"I'm sitting at a café table at the former Hotel Esplanade on Potsdamer Platz - Berlin's Piccadilly Circus. The décor is neo-baroque: candles sit in sconces and an ornate mirror hangs above the fireplace. It could almost be any elegant café, in any European city. Except this café has only two walls, and they're preserved like museum pieces behind plate glass. The tables sit outdoors, and a step back reveals the Esplanade's grandeur to be a fragment: an architectural joke at the expense of Berlin's tortured history, stranded in the glitz of a Sony multiplex."
From: Healed Scars of History, Financial Times, November 2003.
As a travel writer I specialise in Europe, in cities and cultural topics and lesbian and gay travel. I have in-depth knowledge of three European regions in particular: Provence and the Côte d'Azur, Central Europe - including Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic and Poland - and Gran Canaria.
Naturally I travel more widely, but when I write about somewhere unfamiliar I make sure I know what I'm writing about - through meticulous research, diligent note taking and thorough fact checking.
Features
I write about the offbeat and original: lesser-known but intriguing destinations like Poznan in Poland or Opatija in Croatia, or fresh angles on more familiar places, as in the Berlin piece quoted above. I am a regular contributor to the Financial Times, and have written for 34 Magazine, The Guardian, Independent on Sunday, GB Airways' Med Life magazine (for British Airways) and Aer Lingus' Cara. I also contribute travel articles to the gay press, in particular to Gay Times in the UK.
Books
I have been working as a Rough Guides author since 2002. I am the author of Rough Guide Directions Gran Canaria, and a contributing author to the last two editions of the Rough Guide to Provence & the Côte d'Azur and to the Rough Guides to France, Austria and London. In addition, I have contributed material to Time Out guides.
Copywriting
As a copywriter I specialise in producing crisp, readable copy to magazine standards. Clients have included VisitBritain, the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham and Amro Holidays.
