The British undoubtedly were at their very, very worst at this point in history - unbelievably violent and awful. It was through the idea of duty which came in the high-Victorian period.

Such are the humiliations of the travel writer in the late 20th century: go to the ends of the earth to search for the most exotic heretics in the world, and you will find that they have cornered the kebab business at the end of your street in London.

[Historian and traveller Dalrymple plays the role of storyteller and teacher as he takes us on a memorable and moveable feast of readings, workshops, tastings and excursions through the heat and madness of Marrakech.] It's more like a holiday with a bit of literary stimulation, ... A halfway house; half holiday and half literary knocking of heads together.

In Delhi, where the mutiny took on a largely Muslim aspect, the words fatwa, mudjahadeen and jihad were all in play.

The old cliche of the cartridges really was terribly important. It was the issue that broke the camel's back, in every sense.

If you go back to the original Urdu and Persian documents of the mutineers, which I have been translating, the religious nature of the uprising is blatantly obvious,