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Three consenting adults

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This started off as a cycling report on King Alfred’s Way, a newish mostly off-road 220-mile bike route around the medieval king’s stamping ground in Hampshire, Wiltshire,  Berkshire and Surrey … but it turned into that could only happen between three consenting adults.

Coronavirus had put off my foreign cycling tours and I had forgotten that in England I ride along muttering oaths about the poor quality of, in no particular order: the roads, the weather, the food, the looks you get when you ask for your bike to be kept indoors at night, and how all those potholed roads lead not to Rome but onto a bigger road, then an even bigger and busier one.

So to King Alfred’s Way, a mostly off-road route, but that was too rough for me and bike, so I diverted onto nearby tarmac.

But that’s boring. This is much more interesting.

[Read more…] about Three consenting adults

How I came to meet the Dalai Lama

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In 1988 I was travelling around India, by bicycle, and one of the places I wanted to go was Dharmsala, or more accurately a village nearby, McLeod Ganj, where the exiled leader of the Tibetans, the Dalai Lama, has lived since he fled his country in 1959. I didn’t have any great plans for my stay. My routine was to cycle for five days or so and then find somewhere to rest and escape the stresses of India for a short while, and then start again. Dharmsala was interesting because it was different, and there was plenty to see, but that was about it. [Read more…] about How I came to meet the Dalai Lama

What the Dalal Lama said to me

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The Dalai Lama, the leader of Tibet, went into exile in 1959. His country had been invaded (or liberated) by China at the start of that decade and after a few years of trying to work with the Chinese, he feared for his life and fled to India. 

The idea was always to go back to a free country, and almost 60 years on, still is. What he said to me nearly 30 years ago is still relevant, perhaps even more so.

Question: If and when you ever go back to Tibet, what will happen to the people of Chinese origin who were born there?

Answer: There is a similar situation in Estonia, a part of the [Read more…] about What the Dalal Lama said to me