.
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Jul
When I recently posted ten tips when seeing the Edinburgh Fringe, the last was: Go somewhere warm and sunny afterwards. My friend Sam took the above photo on our first afternoon at the Fringe in August 2014, during Scotland’s summer. I wore four layers of clothing, the same number as the second time I set foot on…
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Jul
The Edinburgh Fringe is the largest arts festival in the world. It was originally set up by people who didn’t get invited to the Edinburgh Festival, but now it’s largely overwhelmed the mainstream event. Perth’s Fringe World festival is largely modelled on it. The Edinburgh Fringe is open access, which means that anyone can put on a…
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Jul
Last month, I asked: Can you be too successful? Has anyone ever lost a major acting honour to someone whose part he’s written? The answer to the second question turned out to be yes. At the Tony Awards, Lin-Manuel Miranda lost the Best Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical award to his co-star, Leslie Odom, Jr. Mr Miranda…
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Jul
San Francisco inspires such unmitigated naughtiness that it can be hard to write a printable post about the place. But here goes… On my first ever time there last year , I visited the school where my honorary Californian little sister Lisa teaches First Grade, entirely in Spanish. She’d come a long way since our Spanish…
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Jun
I like soccer about as much as the average Argentine likes Margaret Thatcher. In 2005, two of the guys I met in Patagonia – Jake and Andrew – asked me to a match in Buenos Aires at the Bombonera Stadium. Boca Juniors was playing Vélez Sársfield. Jake and Andrew were fun to hang out with at the Perito Moreno…
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Jun
The Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington DC has two of the ruby slippers that Judy Garland wore in The Wizard of Oz. After first seeing the movie as a seven-year-old, my father told my sister and me that the Good Witch of the North was really the villain, because she was: a thief (for stealing…
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Jun
Practically every week, I post something about Argentina, but when I recently did a search, the word ‘tango’ had no results. There are a few reasons for this. One is that I’m a terrible dancer and even worse at tango. In my blog, I always strive to have a different take on things. It’s hard to…
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Jun
This is from the gift shop at the Museum of Modern Art, New York City, 2015. I planned this post some time ago. I wondered, in light of the heartless murder of 49 people in Florida, whether I should write something else, or put off saying anything at all. I’ve kept it because there’s something loving and simple about this art. It…
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Jun
I was excited about paragliding in Mendoza – until they gave me the release and disclaimer document to sign while we were driving up the mountain. Being a lawyer, I read it, including all the words about all the bad things that could happen to me! I went in tandem. This was both good and…
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Jun
Lin-Manuel Miranda might just be. He’s the writer, composer and star of Hamilton, which I saw last year on Broadway. He’s received Tony nominations for all three jobs. Yet he might end up losing the Best Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical award to his co-star, Leslie Odom, Jr. Has anyone ever lost a major acting…
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Jun
I walked to a square in the south of the city, late on a spring-summer Sunday afternoon in 2007. A woman with a fake nose started performing…
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Jun
Laurence Olivier was the greatest ever actor. And a hypocritical snob. He criticised Richard Burton for wanting to make movies for money, rather than appear on the legitimate stage. This might’ve been OK if Olivier himself hadn’t accepted a million bucks to appear in a movie financed by the Moonies. Next he did Clash of the Titans… Acting…
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Jun
One reason for my blog is to promote myself as a writer, but when I posted about the things I could see in a day’s drive from Salta, I thought that two sentences and 16 photos made the point well enough. The last two images were from Purmamarca, a quiet village in the northwest of…
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May
Ferens Art Gallery, Hull, 2013. My friends took me there to see a Constable hanging on the wall, but I fascinated with the exhibition by Martin Creed. It was tamer than some of the other bodily functions he’s depicted. Then there was his music…
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May
