An Englishman Abroad

Windy day at Crowne Plaza Resort, Salalah, 9th November, 2011

2011-11-09T19:44:00.001+04:00

Wadi Darbat Waterfalls, 6th November, 2011

2011-11-06T20:03:00.001+04:00

Mughsayl Blowhole, 5th November, 2011

2011-11-05T19:41:00.002+04:00

Wadi Darbat Waterfall, 4th November, 2011

2011-11-04T23:50:00.002+04:00

The heavy rains of Tropical Cyclone Keila have brought the biggest waterfalls in the Middle East to life again.

My American Road Trip

2011-08-23T00:55:00.001+04:00

View Larger Map

6,000 miles and 26 states in 35 days.

Washington D.C.

2011-07-24T01:23:00.003+04:00

Friday Song - The Go! Team - Lady Flash

2011-06-03T23:42:00.001+04:00

My American Baseball Road Trip

2011-06-02T23:15:00.012+04:00

The itinerary for my American baseball road trip:

June 18 Arrive Washington DC
June 19 Baltimore Orioles @ Washington Nationals
June 22 New York Yankees @ Cincinnati Reds
June 23 Philadelphia Phillies @ St Louis Cardinals
June 24 Toronto Blue Jays @ St Louis Cardinals
June 26 Chicago Cubs @ Kansas City Royals
June 27 Albuquerque Isotopes @ Iowa Cubs
June 28 LA Dodgers @ Minnesota Twins
June 29 LA Dodgers @ Minnesota Twins
June 30 Dyersville-Field of Dreams
July 2 Chicago White Sox @ Chicago Cubs
July 4 Arizona Diamondbacks @ Milwaukee Brewers
July 7 Lincoln Saltdogs @ Wichita Wingnuts
July 8 Omaha Storm Chasers @ Oklahoma Redhawks
July 10 Oakland Athletics @ Texas Rangers
July 11 Frisco Roughriders @ Arkansas Travelers
July 15 Washington Nationals @ Atlanta Braves
July 18 Cincinnati Reds @ Pittsburgh Pirates
July 20 Boston Red Sox @ Baltimore Orioles
July 21 Depart Washington DC

Total driving distance: 6,000 miles

Friday Song - Tristan Prettyman - Madly

2011-05-13T23:45:00.001+04:00

Corner View - By the Sea

2011-05-06T00:48:00.003+04:00

Jeju-do, South Korea

Grand Harbour, Malta

A Baseball Summer

2011-04-19T01:32:00.010+04:00

I have always wanted to do it, and this summer I am finally going to: a baseball summer. Strange as it may seem for someone from England, but I have always been fascinated by the American summer and, more specifically, the love of baseball. As I have travelled around the world, I have found myself increasingly drawn to the baseball games on ESPN. Eventually, I made a special trip to Houston to take in my first MLB game: the Chicago Cubs @ Houston Astros. It was everything I'd expected, and more: a train running across the ballpark when there was a home run, and margaritas served in your seats. There's nothing like it in England. Even at the Royal Opera House, you have to collect your own drinks.

Well, to get back on track, this summer I am finally going to do my American baseball tour! Starting in Florida, I'm going to drive across America and take in about 10 mlb games in different cities. It's going to be a baseball summer.

Friday Song - Nneka - Heartbeat

2011-04-08T14:41:00.001+04:00

Corner View - Time

2011-04-06T19:52:00.004+04:00

The city of Cambridge has 19 sundials. There is even a book about them, 'Cambridge Sundials' by Alexis Brookes & Margaret Stanier, and a Cambridge Sundial Trail which you can walk around. This one, which has six faces, is above the Gate of Honour at Gonville & Caius College.

The obelisks of ancient Egypt from 3500 BC onwards were the first type of sundial, and the first instruments for telling the time. The Old Testament ( Isaiah 38:8 and II Kings 20:11) also describes a sundial, the Dial of Ahaz, from around 700 BC.

Sundials often have a motto inscribed beneath them:

'Let others tell of storms and showers; I mark only the sunny hours'

'Mach' es wie die Sonnenuhr: zähl' die heitren Stunden nur!' (Do like a sundial and count only the sunny hours!)

Friday Song - Yuck - Rubber

2011-04-01T00:00:00.001+04:00

Corner View - Reflections

2011-03-29T16:40:00.008+04:00

Courtyard of Umayyad Mosque, Damascus

Apartment block reflected in office block windows, Bucharest

These are photos from two countries I've lived in recently: Syria and Romania. The first is of the Umayyad Mosque: one of the holiest sites in the Islamic world. It stands on the site of a 3,000-year-old Aramaean temple, referred to in the Old Testament. At the heart of it is a beautiful courtyard in which are three domed structures: the Dome of the Treasury, the Dome of the Clocks and the Ablutions Fountain. The mosque has three towering minarets: the Minaret of the Bride, the Minaret of Jesus and the Al-Gharbiyya Minaret. It is here that muslims believe Jesus will descend to earth again to save the world.

Three of the most important shrines in the Middle East are here. They are the shrines of Hussein, St. John the Baptist and Saladin. The head of Hussein the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed, was brought here after he was killed, aged 54, from the Battle of Karbala in 680 AD. The head of St John the Baptist is also enshrined here, beneath a dome. This is reputedly the same head that was presented to Salome on a platter. Although Saladin, the most famous muslim general in the battles of the Crusades, was a Kurd born in Tikrit, he died in Damascus in 1193, and is buried here. I must say that it is quite an experience to see the tombs of three such famous historical figures in such close proximity.

22 years ago, Romania experienced what Syria is experiencing now: a revolution. What you see there today is the legacy of the past - the grim apartment blocks and grey ministry buildings - combined with architectural visions of the future.

Friday Song - Oh Land - Sun Of A Gun

2011-03-25T12:14:00.001+04:00

Corner View - Zebra

2011-03-23T20:46:00.001+04:00

Friday Song - MGMT - Time To Pretend

2011-03-18T00:05:00.001+04:00

Corner View - Communication

2011-03-16T17:10:00.006+04:00

The big modern building behind the Yateem mosque clock minaret is the Batelco Centre in Manama. Batelco is the main telecommunications company in Bahrain. The chairman of the company is, like the head of nearly every major company and government department in the country, from the ruling Al-Khalifa family.

I lived in Bahrain for one year and have visited it many times since, as it is one of the main communications hubs in the Middle East. I never expected it to be engulfed by the violent repression that we see there now. But, it is a country, like so many in the Middle East, where nearly all of the wealth and power are in the hands of just one family.

Friday Song - Smoke Fairies - Living With Ghosts

2011-03-10T02:56:00.001+04:00

Misurata

2011-03-08T01:55:00.017+04:00

Misurata

Sunset over Misurata

Great advertising at a CD store

A tailor's shop. Many of the workers came from neighbouring Chad or Niger. They are nearly all now refugees desperately trying to escape.

Misurata's Grand Mosque

The Clock Tower

The Ghoz Ateek Memorial for the martyrs killed in the uprising against the Italians

New apartment blocks in Misurata

Downtown Misurata

A camel's head outside a butcher's shop. The head of any freshly killed animal would be hung outside to attract customers.

Government buildings. Italian colonial architecture

Misurata market

The fish market in downtown Misurata

The fishing harbour just to the west of the city.

My house in Misurata. It looked like a chocolate and coffee cake and cost a fortune to rent as decent accommodation was in short supply.

The entrance to my house. Note the washbasin on the right where people could wash their hands before entering!

