Essaouira is a strange meeting point — a place where European influence meets Moroccan tradition, where western politics meets Arabic sensibilities, where French and Portuguese architecture meets Berber house building. One thing all can agree on though, is that nothing has to happen in a hurry. Essaouira is the same haven of tranquillity as 12 years ago, and even the souq traders, so overbearing in other parts of Morocco, are of an altogether more easy-going nature here. I paddled in the Atlantic this morning, followed by a slow wander through the souqs and on to the bus station to get our bus tickets to Marrakech. We’ll ask Saida to arrange an early breakfast on the roof terrace tomorrow morning, we’ll need the insanely sugary thé de menthe to give us the energy for the trip to the city.

26.03.09 — Essaouira 11:00pm

A day of discoveries, of relaxation, of a pace so slow as to almost stop. Of kittens, kittens everywhere.  Of young Moroccans enjoying themselves, throwing aside the shackles of Islamic tradition and letting go a little. Laughter is everywhere and entirely addictive. Of pot salesmen, offering me hash, space cakes, everything and anything, “hey want a smoke?” and the irony of me not acquiescing.

Cats, feral cats, cute cats, diseased cats, kittens, kittens everywhere. Gelato on the quay, watching the giant boats being made, holding our breath as the smells filled our nostrils, fish, smells of fish, everything smells of fish here. French books in bookshops, French girls in the bar, pokey little bookshops, dusty, filled with dubious charms. The spice souq and the fake pyramids, the “Moroccan Viagra” of questionable origin, the silver souq and hands, all hands, but not the one I desired.

Shadows, deep shadows in the bright afternoon sun, dark alleys leading to darker alleys, leading to darker doorways. Pool tables in tiny bars, boys playing while the afternoon heat subsides. Mint for 2 dirhams, where’s the bargaining, it’s already less than 20 pence, lovely mint tea, thé de menthe on the terrace as the sun goes down on our last night in Essaouira. Red wine from the tiny shop, dusty bottles and cheesy labels, tasted better than we thought, crêpes, crêpes with honey, crêpe aux miel, hunting for crêpes, the best snack food, mint tea and crêpes.

Pizza in the darkness, shivering in the chilly Atlantic breeze with Moroccan pizza and Moroccan wine, telling war stories. Walking the Medina in the darkness, the shops finally closing their doors, the cats slinking home, the cries of the traders muted and tired, the lights slowly fading on another long but slow and seductive day in Essaouira. Sad to be leaving early tomorrow as Essaouira has once again taken hold of my heart.

Listening to Tom Waits singing “Somewhere”, the suburbs of south west London a blur to my left, beside me the Marrakech and Madrid guides which will keep me entertained on the journey. I feel wonderfully calm, looking forward with excitement, and a small but healthy touch of anxiety, to the long journey ahead. This is a trip I have meant to do for some time now — I’m finally on the first leg of the longest train journey I’ve ever embarked upon. Tom’s “Blue Valentine” is the perfect accompaniment.

22.03.09 — Paris 11:00am

The dull light of an overcast Parisian morning still hurts my eyes. Memories of sangria and cognac slowly filter through. We returned to an old haunt of mine, L’Ecurie, for steak and sangria in the claustrophobic cellar, then on to the 10 Bar in Odéon to continue the sangria. The same grinning and winking barman served us, we watched as he gleefully emptied litre after litre of red wine into a barrel, followed by a bottle of anonymous clear alcohol, for which I’m blaming my hangover. Squeezed onto a tiny table in the cramped wine cellar, we shared the evening with a young student crowd. The atmosphere was refreshingly clear compared to previous visits, as the locals now venture outside for their Gauloises Blondes. Parisian bars without clouds of smoke is a new experience, it’ll take a little getting used to. I’m going to head to the Pompidou today for some much needed culture, hangover permitting.

