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Aidan Hartley rss

Aiden Hartley is the Spectator’s Wild Life columnist.

28 January 2012

Wau, South Sudan ‘Let’s visit the brewery,’ said Ken when we reached Wau. We were dusty and parched. It was searing hot. Like a character in Ice Cold in Alex,… Read more

3 December 2011

Kenya In protest against the lack of law and order in my farming district I have decided to dye my white cows pink. I don’t know what to do about… Read more

5 November 2011

Kenya I am proud of Kenya for taking on Muslim extremists in southern Somalia. Rather wisely, the Kenyan military has so far prevented hacks from reaching the field. But for… Read more

8 October 2011

Aidan Hartley’s Wild Life Israel Jerusalem was once a very sad place for me and I feared returning. I was mad with grief when I was last here in the… Read more

10 September 2011

Aidan Hartley’s Wild Life  Nairobi My friend Philip Coulson was shot at midnight while driving home after the theatre in Nairobi recently. He had slowed down to go over some… Read more

13 August 2011

Indian Ocean On Hassan’s dhow, shaped like Vasco da Gama’s caravel, I can forget about dry land for a fortnight of holiday. If I could, I’d give it all up… Read more

Drought didn’t cause Somalia’s famine

6 August 2011

War did. And food aid may well make it worse It seems wicked to question charity appeals for starving people in the Horn of Africa. Hunger is a terrible way… Read more

2 July 2011

‘So much sorting to do,’ said my Aunt Beryl. We stood in the middle of her home in Sussex. I hadn’t visited for many years, not since Granny and Grandpa… Read more

4 June 2011

Aidan Hartley’s Wild life Laikipia I had enjoyed a boozy lunch and afternoon in the Men’s Bar of the Muthaiga. I rarely get time off and I was, like the… Read more

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23 April 2011

Kenya Marriage can be hard for all of us. A friend of mine, we’ll call him Charles, works far away from home. One day he told me his wife had… Read more

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9 April 2011

Weregoi Plains Three shots rang out in the night air. Rustlers had attacked my neighbour’s boma a few hundred metres from home. At the time, our children were watching a… Read more

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12 March 2011

Indonesia In a Jakarta traffic jam it hits me. After decades of frenetic travel, I have learnt less of the world than I might have, had I simply stayed on… Read more

12 February 2011

Democratic Republic of Congo It is impossible to predict how a person will behave in a tight spot. I have been in Congo’s rain forest with my TV producer Ed… Read more

15 January 2011

Juba In the run-up to this week’s referendum on Southern Sudan’s future, I flew to Juba with a bottle of Bushmills. The whiskey was for Dan Eiffe. When Sudan’s southern… Read more

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18 December 2010

Laikipia A Christmas gift of perfume smelling of chocolate caused my wife Claire to burst into tears. ‘I have never received such a lazy present!’ she wailed. ‘Hang on,’ I… Read more

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Pride of Somalia

20 November 2010

When the Sun ran a story saying that a council in London’s East End will investigate whether a Somali immigrant, Dahir Kadiye, scammed on his housing benefits, the point did… Read more

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White man’s burden

13 November 2010

Suffering has had at least one benefit for white Zimbabweans, says the writer Peter Godwin – it has brought them closer to the rest of the population When Robert Mugabe… Read more

6 November 2010

Laikipia I have a mob of finished Boran steers ready for the holidays. The butchers are suddenly chasing me and that’s a fine feeling. A year ago, we were in… Read more

23 October 2010

Bangkok ‘Any Thai man who is not married is gay,’ said a Thai woman to me. ‘You could say that about many places,’ I observed. ‘Yes, but 80 per cent… Read more

25 September 2010

Rift Valley The patriarch Jacob Mukhamia Omanyo, grandfather of my friend Celestina, was born in 1888 in western Kenya. For 119 years he lived a healthy life, falling sick only… Read more

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