In This Place, but in Another Time

The Place: Mỹ Sơn, Quảng Nam Province, Central Vietnam
The Time: 04-Apr-2012
Another Time: 1965-73 The Vietnam or American War, depending on perspective

In this place, but in another time,

Jungle paths, My Son

A callow youth I could have been

(But for an accidental of place of birth),

Armed to the teeth with guns and fear,

Might have peered, myopic before his time,

Into the dark tangle of alien thorns

And wondered if death was being dealt that day.

I photographed a butterfly and moved away.

The Knight butterfly, Lebadea Martha (I think)

The Place: Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina
The Time: 25-May-2012
The Other Time: 1992-5 Bosnian War

In this place, but in another time

The former front line, Mostar

The baleful rat of nationalism was freed to run.

Former friends and neighbours set to killing with a will,

And once this sixfold harvester of souls had turned

Mosques, churches and cathedrals into rubble,

They shelled the link that had bound them all.

Then, knowing they had gone too far, they stopped, the rat was fed.

I photographed the rebuilt bridge and shook my head

The Old Bridge, Mostar (2012)

The Place: Auschwitz II-Birkenau, Poland
The Time: July 2002
Another Time: 1942-45 The Holocaust, World War II

In this place, but in another time

Just part of the Birkenau camp

Men and women, counting themselves civilized,

Denied the humanity of others, not so different from themselves,

(A difference found and magnified simplifies this trick).

The tourist throng I stood among,

Well-fed and wearing bright-coloured, comfortable, casual clothes,

Shifted from foot to foot and made no sound,

I photographed the railhead then stared at the ground.

The Railhead, Birkenau
The half destroyed gas chambers and crematoria are just to the right

The Place: The Choeung Ek Killing Field, Phnom Penh, Cambodia
The Time: 17-Feb-2014
Another Time:1975-9 The Cambodian Genocide

In this place, but in another time

Human Bones in the path, Choeung Ek

To recreate a nation’s Golden Age

‘New People’, City dwellers, teachers, wearers of glasses, intellectuals all,

Found incapable of change, had to be removed.

Brutalised child soldiers brought them to this field,

Hacked adults to death, bashed out their children’s brains upon a tree.

Now every rain unearths a crop of bleached bone,

I photographed a grave, men, women, children, all unknown.

Mass grave, Choeung Ek killing field

The Place: Somme Department, France
The Time: 06-July-2009
Another Time: 07-July-1916, The Welsh Division Attack on Mametz Wood, Battle of the Somme, World War I

In this place, but in another time

The Welsh Division Memorial and Mametz Wood

An army of young men I could have marched among,

(But for an accidental date of birth),

Strode down the open slope where now our Dragon stands

To storm the hill of mud and stumps beyond.

Machine guns spat their welcome.

The Dragon tore at the cruel wire, but death must have its say.

I photographed a poppy and slunk away

Poppies, Mametz Wood

All text and photographs © David Williams. No reproduction without permission

Heartfelt thanks to Lucinda Wingard, for giving me the title (in a comment on the Mỹ Sơn post) and for subsequent encouragement.

A Collection of Arcs de Triomphe (none of them in Paris) Part 1: Pre 1900

Triumphal Arches - What is and What is Not

This is the third iteration of this post. The original, published 01/04/2014, was ‘Four Arcs de Triomphe (none of them in Paris). The second, 29/06/2018, included newly collected arches, but also omitted Lutyens’ India Gate from the earlier post on the grounds it was a War Memorial, not a Triumphal Arch.

Defining a Triumphal Arch is difficult. Some arches called Triumphal have no associated triumph, and then there are Monumental Gates and War Memorials which can look very similar.

Although retaining the title, I have chosen a new and more inclusive definition for these posts (there are now two of them, this one and post-1900). For the purposes of this blog an ‘Arc de Triomphe’ is an arch with no structural purpose. This definition includes war memorials built in arch form – like the India Gate mentioned above and also Monumental Gates as long as they were built to be symbolic i.e. not city gates built as part of a wall, even if the wall has long gone. Another qualification of inclusion is that I have been there and taken the photograph.

