HAMPSTEAD IN NORTH London is full of interesting nooks and crannies.   At the west end of Well Walk in Hampstead, near the lower end of Flask Walk, there is a corner building with a Ge… Read More

PLATTS LANE WINDS its way between London’s Finchley Road and West Heath Road in Hampstead. It follows the route of a track between Hampstead Heath and West End (now West Hampstead). Th… Read More

WESTMINSTER ABBEY IS costly for tourists to enter. Currently (November 2021) the entrance ticket ranges in price from £10 for a child to £24 for a full-price adult ticket. Witho… Read More

IN THE CENTRE of Warwick, there is a building with superb examples of Victorian decorative terracotta work. High on its façade, in terracotta lettering are the words “coffee&rdq&hell…Read More

Birds at Bushy Park near Hampton CourtFeeling uncertainCannot decide at allWe're sitting on the fence Read More

  NEEDING BREAKFAST ON our way from Warwick to visit Baddesley Clinton House, we chose to stop at the Hatton Locks Café, which we had noticed on our road map. What we d… Read More

SPENCER STREET in Royal Leamington Spa has a building with an intriguing façade. It is not so much the brick and stonework on the building that attracted my attention but a stone sta… Read More

CLOSE TO WARWICK, there is a town that reminded me both of Brighton on the south coast of England and Mariánské Lázně (Marienbad) in the Czech Republic. The grandio… Read More

A LARGE GOLDEN SWAN with wings outstretched towers over the small town of Buckingham, once the county town of Buckinghamshire (until the 18th century, when Aylesbury took over this role) and… Read More

VIRGINIA WATER LAKE is surrounded by beautifully cultivated parkland. It is located about 7 miles south of Slough and about 22 miles southwest of central London. We visited it today, the 1… Read More

THE CITY OF CHELMSFORD is the county town of the English county of Essex. It is a place that until November 2021 we felt. without any reason, was not worthy of a visit and have tended… Read More

Coffee, the blues, and baroque in London's MayfairTHERE ARE TWO entrances to Lancashire Court from Mayfair’s Brook Street. One of them, the closest to New Bond Street, is a cobbled lan… Read More

 I HAVE LIVED in London for well over 60 years, but it was only this November (2021) that I first became aware of, and experienced, something that has been happening annually on the no… Read More

THE CORNER OF BROOK Street and Haunch of Venison Yard (in London’s Mayfair) is adorned with a fine building with a white Portland stone façade. It is built in the art deco style… Read More

The southern tower of London's Tower Bridge seen from between modern buildings close to the River Thames is  a glorious sight for both tourists and locals. The bridge was built between… Read More

ARMISTICE DAY IS celebrated annually on the 11th of November, the day that fighting came to an end in WW1. The day is to celebrate and: “…remember all those who gave their… Read More

DOVER STREET RUNS north from Piccadilly, not far from The Royal Academy. It is a thoroughfare we often visit because it contains several commercial art galleries that frequently put on inter… Read More

EVER SINCE I CAN REMEMBER, I have been fascinated by maps and collected them. I cannot say exactly why I enjoy them, but one reason is that I get satisfaction from aesthetic aspects of carto… Read More

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE DIED in captivity on the tiny island of St Helena in the south Atlantic. While he was imprisoned on the island, Lieutenant General Sir Hudson Lowe (1769-1844) was the Gove… Read More

A gull flies towards a row of birds, including a cormorant, resting on poles in Hyde Park's Serpentine lake.You can discover more about this attractive body of water in my FREE ebook  (… Read More

ONCE LONDON’S HAMPSTEAD had two pubs or taverns named ‘The Flask’. This should not come as a great surprise as Flask used to be a common name given to pubs. One of them, Th… Read More

THAXTED IS A PICTURESQUE small town in Essex, about six and a half miles northeast of Stansted Airport. Apart from its numerous quaint old buildings, the town has three notable landmarks: an… Read More

WALKING   WEST   LONDONThis book is an informative companion for people who want to get to know west London (London west of Park Lane): history, curiosities, anecdotes, a… Read More

BarodaBefore setting out on our recent extended travels through Gujarat, I booked accommodation via a well-known travel website. The hotel I chose for Ahmedabad was the aptly named ‘Ho… Read More

