Back from a great two weeks of reading, relaxing, exploring, mint tea and fearless driving in Morocco. A week ago I was a couple of miles outside Merzouga, in the desert, under a full moon, and staying in a Berber tent among the 300 foot dunes. Away from it all, it's easy to draw a veil of schmaltzy naffness over it - "Oh the stars", "It stripped me down to my bare essentials" etc. But it really was awesome, in the fullest sense of the word.

Two things the experience made sense of, and vividly so, were:

"Holiness in the desert is silence, in the crowd it is conversation"

(or something not too far off)

And probably my favourite line of verse, and top of my "Now That's What I Call Poetry" compilation

"Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air."

Of course, I'm glossing over the fact that the donkey had piles or something hee-hawed from about 2am till dawn, and the fact that the camels seemed to have shat everywhere, but testament to the whole thing is that when you're there you really don't mind. You're a million miles away from everything.