MISURATA

I've noticed that a lot of the visitors to my blog recently have been searching for photos of Misurata, which is a Libyan city I lived in for one year. Sadly, it is the focus of attention of the world media because of the fierce fighting that is taking place there right now.

The first thing you will probably notice about Misurata is that nobody is sure how to translate its name into English. You will also see it written as Misrata, Misratah, Misuratah or even Masratah. However you spell it, it is the third largest city in Libya with a population of 400,000.

Misurata is on the Mediterranean, 211 km East of Tripoli and 825 km west of Benghazi, but the city seems to have turned its back on the sea. Unlike Tripoli or Benghazi, it does not have a seafront and you could easily spend a day or two there without ever seeing the sea. When I asked why people didn't live by the sea, I was told that it was too windy and cold there.

It is, first and foremost, an industrial and commercial city and has the country's largest iron and steel complex, but little of interest to detain a foreign tourist. It does, however, attract large numbers of migrant workers from Egypt. Chad and Niger. The city's main tourist attraction is the Ghoz Ateek Tower, which is a monument to local residents killed by Italian firing squads, If you stay at the city's main Ghoz Ateek Hotel, you will be right next to it. There are also a few Italian colonial buildings in the downtown area.

Misurata can be used as a convenient stop by someone travelling across Libya and, as it is slightly nearer to Leptis Magna than Tripoli is, Italian tour groups visiting the ruins sometimes spent the night there. It is the most conservative city in Libya and you will never see a local woman with her hair uncovered. In fact you will rarely see a woman out at all in the city centre after sunset.

People there were generally friendly but if my wife went out alone, local schoolboys would throw rocks at her and cars would stop so the drivers and passengers could hurl abuse at her. Women were not supposed to walk outside , especially after sunset. I also experienced the rock throwing when I went out jogging. I think this was the result of the anti-Western propaganda they were subjected to by the Gaddafi regime. The people I worked with and knew personally were very nice and I hope that none of them get injured or killed in the current fighting. It wasn't an easy place to live in and conditions there can only get better if Gaddafi is overthrown.

Corner View - Wood

2011-03-08T00:12:00.007+04:00

The wooden kampung house I lived in at the edge of the South China Sea, Terengganu

Wooden houses, Istanbul

Gol Stav wooden church, Norway

A wooden water wheel, Suwon, South Korea

Salalah Demonstration, March 3

2011-03-03T22:17:00.010+04:00

The demonstrations outside the Governor's office are growing bigger. At 6pm, when I took these photos and video, people were pouring in from the surrounding streets, and the crowd was up to around a thousand. The demonstrators told me that last night, after 8pm, there were several thousand there and that there will be again later tonight.

Salalah Demonstrations

2011-03-01T17:42:00.008+04:00

I visited the demonstration in Salalah this afternoon. A few hundred demonstrators were gathered across the road from the entrance to the Governor's office. It was fairly hot so most people were clustered under awnings listening to speeches. Everybody was very friendly and laid back. The crowds grow after sunset when it gets cooler. I'd also expect much bigger demonstrations at the weekend, which here in Oman is Thursday and Friday. As you can see from my photos, it was a very peaceful crowd. I was the only foreigner there and lots of people were inviting me to come over and take their photo. I also got offered tea.

The Youth Revolution Reaches Oman

2011-02-27T14:23:00.008+04:00

Demonstrations in several cities in Oman, including here in Salalah, started on Friday. The police station and government buildings in Sohar have been set on fire. First casualties reported include six people killed so far in clashes between demonstrators and security forces.

Friday Song - Lady Antebellum - Need You Now

2011-02-25T21:50:00.001+04:00

Libya

2011-02-24T11:12:00.008+04:00

The road to the Sahara. Libya is the 4th largest country in Africa, and, apart from the narrow Mediterranean coastal strip where nearly all of the cities and people are concentrated, most of it is desert.

Downtown Tripoli.

Leptis Magna. Libya has some of the finet Classical Roman and Greek archaeological sites in the world. But, controls on visas and independent travel have limited tourism.

Freedom Square, Benghazi These old Italian colonial buildings have deliberately been left to decay by Gaddafi but they haven't been replaced by any new development so the country has been in limbo.

The Green Book Centre, Benghazi. This is one of the few modern buildings. It houses a library devoted to Gaddafi's Green Book. The street in front of it is notorious as one of the smelliest in the world. There has been little or no investement in infrastructure in Benghazi. Rubbish piles high in the streets and sewage oveflows.

The Gaddafi balcony, Green Square, Tripoli. This is the balcony from which Gaddafi gave his speeches.

A typical Benghazi apartment block with its obligatory Gaddafi poster. These posters have all been burnt in the past few days.

Benghazi airport.

I lived in Libya from 2006 to 2007. I have been watching the scenes of the revolution on TV, and it is little changed from then. In fact, the country hasn't really developed much since the Italians left. It has simply been left to decay. For such an oil-rich country, this is a travesty. You can understand why the people are so unhappy. I hope that after they overthrow the Gaddafi regime, they will be able to improve their lot.

I haven't included pictures of Libyan people, because I'd already posted them here:

LIBYAN PORTRAITS

Corner View - Blue

2011-02-23T00:53:00.004+04:00

Jardin Majorelle, Marrakesh

Hababah, Yemen

Friday Song - The Twilight Sad - I Became A Prostitute

2011-02-18T22:53:00.001+04:00

Corner View - Favourite Actor

2011-02-09T20:01:00.007+04:00

I'm not sure that I could pick just one favourite actor or actress now. There are so many I like: Jeff Bridges, Ken Watanabe, Ewan McGregor, Colin Firth, Cary Grant, Morgan Freeman, Gong Li, Michelle Pfeiffer, Beatrice Dalle, Audrey Hepburn, Zhang Ziyi.... But, in the 1980s, one stood out for me, and that was William Hurt. In that decade he gave a series of understated yet riveting performances in Body Heat (1981), Gorky Park (1983), Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985), Children of a Lesser God (1986), Broadcast News (1987) and The Accidental Tourist (1988), won one Academy Award for Best Actor and was nominated for two more. As well as winning a string of awards, he was also very cool and charming.

Friday Song - Samantha James - Rise

2011-02-04T00:01:00.001+04:00

Corner View - Evening Sky

2011-02-02T20:33:00.002+04:00

Salalah Beach, Oman

Koutoubia Mosque, Marrakesh, Morocco

Sana'a, Yemen

Friday Song - Elbow - One Day Like This

2011-01-28T05:19:00.001+04:00

Corner View - My Favourite Artists

2011-01-26T18:55:00.006+04:00

Edward Hopper (1882-1967)

Edvard Munch (1863-1944)

Pieter de Hooch (1629-1684)

Amadeo Modigliani (1884-1920)

Richard Hamilton (1922-)

Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849)

Diego Velazquez (1599-1660)

Friday Song - The Decemberists - Down By The Water

2011-01-21T00:02:00.001+04:00

Corner View - Organic Form

2011-01-19T19:43:00.005+04:00

This week's theme, Organic Form, comes from Nadine.

The henna art and wall murals of Zanzibar, both, to my eyes, have organic forms and colours which grow naturally out of the earth.

Friday Song - The Drums - Forever & Ever Amen

2011-01-14T00:04:00.001+04:00

Corner View - Winter

2011-01-12T18:21:00.005+04:00

Winter here in Salalah is a bit like spring in most other parts of the world. It is pleasantly warm and sunny, wih daytime highs of around 26°C and nighttime lows of 19°C. In fact, it's an ideal time for planting seeds. My New Year's resolution was to make a herb garden, and it's now well under way. Seeds only take a few days to germinate here, and I'm now beginning to transplant some of the seedlings to the earth. They include coriander, basil, parsley, thyme, dill, chives, celery, lemon grass and chili peppers. Most of the plants should be ready to pick some time in March or April, when the temperatures will be up in the 30°s, and it will be getting a little too hot for planting seedlings.

