Canuk

I can't imagine a situation when picking up a 15 year old boy would be a good idea! 🤔

If anyone could name a single benefit of what passes today as organised public religion.... Nash, I think, represents far too many people....

Agree. If his faith is taken away it has to be replaced by something, otherwise all that left is an empty shell. Tom...just plain ugh!

I want St Zita to intervene, regularly....patron saint of patience...

Strange that both your keenest followers are called "Anthony".... 😚

My favourite Tuchman is Distant Mirror: Calamitous 14th century It paint an amazing picture of a period I had really glossed. Recommended. Old...hmmm, probably a state of mind. Some days I am older than others!

He certainly has had the rough end of the pineapple! Obviously he couldn't mention the wheelchair in his initial letters as he would have outed himself, which was against the rules. But this letter expresses so painfully how hard it is to gain friends when you have a disability: you hide it and your damned, you mention it and you are equally damned. He seems to have huge amount of inner strength...hope that continues. Very touching. Well written. Thanks.

What an amazing start to an unfinished journey! You seemed to have rushed the last 50ish years (in your story, anyway), but they obviously worked for you! My partner and I waited until we were both 40. But we have done a lot in the last 20 years. Not sure we will get to 50 years together, my family have a habit of falling off the twig one month after their 75th birthdays, (so I'll be stuffing up the family Christmas in 2033!) but we will give it a go. We don't tend to argue...we explain until the other understands....its worked for us! Very impressed with the amount you packed in in the first 25 years. A good life time of stories. Just watch "Years and Years" (Netflix) a future dystopia, but it finished with the stupidity of preserving us and our bodies for some sort of immortality as the "us" that makes us is our connections to others, the stories and histories..... Thank you for taking us on your journey. Fascinating, challenging, bloody scary at times, but very human, very insightful. All the best for the next stages, 😙

Sorry, but where's the argument "Sutherland /Callas"; Sutherland was an opera singer...Callas did sing...👍😝😎 Typing "Callas": Google auto correct wanted "call as"...I am old and beyond saving.... I forgive you re Tuchman...I think my boy and I are the last of a lost, so to speak!😙

The injections horrified me! Waaaaay out of my comfort zone! I do hope the "love of your life" lasted. I met mine in a bar in Toronto "Woody's" ( emblem a rhinoceros head) - so subtle. Within minutes we both realised we liked an obscure author Barbara Tuchman and 20 years later we are still together!

Well you certainly brought out the insensitivity and unthinkingness of youth! Even the last paras where he talks about Isaac being "superhuman" its all about himself .I'd like to say that "if he reflects" but of course, what teenager reflect on anyone or anything..."😁 Great writing. Very real.

It's probably a country I'd be a tourist in, rather than a traveller, but my parents (then in their 70s) visited and because extremists had executed someone or other, they seemed to be the only ones there. So they found the place extraordinarily pleasant. So I'd suggest that finding a time when no one else is there is the ideal!

Singing, dancing, drawing, poly-lingual, pan sexual (ish!) ..quite the renaissance man! Now you have travelled through territory familiar to me. Cyprus, (Trodos mountains, paphos, etc. I did cross into TRNC but by 1980 due to lack of Turkish investment it was a wasteland.), Rhodes (Lindos, the old city, amazing orchards,) and Greece. Many many happy memories.

"No news", used to be one of the blissful parts of travel! I, too was the victim of an attempted pickpocket in southern Sicily. My wallet was also tied to me, but for the poor unfortunate boy ( he was under 15 ) a policeman saw him... the boy was dragged off before me and my limited Italian could intervene. Enjoying the journey!

Lawrence Durrell, the cause of much of my wanderlust! (Bitter Lemons had me all over Cyprus!) I haven't yet made it to Egypt as on each of my "extensive" travels it was always in uproar! I would have been terrified with the Tunisian minister.... not as brave a traveller as you, at all!

