12 February 2012 12:00 AM
Two stories dominated the news agenda last week – Harry Bloody Redknapp and Homs. I loathe football at the best of times, but the story of whether Redknapp might be considered as England manager when he's finished with Tottenham Hotspur is about as interesting as one of Piers Morgan's Tweets.
05 February 2012 12:00 AM
I am desperately trying to get fit in time for my final monster-hunting trip in Nepal. I'm off to try and find the Yeti, or the "Appalling Snowman" as my son calls him. Unfortunately, I broke four metatarsals in my left foot while on a television show in Argentina and, a year later, the foot is still giving me huge problems. This is very unfortunate as I have a six-day trek ahead of me. The word "trek' is a very passive sounding description for clambering up huge mountains at very high altitude while very cold in order to look for a hairy missing link.
29 January 2012 12:00 AM
I went to the National Television Awards last week. I don't normally go to awards ceremonies unless I'm presenting or receiving something. This rule comes after several disastrous evenings where I've got too drunk and offended too many people.
22 January 2012 12:00 AM
I'm now back in the UK recovering from a quite extraordinary trip to the Republic of the Congo. My aim was to reach the little-visited Lake Tele in the remote north of the country in an attempt to find put more about the mokele-mbembe, a legendary creature that is supposed to roam the area.
15 January 2012 12:00 AM
Brazzaville is quite an extraordinary place. It sits on the mighty river Congo, a vast expanse of muddy water dotted with dug-out canoes carrying sure-footed fishermen.
08 January 2012 12:00 AM
I'm off to the Congo for two weeks. I'm still travelling the world looking for reputed monsters to put in my new book, Scary Monsters and Super Creeps. This time I'm going after the mokele mbembe, a dinosaur-type creature that is supposed to inhabit Lake Tele in the far north of "good" Congo.
01 January 2012 12:00 AM
Tokyo is so big, so dense, so sprawling that it is more like an infinite number of villages that have been joined together by some crazed town planner. I had one day in the Japanese capital at the end of my monster-hunting trip in Hiroshima Prefecture. My plan was to take in the main sights of Tokyo, as well as getting all my Christmas shopping done in the best shopping city in the world, according to my Virgin in-flight magazine. I gathered together all the information available to me and decided I needed to visit Harajuku (to see weird manga kids), The Imperial Palace, Akihabara (electronics) and then Ginza, for some serious lady shopping. I hopped into a cab and headed for Harajuku. This was a big mistake as Tokyo cabs are eye-wateringly expensive.
18 December 2011 12:00 AM
I had very mixed feelings as the Shinkansen pulled into Hiroshima station. This was a city I had always wanted to visit. My father was in the Fleet Air Arm and was flying off HMS Implacable in the Coral Sea during the Second World War. On the morning of 6 August 1945, there was a notice posted on the aircraft carrier forbidding all aircraft from flying in the Hiroshima sector until further notice. Obviously they had no idea that this was the day America dropped the first atomic bomb on that city. Young as they were, a notice like this was like a red rag to a bull.
11 December 2011 12:00 AM
I'm not a lover of musical theatre. By this, I'm not subtly trying to put an end to the scandalous rumours that I'm a homosexual. No, it's just the truth. Musicals are not for me. OK – I did once enjoy Evita when I was a kid. I even bought the album.
04 December 2011 12:00 AM
Picking kids up from school is a tricky business. If I'm writing at home then I enjoy doing it, as it's a welcome break and an opportunity for me to stretch my legs and chat to a couple of parents. When I say stretch my legs, I don't walk there, despite it being quite close. I join the procession of four by fours blocking the Cotswolds lanes between four and five every afternoon.
27 November 2011 12:00 AM
Last week, I saw the funniest internet viral I have seen in years. It happened after a video was posted on YouTube of a posh dog-owner screaming at his dog, Benton, as he caused a deer stampede in Richmond Park. The internet went crazy with loads of hilarious pastiches, including Benton being responsible for the stampede in Jurassic Park, scaring the two backpackers in An American Werewolf in London and having Hitler go mental over who was on the dog-walking rota in his bunker in Berlin. If this means nothing to you, then go check them out – it's worth it.
20 November 2011 12:00 AM
As Syria slowly falls apart on blurry mobile phone footage, it brings back so many memories of this wonderful country. Growing up in Lebanon, I travelled all over Syria, from the opulent souks of Damascus to clambering the walls of Krak des Chevaliers, the greatest Crusader castle in the Middle East.
06 November 2011 12:00 AM
Napa Valley is no place for kids. It's California's wine country and my children, being only seven and 11, are not hugely into wine. I wandered into the Welcome Centre and asked a kindly looking lady behind a desk made of wine barrels what there was for kids to do.
30 October 2011 12:00 AM
I'm in San Francisco, relaxing for a couple of days in an unseasonably sunny City of Fog before venturing up into the wild Californian north to try and find Bigfoot. I'm always a bit wary of travelling to the United States because of the rather extreme immigration policies that George Bush brought into play after 9/11. The US started something called NSEERS (National Security Entry-Exit Registration System) that basically decided that anybody born in any of 25 named countries (whether a national of that country or not) were subject to intensive additional scrutiny before being allowed into the States.
23 October 2011 12:00 AM
I've finished my expedition to the glorious Okanagan Valley in British Columbia (Canada's California, apparently) investigating Ogopogo, the monster that is supposed to inhabit Lake Okanagan. Don't worry, I haven't gone all David Icke (yet) – this is for my new book, Scary Monsters and Super Creeps, and the subject gives me an excuse to visit some pretty interesting parts of the world. Canada was probably a brave choice for a first destination as it is seen as literary Mogadon by publishers. Bill Bryson supposedly wanted to write a book about the country but his publishers recoiled in horror. I love the place – I have a Canadian wife and spend every summer there – and hope to convert as many Brits as possible to the land of the beaver.
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