After an upbringing in France that caught him up in the May '68 movement at the age of fifteen, KGB — as he is known to friends and foe alike — studied Zoology at Leeds University.

He went on to work as a foreign correspondent for Le Monde and the Journal de Genève, which flung him into some very strange places.

He then joined the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and was flung into even stranger ones.

Along the way he met — and sometimes appreciated — some very odd characters, and lived through some remarkable situations.

All of it, most formative.