Shard: View from the top

At 309m it's the tallest building in Europe (by tallest in Europe I mean western Europe, and by tallest I mean second-tallest after the 324m Eiffel Tower; though that's not technically a building because it's a structure, right? But if we were to include creations like Gustave Eiffel's, the Shard, which opened to the public last Friday, is only the 10th-tallest construction in the UK, let alone the continent - a full 55 metres shorter than that most celebrated of north-west landmarks, the Skelton Mast in Cumbria), and last night I decided to take the two kaleidoscopic lifts up to the Shard's Level 68. Despite the many and varied fingerprints, Brylcreem streaks and camera flashes, I managed to take the following slightly-too-grainy images thanks to a whopping great ISO setting. If you don't know what that means, move along; you're not wanted here.

Michael Lee Johnson's on foot to freedom: Walking from Beijing to London

Imagine clambering aboard an aeroplane in London bound for Beijing. In just ten-and-a-half hours, your jet-propelled metal cocoon will have carried you more than 5,000 miles en route to the Chinese capital. Now imagine bedding down for the night, awakening bright and early the next morning, lacing up the walking boots and strolling back home to the UK, alone and unaided, through some of the most volatile countries on the planet (Belgium in January; a nasty, nasty business, let me tell you), and minus the crow's advantage of travelling the most direct route. So, add another 4,000 miles onto the 5,000, slow down the average speed from 450 mph to four, and you're looking at a journey that will take three to five years to complete. Yes, the margin for error is as great as a hamster's life, a simile that achieves precisely the opposite effect I intended.

Snow in London: Slightly clichéd photographs

Occasionally, the mercury plummets to such depths that it becomes too cold to snow. Which is, of course, absolutely untrue - the people spouting such myths clearly haven't roamed the snowy wastelands of the Arctic or Antarctic. I digress. It 'felt' a positively polar minus 7 degrees C in London today, and the snow-clogged clouds dutifully deposited their fluffy white contents over the capital's streets as I was plodding around during my lunch hour. So naturally I joined in with everybody else struggling with their camera's exposure and white balance settings to take the following slightly clichéd photographs. Ka-boom:

The Amsterdam Cat Museum and other tails

If there's one thing that's defined my 2012, it's cats. There have literally been litter loads of them. So it seemed fitting to cap off the year by heading to Amsterdam - a city that puts up its stray moggies in a glorious houseboat. But even more endearing is the surreal Kattenkabinet - a museum that celebrates man's ability to fashion feline-themed pinball machines, porcelain paperweights and zoomorphised mannequins - futile, time-consuming and expensive endeavours, but endeavours born of the power of love. The results are charming, unfathomable and please-let-me-out-of-here-oh-no-I-can't-find-the-exit creepy. As Borat Sagdiyev once said; entry, please, as I reveal four hand-picked highlights:

An interview with Michael Palin

What do the North and South Poles, the Sahara Desert and my office have in common? They've all been trodden on by Britain's nicest man, Michael Palin. And while I couldn't make the Poles or the desert, I could the latter - so naturally the comedian-turned explorer sat down for a chat about his latest book and TV series, Brazil.

The Standard Hotel, New York: A review

It's a place where passers-by can watch you defecate to their heart's content, where champagne-glugging models take their clothes off in front of your disbelieving eyes and where floor-to-ceiling views of Lower Manhattan will suck the breath from your windpipe.

I refer to The Standard Hotel in New York City, where I laid my eyebrows-dominated head for a couple of nights in August. Located in the ball-achingly trendy Meatpacking District, it's arguably more famous for its bogs than its rooms. "Just wait till you see them," my girlfriend said on the cab ride there, referring to its Tommy Crappers. "They're on the top floor and you can see right across New York!"

George Orwell lives

Almost two months ago, I started a blog by writing: "They say you should never meet your heroes - that they won't live up to expectations, that you'll be disappointed."

Well, having met Lee 'Scratch' Perry at London City Airport and being thoroughly undisappointed, I thought it was about time I met another of my heroes. Unfortunately, one cannot plan these encounters if one wants to avoid being slapped with a restraining order, so I had to rely on chance.

An interview with Peter Schmeichel

He's 8' 7", weighs 25 stone and shot to fame while trying to catch fast-moving balls in the 1990s.

That's right - it's Denmark's famous honorary Mancunian and ex Premier League superstar goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel, and I was lucky enough to have a Google Hangout with the man himself (and a few others, ahem) ahead of the Premier League's return this weekend.

Here's what he had to say:

Atomic kittens

Smudge, Flo, Alby and that other one who used to cower behind the sofa whose name escapes me - four little bundles of joy gone from my life forever, but never to be forgotten.

What the hell am I on about? Well, seeing as you asked so nicely, I'm referring to four vulnerable balls of fluff with legs, claws and fully-functional teeny weeny digestive systems that I found down the side of my bed in April.

Me and my very good friend Lee 'Scratch' Perry

They say you should never meet your heroes - that they won't live up to expectations, that you'll be disappointed. I don't have a clue who 'they' are, but their heroes clearly don't walk around sporting a bright red beard and a gold hat with shiny little mirrors on.

For that is the chosen style of Lee 'Scratch' Perry, a 76-year-old Jamaican music producer, reggae pioneer and one of my heroes. Through his Black Ark Studio in Kingston, Jamaica, Perry produced - in his typically lavish, eccentric style - material from Bob Marley & the Wailers, The Congos, Junior Murvin and Augustus Pablo.