Steve Burgess

Said Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all.” On the topic of gift cards, he had nothing. “Thus Christmas doth make morons of us all,” would be good. Or there’s always the one about a fool and his money. I recently bought a digital camera at London Drugs.

Once I took a cab to the Cairo Airport. It was a better-than-average cab for Cairo, which meant less than 30 years old with working seatbelts. Mohammed, the driver, was a genial fellow, but it was all strategic. He spent the hour-long trip relentlessly congratulating himself for every minor development...

I’m sitting in a Starbucks in Bangkok’s Siam Central plaza, reading the newspaper, when my concentration is broken by a loud bang. High on a telephone pole half a block down the street, an electrical transformer has burst into flames.

David Rootman was concerned. The proprietor of Kits Coffee Co. Ltd. was tidying up his West Fourth Avenue and Yew Street café one night when he noticed a car in the parking lot; a man sat alone in the vehicle. It was long after closing and Rootman feared the man...