Whilst I was out in the garden I heard the plaintive cries of a two-week old kitten, which had been left on our roof by its mother. We really had to get him down, as he sounded quite distressed. He's got one wonky ear, but he's cleaned up quite well and is happily taking baby formula from an ear dropper. His name is Fred. Our other cat, Sid, who I also found abandoned, is a little bit jealous of him though. Every time he sees the kitten, he walks off in a huff, and only deigns to come home again when he's hungry.

Friday Song - Bendeniz & Harun Kolçak - Biri Var

2011-01-07T19:52:00.002+04:00

Friday Song - Broken Social Scene - 7/4 Shoreline

2010-12-31T18:18:00.001+04:00

My First Effort

2010-12-25T23:30:00.002+04:00

This is my first effort with Windows Movie Maker. I hope you like it.

Friday Song - Nick Drake - River Man

2010-12-24T14:29:00.002+04:00

Christmas Banned in England

2010-12-24T10:25:00.010+04:00

In 1644 an Act of Parliament was passed banning Christmas in England. All aspects of the celebration were made illegal, including the display of holly, ivy and Christmas decorations, and the consumption of typical Christmas fare, including mince pies and Christmas pudding. The ban came about because Cromwell's Puritan regime took a dim view of the Christmas mass, which they saw as a relic of Roman Catholicism, as well as the secular excesses of the Christmas feast, which included dancing, singing, eating huge meals of roast beef, plum porridge and minced pies, and drinking gin and special Christmas ale, all of which were often accompanied by gambling, drunkenness and promiscuous behaviour. To enforce the ban, soldiers were ordered to patrol the streets of London to make sure that no shops or businesses closed for a holiday, to arrest anybody caught celebrating Christmas and to seize any special Christmas fare.

You'll be pleased to know, the ban was lifted in 1660 but, eating mince pies and Christmas pudding is still illegal, as the laws remain unrevoked, so, technically, the police could seize your mince pies or even your Yule log if they wanted to.

England is not alone. I was once an outlaw Santa Claus in Saudi Arabia, where the public celebration of Christmas is still not allowed. Bizarrely, the Santa Claus outfit had to be collected from a Saudi princess's palace, where it was less likely to be seized by the authorities. When the Live Aid record 'Do They Know It's Christmas' was released to raise money for famine victims in Africa, the headline in the Arab News, ironically, read, "Do They Know It's .................?' Best-selling Record of All Time." This was because even publishing the word 'Christmas' could result in a newspaper being closed down and its editor being arrested by the Saudi religious police.

Merry Christmas everyone, and take care nobody finds out about your illegal stash of mince pies.

Friday Song - The Radio Dept. - Heaven's On Fire

2010-12-16T20:41:00.001+04:00

Corner View - Traditions

2010-12-14T20:39:00.021+04:00

Most traditions, including Christmas, are related to the scapegoat mechanism, which is at the root of all human behaviour. Although it was Kenneth Burke who discovered what had been lying in wait for us for so many centuries, it was René Girard who first really understood its significance. In order for humans to bond and operate effectively, we need to isolate a scapegoat and kill or punish him/her/it ruthlessly, be it a goat, a sheep, a turkey or a fellow human being.

The top photo is of the Temple of Baal at Baalbeck in Lebanon, possibly the most monumental building ever constructed by man, and the greatest temple ever to the cult of scapegoatism. Human sacrifice took place there on a massive scale.

When I was there in the summer of 2006, two Israeli soldiers, who'd just been captured, were being held in an adjacent building, and were about to be sacrificed. One thousand other people were killed in the war to rescue them. There is no blame, only human tradition. There have always been scapegoats. Sometimes we nail them to crosses, sometimes we burn them on bonfires, sometimes we make effigies of them and beat them to death, sometimes we bully them at school, sometimes we have commissions to weed them out, sometimes we gas them in concentration camps. We usually laugh about it at the time: it is our way and our tradition. In the part of the world I live in, the greatest tradition is to kill a goat: the scapegoat.

Friday Song - The xx - Islands

2010-12-10T00:06:00.001+04:00

Night & Day in the City

2010-12-09T14:37:00.011+04:00

Busan

Bucharest

Grey morning. Scurrying, heads down, isolated together
A moment's eye contact with a stranger
Walls that move in and out
A moan, a whisper, a fearful cry, an angry shout

It's not all bad, it's not all bad
A madman muttering underground
Heads bury deeper into papers
Night descends, dark suits replaced by neon ravers.

Emotion-drained faces framed by windows
Shuddering pipes and throbbing floors
3am, the time for new love and old death
Is when I wake up and decide that tomorrow I will try to leave

The city

Corner View - Improvising

2010-12-08T09:23:00.004+04:00

You will find this picture inside almost every home, shop and temple in Bhutan. It illustrates the story of Thuenpa puen shi, or the Four Cooperative Friends. The story tells how four very different creatures, an elephant, a monkey, a rabbit and a peacock, combined to find food. The peacock found the seed, the rabbit watered it, the monkey fertilised it, and the elephant guarded it. The problem was that the tree grew too high for any one of them to pick the fruit. So, they stood on each other's backs in order to reach it (obviously, the elephant was not on top). The Bhutanese are officially the happiest people in the world. Maybe this story helps to explain why.

Whilst you will find the Four Cooperative Friends inside, on the outside walls of their shops and houses the Bhutanese have painted a very different picture: it is of a giant penis with a ribbon tied round it. Whether this also has something to do with them being so happy, I really don't know.

Some Useful Tips To Improve Your Quality of Life

2010-12-07T00:18:00.008+04:00

1) Save a fortune on laundry bills by giving your dirty shirts to a charity shop. They will wash and iron them, and then you can buy them back for only fifty pence each.

2) Always say yes when you want to say no, and no when you want to say yes, and you will turn your life around. For those of you who've been saying yes to drugs, this will improve your life immensely; as for the others, at least it will be a change.

3) If you take off the back of your television set and remove everything inside it, which, if you have a good set of screwdrivers, should only take one or two hours, you can get your husband or wife to kneel down behind it and look out at you through the screen, and pretend that you are married to a movie star.

4) Frustrate car thieves by siphoning off all your petrol whenever you park your car, and carrying it round with you in a big plastic bucket. If you drive a 4WD, a truck or a bus, use two buckets and a shoulder harness.

5) Catch your neighbours’ cat or dog, tie a rope around it, then climb up onto the roof of their house and lower the pet so that it dangles in front of their bedroom window first thing in the morning: they will think their cat or dog is flying and it will be one of the most exciting moments of their life.

Friday Song - Two Door Cinema Club - Undercover Martyn

2010-12-02T08:51:00.003+04:00

Corner View - Rain

2010-11-30T17:51:00.009+04:00

Photos:

1) On a mountain road from Kandy, Sri Lanka

2) The Darjeeling railway in the monsoon

3) Small town in Sikkim

Friday Song - Lee Jung Hyun - Vogue It Girl

2010-11-26T22:54:00.004+04:00

Corner View - Taking a Different Perspective

2010-11-24T19:12:00.035+04:00

In north-west Syria, about halfway between the Turkish city of Hatay (Ancient Antioch), where the Christian religion was founded, and Aleppo, home of the Great Mosque, where you can see the head of Zachariah, King of Israel and father of St. John the Baptist, you will come across a large stone boulder surrounded by the ruins of a vast cathedral. This rock on a pedestal is all that remains of an eighteen-metre high stone pillar that a man, who at the end of the fourth century was one of the most famous in the world, lived on top of for thirty-seven years. This still stands as the longest endurance record in the Guinness Book of World Records.

