Hello everyone I hope you are all well and enjoyed the half term break. Since I last wrote I have been busy exploring more of New Zealand so let me fill you in on what we have been up to whilst visiting the South Island. Mount CookWe spent a n

Day 1 in Auckland. After a tiring day yesterday plane was late time to pick up campervan. Driving the roads we found the camp site. After shopping it was time for dinner and a drink.We have woken to a sunny day. After a 1 hour bus ride into Auckland.

People can't explain 'emHi AllAs a finale to my blog I would like to ask a simple question. Well actually it is a question with a long lead in and probably has no answer but I'll ask it anyway.Consider this. Most people nowadays have flown o

A day of travel is never uneventful and this was true for me as well My flight from Denver to London was great I got a middle row seat in the front of the economy section so I had extra leg room The steward was really friendly and thanks to the eventfu

Hi fewIt seems the blog is not read much but for those who followhere goesForget about photos... Dial up modems everywhere and so it is impossible to upload anything and often keyboards are unpractical...Rwanda is amazing pure beauty... Tho

After a week or so of the kind of weather that made me want to curl up in bed or in front of a fireplace the sun decided he wanted some time in the limelight and came out to strut his stuff over Guemsan. Thank god because I crave vitamin D like a crackhea

Ciao TuttiMy Italian is already perfect as you can tell. I.m in Sorrento on the Amalfi Coast and I was definately not expecting to come here until later in my trip. Two days ago I was in Interlaken Switzerland. The weather was a little bit sketchy

Well i've really started to get to know some locals guys that come in quite a bit. One of my fav regulars Dan is a kiwi but has been over here and all over the world for a long time. Anyways he's 38 years old and has just retired. He's got it pretty go

AndulusiaYeah I know it has been a while. We had 8 days in Andalucia in a mansion owned by a tight arse Pom who was fighting with Spanish Telstra so therefore we had no Internet. Was disaster and peace at the same time.Anyway this blog is about wha

I have had the privilege of being at the IHF centre in Thailand for just over two weeks now. It has been quite the adventure but as life is an adventure I have loved every minute of it well most of the minutes. I arrived on the night of the 15th of Septe

We got paid today OO man was I happy to go to the bank and get my first real paycheck. Tomorrowtoday we are going to Hong Kong for 5 days so I will keep you updated on how that goes. Becca and I went to trivia tonight with her friend Tom and some o

R Continues..... As we made our way to the ground you couldn't help but notice the signs a lot of people were holding.... wanted ..one ticket for desperate fan ..... was here in '66 ....pleeeasee give me a ticket . In a way it was sad and in anot

We left Bob and Lyn's Alex and Shirley's spoilt and rejuvenated but ready to see some more of Australias' sites. We flew to Cairns and arrived to a slightly warmer stickier climate. The hostel we had booked into was at the back of cairns town but only

R WritesApparantly I have to take the blame I've been told well by Carmel anyway. On Friday night the five of us were making our predictions on who would win the big game. All of the girls were tipping the Saints I think more for the fact that they

In Taupo we slept one Night near the Lake. The next Day was Hammer Time again. 15000 feet Skydive. Unbelievable Feeling. At the same Day we driven along the Desert Road Highway 1 to see Mt. Doom and Mordor from the Lord of the Rings. Very cool Scenerys

Welcome to part 1112 of the blog.continued from cracker in melaka ...The morning after the hindu procession i awoke to find Reuben and Livia had backed their bags and left for Cherating. After moving into a single room across the hall I went for s

Howdy from Texas...Fri 24th Sept Managed to find the train station from the greyhound station in downtown dallas got the train to Irving a suburb where the hostel was a woman and her daughter gave us a free lift from the train station to the hostel

Hi Allhere are some pictures of Oman. It took me a while to find a fast enough internet connection to upload them. I will write a bit more when I have a bit more time. Everything is good so far and I'm enjoying the sushine. Sometimes it's a little too

G'day all can you tell where we are yetSoooooooo much to tell you and hopefully some pretty pics for you all to see now. There won't be too much today as i'm fighting the clock on the computer that keeps eating my 2...so flamin expensive here in Oz

So when I last blogged about our wonderful stay on Phu Quoc Island I was writing from an coffee shop in Saigon on Friday afternoon. I wasn't aware at the time but we had begun what would basically be 51 hours in transit as we blundered our way to an isla

Hallo kidsso if anyone ever wants to go to Austria buy an umbrella No one ever told that this place is a rian forest I havent seen this much rain since I was in Prince Rupert It honestly has not stopped and makes doing things quite difficult. And th

Arrived in Hasting we're slept on a nice Campsite near a Beach. The german Couple was 3 Days before us there. Manu and Vera are now 9 Month in NZ and have a Working Visa for 1 Year. On the next Day our 2 Vans heading to the North. We visit the Peninsula Ma

Hungry Horse Dam Reservoir Canoeing on Lake McDonald and checking out Lake McDonald Hotel this was our agenda for the day. We had a great time learning all about Hungry Horse Dam and it39s power sources for the states of Montana Idaho Nevada Or

Wow It's been so long since an installment that I almost don't know where to start but alas I will do my bestSo upon the recommendation of Chloe the three of us girls headed off on a 2 day Mahout Course to learn the fine art of Elephant training. Rea

We booked our overnight bus to Cusco with CIAL bus company it's a bit cheaper than the others so we decided to try out the cama class. Even though the seats recline back nearly into a bed I couldn't sleep. I think I was fearful the strike wasn't actuall

Photos of my Guatemala City apartment and the view from my balcony. Photos 112.

