Travel

There's an old joke that says if you look like your passport photo you're too ill to travel.

Sadly the old joke will soon be obsolete, as I discovered recently when preparing some photos for a friend who was applying for a new Irish passport. How things have changed: the old days - of sitting behind a flimsy curtain in one of those little booths on a railway platform while a freezing wind blows around your ankles and a blinding light washes all the colour out of your face so a cheap camera can produce a barely recognizeable likeness of you - are over. In these troubled times there is a whole new set of biometric-determined rules governing the simple passport photo, governing everything from acceptable facial expressions to jewellery to the precise positioning of the image. Nothing is left to chance.

To make matters worse, it's widely speculated that as a UK passport holder I will be obliged, when my passport is next up for renewal in two years time, to get myself an ID card. If I understand things properly, this will carry just about every significant bit of information about me in a magnetic strip. What a fantastic idea: I'd better not lose it though, as the British government is obviously intent on doing all it can to encourage identity theft.

But that's enough of these ramblings for now. Here are some travel diaries:

• La Gomera - Jan '07
  I recently returned from a short break on this wonderful and seldom-visited Canary Island. In truth, it's such a fantastic place that I'm hesitant to post this diary in case too many people decide to go there. Fortunately I suspect it will always be of limited appeal due to the relative lack of infrastructure. If you like to have everything laid on for you it isn't the place to go. But if you value quiet, unspoilt places with fantastic landscapes and prehistoric scenery, and don't mind looking after yourself a bit, this could be the place for you.