22.03.09 — Paris 4:00pm

Some good exhibitions today — a visit to the Pompidou led to a surprise show, a retrospective of Alexander Calder. Split into two parts, the curation was excellent and the sense of childish wonder came across entirely. I particularly liked the use of spotlights on his wire sculptures, adding, literally, another dimension for the viewer. Wonderful and incredibly serene. Also at the Pompidou, the Voids exhibit left me cold — I might have enjoyed it under other circumstances but my fuzzy hung-over brain could not happily process the existential content. Shame. Later in the day we visited the Maison Européenne de la Photographie which had five concurrent exhibits. One or two were not really worth the effort, but some quality black and white work, in particular some modern ethnographical work which was fascinating. By this time I was relatively clear headed and able to appreciate the subtlety of the work. A successful day of culture.

I was never one for working from home, far too many distractions — I need places with noise and colour, people moving around me and sounds drifting by, and I need good coffee and sweet snacks to feed the beast. Over the years I’ve found many places which can satisfy these needs, and these are my favourites.

ICA Bar, The Mall, London — I’ve spent the past 15 years visiting the ICA, for DJ nights and talks, performances and late night drinks with friends. Best of all I’ve spent many hours sitting by the window, watching the comings and goings and letting my mind wander happily to interesting places. See some art, have a coffee, chat to friends, enjoy.

Lillipep (formerly Rodko), El Born, Barcelona — A wonderful discovery on my trip to Barcelona in February, Lillipep is just a perfect coffee shop. Books everywhere, local art on the walls, great music and a wonderful modern medieval chic feel to it — I spent a lot of time here in July, thinking, drawing, planning and enjoying their excellent coffee.

Chai Wallah’s, Big Chill, Eastnor Castle — My first port of call the morning after the night before at the Big Chill for the last few years. Chai Wallah’s is an Eastnor institution. Foregoing my usual coffee for a cup of chai, delivered in a hand-thrown ceramic tea bowl, became one of the highpoints of my days at the festival. I spent hours here, reading and relaxing.

Tate Modern Member’s Bar, Southbank, London — One of my regular London haunts, not for the faint-hearted at the weekend where it gets absolutely mobbed and can be unbearable. During the week it transforms into an oasis of calm. Get a seat overlooking the Thames and St. Paul’s and get writing. The coffee’s good too.

Palais de Tokyo, Trocadéro, Paris — I love this place, I always make my way to it whenever I’m in Paris. Sitting next to the cool-but-straight Musée d’Art Moderne, the Palais is the absolute opposite — the plaster’s been stripped from the walls and the art mingles with graffiti and skateboarders. Grab a coffee and enjoy the mayhem.

Munson’s, South Ealing, London — My little bubble of sanity just down the road. A little coffee shop and deli, these guys know how to make a fine latte and the food is very good too. I’ve sat in here many a time setting the creative world to rights with my friends — half an hour in here and everything comes together again, beautifully.

Santa Caterina Market, El Born, Barcelona — The mayhem of this food market is utterly addictive, the smells, the sounds, the colours, the movement — you sit with your coffee and it all happens around you. I’ve often started my day here — the coffee is delicious and you feel like a proper native as people come and go on their way to work.

Riverside Studios, Hammersmith, London — I rediscovered the studios this year after a long absence and they have become the place I go with my sketchbook and laptop. It’s an active and working studio with the buzz of recording sessions going on around you, an exhibition space next to the café and an excellent riverside terrace for summer brainstorming sessions.

La Renaissance, The Rocks, Sydney — Three years living in Sydney meant that I needed a few places to seek inspiration. This little patisserie had the most beautiful garden set back from the street in the middle of a dense collection of buildings. I spent many afternoons sunning myself amongst the trees with a sketchbook, tucking into one of their gorgeous crème brûlées.

Classic Image Café Gallery, Chiswick, London — This unassuming little coffee shop has become part of my life in the last few years. I’ve become entirely addicted to the latkes and smoked salmon and they do the best coffee in Chiswick. Inspiration flows freely for me here — I can often be found tapping away on my laptop or working through the pages of my sketchbook.

But plot takes a back seat here to the minimalist characterisation and beautifully subtle cinematography — the art direction owes a lot to the style of Jarmusch and Wenders’ Paris, Texas, with long deliberate pauses in the editing and a pace that is some way beyond leisurely. This is a really “slow” film, it just doesn’t feel the need to get anywhere in a hurry. Static camera and extended sound-only black screens, together with an absence of incidental music give the scenes enormous aural detail — you can literally hear a pin drop. At the post-premiere Q&A session Eimbcke suggested that the black screens were more of an economic decision than an art directional one, but they suit the treatment very well.

