Some people just get more handsome with age…
Barbados: Foreday Morning at the Crop Over carnival and rum.
Meeting the legendary Brian Lara and asking if he liked cricket, rum.
Winning a limbo competition. Soca music. And rum. Let’s rumba in Barbados and My kiss with Rihanna. Visit www.visitbarbados.org.
Our war heroes
Flanders and the Somme: Presenting the wreath at the Last Post at Menin Gate.
Finding my Great-Uncle’s grave in Ieper and his brother’s name on the Thiepval arch.
Drinking one of Tom’s 100-plus beers in Tom’s Bierhaus out of a horn in a wooden clasped implement. In Flanders fields.
And https://gtitravel.ie and https://www.visitflanders.com/en/?country=en_GB and https://www.visit-somme.com/great-war.
Natasha, LA and I
Los Angeles and Southern California: These words are her own… Natasha Bedingfield.
Marilyn, Donald Duck, The Beach Boys, Jason Derulo.
And Star Wars’ Galaxy Edge. California, the Golden Globes State. Visit https://visitanaheim.org, https://disneyland.disney.go.com/destinations/disneyland/?CMP=OKC-dlr_themeparks_gmap_38.
Better Dead than Red
Jordan: Floating in the Dead Sea, obviously. Snorkelling in the Red Sea.
Site of John the Baptist’s baptism of Jesus Jordan/Israel and Moses looking out onto The Promised Land in Mt Nebo.
Petra, Indiana Jones et al and Wadi Rum and Lawrence of Arabia. See G Adventures www.gadventures.com and www.visitjordan.com. The water of life, Petra, and the sands of time.
American Trilogy
Memphis and Mississippi: Martin Luther King, Myrlie Evers, The Underground Railroad.
BB King, Beale Street, Stax Records.
Elvis, Graceland, Sun Studio.
Visit https://visitmississippi.org and https://www.memphistravel.com. And my American Trilogy… The Promised Land, The story of the Blues and The King of Kings.
Under African skies
South Africa: Tigers, Springboks, rhinos with their horns sawn off.
Bottlenose blue dolphins, spekboom, the magic plant which is countering climate change.
Nelson Mandela, xhosa, that clicking language which our guide Sisseko and Madeba speak and the Voting Line sculpture in Port Elizabeth.
And I’ve only scratched the surface… What’s new pussycat? And www.southafrica.net.
Tomorrow: My Sporting Five
10 thoughts on “13 years an Irishman”