Ahem The temperature around me dropped a full thirty degrees when I returned from Abidjan in mid-month, just three days after Gwen’s 20th birthday, a […]

Ahem While I and my colleagues at the Bank are paid good salaries, even by European standards, most families in the Cote d’Ivoire have perilously […]

Ahem There are no second hand markets in Abidjan: no Petticoat Lanes or Portobello Roads. There are no marches aux puces and no charity shops. […]

Ahem As Europe falls into yellow leafswirl, brown mulch and bright red bonfires, search-lit by horizon sunbeams and long-man shadows, so by contrast the weather […]

Ahem The curse of Shango, Yoruba God of thunder and lightning, is invoked against the Jeep Corporation for indirectly selling me (in separate continents and […]

Ahem A family from France are staying for a few weeks. They introduced a cheerful, bustling and friendly family background noise of argument, proposition, enquiry […]

Ahem The process of moving into my new home, a villa in a half-gated lane (see photo) close to the Rue des Jardins, was quickly […]

Ahem After the strong and positive family emotions around my brother Clive’s funeral, I had a grim return to Abidjan, where uncertainties at work were […]

Ahem To be honest, my brother Clive and I were too far apart in age to be all that close while I was growing up. […]

Ahem I am growing very wary of the word “smart”. Never dependable or stable, the word is too often used pejoratively. “Smart” was paired in […]