Simon Stylites, or Saint Simeon, was, like so many men at that time, the son of a shepherd, who gazed skywards looking for answers. At first he entered a monastery, where he subjected himself to increasingly extreme fasting and ever more masochistic self-abasement. When it was discovered that he had bound his waist so tightly with palm fronds that it took days of soaking to remove the fibres from the festering wound, he was asked to leave the monastery.

At first he imprisoned himself for one and a half years in a tiny hut on a rocky ledge, where he passed the whole of Lent without eating or drinking, a feat hailed as a miracle. When he emerged, he stood upright as long as his limbs could sustain him. One day he discovered a stone column left by the Romans and decided to stand on top of it. This first pillar was only four metres high, but Simeon sought out ever higher columns until eventually he discovered the eighteen-metre high one on top of which he was to spend the rest of his life. His fame spread throughout the western world and thousands of pilgrims from as far away as England and Ethiopia started trekking towards this stone pillar to stare up in wonder at Simon Stylites. Simeon eventually died on September 2, 459 AD, and the great cities of the Byzantine world, including Constantinople and Antioch, fought for the privelege of being his final resting place. Antioch prevailed.

A great basilica was built around Simeon's pillar which fanatical pilgrims chipped away at until it was reduced to the two-metre stump you see today. Simon Stylites spawned imitators and soon there were hundreds of stylites standing on pillars across the Middle East and Europe. In the early twentieth century the practice of pole-sitting was revived in America by poor people and showmen, desperate for a little fame and the money that went with it. In Baltimore, in 1929, twenty children sat on top of eighteen-foot hickory poles, cheered on by their families, while in Atlantic City, in the same year, Alvin 'Shipwreck' Kelly, a showground boxer brought up in an orphanage in Hell's Kitchen, who'd been sitting on poles, on and off, since 1924, set a modern record by sitting on top of a flagpole for 49 days.

The Roman Catholic Feast Day of St Simeon Stylites is celebrated on January 5th each year. In 1965 a film based on his life, Simón del Desierto, was made by Luis Buñuel, and as recently as 1971 a statue of Saint Simeon was erected in the centre of the town of Grimsby in England.

The way you react to this will, in all probability, reflect your views on life, death and the hereafter. Personally, I think you are more likely to find a camel passing through the eye of a needle than a rich man living at the top of a pole.

The History of Love in Afghanistan 3

2010-11-18T11:50:00.005+04:00

"All right".

The watch on her breast pocket moved.

I hadn't expected her to say yes.

Neither of us smiled. It was, if anything, a moment of extreme gravity. My head, until then empty of everything other than memories of school and family, suddenly flooded with future possibilties.

Some of the patients stopped to watch us; two continued walking towards the trees at the edge of the lawn.

"How about going to the pictures?" My voice seemed to have found a higher pitch.

"All right." Hers was so calm.

"What time do you finish work?"

"Six, but I'd like to go home to change first."

That first encounter was so matter of fact and innocent. In the light of what has just happened, that seems almost shocking.

To be contd.

Corner View - Anything Goes

2010-11-17T11:55:00.008+04:00

Mr Bean's Mini

1964 Peel P50

1922 Leyat

Bluebird

The theme of this week's Corner View is Anything Goes, which instantly brings to mind the 1930s Cole Porter musical, featuring the eponymous title song as well as You're the Top, It's DeLovely and I Get A Kick Out of You. The last West End production of this at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane closed in 2004, but a new production is due to open at the Stephen Sondheim Theater on Broadway in March next year. One of the lesser known songs in Anything Goes is Be Like the Bluebird, and therein lies the tenuous link to my photos, because the fourth of the pictures above is THE Bluebird, in which Sir Donald Campbell broke the world land speed record in 1964. Today, it is just one of the thousands of exhibits at the National Motor Museum in Beaulieu, where you can find just about anything that goes on wheels.

There are several celebrity vehicles in the museum, including some that were used in James Bond films. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Del Boy's Reliant Robin from Only Fools and Horses, and Mr Bean's Mini. In truth, this was just one of several vehicles used by Mr Bean, as they tended to get badly damaged in the making of the programmes. The particular 1979 998cc Mini at the museum was the one used in the third series in 1991.

The museum also has some of the oldest, fastest and most expensive vehicles ever made, but the one that took my eye was the world's smallest car, and the the only car ever manufactured on the Isle of Man, the Peel P50, which when new in 1964, cost just 149 pounds.

Some of the most interesting vehicles come from France, where the first ever car was made by Nicholas Cugnot way back in 1769. You can see that at the museum too. But, the one that stood out for me was the 1922 propeller-driven Leyat, only thirty of which were ever made. You'd better hang on to your hat when driving that.

The History of Love in Afghanistan 2

2010-11-16T10:27:00.008+04:00

Amidst the aimlessness, Elaine appeared so definitely: jet black hair and deep blue eyes. Already an assured woman, her walk was confident and purposeful. I approached, unsure of myself, still anything but definite, somewhere between a boy and a man; hair neither dark nor fair, eyes somewhere between green and brown. Some Grade Ones were watching us now. Unlike the Grade Twos, they had some awareness of the real world.

"Will you go out with me?"

I noticed something move fast to my right: the blackbird had just caught a worm.

Elaine's beautiful lips started to part.

To be contd.

The History of Love in Afghanistan 1

2010-11-11T13:29:00.009+04:00

Elaine was half-French, half-Irish, and I met her in a mental hospital. I'd always been attracted to foreign girls, even though I'd been brought up in a small village where there weren't any. I was a ten-year-old boy in short trousers, standing in a school playground when I saw my first foreign girl. Her clothes were different, her hair, her skin, and she brought with her the exotic beauty of the world beyond my village. But, she wasn't Elaine. Elaine came into my life much later. It was my eighteenth summer and her nineteenth. I remember the pale August sunlight, a slight breeze that rustled the leaves of the oak trees, and the clouds that hinted at the cold and rain, waiting in the wings, as it always is in green England. I remember lush lawns, darting squirrels and a blackbird, head tilted to one side, waiting for a worm to pop its head up, and I remember the mad people wandering, rudderless, in all directions.

To be contd.

Aiming for everything and hitting nothing

2010-11-11T11:43:00.010+04:00

To say I've had writer's block would be misnomer as it would suggest that I am, or ever have been, a real writer. Instead, all I can say is that the words have been falling out of my head and I have been failing to catch them. Why even try to fish when your net has a gaping hole at the bottom of it? I am sure that you all, at some time or another, have woken up with a start, having dreamed the most incredible story and thought, if only I could get this down on paper, it would be a bestseller, but then, by the time you have got out of bed, it has all fallen into that great void into which unwritten words disappear forever. Then I think you'll understand.

My strengths and, even more so, my weaknesses, are as clear to me now as my right and left hands. My greatest strength is my creativity, but my even greater weakness is my almost total lack of self-discipline. Dilettante, dabbler, butterfly, Jack of all trades, master of none; dare I say, Renaissance man? No, I dare not, for that would merely be giving in to my own weaknesses. More oft than not, there are so many things that I want to do, that I do nothing.