Probably not the question you were expecting, even though I’m posting this on Trinity Sunday. The answer is yes, kind of. Buenos Aires was shortened from Ciudad de la Santísima Trinidad y Puerto de Nuestra Señora la Virgen María de los Buenos Aires. This means ‘City of the Holy Trinity and Port of Our Lady the Virgin…
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May
Actually, it doesn’t really matter what seats you get at Shakespeare’s Globe theatre in London, just as long as you get seats. When I saw Macbeth with my friends JJ and Sam in 2013, I was standing throughout. Towards the end, I was pleased that Lady Macbeth had done the decent thing and died quickly, but was…
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May
The Buenos Aires Metropolitan Cathedral is the building that looks more like a large public library up close. This is what I saw up closer, in 2007:
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May
This is the terrace of a beachfront room at Turtle Cove resort, between Cairns and Port Douglas. Kelvin, the co-owner, calls it the best office in Australia. Hard to disagree. On this trip, I was editing a tasteful novel. Every time I cut out 500 words I had a swim. An attraction or downside (attraction…
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May
Ushuaia is the southernmost city in the world. If a city needs at least 50,000 people. If the minimum is 100,000 people, it’s Punta Arenas: Reduce it to 1,000, and Puerto Williams wins. It might depend on your nationality. Punta Arenas and Puerto Williams are in Chile. Ushuaia is in Argentina. I went overland…
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May
Everyone on my Antarctic trip thought cute things about penguins. Except for me. One of Western Australia’s main attractions is Monkey Mia, where dolphins come almost to the shore and entertain the tourists. I went there as part of a trip from Perth to Broome. I asked Pete, our (suffering) driver and guide: ‘What does…
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May
Do not adjust your computer! I thought these images looked better in black and white, or, as the Argentines say, white and black (or, in one case, more of a yellow). I’ve explained before about the unwritten law: that great waterfalls must be on the border of two countries. Most of what you see in…
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May
In 2011, my friend Joanna and I took the Prospector train to the gold mining city of Kalgoorlie, and drove a hire car 174 kilometres north to the sculptures at Lake Ballard. We didn’t stay as long as we wanted. A thunderstorm was approaching, and being in an open space with metal objects didn’t seem…
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Apr
I didn’t just see sunsets in Chilean Patagonia. Animal life in Puerto Natales Animal death in Puerto Natales Gertrude was one reason for the end of my Wonder Woman obsession. I met her on Brunswick Street in Fitzroy, Melbourne. We locked eyes on opposite sides of a shop window. When I tried her on, her…
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Apr
If you’re doing a cruise to the Antarctic Peninsula, it’ll probably start and end in Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego: But there are other things to see, either before or after. You might want to go to the Patagonian town of El Calafate, because it’s near(ish) the Perito Moreno Glacier (even though I query whether that’s the Brokeback Mountain of Argentina,…
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Apr
I’m with Lisa at the start of the Pride March, Buenos Aires, 2007: The Cathedral – where the future Pope Francis was Archbishop – is behind us. When I was at the same event in 2005, a smoke bomb went off during a conflict between Catholic and anti-Catholic protesters. Look carefully to see barriers and guards…
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Apr
Allegiance was a Broadway musical about Japanese-Americans who were interned in the United States during the Second World War. On 6 October last year, my friend JJ and I went to the first preview. Four months later, it closed. Broadway has revivals … … plus a show that’s been around so long that it could have been…
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Apr
Is it: (a) the Supreme Court of Argentina? (b) the State Public Library? (c) the city’s oldest opera house? (d) the US embassy? (e) the National Museum? (f) none of the above? (Clue: It faces Plaza de Mayo, the main square in Buenos Aires.) Please scroll down… And a little…
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Apr
Jesus rises from the polystyrene mountain above the plastic palms, does a few turns and goes back inside. The Hallelujah Chorus sometimes has to compete with splashing from the swimming pools at Parque Norte and planes taking off and landing at Jorge Newbery Airport. And an hour later, it all happens again. I didn’t take…
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Mar
After seeing The Creation (or even before!), you can witness the Passion at Tierra Santa (Holy Land) theme park.