This is the beauty of the movie, it’s just dripping with understated atmosphere — the handful of characters sit delicately within the arid surroundings, never feeling the need to move or talk at any pace. Favourites include the Bruce Lee obsessed mechanic and the punk shop assistant who discovers Juan’s talent for babysitting. This film won’t be to everyone’s tastes — its minimal take on plot and pace will leave many cold, but if you can stick with it you’ll discover a film with an awful lot to say about dealing with loss.

The brainchild of film-maker and curator Aaron Rose, the Beautiful Losers show revolves around the work of a group of artists, musicians and film-makers brought together by the love of making it themselves. What started as a place to hang out with each other and drink became an increasingly important gallery for emerging talent in 90s New York.

After interviewing over 70 creatives involved in the project, Aaron and his co-director had the unenviable task of sifting through the footage and telling the stories of just 12 of those people. The result of that effort is a tightly edited documentary in which each artist is given time to bring their work and thoughts to life.

Was it worth the wait? Absolutely. The film is far from perfect — others have noted that it skirts the issue of commercialism in their work and their attitudes towards it, as many were picked up by large corporations as their fame developed. There’s also a distinct lack of sculpture on show which was explained by Aaron in the post-movie Q&A being down to the fact that “we don’t like sculpture.”

But ultimately this is an incredibly uplifting, colourful and inspiring romp around the streets of New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco with a very likeable bunch of characters. There are many genuinely funny moments throughout and you’ll find yourself wanting to walk out of the cinema and pick up a paintbrush almost immediately, their enthusiasm is just superbly infectious.

The first thing that hit us was the fumes. I felt like I was getting high within a couple of minutes of hitting the tunnel — there were only two or three groups working the walls but the pieces were fairly large and we arrived as one of them was being finished. The pieces created for the Cans Festival have pretty much gone now — the turnover looks to be almost non-stop but there is still some excellent work here.

As you know I’m a big fan of stencil work and there’s loads of good pieces here — great to see lots of stencilled copy and a real attention to detail in the more complex work. Shame some of it’s been obscured by the tags already but that’s the nature of this place. It’s be nice to single out and protect the best work but that cuts the open-source nature of it all. Got to take the rough with the smooth I guess.

There’s paint everywhere — on the walls, the ceilings, the floor and the locked doors. It’s painted over the lights and on the railings, the pillars are covered and even the CCTV cameras are not safe. After being there only a few minutes you get the urge to just grab a can and add something of your own.

I’m not sure if Leake Street will continue like this — get down there before Lambeth Council decides to paint over it all and spoil all our fun. Recommended.

I’ve had it in my head to give you my top ten reasons why I love Barcelona:

The coffee — I don’t know what it is about the beans they use here, but the coffee is absolutely world-class. I have mainly decaf coffee and unlike the UK, where they have to ask the other barristas where that old pack of decaf is and blow the dust off it as they retrieve it from the back of the drawer, the cafés in Barcelona actually have proper ground decaf coffee, some of them even give you a choice of bean! It tastes amazing and you have to remind yourself you’re drinking decaf.

The cafés and bars — this city has the coolest bars and cafés in the whole world, without a doubt, and they barely have to even try. The best of the bars have a casual chic and style which are beautifully understated. Round every corner is another gem, maybe a row of tea lights lead you to a cellar bar, or perhaps you glance through a tiny mediaeval window and find another dimly lit bar with couples whispering gently in the corners.

Born — the tiny streets have captivated me on both my visits, and this time I am staying right in the centre of the maelstrom of tiny mediaeval streets, bars and shops. Every day I still get a little lost getting back to my apartment, it still surprises me that I don’t yet run on automatic pilot. With the hot weather the tiny streets are doubly helpful, protecting you from the intense sunlight. You stumble out of a bar and suddenly you’re right in front of the Picasso Museum, next morning you take a walk over to the Santa Caterina Market to have a coffee and watch the fish deliveries.

The cat woman — I love the cat woman. She sits every evening on the c/ d’Argenteria with her cat and watches the world go by. The cat is the star of this particular little show, its wonderful little bow-tie makes me laugh every time I see it.