In Mexico, they say, a todo le tiras, y a nada le pegas: you aim for everything, but you hit nothing. That's me, and I have to change. I really have to hit something: the keyboard. Or I will be that would-be fisherman standing in a bleak seaside bar one winter's day, holding out his arms and saying, 'It was that big, but I let it get away.'

An Education

2010-11-05T23:56:00.000+04:00

Great film; great soundtrack.

Corner View - Pondering

2010-10-27T22:24:00.001+04:00

Corner View - Holiday Photos

2010-10-19T12:20:00.005+04:00

I take every opportunity to travel, and so usually have three or four holidays each year. Last month I was in Tanzania. I did what I usually do: booked the flight and the first night's accommodation, and then took it from there. The result was a short stay in the capital city of Dar Es Salaam, some time on the exotic island of Zanzibar, and finally, a safari in Mikumi National Park, which is where these photos were taken. We were lucky to happen upon a lioness drinking at a water hole and then followed her back to her three cubs.

Next month I am going to Ethiopia, which will be my 102nd country. Only 91 more to go!

Corner View - Green

2010-10-13T19:34:00.003+04:00

1) West Bengal, India

2) Copan Ruinas, Honduras

3) Wadi Darbat, Oman

Corner View - Orange

2010-10-06T21:24:00.004+04:00

The theme of this week's Corner View is orange so here, for no logical reason, is some random orangeness from around the world. The countries where the photos were taken are, from top to bottom, Panama, Peru, Mexico, Spain, Tanzania and Morocco.

Incidentally, as I'm in a random mood, the best tasting oranges I ate anywhere in the world were in Shiraz, Iran: the place where Shiraz grapes originally come from. Must be something about the soil there.

Corner View - Humour

2010-09-23T14:27:00.003+04:00

Years ago someone gave me a Glen Baxter card, and I thought it was one of the funniest things I'd ever seen. Here are some of his cartoons, including the Eric card, which still makes me smile :)

Tanzanian Portraits

2010-09-18T20:27:00.003+04:00

Senegalese Portraits

Cambodian Portraits

Libyan Portraits

Korean Portraits

Latvian Portraits

Vietnamese Portraits

Yemeni Portraits

Iranian Portraits

Indonesian Portraits

Indian Portraits

Bhutanese Portraits

Guatemalan Portraits

Corner View - School

2010-09-08T15:23:00.003+04:00

The theme of this week's Corner View, the first since the summer, is school. As nobody in my immediate family is currently at school, I have posted photos of boys studying at a lamasery in Bhutan. It reminds me a bit of my old school which, founded nearly 400 years ago, was of a similar age, where the appearance of a girl would have been a cause of great shock and wonder, and where our teachers, called masters, wore dusty caps and gowns. The school buildings were so old that when the boys reached the top of the creaky stairs they sometimes disappeared throught the floorboards. Discipline was strict, with regular canings and random beatings. There was one master called Spencer Percival who walked up and down the aisles during his classes, clicking his fingers ominously. We all knew that when he stopped clicking, he would slap the nearest boy hard round the head for no apparent reason. We learned to keep our heads down. Sometimes, however, the mental torture was worse. For example, you were not allowed to leave prefects' detention, until you'd finished writing a ten page essay describing the inside of a ping pong ball. Try doing it.

Once a week we abandoned our navy blue peaked caps and blazers with their silk braiding and donned military uniforms - mine was a sailor suit - to do square bashing in the playground, led by one of the masters, called Colonel Howard-Jones. We had a firing range and were issued with guns and live ammunition. There was a bullet hole in Colonel Howard-Jones's briefcase, where one of the boys had accidentally shot at him.

I could write more, for example about the boy who ate the most worms or the time a class full of boys filled their desks with paper and set fire to them while the Maths master, who was a bit shell-shocked, carried on teaching in the smoke-filled room, occasionally mumbling under his breath, 'Errm, there's a fire in here.'

School days, eh? The best days of our lives.

Cambodian Portraits

2010-09-08T10:16:00.004+04:00

Senegalese Portraits

Libyan Portraits

Korean Portraits

Latvian Portraits

Vietnamese Portraits

Yemeni Portraits

Iranian Portraits

Indonesian Portraits

Indian Portraits

Bhutanese Portraits

Guatemalan Portraits

Libyan Portraits

2010-09-02T22:10:00.005+04:00

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Three Wistful Looks

2010-09-02T14:09:00.002+04:00

The English Seaside

2010-08-08T13:12:00.006+04:00

Lost

2010-08-06T19:16:00.005+04:00

We went for a day out at Leeds Castle. It was a typical English summer day: dark, overcast and spitting with rain. We were stopping there on our way to Canterbury, or so we thought. But, just as we were leaving the castle and heading towards the car park, I overheard someone ask, 'Which way are the gardens and the maze?' Have you ever needed help to find your way out of a maze before it closed for the day? We never did make it to Canterbury.

It's what we're all thinking

2010-08-06T04:04:00.006+04:00

I thought I had it sorted: monkeys have tails; apes don't. So, in Gibraltar I saw the Barbary Apes which are actually monkeys: Barbary Macaques ( Macaca sylvanus), but they don't have tails! The more I learn, the less I know. By the way, apart from all the metal and plastic stuff we accumulate around us, how different are we from them? They look like my ideal neighbours.

The Windmills of La Mancha

2010-07-29T03:29:00.011+04:00

Ever since I read Don Quixote, I have wanted to see the windmills on the plains of La Mancha, and this summer I finally made it. Coming as I do from a country of small hills and valleys, vast plains have always seemed exotic to me, and one of the most pleasurable travel experiences of my life was driving across the Canadian Prairies. The plains of La Mancha are not quite on that scale, but they more than lived up to my expectations. When local wheat farmers switched over to wine production, the windmills, which once used to grind huge quantities of wheat, sadly became derelict, but now many of them are being renovated in the hope that they will attract tourists to this rarely visited area between Madrid and Andalusia. If you get the chance, go there, sample the Manchego cheese, ham and wine (La Mancha produces 50% of all Spain's wine and is now the most extensive wine-growing region in the world), but, above all, visit the beautiful windmills, the finest of which are near Consuegra and Campo de Criptana .

Madrid World Cup Final Day

2010-07-17T03:52:00.009+04:00

An English Windmill

2010-06-26T15:01:00.004+04:00

I'm not in La Mancha yet, but I've just seen this beautiful windmill in Rye, East Sussex.

Off tilting at windmills

2010-06-20T18:55:00.009+04:00

I am travelling in Europe for the next couple of months, and so won't be keeping up my blog, but I'll be back at the end of August.

One of the things I'm hoping to do while I'm away, which I've been meaning to do for a very long time, is see the windmills of La Mancha. I'll show you the pictures when I get back. Until then, here is a photo from Rhodes, which Don Quixote would have needed a boat to visit, although he'd probably have used a barrel or a bath tub.

Have a great summer!