Almost all modern arches owe a debt to the Parisian Arch, because it was (almost) the first modern Arc de Triomphe; but it was not, of course, the original. Like so much in Europe, Triumphal Arches are a Roman idea.

Classical Arches

None of my modern arches are in Paris, so none of my classical arches are in Rome.

In order of construction they are:

Hadrian's Arch, Gerasa, Jordan

Built 129 CE Visited 10th of November 2019

Jordan

There site of Gerasa (modern Jerash) in northern Jordan has been inhabited since prehistory. The city, though, was founded by Alexander the Great who breezed through in 333 BCE, or by one of his successors. The Romans arrived in 63 BCE and Gerasa became part of the Roman Province of Syria. Set in a relatively fertile area, with iron-ore deposits nearby the city could not but thrive. In 106 CE it became part of the Province of Arabia and became even richer thanks to the Emperor Trajan's road building programme. The start of the 2nd century saw much new building and a new grid plan, and then the honour of an imperial visit. Trajan, who had been responsible for much of Gerasa's recent prosperity, died in 117, so it was Hadrian who made the visit in 129, and thus the Triumphal Arch bears his name.

Hadrian's Arch, Jerash/Gerasa

The Arch of Marcus Aurelius, Tripoli

Built 165 CE, Visited April 2006

Libya

We visited Libya in 2006, the home of two well preserved/restored Roman arches. The Arch of Marcus Aurelius in Tripoli was built to commemorate the victory of Marcus's adopted brother, Lucius Verus, over the Parthians. It seems a thin excuse for building an arch so far away from the events, but perhaps he felt in need of a monument.

The Arch of Marcus Aurelius, Tripoli

The Arch of Septimius Severus, Leptis Magna

Built 203 CE, Visited April 2006

The ruins of Leptis Magna lie 130 km east of Tripoli. Septimius Severus, Rome’s only African emperor, was born here in 145 CE. He became emperor in 193 and ruled until he fell ill attempting to conquer Caledonia, and died in York in 211. He is honoured by an arch in Rome commemorating his victory over the Parthians (it seems Lucius Verus failed to finish them off) and this one in his home town.

The Arch of Septimius Severus, Leptis Magna

The Modern Link

Napoleon in a Toga, Bastia

France

After the Romans, triumphal arches went out of fashion until the days of Napoleon who rather fancied himself as a latter day Roman emperor. The wonderfully camp statue below is in Bastia the capital of northern Corsica. Napoleon was born in Ajaccio, the capital of southern Corsica – is it possible that Bastia was taking the mickey out of their rival’s favourite son?

Napoleon in a toga, Bastia

Planning the Paris Arc de Triomphe started in 1806 but it was not completed until 1836 by which time some of the shine had come off Napoleon’s triumphs. That did not deter the Parisians, nor indeed many others, as where Paris led the rest followed. St Petersburg has one (1829), as has New York (1892) and Mexico City (1938). London hopped on the bandwagon early, the Wellington Arch in Green Park dates from 1826 - though before I began researching triumphal arches I had never heard of it.

Modern Arches pre-1900

For 20th and 21st Century Arches, see Part 2

So, in order of construction....

The Corinthian Arch, Stowe, Buckinghamshire

Built 1765 Visited 30th July 2014 and subsequently

United Kingdom

The Napoleonic era may have re-invented Triumphal Arches, but my first example is an outlier. Built 4 years before Napoleon was born, it was a product of the 18th century fascination with everything classical, even when they misunderstood the context.

The Temple Family became rich from sheep farming. In 1683 Sir Richard Temple started building the first Stowe House. His son, who married into more wealth and became Lord Cobham started work on the garden. Over the next few generations as they married into more and more wealth, and acquired more names and more titles, they built one of the finest houses and the finest garden of its type in England.

