"Even the longest journey begins with the first Blog post"

ISTANBUL 

TO  INVERNESS

(WITH A LITTLE BIT OF RUGGER IN BETWEEN)

...IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF MARCO POLO...*

[*Well, not really.  Marco pretty much went in the other direction - and didn't play Rugby. ] 

"Even the longest journey begins with the first Blog post"

(Recent Chinese proverb)

PROLOGUE

The not a few avid readers of The Peregrinations will have noticed that last year's "Journey to the Centre of the Earth" appeared to end rather abruptly somewhere between Uluru and King's Canyon.
Some readers feared that the Prop may have fallen foul of those itinerant Maricahi desperadoes, the so-called "Ess Gees" (See KULGERA to YULARA (ULURU [AYERS ROCK]).

Other readers assumed other things.

All of them were wrong!

Unless they assumed that the Prop, having made it to the halfway mark of the journey, more or less ran out of steam.

But now is not the time to dwell upon past failures nor for the Prop to publicly flagellate himself for his all-too-obvious literary shortcomings. No!

Now is to time to look forward! For the "wanderlust" (and Rugby World Cup) have come upon us again. On, on!

In a matter of a few days the Prop and Mrs P (both of whose wrists are now fully functional: See PAMBULA BEACH TO BERMAGUI TO BEGA TO BERMAGUI TO BEGA TO BERMAGUI TO BEGA etc...) will immerse themselves in the byzantine pleasures of  Byzantium...Constantinople..Stamboul...Istanbul.  Call it what you like, this dazzling cosmopolitan metropolis of the Near East sets the imagination afire.

Then on to Greece! This dazzling cosmopolitan country has set the European Monetary system afire!

The Prop has reason to expect that he may soon be contacted by the IMF/World Bank/ EU/ Angela Merkel/Alexis Tspiras et al. to mediate the "Greek Debt Crisis".

Yet another working holiday looms!

Despite tough talk from both sides, the Prop is confident that he will restore stability and prosperity to the EuroZone. However, and against the possibility that he may be completely wrong on this score, the Prop has made arrangements for ready access to vast quantities of the spondooliks (which, paradoxically [which is a Greek word] is possibly a Greek word?).  The Prop estimates that, with a 10 o'clock start and time off for a siesta each day, this should take about a week.

Then on to Serbia, Montengro, Croatia, Hungary, Austria, France, Spain (leaving no Euro unspent) and thence to the United Kingdom where the Prop will take up a position at Oxford.  (Actually a rented house in Woodstock - about 10 miles out of Oxford - which has several chairs but no professorships.)

At length, the Prop and Mrs P will reach Inverness and attempt to discover whether any of the "four and twenty virgins" from that famous town ever made it back alive after Rugby World Cup 2015.

So, dear reader, strap yourself in (or get some one else to do it for you if you are that way inclined) and watch the rich tapestry of "Istanbul to Inverness" unfold before your eyes.

On the other hand, if the Prop runs out of steam yet again or the Greeks run out of  currency, the Blog may, like the Serbian Railways so often do, grind to a halt somewhere east of Bar.          

NEXT: The Doha Round - Like Qantas, Qatar Airways does not need U!