Corner View - Bliss

2010-06-09T16:42:00.006+04:00

CAYOS ZAPATILLO

PULAU KAPAS

PRAIA LOPES MENDES

Apart from the obvious bliss we share at certain moments with loved ones, there is a special kind of bliss that I feel when I am in paradise. For me paradise involves a voyage in a sailing boat to a deserted tropical island, where I can then snorkel in crystal clear waters with the rich marine life there. This has happened to me several times during my life. The first time was when I lived in a wooden house on stilts at the edge of the South China Sea. Opposite my house, a few miles offshore, was an idyllic desert island, called Pulau Kapas (Cotton Wool Island), which I could visit in a local fishing boat. This was my first time snorkeling in clear, warm, tropical waters, and the coral and marine life were stunningly beautiful. Island hopping in the Seychelles was another blissful experience, but, for me, Ilha Grande off the coast of Brazil is even more beautiful. There, you can be dropped off by a schooner and walk through the rainforest to what I consider to be the best beach in the world, Praia Lopes Mendes. I have had some wonderful times in the Caribbean, but the most idyllic desert island I have visited there is, without doubt, in Cayos Zapatillo off the coast of Panama. It is a picture perfect paradise. The most blissful experience I have ever had snorkeling, however, was on the reef near Caye Caulker in Belize, where after a beautiful trip in a schooner, I was able to swim with and touch sharks, stingrays and turtles, which was incredibly exciting and sheer bliss!

Korean Portraits

2010-06-01T18:44:00.003+04:00

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Guatemalan Portraits

Latvian Portraits

2010-05-29T23:22:00.002+04:00

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Guatemalan Portraits

2010-05-28T21:05:00.005+04:00

You might also like:

Bhutanese Portraits

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Indonesian Portraits

Indian Portraits

Vietnamese Portraits

2010-05-27T11:42:00.004+04:00

You might also like:

Senegalese Portraits

Yemeni Portraits

Iranian Portraits

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Indian Portraits

Yemeni Portraits

2010-05-26T22:08:00.006+04:00

You might also like:

Senegalese Portraits

Iranian Portraits

Indonesian Portraits

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Iranian Portraits

2010-05-26T12:59:00.004+04:00

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Corner View - The End Of My Street

2010-05-25T19:51:00.012+04:00

The theme of this week's Corner View, chosen by Daan, is The End of Your Street. My street is a fairly typical one here in the Salalah area, lined with coconut palm trees, with a view of the Dhofar Mountains in the distance. In the mornings I drive up this street and turn left to go to work, and in the evenings I jog up there and turn right. As I have done so, I have watched that house at the end of the street being built over the last few months. Now, as you can see, it's finished, and a family has moved in. Houses here tend to be big, as families typically have more than ten children. My own is somewhat more modest, and it's just behind the trees in the third photo. I have been here for two years, which is quite a long time for me to stay in one place. Time to move on soon. Where do you think I should go next?

Senegalese Portraits

2010-05-22T23:21:00.004+04:00

Indonesian Portraits

2010-05-22T23:08:00.003+04:00

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Bhutanese Portraits

Senegalese Portraits

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The Stark Beauty of Bolivia

2010-05-21T14:08:00.006+04:00

In March 2008, I travelled along the shores of Lake Titicaca, and entered Bolivia. Perched high up in the middle of South America, it has a wild, rugged beauty. You can drive for hundreds of miles across it, past weird twisted rock formations, steaming geysers, sparkling salt flats, smoking volcanoes and strange coloured lakes full of flamingoes, without seeing a single house or even another person.

Corner View - Collections

2010-05-19T20:19:00.008+04:00

One disadvantage of leading a peripatetic life, is that you really can't take a lot of possessions with you. Right now, just about anything I've ever collected in my life is back at my house in England. Maybe it's just as well, as my prized collection of theatre, opera and concert programmes may have a lot of memories for me of great performances at New York's Met, Sydney Opera House, the Royal Opera House, Opera Bastille, and other great opera houses, concert halls and theatres around the globe, the occasions when I saw Luciano Pavarotti, Jose Carreras, Placido Domingo, Kiri Te Kanawa, Cecilia Bartoli, Montserrat Caballe, Marilyn Horne, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Sir Simon Rattle, Claudio Abbado, Sir Georg Solti, Seiji Ozawa, Lorin Maazel, Andre Previn, Valery Gergiev, Daniel Barenboim, Alfred Brendel, Evgeny Kissin, Sviatoslav Richter, Martha Argerich, Itzhak Perlman, Isaac Stern, Maxim Vengerov, Yo-Yo Ma, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Mstislav Rostropovich, with the Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw and all of the other great orchestras of the world, but I guess stacks of hundreds of programmes are not the most photogenic things in the world, especially as I keep them in three large suitcases.

So, instead you get a photo of my set of Chinese coasters, which is probably a lot more interesting!

Top 10 Cities in the World - 8 Shanghai

2010-05-17T19:03:00.008+04:00

NUMBER 8 - SHANGHAI

Having been to China's big three cities of Beijing, Hong Kong and Shanghai, all of which might make my top ten, I opted for the latter. Shanghai is the most vibrant city in the world, and one day I can even see it taking over from New York as the world's unofficial capital city and economic centre.

Shanghai has a youthful population of 14 million, many of whom seem to be out walking on the streets, especially on the humid summer nights. It is a mix of old, like the Taoist temples, quite old, like the pre-war waterfront buildings on the Bund, new, like the dirty 1960s apartment blocks which cover much of the city, and ultra-modern, like the futuristic syscrapers sprouting up ever higher in Pudong to create a Chinese Manhattan in what was until recently farmland.

The city sprawls across the low-lying land of the Yangtze delta, with the Hunagpu River, a branch of the Yangtze, separating the Bund and the old city from the new city of Pudong on the east bank. The Bund is perhaps the most famous waterfront in the world and for many it is the classic image of Shanghai. The row of imposing Art Deco and Neo-Classical buildings on the west bank of the Huangpu constituted the administrative centre of what was for a time, in the 1920s and 30s, the busiest port in Asia. On warm summer nights, thousands of promenaders, many of whom, when I was there, seemed to selling fake Rolexes, throng the Bund, and take river cruises which offer spectacular views of the illuminated buildings. The way the city is booming, I'm sure it won't be long before those Rolexes are real ones like those worn in the chic, upmarket bars and restaurants of Xintiandi. The favourite destination for most foreign visitors, however is the Yuyuan temple gardens and bazaar. Built in 1559 during the reign of the Ming emperor Jiajing, it is famous for its classical Chinese architectural marvels, including the Big Rockery and the wonderfully named Hall of an Emerald Touch of Spring. As you wander round the gardens in summer, looking down at the golden carp in the ponds, the noise of the thousands of crickets in the bushes is deafening.

NUMBER 9 - MARRAKECH

NUMBER 10 - KIEV

Top 10 Cities in the World - 9 Marrakech

2010-05-13T15:51:00.010+04:00

NUMBER 9 - MARRAKECH

Marrakech is both ancient and exotic. If you are prepared for the fact that Marrakechis have 101 ways to relieve foreigners of their money, you can begin to enjoy the sights and sounds of 'The Pink City".

Marrakech was founded nearly a thousand years ago by Youssef ben Tachfine, the first leader of the great Almoravid dynasty, who conquered southern Spain for the Moors. His son, Ali ben Youssef, brought in the best architects and craftsmen from Cordoba to build a great capital city for his empire. In 1126 the city was fortified with walls around it. Then, between 1150 and 1199 the Koutoubia mosque, which you can see in the first photo, was built.

At the heart of the Old City is one of the biggest squares in the world, Djemaa el Fnaa, which although it means Assembly of the Dead in Arabic, is full of life, especially after sunset, when it has hundreds of food stalls, lit by lanterns, fresh orange juice sellers, musicians, dancers, acrobats, magicians, fortune tellers, henna artists and snake charmers, all plying their trades. Wander off the square and you will disappear into a maze of souqs.