And a great garden needs a great entrance. The Corinthian Arch was built in 1765 at the end of the long drive.

The Corinthian arch at Stowe, photographed from half way down the drive

Visiting great gardens was popular in the 18th century, but the casual visitor did not enter through the arch, they were diverted via the family’s New Inn. The same is true today, the road swings right to the National Trust car park behind the (not so) New Inn. Once inside, you can approach the arch on foot.

The Corinthian Arch, Stowe

The arch represents a triumph over the ‘little people’ – anybody who had less money than the Temples – which was just about everyone. Arrogant and high handed they kept on spending and in 1848, four generations after they had been the richest family in the country, Richard Plantagenet Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville (I said they collected names!) eventually spent them into bankruptcy. The rest of the British aristocracy smirked quietly.

Arcul de Triumf, Chişinău

Moldova

Built 1841 Visted 24th June 2018

The modest capital of Moldova has an appropriately modest triumphal arch, 13m high and sporting a clock that would not look out of place on a railway station.

Arcul de Triumf

There were 12 Russo-Turkish Wars, the first 1568-70 and last World War One which ended the Ottoman and Russian Empires. Designed by Luca Zauşkevici the arch commemorates the Russian victory in the 1828-9 version of this fixture. It was built to house a 6.4t bell made from melted down Ottoman cannons originally intended for the cathedral bell tower (the predecessor of the one in this picture), but it would not fit. It strikes the hour with a rather unmusical ‘dunk’.

Arc de Triomf, Barcelona

Spain

Built 1888 Visited 29th March 2008

A whimsical piece of modernista architecture with Islamic-style brickwork, Barcelona’s Arc de Triomf was designed by Josep Vilaseca and built in 1888 as the entrance to the Barcelona World Fair.

Arc de Triomf, Barcelona

The arch represents no military triumph, real or imagined, and the sculpture on the front frieze is called Barcelona rep les nacions (Barcelona welcomes the nations). It was a marginal inclusion under the previous criteria, but I felt it represented an altogether healthier expression of national (in this case Catalan) pride than any of the other Arcs de Triomphe.

The 11th Hour of the 11th Day of the 11th Month, 1918-2018

And so the centenary of the Great War, the War to End All Wars comes to its conclusion. This is a companion to my earlier posts, Ypres, Tyne Cot and the Menin Gate marking the start of hostilities in August 2014 and The Somme, One Hundred Years Ago Today on the 1st of July 2016.

This blog is primarily about our travels. Lynne and I have seen great religious monuments, like Angkor Wat and the Shwedagon Pagoda, monuments to power, like the palaces of Rajasthan, and monuments to love like the Taj Mahal. But we have also seen grimmer monuments and visited places that make you stop and think; the bombed-out streets of Mostar, the Killing Fields of Cambodia and the industrialised horror of Auschwitz all ask terrible questions about the nature of humanity. So does the cemetery strewn countryside of northern France.

And the Great War, the one that did not quite end all wars, has its monuments, too.

Canadian Memorial, Vimy Ridge

But the great monuments are not as moving as the graveyards which often lie beside them.

Canadian graveyard, Vimy Ridge

Throughout Britain and France and across the world there are memorials to those who died. The memorial in Harrogate is typical for a town of its modest size. It bears 721 names from the Great War….

War memorial, Harrogate

…and there is even one in São Brás de Alportel in the Algarve...

Memorial plaque on the council office, Sao Bras

...bearing the names of six Portuguese soldiers, five of whom died on the Western Front. Portugal sent 50,000 troops to France after declaring war on Germany in 1916.

