From shortly after the time I left Oxford with a degree in theology until 1999, I ran a tile manufacturing business with one factory in Hampshire and another one I set up in Bombay. At the same time I travelled as much as I could, often in countries that one does not think of as holiday destinations, like Azerbaijan, Ethiopia and Afghanistan.

I was, by chance, in Afghanistan in 2001 and there met two Moroccans who said they were TV journalists. In fact, they were two of bin Laden’s suicide bombers and on 9th September 2001 blew up themselves and Ahmed Shah Massoud, the leader of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance. When I returned to England, I wrote an article for The Spectator describing my holiday companions and their rather limited conversation. This led to the publication of the diary I had kept in Afghanistan by Craig Raine in Areté magazine and his intervention led to a contract to write a travel book for Picador.

As part of the research for that book, I undertook to test Afghans genetically for University College, London to see if any genetic trace of Alexander’s soldiers remained in the modern population. I was surprised at the amount of interest in this subject and the project quickly acquired a momentum of its own and sponsorship by The Spectator magazine and its extraordinarily generous readers.

This website is designed to give more information about this Spectator Alexander in Afghanistan project and various lectures and interviews associated with that. It also collects together the newspaper and magazine articles on various subjects that I have written over the years.

Afghanistan is one of the most beautiful countries in the world and the people, even after twenty years of war, are the kindest and most hospitable I have ever met. This website also gives more details for those people who might be interested in joining one of the small parties of adventurous travellers that I am taking to Afghanistan with the Afghan Ministry of Tourism.