There is a funny thing going on with time in Ethiopia. First of all, it doesn't seem to mean much to most people. Timetables? are you having a laugh? Buses go when they're ready to go. You wait until they are full. It might take five minutes, it might take an hour or more. You never know. In any case, Ethiopian clocks work differently, and when they say 'midnight', that could mean six in the morning. Or six at night; I could never quite work it out. I did know th...

Addis Ababa. 'New Flower'. Makes one visualise expansive green parks, shrubbery, lush grass, leafy sidewalks and a profusion of colours and scents. The reality? A smoke-filled, traffic-choked, sprawling, non-descript grey twentieth century city which sadly lacks basic sanitation and is in the process of a building boom. Roads half-laid, buildings half-built, a half-baked city which doesn't ever feel like being the finished article. Has a city ever been more inapp...