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Hugo Rifkind

Wednesday, 16th April 2008

Britain has lost an empire and found a role: to faff on about pirates and biofuels

Does the UK even have foreign policy any more? Beyond trivia, the government proposes nothing, and the opposition opposes nothing. Nobody even talks about Iraq or Afghanistan, and Zimbabwe generates mere frowns. Instead we faff on about biofuels and, apropos of nothing, say weird things about pirates. That’s Britain. In a world of black and white, we are suddenly just a bumbling force for grey. Gordon Brown is just a dot on this world. What are we doing out there? What are we for?

Backpacking in India once, I met three Swiss-German hippies who were travelling without a guidebook. In one sense, I was quite impressed. In another, I wondered what the hell they were playing at. Why make your life so hard, simply by not buying a book? You might as well cross the subcontinent doing the three-legged race, or pledging not to use your thumbs. These three had inadvertently come across from Burma without a visa, and were dodging policemen. They didn’t know how many rupees you got to the dollar or even, except in the most general terms, where they were. I admired the romance of it all, but I didn’t really get the point.

Thomas Kohnstamm, formerly a writer of Lonely Planet guides to Latin America and the Caribbean, has just written a book which he describes as an exposé of the world of budget travel writing. I haven’t read it yet, but according to reports he describes dealing drugs, accepting freebies, having sex with a waitress in exchange for a good review and utterly pretending to be in Colombia.

My experience of guidebook travel writers is limited, but I did once accompany one (disclosure: she’s now my wife) on a trip as she wrote a guide to Southern Africa. It may be a testament to her ethics, but the opportunities for graft were limited. Quite honestly, in a trip that lasted six months, the only freebie we enjoyed was one half-price night in a disused jail. Of Mr Kohnstamm, I am in awe.

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L Stewart

April 18th, 2008 2:41pm Report this comment

Of course, there is always the danger that any pirates we capture will burst into tears when we take away their i-pods, and have to be sent home in shiny new suits, with little bags of sweeties.

Oh, sorry, no. That's boat-crews from the Royal Navy and Royal Marines, isn't it ?

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