Philanthropy; possibly the worst possible way to run social services. No real assessment, no certainty, susceptible to lobby groups. While this is obviously fiction, it does high light how the whims of the 1% can affect the disadvantaged. Hopefully Harlan comes to the rescue!!,

Hmmm, and here I had hoped when I finally got to north Africa, it wouldn't have changed much since my great aunt in the late 30s... because, of course, Africa hasn't changed not like the "progressive" west! Well, I aren't quite that innocent, but I did hope that Tunis and Algeirs would be still like Marrakesh, Fez and some of the great ancient Arab cities...obviously too late. But we will get there! I too never felt afraid while travelling except where it was my own fault; getting lost in back streets of Marseilles, and a con man in Athens. Memories like those you are putting to paper almost make getting old palatable!

Do not start me on "balanced budgets" otherwise you'll get a rant that will go on for pages! I haven't seen my namesake since he was about 5 or 6, 😕 and yes I read fast...too fast, a product of a 35 year career where I was expected to produce instant summaries of complex reports! Sad really... I did actually read the entire report into education. It is actually more damning than the gloss that appears in the media. It's not that we are doing worse than Singapore ( we have never done as well as Singapore!) but we are doing worse than Australian students in 2012...utterly coincidently the year Abbott became PM!

My geography teacher came out to me too, after he had left his wife...they had named their first child after me...sadly he was a very early victim of AIDS. A whole lot of what ifs in that last disjointed sentence. I do need to get back to Scotland. Hopefully when it's not raining! I did stay in a few hostels in my travels and yes there were the desperate "where are you going, may I come too?" travellers, but also some amazing people that were characters so far removed from my life experience and therefore fascinating! Loving the journey!

What parallel lives we have lead! My sales experience was the toy section of a Department store at Christmas... parents were worse than the children ( tho' at one stage I had to assist with an "emergency" delivery of womens undergarments, for which I received extra pay called "embarrassment money"!). Edinburgh. In my two weeks there I never saw the castle as it rained continuously and the clouds were so low...I did get to see greyfriars bobbie as his statue is on the ground, and I saw many cafes and pubs as I kept out of the rain. So really just like your visit, just tamer and far less interesting!😁

Interesting your comment about Europeans and people from the ME being your readers. While I truly love GA and an awful lot of the stories here, sometime the inability of certain citizens of the US to undertake just a little self reflection is amazing and I think their writing suffers because of it. That said the only writer I have truly blocked comes from south of the equator! As far as age I have assumed you are about a decade older than me, as we seem to have some shared experiences, with you being braver than me and starting your exploration at a slightly younger age! I am sure if I could write about my travels it would be extremely pedestrian compared to "Dancing Bare"!

You have an amazing ability to not only thread the needle, but pick the right needle! Truly amazing time that has produced beautiful memories, now a great tale. Thanks.

Oh! How things had changed by the 80s. Some Italian men may have been interested in pinching women's bums, but an equal number hunted Australian, New Zealand and Canadian males! As for the customs/immigration experience, mine was in the US at LAX and while they didn't stick a finger (or anything else) up my bum, there was an hour of mental torture which amazes me to this day. They never identified what the issue was, but they seemed serious enough. Then as bizarrely and spontaneously as it started it finished, I was ordered to dress and leave. Compared to the Swiss who not only unpacked and repacked my back pack but they did it so beautifully I didn't want to undo it for days! The past is a different place. And I must be getting old, as at times I'd go back in a heartbeat!

What an open minded group! As far as you anyway. I am a little confused by their attitude to culture; did they ever say what they were travelling for? It sounds like it was a list ticking exercise! I met some Russians travelling (by train) in 1979/80. They were "allowed" to travel from Moscow to Rome and back, with three days in Rome. They were among the most intelligent and interested travelling companions I encountered. Glad you survived your whirlwind tour!

Avoiding Bob Dylan and his ilk, and loving Paris...yep pretty good summary!