Memorial plaque, Sao Bras

But perhaps this is a day for a traveller to be at home. Swynnerton in Staffordshire is today a one pub, two churches, one post office village (and we are lucky to still have our pub and post office) [2023 Update: No longer. The Post Office went a couple of years ago. I am happy yo say the pub still thrives] It has some 750 residents, most of whom (myself included) live on the 1970s housing estate, or the recent additions adjacent to it. In 1918 Swynnerton was far smaller, barely more than a hamlet, but it was an important hamlet as it contained Swynnerton Hall, home to Francis Fitzherbert, the 12th Baron Stafford (and now home to Francis Fitzherbert, the 15th Baron Stafford - economising on names helps when you have a big house to run). It had the same pub and churches but rather more businesses than the present village.

It also has a war memorial, on a patch of grass outside the parish church of St Mary.

Swynnerton war memorial

Thirteen names are inscribed on the pedestal. A couple of years ago Lynne did some research on these names for a presentation on ‘Swynnerton through the Wars.’ Thanks to that research we can zoom in on two of the names.

Charles Wood

Captain Charles Wood on the Swynnerton War Memorial

Charles Wood was the younger son of Mr. and Mrs. E. J. W. Wood of Meece House, a mile outside Swynnerton. His father Edward John Wood was a successful pottery manufacturer and a distant relative of Josiah Wedgwood.

Charles had been a territorial officer since 1909 and was sent to France in 1914 with the First Battalion, Royal Welch (sic) Fusiliers. He was soon mentioned in dispatches and his battalion spent January and February 1915 dug in on the Ypres sector. They then moved just across the French border to participate in General Haig’s spring offensive. The offensive started on the 10th of March with an attack on the French village of Neuve Chappelle.

Although intelligence reports suggested Neuve Chapelle was thinly defended, taking the village required three days and cost 17,000 lives. Captain Wood died on the second day.

The attack gained less than a square mile of territory, but was hailed by banner headlines at home proclaimed it a great step on the road to victory.

Wood and his older brother had been brought up in Meece House. His father had all the trappings of commercial success; a household of loyal servants, tenant farmers on his land and a chauffeur-driven Sunbeam. The car was a familiar sight at St Mary’s where he was churchwarden. He presumably expected Charles to inherit both his pottery and his position in local and county society but any plans they had ended at Neuve Chapelle. Charles’ older brother John, who had always been in poor health, died 8 months later in November 1915.

Their grief-stricken father Edward did not survive much longer, but before he died, he and their mother placed a memorial on the road outside Meece Hall.

Wood memorial outside Swynnerton Training Camp

Charles’ name is not mentioned; it is a memorial to all who gave their lives…

Inscription on the memorial outside Swynnerton Training Camp

…but they also placed a memorial window to both brothers in St Mary’s church.

Wood Memorial, St Mary's Swynnerton

In the Second World War, Swynnerton became host to a huge munitions factory. The ‘Swynnerton Roses’, the 30,000 women who worked there, are commemorated in the small rose garden in front of the memorial. For a time Meece Hall, the home of a young man who died in the War to End All Wars was occupied by executives of the armaments factory as they sought ever more efficient and deadly ways to win another war just a generation later. In peacetime, the abandoned house became dilapidated and was demolished in the 1990s.

Swynnerton Roses garden and Wood memorial

George Bennett

George Bennett on the Swynnerton war memorial

George Bennett was born in Swynnerton in the spring of 1889, two doors away from the Fitzherbert Arms.

George Bennett's birthplace, Swynnerton

His family had worked on the land for generations but his father had become the local wheelwright. When George was born his mother already had by two young children, Elizabeth and John. Like many old Swynnerton families (including the aristocratic Fitzherberts) the Bennetts were Catholics and worshipped at Our Lady of the Assumption

Catholic Church, Swynnerton which also faces the war memorial
Swynnerton Hall is in the background

George trained as a wheelwright with his father…

Swynnerton's old smithy and wheelwright's shop just across the road from the Bennett's cottage.
Idle for many years they are waiting for someone to find a use for them.

