Sarah L

@claireboobbyer @TravWriters @ExploreCHS Congratulations, Claire!

Thank you so much @TravWriters @ExploreCHS Totally delighted! 🏆

@TravelEdNigel Groan… 😅

Excellent railway station. Really cuts the mustard 🚄🇫🇷

@ObserverUK @M_elanieReid I read your Times column avidly, for years, Melanie, and am crushed to hear this news. Thank you for continuing to write.

‘After I broke my neck my husband looked after me. Now I care for him’. In the first of her new column, journalist @M_elanieReid explains how a riding accident changed her life. Read more: bit.ly/4jYGfFE

The significance of experiential travel to hoteliers, now on the #globalstage at @ATMDubai

@JimTomJazz @YouTube One of my absolute favourites of yours/Stacey’s - I must have played it a hundred times or more. Thank you for sharing this very moving version.

@lisaminot Only 4%??!

BREAKING: Press release surveys in my inbox this morning: Brits will travel more in 24 Brits will travel less in 24 Brits will spend more Brits will spend less Brits will go to UK more Brits will go to UK less 4% of Brits have joined Mile High Club You are welcome.

@sharrond62 @TheAttagirls @jfoster2019 I’ve just finished re-reading Kate’s biography, and am astonished and overwhelmingly grateful all over again for that level of reporting.

@TheAttagirls @jfoster2019 Great biography too

Woman of the Day Kate Adie born OTD 1945 in Whitley Bay started off as a station assistant at BBC Radio Durham but yearned to be a reporter and got her big break in 1980 when she was the first on scene as the SAS stormed the Iranian Embassy siege. She crouched behind a car door and gave a running commentary - live and unscripted - as the SAS abseiled in to rescue the hostages under the cover of smoke bombs. Kate insisted on being on the spot thereafter, reporting on The Troubles, the American bombing of Tripoli in 1986, the Lockerbie bombing in 1988, the Gulf War, Bosnia, the Rwandan genocide, and - her most significant assignment - live reporting of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Kate and her team were reportedly the only news crew out on the Square. The actions of the Chinese Army have never once been acknowledged by China but we know it happened because Kate Adie was there. She met Colonel Gaddafi but refused to act as an intermediary between the Libyan and British governments because it would impugn her professional standing as a journalist. A drunken Libyan Army commander shot her at point blank range in anger. The bullet nicked her collar bone but she ignored it and carried on reporting, never missing a beat. It was a standing joke that no conflict anywhere in the world was official until Kate Adie showed up, and if you saw her getting off a plane, your best bet was to get on the return flight sharpish. “We seem to be living through a time where there are threats to journalists everywhere, whether it's repression or censorship, and it's hugely important to recognise that the intention of journalism is to tell it as it is - and we need to do that more than ever now.”

@ragipsoylu Galling. Thanks for responding.

@akratitos Already in effect

A wave of increase in indirect taxes this morning in Turkey • Vat increased to 20% from 18%, and to 10% from 8% in some areas • Foreign phone registration fee jumped from $233 to $765 • 50% increase in all public fees [passport, ID etc] • More taxes on sports bets

@ragipsoylu When does this mobile increase come into effect, please?

@IamTheGhost24 If you bring smart phones from abroad to Turkey for your personal use, you have to register it, and you need to pay taxes for them

@Hanifkureishi It’s understandable this move, so long anticipated, is an anti-climax right now. But it will shift. And in the meantime, we are (I am) so humbled by your frankness and honesty.

The constant nausea means I eat very little. Maybe half a slice a toast, a cup of tea, some chocolate, a piece of melon and a few mouthfuls of macaroni cheese. Friends try to entice me with delicious dishes but there is nothing so delicious that I want to eat it. All food tastes the same to me. Cardboardy and difficult to swallow. It stays in my mouth for too long. I have no appetite. No libido. My battery is flat. And so would yours be, I guess, if you had to live in a hospital. I try to remember the names of the nurses. I am in a side room on a dementia ward. The patients cry out and scream. Some of them walk around half-naked. One dragged himself across the floor, followed by a leaking bag of piss. In the night many try to abscond. Sometimes one of them comes to the door of my room, stands looking around vacantly, before shuffling off. I’m hoping to get out of here to another facility where I will have more physiotherapy and then I can think about the possibility of having my house readjusted and going home. That at least is something. I know this is not a cheerful blog. I wasn’t in such a bad mood in the last facility, possibly because I was looking forward to returning to London. Now I’m in London, it’s been a strain and a disappointment. Hanif XX

