James Jeffrey is an editor for the Catholic Herald, a writer and a Camino guide.
The fall of the Berlin Wall was meant to have been the crowning moment for the West, and for the principles of empowering liberation and freedom. Obviously so – I used to think. Now I’m more along the lines of, well, yes and no. The fall also seems in some ways to divide the former
She looked up at me imploringly from the simmering pavement as the sun beat down on one man and his dog in Seville. ‘You haven’t peed yet, Amaya, we need to walk on a bit more,’ though I realised the injustice, as we were both so dehydrated neither of us had much chance of fulfilling
What’s a guy got to do these days to take a pee in peace? Standing at the urinal in London King’s Cross train station, I was trying to embrace the present, not dwell on the failures of the past or the great trials to come; and for a brief moment, I felt that Zen-like tranquillity
Naples is dirty, noisy, haphazard, and full of kamikaze scooter drivers. It is also sensual, liberating, and jolly. But that doesn’t seem to appeal to many people today, who prefer everything to be ordered, measured; all uncertainty removed. In city form, it’s known as Singapore: unlike Naples, everything there is clean, tidy, and works. It’s
No one seems to be talking about how the faces of most of the female population appear to have frozen. I increasingly find myself gazing admiringly at groups of young men – like some sort of proud avuncular patriarch – who seem the only people left capable of smiling. Like knights of old, they are protectors of
I can’t stop thinking about Pierre. I first met him at the end of December in a Finisterre bar much favoured by the hippy types drawn to the strange energies of the western coast of Galicia. With his sunned and bearded swarthy face, solid build and tattoos, I initially thought he was a Galician fisherman.
In the courtyard of the bishop’s palace, the young man who would become Saint Francis stripped naked in front of his parents and various town and church officials. He handed his clothes with a bag of money on top to his father, saying: ‘I give these back to you. From now on I have one
The späti is a Berlin institution. These late-night corner shops began popping up in the former German Democratic Republic for workers clocking off from their evening shifts. Serving as a mixture of mini-supermarket and meeting place, spätis have outdoor seating, often wobbly wooden tables and benches on which locals sit and drink cheap bottles of
As Israel encircles Gaza City, the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) is conducting what we in the British Army call Fibua, or Fighting In Built-Up Areas. Less ceremoniously, it’s known as Fish – fighting in someone’s house – or Fish and Chips – fighting in someone’s house and causing havoc in people’s streets. But the flippant name
I always thought drinking cider was a bit lame. But then I did a Camino pilgrimage that took me through Spain’s northern Asturias region. I now think cider is cool. Cider is a phenomenon in Asturias, where the art of imbibing sidra, as it is called, is elevated to a ceremonial form. We have the
John Brierley, who died last month, was a legendary pilgrim that you’ve probably never heard of. Admittedly, these days most people aren’t familiar with any pilgrims. Just going to Sunday mass is unorthodox. The vast majority of us who respected Brierley never met him and probably, like me, never saw a video clip of him
I know it’s a tad warmer than usual in southern Europe but let’s not lose our heads. That holiday in stunning Andalusia is still worth it. Admittedly, some mitigating measures are probably worth taking. With the passion of model railway enthusiasts, we’d discuss what contents should go in the optimal med kit Since I started
Once again gamers appear to be behind a dramatic leak of classified military intelligence. Documents originally emanating from the Pentagon appear to have been shared on the video game chat platform Discord by a 21-year-old air national guardsman – in an effort to win an esoteric argument involving the highly popular video game Minecraft Maps and
Berliner Luft is a popular peppermint-flavoured shot downed in the city’s bars. It also means Berlin Air and is a colloquialism for the city’s spirit of unfettered freedom and rebellious abandon. Given what this city went through, reduced to rubble by the furious Russians at the end of world war two, and then rent in
When you hear the word flamenco you probably think of a lady dancing in a polka-dot dress, stomping her feet, accompanied by guitars and singing. And in the fair capital of Andalucía, Seville, you would have no problem finding such a sight. All across the old town, around the cathedral and in the lee of
If you want to feel scruffy, head to Seville, the outrageously attractive capital city of southern Spain’s Andalucia region. It’s not just the abundant exquisite architecture – the city has one of the largest historic ‘old towns’ in Europe, with every bar, café and restaurant looking tiptop – but also the sartorial elegance that abounds
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, straining upon the start. So wrote William Shakespeare in Henry V. He could well have been writing about the British Army’s main battle tank, the mighty 62-tonne behemoth that is Challenger 2, which is now being sent to Ukraine. The Challenger 2 is a weighty sort of
Let’s just simmer down about Prince Harry, at least when it comes to his comments about the Taliban. In his memoir Spare, released this week, the Prince writes that he killed 25 people in Afghanistan and thought of ‘Taliban fighters not as people but as chess pieces.’ This wasn’t the best choice of words. He shouldn’t have
No disrespect to the hotel industry: staying in a hotel room, especially when there is someone nice with you, can be exciting and sexy. Staying in a hotel room on your own, though, can be exceedingly sad, boring and unsexy. Unfortunately, I’ve experienced more of the latter type of hotel stopover (a squalid hotel room
Combat food seems to prove particularly divisive. It is the Marmite of culinary preparation:you either love it or loathe it. I’m firmly in the former camp. Combat food isn’t specifically military, though there is a link. It refers to simple, no-nonsense, hearty fare, whose ingredients – typically from tins – can easily be thrown into
