This was a culturally sensational trip, yet we only scratched the surface of this ancient empire and ultra modern people’s republic, visiting Shanghai, Hangzhou and Beijing. China is vast and complex – the world’s most populous country, the second largest in land area, with nearly 300 living languages and 7 mega cities with over 10 million inhabitants. We went on our way back from Australia and visited two ex post grad architecural students, Wendy in Hangzhou and Yingying in Beijing. In Sh...

Because of its remoteness, New Zealand was one of the last places to be settled by humans who arrived only 7-800 years ago from Polynesia and founded what today is a strong and highly influential Maori culture. We went to study recovery after the 2012 earthquake and stayed with Scharlie’s cousin John and his wife Mollie in Christchurch. We interviewed key people involved in planning the reconstruction and also surveyed the damage in the centre and the badly affected suburbs, After we went ...

The city of Van on the Silk Road in eastern Anatolia, Turkey. It was hit by an earthquake on Sunday 23 October 2011. People were killed and many more made homeless. I went there a year later to see how well the city is recovering. Scharlie, my wife, came for the first week in Izmir where we stayed with Bahar, a former PhD student of mine, and her parents. With the help of a guide, Harun, I visited Van and Ergiş, which had suffered severe damage, and interviewed local Governors, urban plann...

The Massif Central is a highland in south-central France and historically the region, the Auverne, was a barrier. It was formed by ancient volcanic activity over many ages and was raised by the Alpine and Pyrenean uplifts. The rock is granite and metamorphic and the region contain hundreds of extinct volcanos or Puys. I was unfamiliar with the region and had never considered visiting it until recently, perhaps because it wasn't high or spiky enough in my youth or too agricultural. But the ...

80 Tales of DBA ImpactThe Doctorate of Business Administration is more than just another qualification on a CV: it is the recognition of a deep engagement, of a transformation, of taking a step back from one’s professional practice and expertise... It is also a formidable generator of impact for an individual, a company, a sector of activity, even a country.The 80 portraits of Business Science Institute alumni presented in this book bear witness to...

The Mare a Mare Nord traverses Corsica from sea to sea. It’s nearly 100 miles long (152 km), involves nearly 7000 metres of ascent and descent and took me 11 days. I sailed to Ajaccio, the capital of Corsica, on the west coast, and the walk climbed thickly wooded valleys before crossing the GR20 and the mountainous backbone of Corsica at the Col de Vergio. From Corte, the town in the middle of the island, the path follows mule tracks that link isolated hilltop villages all the way to the e...

The Pennine Way is a tough old walk. It's about 250 miles long (400 km), was the first National trail in England and is one of the most famous long-distance walks. I did it a couple of weeks before I should have, during the Covid pandemic of 2020 when the guidelines encouraged outdoor exercise but advised against overnight stays away from home. There was no accommodation or catering en-route and few shops open. I arranged two poste-restante food drops at post offices in Alston and Hawes at...

We went to Ecuador to visit my daughter Frances. In Quito we stayed with Ecuadorian friends who introduced us to culinary delights such as calf’s foot soup (good for hangovers), cow’s udder (like eating Pirelli tyre rubber) and guinea pig (like roast chicken on a spit). We planned to climb volcanos, acclimatising slowly, starting from Loma Lumbisi at 3039 m and building up to Chimborazo at 6,268 m. Although not technically difficult, they weren’t easy. There was rock scrambling on Carihaur...

We went Japan to study recovery after the 2011 Tohoku tsunami. This was a major disaster for Japan. For the country most prepared for earthquakes this was a shocking event that will take years and trillions of dollars to repair. Fifteen months after the disaster, when we made our field trip, recovery was already underway. New embankments were being constructed along the coast of the Sendai plain in Miyage Province and debris had been collected into huge sorted piles. But further north, in ...

I first met Maria Ximena when she talked about Cazuca, a barrio to the south west of Bogota and I visited Colombia three times. Working with young architects from the Universidad Piloto and a Women's Foundation we devised plans to improve the neighbourhood. I also describe visits to Cartagena, Santa Marta, Valledupar and the Tayrona National Park where I met and talked to Kogi Indians.

We had a trip to Morocco in mind for some years, since Frances, our daughter, went there on buying trips twenty years ago. But this time we visited parts that were new to her. From Fez we crossed the Atlas Mountains and went south into the desert, then west along the mountains to Finnt, across to Marrakesh and back along the northern flank to Fez. I’m glad we went now because Morocco is changing. Everywhere we went there were signs of development – half finished apartments blocks, new subu...

In the summer of 2004 we went climbing with Dimitri in the Valle Garrafano in the Apuane Alps, a limestone area famous for its Carrara marble. Dimitri had been a tenant of ours in Cambridge when he had a sabbatical working in the University Library. We returned the following summer and were whisked off again to the rocky valleys of Italy’s far northwest. We climbed in the Valle Maira and Valle Gesso in the Maritime Alps, Then we drove further north to the Valle dell’Orco in the Graian Alps...