Guilty pleasure?
Biggest regret?
Biggest extravagance?
Me by Martin Patience
BBC Middle East Correspondent Martin Patience (MA 2002) is normally to be found reporting from some of the world’s most conflict-ridden regions, but the pandemic reduced his global wanderings to a minimum. Avenue caught up with him as he made a visit home to Glasgow.
You’ve lived in several different cities in your career, many of which have a reputation for unrest and violence. What attracts you to working in places like these?
It’s definitely not the violence and unrest! They’re often beautiful places, with a rich cultural heritage – Afghanistan, Beirut, Damascus – but they're also places going through great change. As a journalist, it's that change that fascinates you. You see societies at their very best but also their worst, and that can be incredibly compelling. It throws up remarkable stories of people's resilience.