… and became engaged to Beatrice Gosling, eldest daughter of the landlord of the Fitzherbert Arms.

The Fitzherbert Arms, Swynnerton
The extention may have come after Gerorge's time, the large windows are a very recent addition 

When war came, he joined up and served first with the Royal Horse Artillery and then with the Ammunition Column of the Royal Field Artillery. They were engaged in battles across France, but in 1917 were stationed at Poperinge in Belgium, seven miles from Ypres.

George’s job was to take ammunition to the front line, a difficult enough task without the rains that forced heavily-laden horse-drawn carts to sink to their axles.

On the 8th July 1917 George wrote to his fiancée Beatrice,

My dear lover,

I know you will be looking forward to hearing from me, hoping you are all well enjoying the best of health. Well Darling, the weather is broken here now having a fair amount of rain, & a fine very heavy thunder storme.

Well Darling, I’m wondering how you are getting on with the harvest, I do hope you will have good weather, & be able to get a little assistance. The crops behind the firing line lines are looking well, the heavy storme have battered the corn down badly. The crops are much the same as in Blighty not so much grazing land, a good few hops being grown here, also a little chicory which the French People use for the coffee, they don’t drink much tea, you don’t see the fireplaces like ours they have stoves, which stand out nearly in the centre of the room.

We are well behind the firing line here, but Mr Fritz sends us a few souvenirs over pretty often with his long rangers, however I am have thankful to say, he has not got the right range, I expect I shall be going up with Ammn to night, it is indeed the worst Battle Front that I have had since I been out here, however I live in hope that the one above will guide us safely through.

Well Dear, I wonder what you are doing at this present moment, you are absent in body angel, but never absent in mind, how I am longing to be with you, & to comfort to love and to cherish you, no matter how long we have to be apart, you will always have a good true lover, & God does not grant us, to be united in this world, may we be united in the next.

I could tell you a great deal, but us you know I have not the privilege, however amidst all things, I am, thankful to say I am in good health & spirits, & living in hope of returning to you. Well Darling, I am looking forward to hear from you, & to know that you are all well, also please forward me your dear Brother’s address I have not heard from him again. I don’t think he is very far away from here.

Cigs are cheaper here than in Blighty. I should have written you a few days ago only I have been waiting to get one of these envelops, we are only allowed one once a fortnight, you see dear our business is not so exposed in one of these. I am just going to write my dear Father and Mother a few lines, hoping they are well, & not worrying about me.

Well angel cheer up, I am alright, and having a good life & considering the facilities, when I hope we may all meet together again & live in happy days. In conclusion I desire you to give my kind regards to all at home, & hope to hear from you soon.

Au-soir & God bless you darling

Pray for me

Your Ever loving boy

George x x x x

With Heaps of hugs and kisses
Somewhere in France but near the border of ( )
There are fore of us in the house
One Catholic besides my self
The other are harness cleaning. It does not seem like a Sabbath day.

George was killed the following day. He was 28 years old

During her research Lynne made contact with Gabrielle, who now lives in Buckinghamshire but is the grand-daughter of Beatrice Gosling and her husband John Bennett, George’s elder brother whom she married in 1922. Gabrielle showed Lynne a copy of the letter and kindly allowed it to be used in 'Swynnerton through the Wars' and has agreed to its use here. The typescript reproduces the spelling, punctuation and little slips of George’s handwritten original.

On the 9th of July 1924, Beatrice Bennett, née Gosling. gave birth to a son – Gabrielle’s father - whom they named George. Sadly, John Bennett died of head injuries in 1926 after a bicycle accident. Beatrice never remarried but she brought up her son, enjoyed her grandchildren and attended mass regularly. She died in 1990 aged 99.

War is not about politicians, generals and armies, it is about people. Without fear or favour it kills the rich and well-connected as easily as the humble wheelwright - and it destroys families.

The Great War killed 10 million soldiers on all sides and 8 million civilians. Each one deserves to be remembered like Charles Wood and George Bennett.