There is a strange thing that happens when you live overseas. People take weekend trips to Vietnam or Japan or Korea or in my case Thailand. In the states this would be like taking a trip to Florida or California or just to a random city in the midwest.

After leaving Texas apparently the best place in America according to the Texan cowboy even though he had been to less places in the USA than us basically if it's not in Texas then it must be rubbish seems to be their philosophy we headed to Oklamoma and

The morning was a lovely day and so after breakfast we set out to lake Cocibolca for a bit of kayaking through the tiny islands near Granada known as Las Isletas. When first touring these islands it's best to do it on boat which I had done 6 weeks before.

It has been 6 weeks since we all started at Dulwich College and the time has just completely and utterly flown away. I can't believe it has been almost 2 months since we moved into our lovely new apartment in Jinqiao and our new life on 'the dark side' if

Day 5 30th September 2010Breakfast outside and then away to the Steppes for more headwinds and a puncture in my front tyre caused by those wicked prickly roadside plants. Furhter down the road I repaired a puncture for Kristine. which was the four

Sometimes I cannot believe that I actually live in this Central American country. It has been raining and raining and raining since we came home from Managua on Friday. Like the pants 7 pairs 3 mine that I washed in the rain on Saturday morning

Hello slight break in the blog and alots been happening......so the journey continues onto Franz Josef glacier. There was some poetic licence in the description of the 'rain forest canopy' but the tree hut was very nice and comfortable and the

Got the wonderful suggestion from my boyfriend James that we start a travel blog together and keep a track of our trips and travels and of our expanding adventures as we get to see and learn more about our mysteriously beautiful planet. Being a bit of a

Premiers pas en NouvelleZlande aprs 43heures de trajetAuckland n'est pas la ville que j'enviais la NouvelleZlande mais il me fallut bien trois nuits pour me remettre du jetlag et pour me faire quelques copains avec qui voyager Backpacker

Premier jour Taupo.. o il ne fait pas spcialement beau L'occasion pour moi de revisiter mes premiers jours en NouvelleZlande

The 28 or so hours traveling here has proven to be more than worth itWhile the flight from Houston to Santiago was overnight and in the dark the three hours from Santiago to Punta Arenas were spent winging over the Andes. Amazing is a word overused i

The Data Retention and Investigatory Powers bill is the most tedious outrage ever, right down to the dreary acronym. But oh, the horrors it will bring …

David Cameron cares about your safety. It's all he ever thinks about. It's his passion. He's passionate about it. Every time David Cameron thinks about how safe he'd like to keep you, passion overcomes him and he has to have a lie down. With his eyes shut. A bit like he's having a nap and doesn't care about your safety at all.

Right now he's so committed to keeping you safe, he's rushing something called the Drip bill through the House of Commons. Drip stands for Data Retention and Investigatory Powers and critics are calling it yet another erosion of civil liberties and … see, I've lost you because it's just so bloody boring. Maybe it's just me, but whenever I hear about some fresh internet privacy outrage my brain enters screensaver mode and displays that looped news footage of mumblin' Edward Snowden and I automatically nod off only to be awoken shortly afterwards by the sound of my forehead colliding sharply with the table.

The first rule of panic mode is you don’t talk about panic mode. And this is purely for personal reasons, but I don’t want Scotland to reject us

It used to be unthinkable. Now it’s thinkable. In fact, in some minds, it’s already been thought. Scotland might be voting yes to independence and splitting from the rest of the union. I’m not Scottish, and I’m therefore powerless to intervene, although I would personally prefer Scotland to stay – but only for entirely selfish and superficial reasons. Reason one: I’d rather not be lumbered with a Tory government from now until the day the moon crashes into the Thames. Two: I quite like Scotland and the Scottish, so it’s hard not to feel somehow personally affronted by their rejection. Why did you just unfriend and unfollow me, Scotland? What did I ever do to you? What’s that? Sorry, you’ll have to slow down a bit. Can’t understand a word you’re saying. Don’t you come with subtitles?! Ha ha ha! No, seriously, come back. Scotland? Scotland?