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Mar
Most famous buildings are best known for their exterior. I’ve never, for instance, seen a photo inside the Taj Mahal. This may be one reason some visitors to Buenos Aires never go to El Ateneo Grand Splendid bookshop. I hadn’t heard of it before my first trip to Argentina. My friend Paula took me there…
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Mar
London 1991 London 1992 Sydney 1995 London 1996 New York City 1996 London 2007 New York City 2007 Perth 2009 Buenos Aires 2009 London 2013 London 2014 Perth 2014 New York City 2015? Give up? Please scroll down… They’re when and where I could have seen The Phantom of the…
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Mar
The Tierra Santa (Holy Land) theme park in Buenos Aires re-creates The Creation, cramming six days’ work into 15 minutes. Is this proof that the Garden of Eden had a gym? Is this baboon flipping the bird?
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Mar
Around the time I went through a phase of buying animal fur, I started kissing the ground when visiting new places. First was Paraguay. I was in bed with a sore throat the following week. Here, I’ve just got out of the subway in The Bronx. Technically, this was my first time on the North…
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Mar
One way I learned Spanish was reading Argentina’s constitution. Section 16 begins: The Argentine Nation admits neither blood nor birth prerogatives: there are neither personal privileges nor titles of nobility. All its inhabitants are equal before the law, and admissible to employment without any other requirement than their ability. I also looked at signs. On…
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Mar
Swimming in Antarctica? Doing the Polar Plunge? No problem! They said Deception Island had thermal springs. The deception was that the Polar Plunge meant a plunge in the water beyond the thermal springs. Which was not thermal. Witness my first courageous effort here. In my post on The King and I, I discussed how a reviewer saw the movie Once is Not…
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Mar
Have I become more camp over the years? Exhibit A: The Chris Evert fake rhinestone frilly knickers from Perth’s 1999 Pride Parade. Exhibit B: The blue wig I wore on Rose Hancock Porteous’ reality TV show. Sadly for some, copyright issues prevent me from sharing that with you. Exhibit C: Gertrude my pet fox. Sadly for some,…
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Feb
In 1952, Gene Kelly starred in Singin’ in the Rain, widely considered one of the greatest movies of all time. It got two Oscar® nominations, winning neither. It might be tempting to say that the Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences doesn’t treat musicals kindly, but the previous year, another Gene Kelly movie – An…
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Feb
One reason I’m doing a show at Perth’s Fringe World 2016 is a show that I saw at Fringe World 2014. It was called Absolutely. I think my friend and I wanted to see something at The Blue Room Theatre, where, over a decade earlier, I’d staged both a play and a one-man show. A…
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Feb
Is that a Dalek on top of the falls? The Daleks were the first, and remain the most successful, alien monster in the TV series Doctor Who. Why were they so popular? As as writer, I’d like to think it was the writing. But the Daleks have been portrayed in many different ways. In their first story,…
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Feb
Florida (pronounced flor-EE-dah) is a pedestrian mall in the central shopping district of Buenos Aires. When I walked through the streets of Cusco, Peru (the nearest city to Machu Picchu), I was so obviously a tourist that I was constantly asked if I wanted to: get my shoes polished (odd when I was wearing sneakers); have…
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Jan
Before I went to my first Edinburgh Fringe Festival, in 2014, I scanned through over 3,000 events in the program, picked out those I wanted to see, compiled a list of when and where they were on … but when my friend Sam and I arrived, on that first afternoon, we got to the Royal Mile,…
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Jan
Mainland Antarctica does look chilly here, but the lowest it ever got outside on my cruise was about two degrees below freezing. It was January 2008, the middle of summer, just above the Antarctic Circle, so in theory we were in a temperate zone. Ninety-eight of the 110 passengers were American. For many, it would…
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Jan
If I’d seen Brokeback Mountain without knowing anything about it, I would have said it was a very good movie. Subtle performances, pristine landscapes, haunting music, Jake Gyllenhaal … but it had so much hype, the best film of all time, if not better, that I walked out a little disappointed. It was, I guess,…
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Jan
There seems to be an unwritten international law that great waterfalls must be on the border of two countries. Niagara Falls, for instance, straddle the USA and Canada. If Iguazu Falls were there, rather than in Argentina and Brazil (and close to Paraguay), they’d be the most famous in the world. Instead, I’d never heard of them until my…
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Jan
Unless there’s a strike. I actually did it in two.
