In Nepal I'd spent a lot of time sat by the mirrored lake in Pokhara consulting pebbles and reading Heinrich Harrer's Seven Years in Tibet. As an evocation of one setting from Peter Hopkirk's The Great Game, it served as further provocation to my plan to fill pages with lively...

Outside the decrepit cafe where we stopped, a peppery tempered driver waited for the passengers to climb back into the silver marshrutka and continue the drive south down the Georgian Military Highway to Tbilisi.

Further still, spread along Georgia's southern flank, were the borders of Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan,...

On 27 July, in Perk's Field at Kensington Palace Gardens, Russia Park will host a screening of the Olympic opening ceremony taking place in the east of the city. Perk's field is that patch of grass between the entrance at Notting Hill Gate and Billionaire's Boulevard, normally hosting only a...