Billboard outside the Presidential  Palace.

Meandering along the banks of the Mekong, Vientiane is surely south-east Asia’s most languid capital. The wide streets…..

LONELY PLANET.

‘Here with a loaf of bread beneath the bough, a flask of wine, a book of verse – and thou beside me singing in the wilderness – and wilderness is paradise now.’

TRANS: EDWARD FITZGERALD.

….he had a serenity that came with the choice of the life he wanted to live. And this serenity and certainty I have seen only among those who have the armour of books close by.

MICHAEL  ONDAATGE.     ‘The Cat’s Table.’

The moving finger writes, and , having writ, moves on; nor all your piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all your tears blot out a word of it.

Tr.  EDWARD FITZGERALD.