Would it have been worth it had it been the War to End All War? Perhaps, but it wasn’t.

Never Again

One final thought: it is easy to blame politicians for wars, but when war was declared in 1914 people across Europe were out on the streets cheering. The nationalism that caused the wars of 1914 and 1939 is on the rise again, in Russia and the USA, in Hungary, Italy, Germany and other European countries, including here, at home. Never again is up to us, all of us.

WW1 Centenary Posts

Ypres, Tyne Cot and the Menin Gate(1914/2014)
The Somme, One Hundred Years Ago Today (1916/2016)
The Eleventh Hour of the Eleventh Day of the Eleventh Month(1918/2018)

A Fine Drinking Man's Country?

I have long intended to write this post but now, with a huge bloggy backlog and much else to do, I don't have the time.

But I've written it anyway.

My father retired in 1980 and bought a house beside a golf course in Portugal. 'Why Portugal?' I asked. Unlike Greece it was not a country he had visited much, or at all, and although the dust had largely settled after the 1974 Carnation Revolution the new democracy remained fragile. 'Because,' he said, 'it’s a fine drinking man's country.'

 

A younger me standing in the doorway of that house in Portugal (April 1992)

For my father was a drinking man, not an alcoholic or a habitual drunk, but a man who liked a drink, then another one and that was the evening started. I differ from him in many ways, but I share his face - I often stare into the shaving mirror and wonder what the old bugger is doing in my bathroom - and his fondness for an occasional tincture.

 

I enjoy the occasional tincture
A toast in home made mulberry vodka, Goris, Amenia, July 2003

So, staggering in my father's footsteps, here is a drinking man’s guide to a small selection of the 50 or so countries I have been lucky enough to visit. I also like eating, so I have rated them as eating men's countries, too. And when I say 'men' I only echo my father from those far off less inclusive times.

I like to eat - but I should point out that is a sharing plate
Tallinn, Estonia, July 2011

The ratings, on a scale of 0 to 5 (halves permitted), are personal, any woman or man is free to take issue with my scores, but to give a semblance of objectivity here are my criteria.

Drink: How easily available is it? How much variety is there? What is the quality of the local products? Are imported drinks available to fill gaps in variety or quality? Is the price reasonable?

Food: I am judging food from everyday rather than high-end restaurants. How easy is it to find such restaurants? Are fresh ingredients used? Is there a variety of ingredients? Is there a variety of cooking methods? Is food a cultural expression or a commodity?

So with an idiosyncratic selection of 10 countries across 3 continents here (in alphabetically order) are my scores.

1)                  China

Scoring only the Han heartland; travelling among Uighurs and Tibetans has its charms, but they do not include food and drink.

Drinking 3½

Chinese drinking culture exists but European-style cafés are unknown and bars are not obvious. Beer is widely brewed and available but the quality is poor – too much rice and too little (or no) barley. Chinese wine is best avoided - you rarely see locals drinking it. Spirits are easily available, cheap and drinkable – once you have acquired the taste. Knock-off western brands exist, too; I treasure the memory of a bottle of ‘Bushtits Irish Whiskey’, with its familiar black label.

 

A litre of sorghum based bai jiu (clear spirit) bought in Hangzhou
50% abv, it cost around £1

Eating: 4½

Restaurants of every class abound but I never cease to be amazed by the variety and quality of food that can be produced so quickly by one man and a wok working behind little more than a hole in the wall.

Even little local restaurants like these in can be relied upon for an excellent meal
Beijing September 2013

It is difficult to get a bad meal in China.

But it doesn't get much better than this - though it still costs less than a pub meal at home
Beijing duck, Quanjude roast duck, Beijing Sept 2013

Why not 5? Lack of dairy products (I do like my cheese) and their tendency to relish things....

