Oh yes. Let me count. I think six times, but I’m probably blocking. The best, by far, was when I dislocated my knee and sprained my ankle while skiing in Nauders in Austria, and they brought me down in the blood wagon, having taken the precaution of giving me just a teeny hit of morphine. Now that was a kick, flying down the hill just inches above the snow and really not caring a bit. I did it again a couple of decades later, dislocating my shoulder in the Savoie, and enjoyed a repeat performance. The other trips aren’t even worth remembering.

I’m pretty certain about this one, but not absolutely. Lots of beaches, lots of walks, surely on one of them the moon was shining. Maybe the time I watched turtles coming ashore to nest? Or the penguins doing their regular-as-clockwork parade at Phillips Island. Not a huge amount of walking, but still. And definitely on the beach in Baja California, passing the campfire when the mate euphemistically called out, “Wanna go for a walk?” and we replied, all straight-arrow and upright, “No thanks, we’ve just had one”. And we had. Euphemistically speaking. I’m sure I remember moonlight.

In 100 words? Odd one this. I was born in Africa, but I’ve never visited the country of my birth, since leaving. Lots of reasons, most of them probably not worth much; fear, most likely. I have visited other countries though, and something truly visceral happened to me when I smelled rain on red dirt among the jacarandas. I doubt that I could ever have identified the smell, if you had somehow wafted it under my nose in North London. But in Nairobi the second time (the first being a momentary stop-over of my first flight to England) it smelled like home.

For the first time on the same trip that I first saw the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Since then, though, not as often. It is pretty impressive, though, that I’d have to admit. However, I’m going to hijack the intent of this TID entirely and say that awesome though Michelangelo’s David may be, by some standards, it can’t hold a candle to Donatello’s glorious version of the same. Of all the classic Davids, the Donatello is the one I’d want in my living room, even if that room were large enough to hold Michelangelo’s, even if it isn’t actually David.

Many times. Parochial bloody list. But I can’t think what a good version of this activity ought to be for people who don’t live in Europe. Been in the Statue of Liberty’s head? Had your supper stolen by a gull at the Sydney Opera House? Walked across the Grand Coolee Dam? That’s the odd thing about other people’s lives compared to one’s own. Their humdrum is potentially my exotic, and vice versa. I’ve never really understood that thing about walking a mile (or five) in another man’s moccasins, but doing his daily chores might be interesting, at least for a while.