CIRCUS CHAIR PARTS We try to keep a rotation of visitors coming, from ten in the morning to nine at night, so that there is always somebody here with me. Isabella is here all day, but any visitor is welcome, since they provide distraction from my feeling of being trapped in this room in a busy west London hospital. The ideal hospital visitor stays for at least one hour. And I like the self-absorbed ones, people who talk about themselves, bringing the outside world in. Since I can no longer bear to read the newspapers, watch television or listen to podcasts, other people are the only entertainment for me. Sometimes guests do voices and imitations – anything to stop me thinking about all that I have lost and whether I will get any of it back again. I am living in an unreal world, where I entirely depend on the kindness of friends. Some people come only once, to have a look at me and pay their respects. Others come back. Some people come everyday, they are my favourites. Some stay too long, and others disappear too quickly to have their hair done. When they leave it’s upsetting, since I don’t know when I will see them again, and I fear there being a gap between people. One visitor who is deafer than he likes to admit sits in more or less complete silence making me feel as morose as he is. Another guest is more miserable than I am, and I feel compelled to try and cheer him up. My children come most days but usually only for a short time, and sometimes they are angry that I am ill. But I love hearing about their adventures. Sometimes I am so sullen that I can barely speak. I have been here much longer than I thought I would be. The bureaucracy is maddening. The NHS doesn’t like to say yes to anything. Some of the doctors seem to enjoy bringing bad news, particularly regarding the hospital bug I have picked up. When they touch me, the nurses wear full PPE garb. It is as if I am a toxic object for them, even though the bug is not easily contagious. There are rules and protocols that have to be followed. A cheerful psychologist came to see me and I soon reduced her to helplessness. After all, my depressed condition is caused by my reality and not by anything imaginary or historical. After a time, trying to be helpful, she suggested I get a personal assistant; and then she told me that when I get home I should get a dog. It might be able to pick up things for me, like my telephone. Since I already have a dog, and he tends to destroy things rather than fetch them, I wondered if her suggestion was as helpful as it might have been. I am constantly nauseous, which I suspect is caused by constipation. The nurses are always asking whether I have opened my bowels. I was considering writing a hospital novel called: “Have You Opened Your Bowels?” I’m sure it would be a hit. I can only open my bowels with the help of an enema, which I have twice a week, and I can only pee with the help of a catheter. Soon I will have a hole drilled into my pubic bone so that I can pee directly into a bag without urinating through my penis.   Once a day I go to the gym. The physiotherapists are cheerful and talk a lot. They try to get me moving. They stand me up. The best bit is that I can see the London skyline out of the window. On a cupboard to the right there is a sign saying “Circus Chair Parts and Crutches”. The nights are the worst.  I tend to fall asleep between nine and ten o’ clock and wake up around four, which is when I have terrible thoughts and loneliness. It is impossible to have company at that time and to turn off one’s mind. Sometimes if I’m lucky I can sleep through until seven, which means I have only to survive until ten, which is when Isabella arrives and my daily life begins. When Isabella leaves, she calls my old school-friend in Canada, and he and I talk for an hour and a half. He has a low sonorous voice and tells entertaining stories, which get me in the mood for the night. We call him the Bromley Scheherazade.

@maustyn Safe travels, Austin! Enjoy your next adventure!

Time to settle down and do a crossword on my flight. Wait, what’s that? Did I accidentally include a glass of champagne and the business class screen? And pervasive air of smugness? instagr.am/p/Coq7Qa5pGJQ/

@BoyntonTravels Congratulations, Graham!

My new book on Peter Beard is published by St Martin's Press in early October. To pre-order, as you should, go here (read.macmillan.com/lp/wild/) Early reviews are excellent and New York Times and New York Post have featured on Fall must-read lists.

People fleeing for their lives from war & persecution should be treated as we would hope to be treated, if we were them. Please watch & share this film if you agree. #NotACriminal #TogetherWithRefugees with @RefugeeCouncil

Update: if you are a Ukrainian national travelling to the UK with a valid visa, we can offer a free Eurostar ticket to London. Find out more: bddy.me/3sIYU0p

One Green Bean London hires senior travel and tourism trio #pr #comms bit.ly/2Z4jImB

guy who can't remember life before lockdown

One More Day.... One Day More x

An antidote to the current madness.

Travelling with cranes along the Loire valley #France