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Images have been lost. Other avenues had struck no luck. I’ll try again later.

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If you see these blocks, that’s me commenting if pictures have been lost.

1. Cocaine

2. True Detective

3. Scripps Howard

4. Dinners where it takes the waiter longer to describe my food than it takes me to eat it.

5. Beer nerds

1. Montana at sunset : There’s pheasant cooking behind the camera somewhere. To the best of my recollection some very nice bourbon. And it IS a big sky .

2. Puerto Rico: Thank you Jose Andres for inviting me to this beautiful beach!

3. Naxos: drinking ouzo and looking at this. Not a bad day at the office .

4. LA: My chosen final resting place . Exact coordinates .

5. Istanbul: raki and grilled lamb and this ..

6. Borneo: The air is thick with hints of durian, sambal, coconut..

7. Chicago: up early to go train #Redzovic

1. The Wire

2. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (and its sequel : Smiley’s People)

3. Edge of Darkness (with Bob Peck and Joe Don Baker )

1. This guy

2. And this guy

3. All great films need:

4. The Oscar goes to..

5. And

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Sorry, each item had a picture attached, they’re gone.

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There were 11 images here.

1. Vintage Persol sunglasses : This is pretty obvious. I wear them a lot. I collect them when I can. Even my production team have taken to wearing them.

2. 19th century trepanning instruments: I don’t know what explains my fascination with these devices, designed to drill drain-sized holes into the skull often for purposes of relieving “pressure” or “bad humours”. But I can’t get enough of them. Tip: don’t get a prolonged headache around me and ask if I have anything for it. I do.

3. Montagnard bracelets: I only have one of these but the few that find their way onto the market have so much history. Often given to the indigenous mountain people ’s Special Forces advisors during the very early days of America’s involvement in Vietnam .

4. Jiu Jitsi Gi’s: Yeah. When it comes to high end BJJ wear, I am a total whore. You know those people who collect limited edition Nikes ? I’m like that but with Shoyoroll . In my defense, I don’t keep them in plastic bags in a display case. I wear that shit.

5. Voiture: You know those old school, silver plated (or solid silver) blimp like carts they roll out into the dining room to carve and serve your roast? No. Probably not. So few places do that anymore. House of Prime Rib does it. Danny Bowein does it at Mission Chinese. I don’t have one of these. And I likely never will. But I can dream.

6. Kramer knives: I don’t own one. I can’t afford one . And I’d likely have to wait for years even if I could afford one. There’s a long waiting list for these individually hand crafted beauties. But I want one. Badly. http://www.kramerknives.com/gallery/

7. R. CRUMB : All of it. The collected works. These Taschen volumes to start. I wanted to draw brilliant, beautiful, filthy comix like Crumb until I was 13 or 14 and it became clear that I just didn’t have that kind of talent. As a responsible father of an 8 year old girl, I just can’t have this stuff in the house. Too dark, hateful, twisted. Sigh…

8. THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS : THE UNCUT, ORIGINAL ORSON WELLES VERSION: It doesn’t exist. Which is why I want it. The Holy Grail for film nerds, Welles’ follow up to CITIZEN KANE shoulda, coulda been an even greater masterpiece . But the studio butchered it and re-shot a bullshit ending. I want the original. I also want a magical pony.

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Each bulleted point had an image too.

1. Ashenden–Somerset Maugham
   Somerset wrote this bleak, darkly funny, deeply cynical novel in the early part of the 20th century. It was apparently close enough to the reality of his espionage career that MI6 insisted on major excisions. Remarkably ahead of its time in its atmosphere of futility and betrayal.

2. The Man Who Lost the War–WT Tyler
   WT Tyler is a pseudonym for a former “foreign service” officer who could really really write. This one takes place in post-war Berlin and elsewhere and was, in my opinion, wildly under appreciated. See also his Ants of God.

3. The Human Factor–Graham Greene
   Was Greene thinking of his old colleague Kim Philby when he wrote this? Maybe. Probably. See also Our Man In Havana.

4. The Tears of Autumn -Charles McCarry
   A clever take on the JFK assassination with a Vietnamese angle. See also The Miernik Dossier and The Last Supper

5. Agents of Innocence–David Ignatius
   Ignatius is a journalist not a spook, but this one, set in Beirut, hewed all too closely to still not officially acknowledged events. Great stuff.