It is a city that is not always easy on the eye, the ear or the pocket. No matter how well you speak French or Arabic, and no matter what that friendly carpet seller, who treats you like a long-lost brother, tells you, you will always be an outsider in Marrakech. When I pointed to the meter in a taxi, the driver shrugged, took another drag on his cigarette, and replied, as the smoke drifted past his No Smoking sign, "That's for local people". But, perhaps the fact that you will never feel at home in Marrakech, is what makes it so exotic.

Number 10 - Kiev

You do something wonderful

2010-05-12T23:15:00.001+04:00

Corner View - Statues

2010-05-11T21:38:00.009+04:00

For this week's Corner View theme I am returning to my home country of England, to take a look at four iconic statues.

1/ The Water of Life, Chester.

Stephen Broadbent's bronze sculpture, the Water of Life, in Chester Cathedral's cloister garden, is one of the most beautiful in the world. Completed in 1994, it stands 3.3 m high, and depicts the encounter between Jesus and the woman of Samaria -a good Samaritan - who gave him water from a well, as recounted in John's gospel.

"Jesus said, 'But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." John 4:14.

2/ The Angel of the North, Gateshead.

Antony Gormley's massive Angel of the North is probably now the most famous statue in England. The steel sculpture was erected by the side of the A1 motorway, just outside the industrial town of Gateshead, in 1994. It is 20m tall, has a wingspan of 54m and is the largest sculpture of an angel in the world. Look closely at the photo and you will see the tiny human figures at its base.

3/ Robin Hood, Nottingham.

Robin Hood is Nottingham's main tourist attraction, and people come from all over the world to to see his statue, which stands in front of the walls of Nottingham Castle. James Woodford's statue of the legendary outlaw was given to the city by E.F. Clay in 1949. While I was taking this photo, a Japanese visitor told me that he had travelled half-way round the world just to be photographed standing next to it( lucky I was there!).

4/ Statue of Eros, London

Alfred Gilbert's Statue of Eros, which stands in the middle of Piccadilly Circus in London's Soho district was, until the Angel of the North was erected, the most iconic statue in England. Erected in 1892, it was the first statue in the world to be made of aluminium. In the Victorian era, the unveiling of a statue of a nude archer in the middle of what was to become London's red light district was somewhat contorversial, but now it is one of the favourite meeting places in the city. Although it is generally believed to represent Eros, Gilbert actually designed it to depict Eros's brother, Anteros, the God of requited love.

Top 10 Cities in the World - 10 Kiev

2010-05-11T13:04:00.009+04:00

This is the first in a list of cities I have visited that I consider, for various reasons, to be among my Top 1o in the world. Beating off competition from Dubrovnik, Jogyakarta, Beijing, Ho Chi Minh City, Munich and Beirut:

NUMBER 10 - KIEV

Kiev is one of the grandest cities in Europe, but like most people, I was totally unaware of that until I saw it with my own eyes. From the late ninth century until the mid twelfth century, during the Golden Age, it was the capital of the Kievan Rus empire, and by the time of the Mongol invasion of 1240, it was one of the largest cities in the world.

Kiev has some of the world's greatest Christian buildings, including the UNESCO World Heritage Sites of St Sophia's Cathedral and the massive Pecherska Lavra monastery complex, which was founded nearly a thousand years ago, when the first cave chapels were excavated by Orthodox monks in the hills overlooking the River Dnieper. Kiev may also lay fair claim to being the city with the most beautiful women in the world, and you'll see more leggy, blonde 'supermodels' here than you'll see in a dozen Paris fashion weeks.

The best way to travel around the city is by Kiev Metro. which has the deepest underground stations in the world, and at times as you travel down the steep escalators you feel like you are on a journey to the centre of the earth.

La Antigua Guatemala

2010-05-10T22:37:00.006+04:00

Now that I have achieved my ambition of visiting 100 countries (well, sort of - two of the countries no longer exist), I am building up to putting some top tens on my blog: top ten cities, paradises, archaeological sites etc. But, until then, here are some photos of one of my favourtie towns, Antigua La Guatemala. Built on the site of the Mayan city of Iximche, by Spanish conquistadores in 1543, it was the capital of Guatemala until it was destroyed by devastating earthquakes in 1773. It is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the number one travellers' town in Central America: you could say it's the Central American equivalent of Cuzco, full of hostels, language schools, restaurants and bars. There are some wonderful places to stay and eat here, including my favourite restaurant in Central America: La Escudilla, where you really should sit in the beautiful courtyard and try their Paradilla Quetzal. But, above all, there are the impressive colonial churches and monasteries which withstood the earthquakes. Surrounding the town, and giving it a magnifcent backdrop, are three smoking volcanoes, which remind you how fragile Antigua's existence is.

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I Feel For You

2010-05-07T00:57:00.002+04:00

What can I say?

Chaka Khan - I Feel For You @ Yahoo! Video

Corner View - Gardens

2010-05-04T18:17:00.014+04:00

JARDIN MAJORELLE, MARRAKECH

ROYAL BOTANICAL GARDENS, KANDY

The theme of this week's Corner View is actually 'garden', but I'm going to look at more than one, as here in Oman we have an unispiring back yard with a bit of bougainvillea, which attracts Sunbirds, African Silverbills and White-eyes, but it's not particularly photogenic. Back home in Hampshire, we have a house with a typical English garden, but as we only go back to take care of it for a few weeks each summer, it's beginning to go to rack and ruin. Probably, the most interesting garden I ever had was when I lived in a little whitewashed villa in Spain. It had orange and persimmon trees and grape vines, and I copied the locals by growing most of my own vegetables there. Can't find any photos of it though. You probably noticed there were a few 'buts' there, which all leads me to the fact that I'm not going to show you any of them. Instead I'm going to look at a few public gardens that have particularly impressed me in my travels around the world.

I like minimalist gardens, maybe because they are so different to what I grew up with in England, and I've always been attracted to the exotic. My favourite is the Zen Rock Garden at Ryoanji Temple in Kyoto. It consists simply of a rectangle filled with a bed of gravel and fifteen rocks. Laid out in the fifteenth century, it is regarded as a masterpiece of Japanese culture.

"That is a description, but to understand its effect, and its purity, you have to go there. The design generates tension, drawing the viewer to contemplate the mystery of Zen. It can't be photographed in entirety, the dimensions could drive any photographer to distraction, but thats the beauty of it. All you can do is just put the camera away, sit down and contemplate it. Especially when you realize that no matter where you sit, you will only see 14 of the rocks at any one time. The longer you sit, the more the garden fascinates." Japan Travel Guide. So, again, no photos, but it left a lasting impression on my mind, as I'm sure it will on yours when you go to see it for yourself. I expect some of you already have.

My second favourite is Jardin Majorelle in Marrakech. Currently owned by Yves Saint Laurent, it was originally laid out by another Frenchman, Jacques Majorelle, in 1886. Like the Ryoanji rock garden, it is a place that inspires contemplation and wonder, although I'm sure that some visitors must walk round it once, which can be done in less than five minutes, and ask, 'Is that it?' The garden is indeed small and simple, but the cacti and palm trees are set off to perfection by the blue architecture. This time there are photos, but they don't really do it justice. Again, you should go to Marrakech and see it for yourself one day.

Third place must be shared by a number of botanical gardens which feature collections of rare and exotic plants and trees collected by Victorian botanists , including Kew Gardens in London and the Royal Botanical gardens of Calcutta and Kandy, the last of which is featured in the photos. They are vestiges of a lost empire, and, like my garden in England, many of them, especially the one in Calcutta, are becoming ovegrown and going to rack and ruin. The great Mughal Shalimar gardens on the shores of Dal lake in Kashmir have been abandoned and neglected for even longer, but you can still conjure up visions of their lost beauty as you drift by them in a shikara .

