蜜芽传媒

Owen Bennett Jones introduces insight, wit and analysis from 蜜芽传媒 correspondents around the world. In today's edition, while Chris Carnegy finds the world's remotest inhabited settlement, Tristan da Cunha, joining the 21st Century mainstream, Rajesh Mirchandani eats his way to a deeper understanding of South Africa's history and diversity.

"A place where a man can get to grips with his soul"

Many people dream of getting away from the rat race, and leading a modest, natural existence... perhaps on a faraway island. But while most people dream about this kind of life, there are a few who are actually born to it. And all too often, the realities of such isolation are harsher than outsiders realise.

Chris Carnegy has been to the British overseas territory of Tristan da Cunha in the South Atlantic, and found that while it's more in touch with the rest of the world than it used to be, it retains a very special sense of place.

Deep roots, trade routes: a tale of two meals in Cape Town

If you want to understand a foreign culture, you can take university degrees and read books; you can study the landscape and the history. But there is another, more direct way of going about it too. On a recent visit to the Cape in South Africa, Rajesh Mirchandani has been eating his way to a greater understanding of the nation's heritage.