And there’s the Tigrayans who’ve moved there and the Harrars – millions of people dislocated by war and famine, banging up against each other, both close cousins and ancient enemies, raiding each other’s cattle. And rather like in the Wild West, if you take someone’s cattle, you’re dead. The people who’ve lived there a long time profoundly resent the intrusion, which echoes our own concerns with immigration And it kicks off sometimes, big time. AK47s are six bucks in the markets, and they’ll all go round with one bullet in the AK Instead of carrying a spear, they’ll have an AK. Sometimes they’ll have both.But there is just so much to see in Ethiopia. I really don’t understand why it isn’t one of the major tourist spots of the world.

I mean, there’s the biblical thing: Petra, early civilisation and so on Lalibela is extraordinary. And Aksum, where they say the Queen of Sheba had her capital – her bath is cut into the cliff and it’s the size of a Olympic swimming pool. And Harar, a proper city with 16th-century castles designed by the Portuguese, where Rimbaud pitched up, gun-running for the Ethiopians. Or was it Verlaine? Then go south and do the jungly stuff, and drink the coffee, which comes from Kefa.Frankly, I’d also recommend [the Democratic Republic of] Congo, even though it’s what the Foreign Office calls a Category A country Kinshasa is so happening And it’s bonkers, completely chaotic. They are staggeringly beautiful, both the babes and the guys Unbelievably gorgeous. The music is fantastic too and it’s full on, going on till three, four in the morning And the traffic is extraordinary.

The traffic cops don’t get paid, so they’ll open the door of your car and sit in and annoy you till you get the picture. But being European you can go to a nice hotel and escape.That madness is sometimes iffy But there’s great stuff going on in art And there’s the Congo river. It’s hard to get up to Kisangani at the top but I loved it there That was where Bogart and Hepburn did The African Queen Stanleyville as was Very beautiful The UN is up there But if you go out into the bush, you’re into madness It’s very troubled, to use the euphemism You’re into Apocalypse Now stuff. You want to watch out if you’re venturing out there.There’s Stanley Falls, which are just little rapids really They’ll bring you across in their canoes. When we filmed there [for the BBC], the crews were singing work songs to get across. The coxes in the boats were shouting “louez!”, so I started singing “Louie Lou-aye, oh baaay-by, I gotta go…!” and the rowers immediately started joining in: “Louie Lou-aye, oh baaay-by, a-gargle-oh!” So I turned to the camera and said, “We came to the Congo And found An incredible story The roots.

Of rock’n'roll!” That bit ended up in the out-takes.Anyway, they’ll take you across the rapids to the villages over the other side, where they use tom-toms still – God knows what’ll happen to that when they all get mobiles. And they do that fishing thing where they set these huge scaffolding traps out in the river just below the falls and they swing from them and the kids dive in and so on. Now that’s great touristy stuff and it’ll all going to go, all of it You’re looking at an entire continent in a state of flux. What’ll change it is communications technology, mobiles, IT, that sort of thing, because as I’ve said, it has no structure So virtual infrastructure is the key. Africa is the fastest-growing phone market in the world.Another place I’d recommend is Mali.