James Blunt’s All The Lost Souls international tour was one of the greatest pop marathons of all time.

Journalist and family friend, Peter Hardy, joined James and his band on their exhilarating and exhausting journey around the world, hoping to discover the man behind the music.

From the tour bus to the dressing rooms, from the stage to the after-show parties, travelling with James gave Weird Uncle Peter – as they called him – an access-all-areas pass to his life on tour.

A warts-and-all account of lost guitars, adoring fans, ludicrous bar bills and very, very late nights, this is an honest, amusing and insightful look at the mad world of celebrity and the inside story of James himself, both in front of the crowds and behind closed doors.

Different Country, Same State is a frank exploration of one man’s journey, his passion for music and his passion for life.

So who is the author?

Peter Hardy has spent much of his long career as a foreign correspondent and travel writer reporting from distant corners of the world for The Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, Daily Express, and the London Evening Standard. In the 1960s he lived briefly as a hippy in San Francisco, becoming the friend and lover of Janis Joplin.

His colourful life has not been without some landmark mishaps – as a small boy he lost an eye to a bow-and-arrow, and while reporting in Idi Amin’s Uganda he narrowly escaped execution after receiving a death sentence for espionage.

More recently, he was seriously injured in a tragic accident while ski mountaineering in the French Alps. But despite it all, he claims that travelling with James Blunt has undoubtedly been his most dangerous assignment to date.

Peter is the editor of the website http://www.welove2ski.com/ When not travelling to concerts or mountains he lives in Hampshire with his wife and children.