1. CHATEAU MARMONT ( LA) : if I have to die in a hotel room, let it be here. I will work in LA just to stay at the Chateau.

2. CHILTERN FIREHOUSE (London): Same owner as the Chateau. An amazing Victorian firehouse turned hotel. Pretty much perfection

3. THE RALEIGH (Miami): The pool. The pool!

4. LE CONTINENTAL (Saigon): For the history.

5. HOTEL OLOFSSON (Port au Prince): Sagging, creaky and leaky but awesome .

6. PARK HYATT (Tokyo): Because I’m a film geek.

7. EDGEWATER INN (Seattle): kind of a lumber theme going on…ships slide right by your window. And the Led Zep “Mudshark incident”.

8. THE METROPOLE (Hanoi): there’s a theme developing: if Graham Greene stayed at a hotel, chances are I will too.

9. GRAND HOTEL D’ANGKOR (Siem Reap): I’m a sucker for grand, colonial era hotels in Asia.

10. THE MURRAY (Livingston,Montana): You want the Peckinpah suite

1. Bun Bo Hue

2. Kuching Laksa

3. Pot au Feu

4. Jamon

5. Linguine

6. Meat

7. Dessert

8. Light Lunch

9. Meat on a Stick

10. Oily Little Fish

11. Snack

12. Soup

13. Homage

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Pictures in each have not been recovered.

1. Madeline

2. Beirut

3. Musubi

4. BudaeJiggae

5. Dinner

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Shame, indeed, no pictures, there was one for each.

1. Bootsy Collins

2. Bill Murray

1. Spaghetti a la bottarga . I would really, really like some of this. Al dente, lots of chili flakes

2. A big, greasy double cheeseburger. No lettuce. No tomato. Potato bun.

3. A street fair sausage and pepper hero would be nice. Though shitting like a mink is an inevitable and near immediate outcome

4. Some uni. Fuck it. I’ll smear it on an English muffin at this point.

5. I wonder if that cheese is still good?

1. Endemic FUPA. Apparently a prerequisite for joining this outfit.

2. Pistachio dick

3. 70’s bush

4. T-shirt and no pants. Leading one to the obvious question : why bother?

1. Popeye’s Mac and Cheese

2. The cheesy crust on the side of the bowl of Onion Soup Gratinee

3. Macaroons . Not macarons . Macaroons

4. Captain Crunch

5. Double Double Animal Style

6. Spam Musubi

7. Aerosmith

1. PASTRAMI QUEEN: (1125 Lexington Ave. ) Pastrami Sandwich. Also the turkey with Russian dressing is not bad. Also the brisket.

2. EISENBERG’S SANDWICH SHOP: ( 174 5th Ave.) Tuna salad on white with lettuce. I’d suggest drinking a lime Rickey or an Arnold Palmer with that.

3. THE JOHN DORY OYSTER BAR: (1196 Broadway) the Carta di Musica with Bottarga and Chili is amazing. Is it a sandwich? Yes. Yes it is.

4. RANDOM STREET FAIRS: (Anywhere tube socks and stale spices are sold. ) New York street fairs suck. The same dreary vendors, same bad food. But those nasty sausage and pepper hero sandwiches are a siren song, luring me, always towards the rocks. Shitting like a mink almost immediately after is guaranteed but who cares?

5. BARNEY GREENGRASS : ( 541 Amsterdam Ave.) Chopped Liver on rye. The best chopped liver in NYC.

1. SIBERIA in any of its iterations. The one on the subway being the best

2. LADY ANNES FULL MOON SALOON a bar so nasty I’d bring out of town visitors there just to scare them

3. THE LION’S HEAD old school newspaper hang out

4. KELLY’S on 43rd and Lex. Notable for 25 cent drafts and regularly and reliably serving me when I was 15

5. THE TERMINAL BAR legendary dive across from port authority

6. BILLY’S TOPLESS (later, Billy’s Stopless) an atmospheric, working class place, perfect for late afternoon drinking where nobody hustled you for money and everybody knew everybody. Great all-hair metal jukebox . Naked breasts were not really the point.

7. THE BAR AT HAWAII KAI. tucked away in a giant tiki themed nightclub in Times Square with a midget doorman and a floor show. Best place to drop acid EVER.

8. THE NURSERY after hours bar decorated like a pediatrician’s office. Only the nursery rhyme characters were punk rockers of the day.