BarodaBefore setting out on our recent extended travels through Gujarat, I booked accommodation via a well-known travel website. The hotel I chose for Ahmedabad was the aptly named ‘Ho… Read More

 DISCOVER GUJARAT AND  THE FORMER PORTUGUESE COLONIES OF DAMAN AND DIU"Gujarat, the land of Gandhi and Patel, is also the land of business"[Narendra Modi, 2017]Almost wherever you… Read More

Two forts and a river, much Portuguese heritage: that is Daman.Gujarat: land with colour, history, and warm personality.Oh! Did you know Diu was once a colony o… Read More

GUJARAT has been an important trading area since time immemorial and a place where diverse peoples have mingled. It offers the visitor a rich cultural tapestry: history, tradition, architect… Read More

Temple ceiling at SomnathTurkic forces of the Muslim Delhi Sultanate began conquering parts of Gujarat in the 14th century. Even before that, Muslim forces had invaded the region. In the ear… Read More

Until recently, I had blithely assumed that Islam entered the Indian subcontinent from its northwest fringes – from Afghanistan and elsewhere. In November 2017, I made a trip to Kochi… Read More

It was early in 1996. We never intended taking our nine-month old daughter to visit Hampi in the Indian state of Karnataka to see the ruins of the once great city Vijayanagara, which ha… Read More

James Thorne wrote (in his “Handbook to the Environs of London”) in 1876: “East Tilbury is curiously out-of-the-way and old world like…”. It retains its feelin… Read More

The renowned contemporary artist David Hockney was born in Bradford (West Yorkshire) in 1937. In the suburbs of Bradford, there is an art gallery, Cartwright Hall, which Hockney used to visi… Read More

Overshadowed by the charred remains of Grenfell Tower (built in 1974 as part of the Lancaster West Estate), Freston Road runs close to Latymer Road Underground Station. During the early 1970… Read More

CONCERT 7th OCT 2017 AT ST STEPHENS CHURCH SW7 4RLLast night (7th Oct 2017), I attended an orchestral concert performed by the London City Philharmonic, an orchestra whose players come from… Read More

Chinese fishing nets, Fort CochinGoat on a boat: on the ferry from Vypin to Fort CochinLike Venice and Istanbul, Cochin is a city where water plays an important role both functionally and ae… Read More

 Telicherry (Kerala) sketched by Edward Lear in 1874On September, the 24th 1874, Mr Edward Lear (1812-1888), who was staying in Bangalore (now ‘Bengaluru’), wrote in his dia… Read More

CLOTHES WITHOUT AN EMPERORIn 1837, the Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen wrote his “Kejserens nye Klæder” (‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’). Two tailors w… Read More

About ten years ago, an American Jewish acquaintance, who had just completed a tour of southern India, complained that he had seen no end of Hindu temples and Christian churches, but only on… Read More

"REDISCOVERING ALBANIA"A new book about Albania by Adam YameyAlbanian people live all over the Balkans and in the Middle East, not to mention those who have migrated to Western Europe and th… Read More

Bunker by Lake Ohrid, near PogradecMost of the defensive bunkers constructed in Enver Hoxha's Albania were in the form of hemispherical concrete domes (see illustration below). Here, I… Read More

 There are 2 places in London that remind me of some of the sets in Fritz Lang's film "Metropolis" (1927): the common parts (vestibules etc) of the Barbican Centre and the escalator hal… Read More

CB Fry (source: Wikipedis)Here is an excerpt from Adam Yamey's soon to be published book "REDISCOVERING ALBANIA"  ...Albania's hero Skanderbeg (Picture by A Yamey)My only criticism of t… Read More

 In 1862, when Adam Yamey's great-grandfather Franz Ginsberg was born, his birthplace BEUTHEN (now Bytom in Poland) was deep within German territory. After 1918 when borders shifted, Be… Read More

Senator Franz Ginsberg (1862-1936)In the 1960s, my late mother used to mention her grandparents Franz and Hedwig, and often remarked that theirs were an odd pair of names. For a long time th… Read More

Senator Franz Ginsberg (1862-1936)In the 1960s, my late mother used to mention her grandparents Franz and Hedwig, and often remarked that theirs were an odd pair of names. For a long time th… Read More

 The book "SOAP TO SENATE: A GERMAN JEW AT THE DAWN OF APARTHEID" by Adam Yamey is the story of an enterprising man. His life was dedicated to improving the lot of those who were less f… Read More

