Simon Taylor

To Sultanahmet. The Palace. Pass the sleeping dog and the four crows. Pay the exorbitant fee. Request audioguide. When asked for passports as deposit, gracefully withdraw.  And enter, avoiding the water cannon. In the first garden you will find bric-a-brac. Ignore. Admire certain symmetries. Find the amenities at your convenience

not in chronological order but a nice snap to start on, for an area full of shops selling musical instruments. Here’s where, after tram and subterranean cable car, we popped up: yes, it’s Takşim Square, next to Gezi Park. Remember 1977. Remember 2013. Remember Standing Man. I stood,

Hello Gin & Tonic (HK airport). and then we boarded … early … into the heat and confusion of this artfully retro-styled aircraft where the stewards show not the slightest of effeminate affectations as per the dos and don’ts in Turkey from my Ûdemy Learn Turkish in a Month language course.

Hello Hong Kong. It’s been 14 years! Hello Hong Kong. You are very steamy. It’s early. We are staying at the Eaton HK Workshop: it's like a scene from a dream    the architecture follows another logic cars like in a display showroom    beside the lifts There&

Just below us, on a rocky outcrop, sits the Burgkirche of Raron, one of a series of extraordinary buildings (churches, town houses and daring bridges over terrifying precipices) designed by the gifted sixteenth-century architect Ulrich Ruffiner. On its own merits the church is well worth a visit, though it is

There must be mountains inside those clouds and the sea still exists where the port once was. A bitter rain attacks the last, Byzantine well-heads, and the custodian eyes you suspiciously as if you might steal that acanthus fragment or postcard of a saint— as if understanding were possession. The