Epub‘I was born in Peckham over the Falcon Billiard Saloon On a wet Monday morning, which may account for a lot of things, says Patrick Alexander. It does not, however, account for his insight into the workings of the Secret Service, or his knowledge and expertise on the use and misuse of firearms. What he doesn’t know about those subjects could be written on the nose of a boat-tailed bullet. Perhaps his subsequent career as reporter and television writer and his travels in Russia and Europe writing special features explains his lately revealed talent as a master story-teller.The jungle was all around him.The jungle is all around you wherever you are, his mother used to tell him when he was small.They were living in Ruislip then and he would look out of the window half-expecting a tiger to spring out of the sweet peas at the bottom of the garden.He wished he were in Ruislip now. A childish wish, as childish as the tears he wept over Kirote, who had been dead since dawn and was beginning to smellMechanically he brushed the flies away from the body with one hand and his own tears with the other. He wept partly from grief and partly from self-pity, but mostly from physical weakness. He had been underfed, overworked and sporadically maltreated for two years. Kirote was the only friend he made in that time. He had shared a cell with him and six other Africans - five thieves and a simple-minded rapistHe would have liked to bury him, but there was no time for niceties. Leave him to the hyenas and vultures and whatever else scavenged that part of the rain-forest He took the knife they had taken from the dead guard and, sniffing back his tears, moved on through the bush, following narrow paths and animal tracks, always beading west, taking a bearing from the sun whenever he glimpsed it through the perpetual gloom.His feet were tender, his legs ached, he was thirsty. But he kept on at a rhythmic pace.They had been in the rain-forest six days, living off wild bananas and forest snails and yams stolen from the occasional plantation. Now he was alone and frightened.

Learn why great wines and great writers are a wonderful blend The pleasures of great wine and great writers: Under the careful guidance of his father, Patrick Alexander began drinking wine with his meals at the age of five. At the same age, encouraged by his mother, he began a lifelong love-affair with books. The twin pleasures of wine and writing remained his passion for the next sixty-five years. He has raised his own children in many of the world's great wine growing regions, from Bordeaux and Piedmont in Europe to the Santa Cruz mountains of California while researching and writing his definitive guide to the novels of Marcel Proust. History of wine and some of the best wines: For the past six years, Patrick has been teaching a sold-out wine appreciation class at the nation's No.1 independent bookstore, Books & Books in Coral Gables, Florida. The Booklover's Guide to Wine is based on this very successful class and blends Patrick's passion for the...