Why am I nibbling the webbing from between the toes of this unfortunate water fowl?
Dinner with Mr Zhua, Huizhou 2004

.... nobody else regards as food (1.2 billion Chinese can’t be wrong – or can they?)

 

Scorpion soup, somewhere in Guangdong Province 2003/4
Picture credit Sian Morris

2)                  France

Drinking: 5

What could you want that they do not have? Good wine at any price level, fine beer (in the north, anyway), the world’s best brandy, pastis (a particular favourite of mine) and a huge range of other drinks. If you insist on scotch or gin & tonic, that is available, too.

Eating: 4

Shock horror, the home of European gastronomy and no 5! You can eat excellent regional dishes, but too many of France’s mid-range restaurants are resting on their laurels. Menus read better in French, but we don’t eat menus.

Spiny lobster - excellent local speciality
Cargèse, Corsica July 2006

3)                  India

Drinking: 2

Hindus are often tee total vegetarians, Muslims tee total meat eaters. Beer, though, is widely available at least in tourist areas, and passable local gin and rum in bars, hotels, and ‘wine shops’ - often disreputable looking places which don’t actually sell wine. Gujarat is dry, Kerala has reportedly put its ‘rolling prohibition’ into reverse.

Naughty boys at a 'wine shop'
Thomas and I, Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu, March 2016

Eating: 3½

Good Indian food is among the best in the world but finding it is tricky. Most restaurants catering for western tourists are clean and relatively expensive but dial back on the spices; desperate not to offend anyone they ultimately please no-one. Those aimed at the local market can be dull too, the same melange of spices in every dish regardless of the other ingredients, which you cannot taste anyway. But sometimes, and not necessarily in a smarter restaurant, each spice retains its individuality and the combination complements the ingredients instead of drowning them out. Thomas Mathew, our driver on our last two southern India trips, has a gift for spotting the right restaurant in an unknown town. Many of the best meals I have eaten have been in his company, and some cost less than £1 a head.

Thomas' choice in Coonoor, Tamil Nadu, March 2016
Here the humble biryani is raised to a thing of joy

4)                  Iran

Drinking: 0

Iran is dry.



Tea house at the tomb of the poet Hafez, Shiraz 2000
It's the nearest we got to a drink!

Eating: 1½

I hate to say this about the land of my birth, but the restaurant food we encountered was too dull to photograph and numbingly repetitive; mountains of rice with a pat of butter, maybe some yoghurt to moisten it and kebabs, unseasoned chunks of beef, chicken or lamb, every day, sometimes twice a day. Home cooking, we were told, is much better, and maybe it is. My (Hampshire born) sister’s recent visit suggested variety has improved markedly, but as Iranian cuisine eschews garlic and all spices, how much better can it be? Pluses: breakfast feta-style cheese and the world’s finest pistachios.

5)                  Macedonia (Former Yugoslav Republic of)

Drink: 4½

Mastika (better than ouzo, maybe as good as pastis) before a meal, a choice of wines with and an acceptable brandy after. Tikveš is the only wine region of note but it produces a range of interesting varietals including the dark, smoky and seriously underrated Vranac. Skopsko Beer, dominating the market, is a pleasant lager but hardly memorable.



Popova Kula winery, Demir Kapija, Tikveš region, Macedonia May 2015

Eating: 3½

The Balkans specialises in grilled meats but Macedonians have a lighter touch than most. Vegetables are rare but salads, often covered in a blizzard of grated cheese, abound. Being landlocked, fish only figures around Lake Ohrid, but trout, eel, carp and whitebait were fresh and sympathetically cooked.

Carp and eel, and a bottle of Tikveš Zupljanka beside Lake Ohrid, May 2015

 6)                  Mongolia

Drink: 2½

In Ulanbaatar there is good beer and, as a former soviet satellite, more vodka than is good for some locals. In the countryside there is airag, fermented mares’ milk. Good manners say you must taste – and it is not unpleasant – but drink more and you will discover it rifles through the European digestive system with destructive haste. Believe me.

