The story of an old sage instructing his pupils:\u00a0 \u201cWhen I was young,\u201d he says, \u201cI believed that a mountain was just a mountain.\u00a0 Then, when I began the long process to nirvana<\/em>, enlightenment, I realised that there was much more to a mountain and that it was a symbol of many other things.\u00a0 But now that I have achieved nirvana<\/em>, I realise that a mountain is, indeed, just a mountain.\u201d [as told in Nanda Devi<\/a>]<\/p>\n .<\/p>\n Favourite crisp<\/span><\/span>?<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Cheese and onion.\u00a0 Although I\u2019m confused ever since Walkers put them in a blue packet, rather than the old green one.\u00a0 Why did they do that?<\/p>\n .<\/p>\n What was the first place you visited overseas?<\/span><\/p>\n Paris with my mother when I was very young, in 1968. It was exciting. We had just the \u00a350 exchange control allowance and stayed with a bunch of students who I realise, in retrospect, were stoned revolutionaries. On our first night they drove us around the city in an open-top car. I can still remember the impact with which we hit each roundabout, like a bob-sleigh ride.<\/p>\n .<\/p>\n What is your idea of heaven on Earth?<\/span><\/p>\n A small quinta in Peru’s Sacred Valley, criolla<\/em> music playing in the background, having some deep-fried pork and cold beers with friends, while knowing that there is jungle-fruit ice-cream to follow.<\/p>\n .<\/p>\n And what about hell?<\/span><\/p>\n A bank in the town of Ziguinchor in Senegal, in the hot season, waiting for travellers cheques to clear.\u00a0 It took three days and I’ve carried cash ever since.<\/p>\n .<\/p>\n Who is the most memorable person you’ve met?<\/span><\/p>\n Lee `Scratch’ Perry, the Jamaican record producer and maverick. His habit of speaking constantly in verse, wearing Mickey Mouse shorts and watering the CDs he’d planted in the garden of his burnt-out recording studio helped. Plus the fact that he’s a genius.<\/p>\n .<\/p>\n What has been your worst moment?<\/span><\/p>\n Getting dragged by a horse down Peru’s Vilcabamba valley when a mining pickup tried to run us down was not good, but at least the scars were only physical. Telling director Nicolas Roeg that I was the only person in the cinema for a screening of his film Eureka<\/em> not long after it opened is more likely to keep me awake at nights.<\/p>\n .<\/p>\n Do you listen to music on your travels?<\/span><\/p>\n Obsessively. William Dalrymple and I travelled a great deal around India together for our BBC series Indian Journeys<\/em> and kept trading tracks. For some peculiar reason Bob Dylan’s Time Out Of Mind<\/em> worked particularly well as we headed to the source of the Ganges.<\/p>\n .<\/p>\n What is your favourite holiday read?<\/span><\/p>\n I read Anna Karenina<\/em> while crossing the Peruvian desert; the 24-hour journey forced me to finish it [see Book of a Lifetime<\/a>]. I usually enjoy books that other people have brought — as with ordering food in a restaurant.<\/p>\n .<\/p>\n I\u2019m going to Peru and want to walk the Inca trail.\u00a0 Any advice?<\/span><\/p>\n Many tour companies have behaved irresponsibly in the way they sell the Inca trail:\u00a0 they commit the cardinal mistake of flying clients into Cusco from sea level at Lima, and making them spend the night there at 11,000 ft.\u00a0 At the best of times this is inadvisable;\u00a0 when you\u2019re about to do a 4-day trek over high passes, it\u2019s inexcusable, as the last thing you want is to start already suffering from the altitude.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve seen too many walkers on the Inca trail suffer in just such a way from poor acclimatization and preparation, particularly on some charity or budget trek where corners have been cut.\u00a0 The last time I led a group on the Trail, I had two grandmothers in their 70s with me. Properly acclimatized, they cruised past many a group of fit young trekkers who hadn\u2019t, and were collapsing on the wayside.<\/p>\n The smart move is always to spend your first night after arrival at Cusco airport in the nearby Sacred Valley, at a lower and considerably more comfortable altitude, and closer to the start of the Inca Trail anyway.\u00a0 The delights of Cusco with its fine dining and fleshpots can be saved until you\u2019ve finished the trail \u2013 when you will have deserved them.<\/p>\n .<\/p>\n Why are there only 5 items in all your lists?<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n Because it\u2019s too much like hard work to think of ten.<\/p>\n .<\/p>\n Most over-repeated phrase?<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018Let\u2019s move the stool to the piano rather than the piano to the stool.\u2019<\/p>\n .<\/p>\n [BBC radio intv.:]\u00a0 You travelled around the world meeting all these rock stars [for the Dancing in the Street<\/em> TV series].\u00a0 What was your best moment?<\/span><\/p>\n When Tina Weymouth [of Talking Heads] admired my socks.<\/p>\n .<\/p>\n Can I get DVD copies of your documentary work, like Dancing in the Street<\/em> and Indian Journeys<\/em>?<\/span><\/p>\n Often not, for copyright reasons, which is deeply irritating and absurd given that as a licence payer you probably paid for them in the first place.\u00a0 Aside from Russia with Jonathan Dimbleby<\/em>, and my Kilimanjaro <\/em>film, almost none of the films available, although sometimes re-shown on TV. \u00a0BUT it is starting to be possible to see them online:<\/p>\n See some of the films Hugh directed, now on YouTube:<\/span><\/p>\n Oscar\u00a0<\/a><\/b><\/em>\u00a0A very personal account of Oscar Wilde\u2019s life and legacy as the first of the century\u2019s ‘rock and roll stars’<\/p>\n \u00a0Dancing in the Street: A Rock and Roll History<\/strong>\u00a0most if not all\u00a0of the 10 episodes of are available on Youtube, sometimes in\u00a0their American version as the PBS series ‘Rock and\u00a0Roll<\/a>‘: \u00a0 like\u00a0episode 8 on Punk<\/a>\u00a0(BBC UK version): \u00a0 Jonathan Richman, Steve Jones on how to play guitar on speed (not at speed), The Clash, John Lydon, Johnny Ramone together with Joey Ramone \u2013 very rare \u2013 and some amazing footage of Patti Smith we found in a fridge, unseen for 20 years. \u00a0And Hugh went to Jamaica to have herbal tea with Bunny Wailer. Watch and envy. \u00a0Not least because he drops the TV in\u00a0the\u00a0Opening Titles of TV being thrown out of window<\/a>. \u00a0Hugh personally threw every television for the 15 takes needed to get this shot. \u00a0 Kind of addictive. \u00a0Can see why Keef got into it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n .<\/p>\n Stones or Beatles?<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s a simplistic question.\u00a0 But by temperament, more Stones.<\/p>\n .<\/p>\n What are you working on at the moment?<\/span><\/p>\n Moving into fiction, if the world will let me, with novels set in Colombia and Peru.\u00a0 As well as a substantial amount of poetry. When not tinkering with this website as a displacement activity.<\/p>\n .<\/p>\n
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