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Dec
I was having Saturday morning breakfast in Subiaco with some friends who’d recently come back from New York City. They talked about how much they liked the light show on the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree. I told them about a big Christmas tree in Plaza de Mayo, Buenos Aires, in 2011. It also had a light-show: but it was one-off, because the light came…
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Dec
El Calafate (kah-lah-fah-tay) is a town in southern Patagonia, Argentina. By plane, it’s three hours south of Buenos Aires – or in my case, a four hour delay at the Jorge Newbery Airport, followed by a three hour flight. But delays have their advantages. I was travelling by myself. I’d been in a dorm of…
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Dec
At Cairns Airport, you can taste something peppermint flavoured from the chocolate shop, while lying outside on the grassed waiting area, absorbing the last remnants of tropical heat. Or you can follow the helpful instructions on the inside door of the mens’ toilet cubicle.
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Dec
George W Bush was probably not the most popular person in South America in November 2005. The President’s visit to Argentina for the 4th Summit of the Americas did not meet with universal local approval. On the first day of the summit, a homeless guy helped saved me from a line of men, with bandages over their faces and big…
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Dec
After her death in April 2013, I never thought I’d get to meet Margaret Thatcher. But she made a surprise comeback the following year at the Edinburgh Fringe. A man with a blouse, skirt and handbag – though maybe not a wig, as I think the hair was real – was Margaret Thatcher: Queen of Soho. A hundred-odd metres…
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Nov
I was recently in New York City, eating shrimp and sweet corn next to the Hudson River, about to make the short walk to the Lincoln Center Theater to see The King and I. ‘You wouldn’t think they’d name a theatre after Abraham Lincoln,’ I said to my Cousin Jo and friend JJ. ‘He didn’t…
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Nov
“During the many years of incarceration on Robben Island, we often looked across Table Bay at the magnificent silhouette of Table Mountain. To us on Robben Island, Table Mountain was a beacon of hope. It represented the mainland to which we knew we would one day return.” – Nelson Mandela 1998 There’s a reason President…
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Nov
Germans discovered and named Booth Island. Argentine maps say it’s in Antartida Argentina. Chilean maps class it as Territorio Antártico Chileno. It’s also said to be part of the British Antarctic Territory. Belgians called it Wandel Island. All of these countries are signatories to the Antarctic Treaty, which freezes all claims to Antarctica and nearby islands,…
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Nov
I was initially confused when I walked past this building in Harlem, New York City: But then I read the rest of the sign, wrapped around the side: It’s on Lenox Avenue, also known as Malcolm X Boulevard. I’m not sure that the Rev Dr King would have liked his building to be…
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Nov
When I was 31, I went back to the gym, walked more, ate better and lost a few inches around my waist. What outfit did I buy to show off my newly trim – well – trimmer figure? A Wonder Woman costume. Over the next four years, Wonder Woman turned up in unexpected places. When…
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Sep
Pride March, Buenos Aires, 2005, soon after a smoke bomb went off in Plaza de Mayo. The headlines I can make out are: ‘The safari style returns’ ‘Santa Cruz brings back the 507 million dollars deposited in Switzerland’ It rained a little that evening. I saw the Newspaper Woman again at the Pride March…
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Sep
Relieving yourself in Argentina may involve the ultimate sacrifice.
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Sep
This is the entrance to the Quebrada de las Conchas – Gorge of the Shells – in the north-west of Argentina. In Spanish, concha means ‘shell’. You might remember, from Lord of the Flies, the large shell called the ‘conch’, and how any boy holding it got to speak. In Spain, women with the name…
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Sep