To my mind, M-S looks rather like a secretary bird. In case you've forgotten what a secretary bird looks like, Google: " secretary bird image" and for comparison "M-S...". Unfortunately, I have not found an image of M-S showing his legs, which makes it difficult for you to form a judgement.
M-S is one of those English eccentrics whom we cherish partly because they are so seldom encountered and may be becoming even rarer, indeed extinct in many parts of the British Isles and former colonies.
Travels is subtitled: A Journey in the Footnotes of Ibn Battutah. Ibn Battutah (IB) henceforth, was a native of Morrocco who set out on the pilgrimage to Mecca in the early thirteen hundreds, and kept on travelling - as far North as the Volga river, as far South as Tanzania and Mali in Africa, and then West through India and on to China. IB was a lucky man. He had an eye for the ladies and got married in most of his longer stopping points. He had his mishaps too. Having charmed an Indian potentate he was given a grand present to convey to the emperor of China. He lost it together with all his own possessions in a storm while his boat was still moored at the quayside. He spent some time in the Maldives and pronounced them paradise.
Travels is not Tim's first book, but it is the first book to catch the public's attention. A three-part documentary-type programme was flighted on BBC4 in 2006, in which M-S was filmed following parts of IB's journey. It was while watching this that the long-legged questing bird comparison occurred to me.
IB eventually returned to Tangiers where he dictated his memoirs at length and at leisure in several volumes. These books became famous across the Arab World. Now his name is becoming more familiar in the West. ( )

The author (Yemen: The Unknown Arabia), a British Arabist who has lived in Yemen for the past 17 years, traces the footsteps of an extraordinary, but relatively unknown, medieval explorer. He travels a wide swath from Tangiers to Constantinople via Egypt, Syria, Oman, Anatolia, and the Crimea. Ibn Battutah (1304-1368) grew up in Tangier within an educated family. At the age of 21, he embarked on a pilgrimage to Mecca and spent the next 30 years traveling throughout the Middle and Far East. When Mackintosh-Smith happened on a translated version of Battutah's travels, he was hooked and decided to make the same journey. This volume covers only the first part of Battutah's path, from Tangier to Constantinople, but has enough excitement, exotic details and information to satisfy the most exacting armchair traveler. The author brings his research skills, scholarship and respect for all cultures to bear on Battutah's adventures and his own. Written with humoor and style, he describes how Battutah "schmoozed with sultans" in Denizli, Turkey. In Damascus, the author enjoys a brain burger for breakfast before visiting the Umayyad Mosque, a structure Battutah detailed in 10 pages and referred to as "the greatest Mosque on earth." Throughout this narrative, Mackintosh-Smith provides enough anecdotes about Battutah's knowledge of aphrodisiacs, the foods he ate, the hardships he endured, the people he met and, most tellingly, the wonders he beheld to bring this unique daredevil and his times to life.

Great story - looking forward to reading "Hall of a Thousand Columns" (further travels with Ibn Battutah)! ( )

This is a travel book, obviously. The author went travelling around... a whole lot of places, following the route of Ibn Batuttah, a Moroccan Muslim of the 14th century who travelled a massive distance and wrote a book about it. This only follows the first part of his route, up until Constantinople.

It was an interesting read - the author clearly knew a lot about the history of the places he was visiting, at least as regards the 14th century - but since I know really nothing about that part of the world or that period in history, I think a lot of it was lost on me. So, although I enjoyed it, I don't think I'm going to read the follow-up. I did discover (while channel-hopping) that there was a tv adaptation on BBC4, which I've got hold of, so I'm going to watch that to a) find out how to pronounce some of the things he was talking about and b) attempt to get some of his interesting facts to sink in to my brain this time. ( )

Travels with a Tangerine by Tim Macintosh-Smith is a slow read, but one that I savored. It is a travel book that describes the wonders of travel by following the footsteps of the fourteenth century pilgrim, Ibn Battutah who had “the specific sense of [the]mystical,[and]transcendental” (114). I like when an author introduces new ideas, images, places, and vocabulary in the rich context of history. The lush text reads with a sensual and conversational intimacy. Some of his expressions are new to me, just as they are when one travels. “The air from the Rosetta, or Bolbitine, branch of the Nile was fresh, but the teahouse was fuggy with gossip” (65). Fuggy, I would ask if I was there, but the dictionary is always available to the reader to help clarify-- musty and stale. Highlights: The description of Cairo in the 1300’s (83+), the vivid detail of architectural descriptions throughout, brief discussion on copromania (74), chewing tambul (betel) (234+) or qat, the description and experience of the whirling dervishes (277+). As I was reading about Smith’s experience in Crimea (401+), I coincidentally bumped into a fascinating discussion by Errol Morris on Susan Sontag’s comment about Roger Fenton’s photographs during the Crimean War (http://morris.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/... )
Overall—Tim Macintosh-Smith provides a richly informative read. ( )