Making airag, Mongolian encampment July 2007

Eating: 1

Outside Ulaanbaatar there are no vegetables or salad – digging in God’s good earth is a rude intrusion. Goat’s milk cheese is sun dried until it has the colour and consistency of a pot sherd, though it (eventually) softens in the mouth to release a punchy goat flavour. In a week, 12 of our lunches and dinners were mutton. For the thirteenth we found chicken in a restaurant in Ulaanbaatar. The fourteenth? We were too full of chicken to eat  anything!

The first step in cheese making, Mongolian encampment, July 2007

7)                  Morocco

Drink: 1½

No Muslim country can be a drinking man’s country, but the Moroccan wine industry limped on after the French departed and has recently undergone a revival. There is a full Appellation d’Origine system, but the wine is easier to find in France than in Morocco. Flag lager used to be a contender for ‘worst lager in the world’, but I am told it has improved. The Jewish community distil a spirit from date palms for which a taste can be developed.

Food: 3

Moroccan food is excellent - tender mechoui roast lamb, tagines of lamb, beef and fish with couscous, pastilla (a savoury pastry with pounded chicken and almonds), mountains of fresh fish on the Agadir dockside - but by day four you are going round the cycle again. The quality and skill on show are impressive, the variety sadly limited.

8)                  Portugal

Drink: 4½

Portugal offers the world’s most underrated wines, plus Port and Madeira, brandy, bagaçeira, and liqueurs of varying palatability. My father was right; it is a fine drinking man’s country. Why not 5? Portuguese beer, though widely available is of modest quality and limited variety.

Modest quality, limited variety - but that won't stop me
Evora Sept 2016

 Eating: 4½

I eat more fish in two weeks in Portugal than in the whole of the rest of the year. Restaurants use fine, fresh ingredients and let them speak for themselves. Why not 5? Although the variety is impressive (unlike Morocco), too many restaurants concentrate on the same old favourites; a little innovation would be welcome.



Sardines with Mike and Alison, Portimão Oct 2016

9)                  Sri Lanka

Drink: 3

Falling like a dewdrop from the end of India’s nose it might be expected to be similar, but not so. Lion lager, overwhelming the best selling beer, is available everywhere as is arrack, the very enjoyable national spirit, distilled from toddy (see The Backwaters of Kerala) and bottled at various qualities. They also distil gin and more.

Eating: 2½

Drinking maybe better than in India, but eating is not. Rice and Curry (in that order) involving three or more bowls of vegetable and meat curries with little variation is ubiquitous. Devilled meat or fish – resembling sweet and sour with a chilli kick - or ‘Chinese’ noodles dishes are the only alternative. Beef is always tough.

Rice and curry, Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka

10)              Thailand

Drink: 3½

Chang Beer is the sort of light, fizzy, flavourless lager I would normally avoid like the plague but, in the Thai heat, it somehow hits a spot. There are other beers (notably the more characterful Singha), Mekhong ‘whisky’ (which is not whisky), SangSom rum and several other easily available spirits.

Chang beer works its magic, Cha Am beach, November 2015

Food: 4.5

We have eaten one or two dull Thai dishes, but generally the standard of cooking is high; a red curry in Bangkok and squid with lemon and chilli beside the Mae Klong River stand out. All tourist orientated restaurant dial back (sometimes omit) the chillis while other restaurants often clock a large lumbering frame and a pale face and do the same automatically. You sometimes have to fight for your right to a chilli.

Squid with lemon and chilli (and some fish cakes) beside the Mae Klong, November 2015

Being a mathematician I put the results on a graph.

Microsoft calculated the line of best fit and I calculated Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient. It was 0.69. (The coefficient is a number between -1 and +1, 1 implies perfect positive correlation, -1 perfect negative correlation and 0 no correlation) so there is a moderately strong correlation between good eating and good drinking. Well who’d a thunk it?