One of the sights of Mongolia at any time of year are huge, black birds, hundreds of feet in the air, just catching the thermals, sometimes for hours. These are Cinereous, or Black Vultures, one of the largest birds of prey in the world. While circling high above, they are also looking for carrion – a dead animal will attract a host of these birds all competing for scraps. Armed with ferocious beaks with fearsome tips to them, they can tear apart a horse carcass and leave nothing but bones in just two hours.
I was fortunate enough to be able to come across one of my friends who had one, and drove out to go and see this huge bird as well as have an afternoons trekking up to see a Temple dedicated to a Chinese Princess in Terelj. The bird turned out to be a juvenile – less than a year old. Yet is was still massive and it took all my strength just to hold it steady on the wrist. Back on its perch, it reassumed the familiar hunched neck posture as the image demonstrates. It is rare to come so close to such creatures – and I remain in awe of their sheer size. Despite their reputation as scavengers, I’ll  be seeing Vutures as the creatures they really are – elegant, powerful and highly effective cleaning machines on wings.
Valery Gergiev conducts the Stradivarius Ensemble
It’s black tie and dinner jacket time as the Classical Music new season begins, and in Toronto I was lucky to have tickets for the Gala performance – entitled “From Russia With Love†and featuring Valery Gergiev with the Stradivarius Ensemble. This took place in Toronto’s magnificent Royal Conservatory, which is 125 years old this year and has a brand spanking new Concert Hall.
As a Gala, I was invited to pre-performance drinks, and with Gergiev in town, vodka was definitely on the menu. That the reception lasted for 90 minutes was also somewhat brave, and Imperial Standard shots, caviar and smoked sturgeon were all consumed with some gusto. The Stradivarius Ensemble, founded by Gergiev comprises a group of musicians performing on the most famous and unique-sounding string instruments in the world, and is made up of the best musicians and leading soloists of the Mariinsky Theatre’s Symphony Orchestra. Some of the instruments are more than 400 years old. The evening concert took in some reflective yet beautiful pieces, with Richard Strauss’s Metamorphosen, a piece being a 1945 lament on the destruction of German civilization during World War II, and scored for ten violins, five violas, five cellos, and three double basses. It was composed during the closing months of the Second World War, in particular as a elegy for devastating bombing of Munich, especially places such as the Munich Opera House.
It is always a pleasure to visit New York, where I am fortunate enough to be able to combine business with pleasure. I have been a member of the Metropolitan Opera for a few years now, and am in the city often enough to have established a routine; places that suit me and enable me to feel quite at home. It was with some relief then that I checked back into the Algonquin Hotel on 44th; this most famous of New York brands (the New Yorker magazine was founded here, guests still receive complimentary copies) has unfortunately been closed for a few months for renovation, and I had to decamp on my last visit in March to the Royalton , which is great but a tad too modern for my tastes.
Every year I spend about two months in total in Mongolia. I find it a relaxing ambience compared to the rush and hassles of living and conducting business elsewhere in Asia, which is largely over-populated, polluted and dynamic to a heart palpitating degree. I divide my time there into three-four chunks, I bought an apartment in Ulaan Baatar a couple of years ago and that has developed as my “man-cave†– no feminine touches here I’m afraid. Ibex horns adorn the walls, and my collection of Mongolian, Tibetan and Central Asian art hangs alongside. There’s bear, wolf, and reindeer skins on the floors – you get the drift.
 
 Midsummer has just been and gone, and the years days are now – gradually – drawing in. Midsummer is celebrated throughout the Baltic – with long evenings never really getting dark. I am reminded about the Finnish anecdote concerning Jean Sibelius, drinking and gambling with his friends at Helsinki’s famous Kappeli bar. Informing them at 4am he had to go away to St. Petersburg for a few days to work on some compositions, he returned, only to find his friends still drinking, and still playing cards where he had left them. “Jean!†they admonished him†“For Goodness sakes stop wandering in and out all the time and close the door!â€
In January I attended the Galle Literary Festival in Sri Lanka, which quite apart from being in one of the most beautiful locations in South-East Asia also gives me an opportunity to visit good friends of mine there, currently in the process of building an estate at Naula, near to Dambulla. Also well read, Simon and his wife Pauline arranged the accommodation, a charming colonial bungalow on the beach, where we would retire to each evening and eat wonderful seafood. The Festival itself was fun – Galle being an ancient Portugese city fort, and a host of illuminaries turned up to either lecture about life in general (Stoppard) flog their latest time (Simon Sebag Montefiore) or persuade us all not to believe in God (Richard Dawkins and wife).
Getting to Coigach requires a flight to Inverness, then a two hour drive west, beyond Ullapool and 40 minutes bouncing along a single track road to Achiltibuie passing numerous lochs and mountains on the way. Then the vista opens up – the Summer Isles, spread out in a panoramic view that extends all the way West to Stornaway, South to the Isle of Skye, and East down Loch Broom. I like to see where my whisky comes from, and the Highlands have it aplenty. Not for nothing did I pack a bottle of Laphroiag’s Quarter Cask
 
I unashamedly enjoy my food and drink – in fact I cook a lot at home as well, where even my kitchen has its own library, its shelves stuffed with everything from the Silver Spoon and Larousse to a plethora of ethnic and regional cookery books from my travels around the world. Visiting somewhere, then trying to recreate the best of their cuisine at home is a regular weekend pastime. This means trips to the local markets, where Beijing often has a vast array of local fresh products, and near its Embassy district, a huge market with everything from anywhere all provided to keep the multitude of Embassy kitchens happy. Consequently, I often cook and eat according to the seasons – a diet of mainly fish during the summer, and white wines as would befit a city that can get positively steamy. During autumn and winter, Beijing gets cold, and more meat and red wines are consumed.
The annual Capital Club Ball took place at the Capital Club – unbelievable its now in its 17th year – and I was a founder member! This years theme was “Shanghai Jazz”, and featured a pretty cool live band creating the, er, sounds of the twenties, plus the obligatory in-house casino. A great dinner, some 300 people, and some very fine Pinot Noir Burgundies coupled with a few courses from the White House Chef’s repertoire. The suit I had made a few years ago – actually out of upholstery material I purchased in Sri Lanka, while Meggie hat is even more interesting. Made entirely from dyed feathers, we picked it up in an antique store on Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco. It turns out to be a Jack McConnell vintage ‘red feather’ hat from New York. The red feather, tucked into the label, denotes it was a bespoke item. They now fetch hundreds of dollars at auction, and we’ve no idea when it was last worn. I’m sure it enjoyed it’s moment in the limelight in Beijing – it was certainly the most admired of all the headwear on show!