South Africa: 2019

A world away from the vineyards, safaris and huge shopping malls in Cape Town Wharf, Langa is a township where the Apartheid government sought to control Black South Africans, yet the people forged a tight-knit community that resisted and persevered. Today it’s a vibrant place that educates visitors on its history and suffering through the heritage museum, and welcomes you to explore the Arts & Culture Centre, as well as walking streets full of play, small businesses, and food stalls serving the community.

I wonder how much Beijing has changed since I was there. There had been rapid development which made parts unrecognisable from the scenes in '80 Days Around the World' what would have been filmed around 20 years before I visited. Coming up on 15 years since then, how different is it now?

We only had a brief stop in this beautiful medieval town, 24KM from Geneva, but it certainly left an impression.

Some days it just all goes wrong. This was one of them. I'd been working in Chennai on a secondment and was coming to the end of my time there, where I'd have a couple of weeks to myself. This was the first place I visited, and promptly began feeling sick about 10 minutes after arriving. It was a scorching day, and I'd arrived with the sun at it's highest. I dragged myself around the complex for a single lap stopping as many times to throw up as I did to take a photo, before collapsing into the rear seat of the hotel car for the long ride home.

A night in luxury aboard the RMS Queen Mary. A once proud jewel of the oceans reduced to a floating hotel. She may have been grubby and crumbling in places, but the charm and beauty remained.

By day the Jemaa el-Fnaa is a bustling market with traders, and entertainers seeing a coin or two from the visitors. By night it transforms into a huge open air food court. Brightly lit against the night, with a myriad of scents from the cooking meats and spices.

Tartu Cathedral is one of the biggest churches in Estonia and the only medieval church with two spires in the country. Its construction began in the thirteenth century and continued until the early sixteenth century. The final parts completed were its spires. The church was destroyed during the Livonian War and has not functioned as a place of worship since. Today, the University of Tartu Museum operates in the Cathedral.

The Formula 1 Exhibition at the eXcel Area in London as seen in December 2024.