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
The past week in Perth saw an outpouring of nostalgia for the WACA Ground, which may well have just staged its last cricket Test match. I was there on Day 4, and after donating a gold coin, for just enough of Day 5 to see the Ashes change back into Australian hands. In 2013, when…
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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
