I'm back. Back in Liverpool from Budapest, Innsbruck, Turin, Sauze d'Oulx, and Paris. I know, it all sounds romantic and lovely - having been skiing, skating, up mountains in cable cars and funiculars, down steps into smoky bars, through bustling markets, and across cities by rumbling trams. But I have returned feeling rather like an old rubber dinghy - somewhat deflated. I should feel euphoric, yet I don't. The sheer richness of the past three weeks, the nove...

My father pulled a chair into the centre of the hotel room, stood on it and peered inside the chandelier. 'Just checking for microphones,' he said. He tapped the light fitting, then mimed a listening spy wearing headphones and pulling them away from his ears in shock. I laughed. It was 1964, and Hungary was very much under communist influence. The Duna Hotel in Budapest was plush, as I remember, though I was only nine years old. I was, however, already a James B...