Apparently the consequences of a split in the union could be calamitous. The skies will fall and the seas will boil and the dead shall rise and the milk will spoil. There will be a great disturbance in the force. Duncan’s horses will turn and eat each other. Starving ravens will peck out your eyes halfway through the Great British Bake Off. Your dad will give birth to a jackal full of hornets. And in London’s last remaining DVD shop, Gregory’s Girl will quietly be re-categorised as “world cinema”.

Exaggeration is the official language of the internet. Only the most strident statements have any impact. Oversteer and oversell, all the time

The other day I was talking to a music fan who’d recently gone to see one of Kate Bush’s widely praised live appearances. Naturally I was keen to hear a first-hand account of this era-defining event, so I asked what it was like.

“The first half was great,” she said. “But the second half got a bit boring.”

The John Lewis and Sainsbury’s ads have kickstarted an earlier-than-ever festive season in which we’ll shop or click our way to bankruptcy chasing 15% off the top Christmas products. But beware of My Friend Cayla …

Hey, remember when Christmas used to last 12 days? Now it’s so bloated it’s virtually an epoch, lasting twice as long as the year it falls in. The early-warning signs keep changing: not so long ago the start of the holiday season was signified by the release of the Christmas edition of the Radio Times. Now it’s the annual unveiling of the John Lewis ad, which this year features a boy arranging for a trafficked overseas bird to be smuggled into the country inside a small container and presented like a gift-wrapped object to the laddish penguin mate who exists only in his troubled mind. They say psychopathic murderers often start their “careers” by doing ghastly things to animals: hopefully they’ll keep the storyline going year after year, as his illusory brain-penguin commands him to carry out increasingly hideous yuletide ceremonies, until eventually the advert consists of nothing but him appeasing the Penguin King by dancing in the moonlight wearing a necklace of ears and eyeballs, all of it seen through the sights of a police marksman positioned on the roof of a neighbour’s evacuated home.

But this year, the John Lewis ad has been overshadowed by gargantuan supermarket and noted humanitarian anti-war campaigner J Sainsbury PLC, and its tear-jerking period piece in which a perfectly good war is ruined by a tragic outbreak of football.

What sort of person can’t decide who to vote for, but can rate how much they like whatever they’re hearing out of five, and wants to sit there tapping a button accordingly?

As the general election scuttles closer, the campaign grows more confusing by the moment, so it’s good that last week’s seven-way leaders’ debate brought some much-needed mayhem to the situation. Not so long ago we were bemoaning the lack of choice in a two-party system. Now we’ve got option paralysis.

It had its moments. Nigel Farage complained about foreigners with HIV who enter Britain and immediately start wolfing down expensive medicine: greedy as well as sick. You’d think Farage might welcome immigrants with grave illnesses on the basis that they’re less likely to hang around as long, but apparently not. Say what you like about him – say it, write it down, daub it in 3ft-high cherry-red letters up the side of a prominent overpass on his regular commute if you must – but it’s undeniably refreshing to see a politician determined to speak his mind, indifferent to the absurd constraints of spin or basic human empathy. Never mind HIV sufferers – how much is Britain spending on refugees with cancer? Maybe he could put that statistic on a sandwich board and patrol the country in it, perhaps while ringing a bell and loudly commanding passersby to picture a nation under his command.

Jedes Bild ein Hingucker: Hier sind die besten Fotos der vergangenen Tage.

In den Vorständen deutscher Firmen sitzen kaum Frauen - und deshalb fehle "eine Instanz für Zweifel", sagt die neue Wirtschaftsweise Monika Schnitzer. Männer unter sich einigten sich leichter auf "eine genehme Sicht der Dinge".

Erstmals hat sich das Bundesverfassungsgericht gegen den Europäischen Gerichtshof gestellt. EU-Kommissionspräsidentin Ursula von der Leyen prüft nun ein Vertragsverletzungsverfahren gegen Deutschland.

A DER SPIEGEL reporter committed large-scale journalistic fraud over several years. Internal clues and research have provided significant evidence against reporter Claas Relotius, who has since admitted to the falsifications and is no longer employed by DER SPIEGEL. Other media organizations may also have been affected.

Claas Relotius, the DER SPIEGEL journalist outed this week for churning out fraudulent stories, wrote for the magazine about the U.S. town of Fergus Falls. Two locals fact-checked his reporting, and their verdict is devastating -- a perfect example of how DER SPIEGEL's editorial safeguards failed.

The London-based company Sidefloor was part of the tax-evasion structure for which Lionel Messi and his father Jorge were convicted. Now it has been revealed that FC Barcelona spent years paying agent fees to this letterbox company, payments apparently destined for Jorge Messi.

In an interview, 17-year-old American pop star Billie Eilish discusses the stress of fame, a time she feared was a never-ending black hole and the best coping mechanism.

Maria Sharapova effortlessly managed to combine her life as a tennis player with that of a superstar. With the announcement of her retirement, we take a look back at her career.