The Smiths...

A few people have said to me: “Why don’t you write a book about your travels”, but the idea doesn’t appeal. It wouldn’t be any more interesting for people to read than for me to write. The search for clean toilets and free wifi is hardly up there with the search for the northwest passage… or Moby Dick… or the holy grail. Should I chronicle evenings spent in run-down pubs, chatting with strange, solitary men whose interests include Nazi memorabilia and Holocaust denial? This little blog is quite enough.

Effigies of Sir Roger Smith, his two wives, his son and grandson, in St Michael's Church, Edmondthorpe, Leicestershire...