Ethiopia

[From contemporary African diaries]  1995 August: Friday 5pm: Hailu and I left the National Theatre and struggled back through the beggars to the taxi rank – not even his police status could keep this lot off. Drove back out of […]

[From contemporary African diaries]   1995 August: Thursday 6pm: Chatting with Hailu, I discovered a major problem. I was going to have real trouble over the currency. I couldn’t take birr out of the country – it was regarded as […]

[From contemporary African diaries]  1995 August: Wednesday 6 20pm: Hailu arrived. I set out the props and gave one last boom of speech in the restaurant to get the sound level right. It was a 9pm start but the audience […]

[From contemporary African diaries]  1995 August: Tuesday Woke at 9am feeling a bit shattered. Tried unsuccessfully to figure out how the shower worked. The interest of travelling is that every action becomes an adventure – even buying a loaf of […]

[From contemporary African diaries]   1995 August: Monday 2pm: Woke up to the sound of a very heavy rainstorm outside. Only two hours sleep but felt better. The internal phone rang – it was the hotel manager welcoming me and […]

ETHIOPIA  The tour of Africa was perhaps the most absurd venture that I ever undertook on behalf of Oscar Wilde Enterprises. It stemmed, like many an idea, from a conversation over a bottle of wine. Sitting in a garden on […]