Do you remember that children's book by Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden? There is something intriguing about the idea of being able to enter a long-lost secret garden, isn't there?

A Small Desert Town on the Silk Road

2010-05-02T16:36:00.028+04:00

NA'IN

In 2001, I travelled around Iran, which is a truly fascinating country, inhabited by some of the friendliest people in the world. I went to the more obvious destinations, like Tehran, Isfahan and Shiraz, but I was also lucky enough to visit some of the smaller, less well-known caravan towns on the Silk Road, like Yazd and Na'in.

Na'in is a small town famous for its beautiful, blue and white carpets, which traditionally used indigo and silk brought by the camel trains returning from the Silk Road. In the middle is a two-thousand-year-old Sassanid Citadel, surrounded by a maze of alleyways, little changed since the Middle Ages. The town's tenth century adobe mosque, Masjid-e Jame, is one of the oldest in Iran.

All of the architecture in Na'in is designed to protect people from the baking heat of the desert sun. The traditional houses use wind towers to funnel the breeze through the interior. The rooms are below ground, where it is cooler.

If you like remote, exotic places, which the modern world has passed by, Na'in is for you.

Realistically, I will probably never return there, but back home in England, I have a beautiful Na'in carpet, which will always remind me of the town where it was made, and the people who made it.

The photos show a covered alleyway in the bazaar, a typical Na'in home with its rooms below ground, surmounted by a conical roof and wind towers, the crumbling Narin Ghaleh Citadel, where the inhabitants of Na'in used to flee to escape the invading Mongol hordes and, finally, the tenth century mosque.

Excuse the poor quality of the photos. They are grabbed frames from a tape on my old video camera.

Art Deco v Art Nouveau - Part Two

2010-04-29T20:27:00.013+04:00

ELIZABETES IELA 10b

PASAJUL MACCA-VILACROSSE

PART TWO - ART NOUVEAU

Art Nouveau is older and very different in style to Art Deco. It took its name from Samuel Bing's gallery, Maison de l'Art Nouveau, in Paris. In Central and Eastern Europe it is also known as Jugendstil or 'youth style'. One of its main influences was Japanese art, especially the woodcuts of Hokusai, and its main period was from the 1890s to the early 1900s, after Japanese prints appeared in Europe. It was especially popular in Northern Europe, with Latvia and Scotland being two of the countries with some of the finest examples of Art Nouveau architecture. It is characterized by non-geometric curves and swirls, and the facades of Art Nouveau buildings are usually decorated with floral designs, human figures and faces.

I have chosen two buildings to exemplify the style:

1/ Elizabetes iela 10b, Riga. Riga has over 750 Art Nouveau buildings, more than any other city in the world, and it was a visit there that got me really interested in this subject. The main reason is that one of the most prolific Art Nouveau architects, Mikhail Eisenstein (father of the film director Segei Eisenstein) lived there, and the building at Elizabetes iela 10b, built in 1903, is generally agreed to be his finest

2/ Pasajul Macca-Vilacrosse, Bucharest. This is a grand late nineteenth century, pedestrian thoroughfare, roofed with glass and wrought iron and lined with shops, cafes and restaurants. It has a typical Art Nouveau entrance, flanked by floral designs and human sculptures. It was designed by Catalan architect, Xavier Villacrosse, who studied in Paris. It is quite elegant and beautiful and when you see it, you will see why Bucharest was sometimes referred to as Little Paris.

Art Deco v Art Nouveau - What's the difference?

2010-04-29T14:19:00.014+04:00

EDIFICIO KAVANAGH

PALACIO SALVO

UNION HOTEL

When I travel, I usually take a guide book with me, and often come across references to Art Deco and Art Nouveau buildings, but to be quite honest I never really tried to find out what the difference was. I just knew that they both usually dated from the early twentieth century. However, after a recent trip to Riga, which has some of the finest examples of Art Nouveau architecture in the world, I finally started to get a grasp of what that was. It is quite a common style in big European cities. Art Deco, on the other hand, tends to be more prevalent in North and South America, with some of the finest examples being in New York.

PART ONE - ART DECO

Art Deco was a common style of design from the mid-1920s to the mid-1940s. It was intended to be elegant, sleek and modern. It took its name from the Internationales des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes held in Paris in 1925, but the term Art Deco was not widely used until it was popularized by art historian Bevis Hillier's 1968 book Art Deco of the 20s and 30s. So, how can you recognize it? Well, if you see a pre-war building with a streamlined look, then it's probably Art Deco. It is strongly influenced by the architecture of Ancient Egypt., with its pyramids and obelisks. If I tell you that the Empire State Building and Chrysler Building are Art Deco, then you'll start to form an image of what it looks like: tall and sleek, with geometric patterns and curves, sometimes with a sinister touch: think Superman and Gotham City. But, be warned, if it's got flowery designs and faces on the front, then it's more likely Art Nouveau.

In my opinion, Art Deco buildings can often be quite brutal and ugly, but here are three I've seen that I liked (photos from top to bottom):

1/ Edificio Kavanagh , Buenos Aires. When it was completed in 1936, Edificio Kavanagh was, with a height of 120 m, the tallest building in Latin America and the tallest reinforced concrete building in the world. it was designed in a style which is a mixture of Art Deco and Modernism (that's another story), by architects Gregorio Sánchez, Ernesto Lagos and Luis Maria de la Torre. There is a funny story attached to this building: it was planned as an act of revenge by the developer, Corina Kavanagh. One of Corina's daughters had fallen in love with the son of the aristocratic Anchorena family, who lived in a palace and had built a church next to the site of the Kavanagh Building. The Anchorenas stopped the marriage to a member of a nouveau riche family, whom they perceived as being below their social status. So, to teach them a lesson they'd never be able to forget, Corina Kavanagh decided to build a skyscraper that would block the view of the church from their palace. It took all of her inheritance to complete it, and she spent the rest of her life living in an apartment on the 14th floor of Edificio Kavanagh. It is, nevertheless, a beautiful building, and it certainly has a 'wow' factor, because that's what I said when I first saw it.

2/ Palacio Salvo, Montevideo. This 26-storey skyscraper, which dominates the skyline of Montevideo, was designed by the architect Mario Palanti, and constructed between 1925 and 1928. It is 95 metres high, but 100 metres with the antenna., and until the Edifico Kavanagh was completed eight years later, it was the tallest building in South America. Palacio Salvo may no longer be the tallest building in South America, but it is still the most popular image on postcards of Montevideo and remains a national icon for Uruguayans. I personally think it's one of the great pre-war skyscrapers, on a par with New York's Chrysler Building.

3/ Union Hotel, Bucharest. Eastern European cities have many impressive Art Deco buildings from the 20s and 30s. One of the most spectacular is Bucharest's Union Hotel, which was built between 1929 and 1931 by local architect Arghir Culina. It used to be a hotel, but is now used as an office block.

PART TWO - ART NOUVEAU to follow.

Corner View - Animals

2010-04-28T23:47:00.006+04:00

The theme of this week's Corner View is animals. I thought about elephants, I thought about lions, I even thought about my cat, Sid, but in the end I went with monkeys. The top photo is of a little marmoset I saw when I was walking through the forest on Ilha Grande, in Brazil, which is, incidentally, a place that would figure in my Top 10 Paradises on Earth. The second photo is of a family of macaques I saw by the roadside on a recent trip to Sri Lanka. What got me in both cases were their facial expressions (and their fashionable hairstyles).