The galleries — Richard Meier’s MACBA stands out as the epitomy of Barcelona creative chic. It’s grand frontage gives way to a wonderful use of space inside, with gentle walkways taking you right to the top of the building. It’s an oasis of calm, and one of the first places I headed to on this visit.

Raval — it has many of the same tiny streets as Born but the atmosphere is entirely different. Edgier, noisier, darker and a whole lot more culturally interesting. Home of MACBA, FAD, CCCB and a bunch of other galleries and creative enterprises, I spent a lot of time hanging out here. My favourite boccadillo stand is here, and I seem to always gravitate back here eventually. I spent an amazing afternoon sitting on the cool shaded marble wall of MACBA reading Hunter S. Thompson and watching the skateboarders while the sun shone bright and a breeze gently cooled my skin. Lovely.

The summer evenings — have that lovely cool but still warm feel, as the sun sets and the locals get ready to party again after a hot day of doing, well, whatever the locals do here. The sky is still clear and the gentle breeze keeps you fresh and alert. You take a walk down to the harbour to look at the boats and the people, then back into the old city for some tapas and a cerveza or two sitting watching the world go by. Heavenly.

Street art — as you’ll remember from my previous visit I am a little taken by the quality of the street art here. I could spend weeks photographing the work on the walls and doors. Colourful and truly creative, it visually adds to the atmosphere of the city, it would be far duller without it.

Moritz beer — a local deli put me on to these, one of the local Catalan brews. Delicious and with a wonderful after-taste, I’ve had a few good nights on these. I wish I could take a crate home.

The lifestyle — does anyone here actually work? The locals seem to have got the whole work to life balance near perfect. They don’t seem to subscribe to the 9 to 5 ethic, or the 5 day week ethic, or for that matter any of the traditional western work ethics. Things get done here, food is made and sold, coffees are brewed and drunk, people work but they also play hard. This city doesn’t come alive until way into the evening. When many in London are heading for bed the Barcelona crowd are heading for the bar.

So arrival in Paris was a shock after the lovely weather of Barcelona — cloudy and grey, I resigned myself to a day spent indoors and out of the gloom. I took this as an excuse to photograph in black and white, as colour (particularly on my little runaround camera) would have looked so muddy. A day of exhibitions, I thought, would be the perfect end to the holiday.

First stop had to be the Pompidou — the French and Spanish have really got it sorted with free WiFi, it’s everywhere! On entry to the Pompidou the signs proudly proclaim it, and within a few minutes you’re up and running with an hour and a half’s free access. This makes it a great place to start the day in Paris, you can sit in the café and suck down a café au lait checking your email and looking up the exhibitions you want to see. It really shows up our free access in cultural spots like the Tate and South Bank, where the contact is intermittent and usually prohibitively expensive.

While I was there I checked out some of the exhibitions, mostly not noteworthy but I took a second look at the Richard Rogers exhibit. Excellent models and interesting curation make this worth a look. In the permanent collection I wandered around my favourite pieces such as Rebecca Horn’s beautiful piece, “Dead Drunk Deer in Champagne Dreams”, 1988 (shown above).

Also on the agenda for a repeat viewing were Christian Boltanski’s haunting autobiographical work, “La Vie impossible de C. B.”, 2001 (shown above), and Joseph Beuys’ “Plight”.

After an aborted mission to the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville and Le Palais de Tokyo (both closed, I really must learn to check opening times before I travel miles to see exhibitions) I headed back into the streets of the Marais for coffee and food. From there I spent a good few hours wandering the side streets looking for new images and work. The piece above is by far my favourite piece for a long time, found near the Pompidou.

So a grey and gloomy day in Paris became a productive and interesting roam around the creative edges of this wonderful city. I’m sad I didn’t get to see Loris Gréaud’s interesting piece at the Palais de Tokyo, “Cellar Door”, but I might still catch it before it ends. I looked forward to the Eurostar home though, tired from walking for four days and in need of an excuse to rest and read. The time had come to head to Gare du Nord and back to St. Pancras.

All in all, a very good end to a very good weekend. I can’t wait to go back to Barcelona and I’m already looking at dates for my next visit. Watch this space.