"I am currently away from the office..."

To explain the lack of site updates, you should know that I am on extended leave. I will not return to the office until mid-September. In the meantime if you live in any of the following places, you may have already seen me as I passed through:

• Norway
  
• Oslo
  
• Flåm (highlight!)
• Voss
• Finse (highlight!)
• Tromso
• Hurtigruten boat trip (highlight!)
• Kirkenese
• Russia
• Murmansk
• Solovki Islands
• Petrozavodsk (highlight!)
• Kizhi
• Vologda
• Moscow (highlight!)
• Syria
• Damascus
• Palmyra (highlight!)
• Qasr al-Heir
  
• Tartus
• Aleppo
• Qal'at Sim'an (highlight!)
• Dead Cities
  
• Hama
• Mar Musa (highlight!)
• Ma'loula
• Quneitra
• Lebanon
• Beirut
• Baalbek
• Qadisha Valley (highlight!)
• Bcharre
• Ehden Forest Reserve (highlight!)
• Chouf Mountains

Holiday Reading

• "Children of Men" by P.D.James. A good start but a poor end. The recent film adaptation is better.
• "Homo Britannicus" by Chris Stringer. A somewhat plodding but nevertheless interesting history of human & proto-human habitation in Britain.
• "My Life as a Fake" by Peter Carey. A dark and bitter story of schizophrenia and unintended outcomes.
• "The Great War for Civilisation" by Robert Fisk. A lengthy but compelling insight into the horrors inflicted on the people of the Middle East by foreign powers and home-grown despots.

Holiday Listening

• BBC World Service Radio