 In late November, early December 2015, I visited the southern Indian coastal city of Pondicherry (‘Pondi’). Until 1954, this small place on the coast of the Bay of Bengal w… Read More

 I first visited the south Indian city of Bangalore, now called ‘Bengaluru’, in January 1994. About 30 years before that, one of London’s first ‘minicab’ c… Read More

 DESIRABLE PEOPLEThis is a sample chapter from a work in progress by Adam Yamey. It is from the life of his great-grandfather Franz Ginsberg. Here is a brief ‘blurb’ or intr… Read More

Image source:http://originalpeople.org/in-1810-a-freed-slave-named-tom-molineaux-fought-in-one-of-the-most-important-fights-in-the-history-of-boxing/Currently, I am researching the life of m… Read More

When I was a child in the early 1960s, I loved chatting over the telephone. My father, whose childhood was spent in South Africa, did not share my enthusiasm for this; he kept his calls brie… Read More

You might wonder why I am writing about Bashibazouks in Albania as reported in a newspaper published in Cape Town in 1911. The answer is easy. During my researches into the life of my great… Read More

This is an introduction to a book that I am currently writing. There is much more work to be done before my manuscript is completed, let alone edited.  Any comments or reflections on th… Read More

The Gypsies (aka ‘Roma’ or ‘Rom’) are much maligned and misunderstood. Two books written by the Belgian Jan Yoors present the nomads of Europe in a positive and life… Read More

I am in the process of writing a biography of one of my 19th century ancestors, who gradually assumed great importance in the political life of South Africa during the last decades of the 19… Read More

-A  divertissement-I qualified as a dental surgeon at University College Dental School (London) in March 1982. I began my first job in practice soon after that. I joined a small well-ru… Read More

 * * * * *Almost as soon as the British took over the Cape Colony from the Dutch at the beginning of the 19thcentury, practising Jews began arriving there. At first, most of them were o… Read More

My latest book contains tales of Jewish people who migrated to South Africa, and what they did there once they had arrived. Now, I want to share with you something of the excitement of… Read More

In general, children look forwards, not backwards: to the future, not the past. This is a good thing generally speaking. An exception to this is based on the fact that one’s parents an… Read More

EXODUS TO AFRICABy Adam YameyThis is to tell potential readers what my latest book Exodus to Africa is all about.Prior to the British taking over the Cape Peninsula in about 1800, Jews were… Read More

In an era before photography became the principal mode of recording memorable scenes by travellers, the English poet and artist Edward Lear (1812-1888) toured Albania during 1848. His sketch… Read More

Src: http://th.physik.uni-frankfurt.de/~jr/physpiceinstein.htmlAfter watching the movie Besa, The Promise, my curiosity drove me to watch another film about the rescue of the Jews by Al… Read More

The double-headed eagle, national symbol of Albania[i], has an ancient ancestry. Its earliest known manifestation is amongst artefacts dating back to Ancient Babylon, 2000-3000 years BC[ii]… Read More

I am so disappointed that I feel compelled to set pen to paper, or, should I 'say', put fingers to keyboard. I have just returned from an exhibition, called Rubens and his legacy, at London'… Read More

Many of our acquaintances expressed some surprise when we told them that we were going to spend 12 days in Fort Cochin ('Cochin'). They thought that we would get bored, and suggested that we… Read More

When we informed our friends in Bangalore that we were going to spend 12 days in Cochin (in the Indian State of Kerala), they all wondered what we would find to do there for such a long time… Read More

BEEF IN BANGALORE (BENGALURU)When I tell my friends and others in the UK that one of the very best places to eat beef is in the  land of the 'Sacred Cow' - India - they raise their eyeb… Read More

There are many towns within a roughly 20 mile radius of Sicily's capital, Palermo. No doubt, each of them is unique in its own way, but the most special of all of these has to be Piana degli… Read More

This may sound ridiculous, but it has taken us over 20 years to realise the convenience of London bus route number 46 that begins its journey at Lancaster Gate, which is close to where we li… Read More

Most tourists visit the small town of Palazzo Adriano to see its perfectly preserved old piazza with its unusual fountain, where the delightful movie Cinema Paradiso was filmed in 1988. We v… Read More