Elsewhere or Thereabouts

From Troy to Arcadia, on the high road to elsewhere and the low road to thereabouts, boarding a ferry 'cross the Mersey and hiking the Jurassic Coast, skating away on Duddingston Loch and dynamiting the frozen rivers of Siberia - Alasdair Paterson plots a course at the cruising speed of the flaneur through the ruins of empires and dreams.