As events unfold in Mali and Algeria, we need to avoid jumping to too many grand conclusions.

People often end up doing jobs that they never intended. In 2004, I found myself on a blisteringly hot day eating freeze-dried raw octopus and drinking Japanese Ocha with a Colonel from the Japanese Self Defence Force. We were sitting in his tent in a Japanese military camp in south west Iraq miles from any other human inhabitation. Later, driving across the desert back to Basra, I pondered on what odd combination of events had led me to be taking tea with Japanese soldiers while Iraq descended into sectarian-fuelled violence all around us. [Read more…]

When the French governed Indo-China they had a saying that the Vietnamese planted the rice, the Cambodians watched it grow and the Lao listened to it grow. After a week in northern Laos I have a sense of how slow and remote life might have been in colonial times. Even today, arriving from the bustle of Bangkok, it takes a while to adjust to the fact that life here moves at a different pace.

It is easier and more comfortable to explore northern Laos by boat than by road, The Mekong River runs like a major artery for the length of the country and its vast network of tributaries remains the best way to visit the remote interior. Having watched the movie Apocalypse Now more times than is good for my psychological well-being, I was initially disorientated that a journey along the Mekong did not involve musical accompaniment from The Doors, The Rolling Stones and Wagner. [Read more…]

‘Nothing comes to my desk that is perfectly solvable. Otherwise, someone else would have solved it’, explained US President Barack Obama to a journalist in 2012. He said this in a moment of candour before the presidential election campaign got underway in earnest, before such frank insights are replaced by the blunt certainties required by campaigning. He went on to explain that to be president you need to feel comfortable about making decisions when there is a 30% to 40% chance that the decision will be the wrong one. [Read more…]

It is 3am in Seoul and, for now, sleep eludes me. I look out of the window across the Gangnam district of the Korean capital. Gangnam is now famous for the internet music video sensation – Gangnam Style – which has put this upmarket but otherwise unremarkable area of downtown Seoul on the map.

The Gangnam Style dance looks rather like trying to energetically ride a horse with your underpants on fire so I contemplate leaping around my hotel room in similar vein in an attempt to tire myself out and thus fall asleep before the early morning client meeting I have just flown nearly 9,000 kilometres to attend. But the chances of me being able do so without breaking at least one limb are remote. When dancing skills – in fact, any type of hand-eye or rhythmic coordination – were being handed out, I was right at the back of the queue. Watching somebody wade through custard is the kindest way anybody has ever come up with to describe my dance floor manoeuvres. [Read more…]

There is a statue of Sir Winston Churchill outside my hotel in Mexico City. I have no idea why. I don’t think he ever visited Mexico or played any role in the country. The statue depicts him in his war-time boiler suit with what is meant to be an expression of grim determination on his face. Actually, he just looks grumpy.

I am not sure why:  a sunny Sunday morning in the upmarket Polanco district of Mexico City is a pretty cheerful place to be with its relaxed café culture and tree lined streets. It is rather like Barcelona. But with fewer pick pockets. [Read more…]