Sport, travel, food, art, humour. Award winning author of 13 non-fiction books. Based in North East England. Contributing editor to Conde Nast Traveller UK. Wrote 800+ columns for the Guardian.
The best beaches near Newcastle
Wherever you are in Newcastle, even in its pulsating, partying heart, you are never far from the windblown emptiness of a North Sea beach. A 45-minute drive to the north brings you to sweeping stretches of white sand, backed by rolling dunes speckled with orchids, clifftop castles and an atmosphere of epic grandeur that has attracted filmmakers such as Roman Polanski and Ridley Scott. In nearby Tyne and Wear the beaches have more traditional British seaside charms, epitomised by the glowing A...
Why Flanders is the spiritual home of cycling’s hard racing
Bike racing is in the air in Flanders, as unavoidable as the rain, as ubiquitous as pralines. A look at the rich history of Flemish cycling.
A great walk to a great pub: The Wallace Arms, Rowfoot, North Pennines
A walk through an area once populated by murderous clans leading to a cosy pub in rural Northumberland
An English railway journey back in time
The Esk Valley line transports pilgrims to a Yorkshire town made famous by its crop of giant gooseberries
History of Oman
Oman is a country of great variety. In fact, historically, it's a variety of countries. It was called 'Muscat and Oman' until the accession of Sultan Qaboos bin Said in 1970, and even that double barrel was a wishful attempt to impose homogeneity on a collection of mutually hostile indigenous tribes and a multitude of incomers: merchants from Persia and the Indian subcontinent; descendants of slaves from Somalia (when James Morris visited Oman in 1955 the Sultan, Qaboos's father, still kept a...
Full steam ahead — how artists embraced the age of the train
The locomotive roared through European art for more than a century, inspiring English Romantics, French Impressionists, Italian Futurists and Belgian Surrealists. Harry Pearson tracks its epic journey
In the autumn of 1825, a wheezing, panting, cast-iron contraption designed by George and Robert Stephenson chugged out of the County Durham town of Shildon in the north of England. Named Locomotion No 1, the steam engine was hauling 20 coal wagons and an experimental passenger coach containing c...
Celebrating 80 Years of Monopoly
A look at the history of the world's favourite board game
Piero Manzoni in Denmark
Controverisal Italian artists Piero Manzoni made many of his best known works in a shirt factory in rural Denmark.
Escape Routes podcast: Alaska
‘The temperature is half a dozen degrees below zero; moisture freezes in the air and falls down on us like a glitter shower....’ The USA’s 49th state can be cold, but there are plenty of places to wrap up warm. Travelling from Anchorage out to historic fur-trapper towns and a Russian trading post, Pearson encounters frozen rivers and vintage planes, log cabins and wild salmon, and a cast of gritty but welcoming local characters. He’s also in time to witness the start of the Iditarod, the worl...
City guide: Reykjavík, Iceland - Vogue Living
City guide: Reykjavík, Iceland - Vogue Living
A great walk to a great pub: the Drover’s Rest, Cumbria
A warm, cosy hostelry with splendid sausage sandwiches rewards walkers on this Solway coast stroll through Roman, medieval and Victorian history
Oman: 11 best places to visit
ROADTRIP TO SUR
From Muscat eastward towards Sur is a 150-mile journey, much of it on dirt roads, past a succession of tiny fishing villages (each one has watchtowers and deserted white beaches) and the ruins of the ancient city of Qalhāt, of which all that is left standing is a pretty, roofless structure of honey-coloured stone said to be the tomb of a female saint, or maybe a princess of Hormuz. To the south tower purple mountains. Stop and peer over the low cliffs and you may see infant sh...