How can a London-based writer of Middle Eastern origin protest against the violence in Syria? Here’s one way: enlisting the help of a graphic artist, Shahrazad (a pseudonym) designed this poster expressing her disgust at Syrian first lady Asma al-Assad’s silence.
The poster is free; you can get your copy by emailing Shahrazad at iamnotlikeyou@safe-mail.net. It was first distributed two weekends ago at a protest in London and has been picking up steam ever since: the British Solidarity for Syria campaign took 500 posters, and more will be heading north to Edinburgh with the organisers of Reel Syria 2012. "At first, some Syrians were put off by the image of Asma on the poster," says Shahrazad. "You might think the photo is glamorous, but if you examine it closely she looks perturbed." She hopes it will be displayed all over the world.
Shahrazad once saw al-Assad up close when she joined her in a women’s bike ride for peace several years ago and had hoped it was the beginning of a new era in Syria. "We could have been more than friends; we could have been sisters," she has written on the poster. "But you are a sister no longer, and each and every one of us feels played like a sucker."
We went to the movies last night to see Natalie Dessay in La Traviata live from the Metropolitan Opera in New York – she was stunning as this clip shows.
Not bad to get a front row seat for the met for £12. Yesterday’s matinee was shown all around the world. Apparently, the seat price covers only half of the costs so sponsors like Bloomberg must contribute a the season shown around the globe.
Last year we saw Madam Butterfly from Covent Garden and Servant with two Guvnors from the National Theatre at the movies. Well worth a visit.
I have been messing about with box.net which allows you to sync photos on iPhone, iPad and PC and the photosynth app which allows you to take a series of shots and then knits them into a panorama as above, my office and then the living room. Photosynth also gives you code to embed in a website.
Here are four driving routes from the Sunday papers – last of which I have done and the others I want to try real soon:
Alsace wine route, France
This, the loveliest wine route in Europe, is one for grown-ups — those who require a drive to warm the cockles, rather than startle the nerves or shred the senses. Hemming the Vosges Mountains, the road curves 106 miles up and down, through vines, forest and on to half-timbered villages, none of them much changed since they hosted folk tales featuring girls with pigtails and boys with wooden buckets. All are overcome with ramparts and flowers. Spots such as Riquewihr and Kayserberg are pageants waiting to happen. You drive on, diverting to the hill-cresting Route des Crêtes and castles left over from millennial mayhem. You’ll call in at ancient winery courtyards for riesling and gewürztraminer, and eat as much as a God-given stomach can hold. You will reflect that, even here, near the Franco-German border, the eurozone can still do some things brilliantly.
The wheels: you’re mature, the landscape, too, so nothing flash. A battered estate car with ample room to bring home wine is perfect.
On the stereo: Mott the Hoople’s greatest hits — the best driving music for grown-ups with guilty pasts.
The package: VFB Holidays (0800 1712160, vfbholidays.co.uk) has three nights at the family-run Aux Ducs de Lorraine, on the wine route, from £232pp, half-board, including return Dover-Calais ferry crossings.
Blue Ridge Parkway, North Carolina
It’s not every day you dance with a vulture on a mountaintop, but it happened to me on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Commissioned during the depression to keep hairy-eared hillbillies in gainful employment, this is the kind of big, muscular road that makes you understand why Americans love driving. Laurel and Hardy crooned about the Virginia stretch, but even better is the final 60 miles, west of Asheville, an Appalachian student town where patchouli-scented bohemian types scribble poetry in coffee joints. From there, the Parkway swoops raptor-like alongside the Great Smoky Mountains, as forest-tipped peaks and hazy valleys drift away into the distance. The roadside “overlooks” have names such as Graveyard Fields and the Devil’s Courthouse, and you’ll play tag all the way to Cherokee with paunchy hog-riders on three-wheel Harleys — 21st-century cowboys who shout “Saddle up” every time they’re ready to remount. At Walnut Cove, 5,000ft above sea level, exhilaration got the better of me: I surprised a few of them by leaping out of the car, bluegrass radio twanging, and doing an impromptu boogie beside a bemused turkey vulture on a clifftop stump.
The wheels: a Harley-Davidson Street Glide trike, if you have the sideburns for it. Or an Oldsmobile station wagon.
On the stereo: Radio WNCW (88.7FM) jangles out a rootsy mix of dulcimer duets and round-the-mike spirituals.
The package: a seven-night fly-drive starts at £1,395pp, including most breakfasts, flights from Gatwick to Charlotte and car hire, with Vacations to America (01582 469881, vacationstoamerica.com). Vincent Crump
Tioga Pass, California
It’s hardly short on special drives, California, but this one, heading east out of Yosemite National Park over the Sierra Nevada, on wiggling Route 120 (closed in winter), shouldn’t be overshadowed. It’s more than 70 miles — you’ll leave the coach parties of the Yosemite Valley behind and trundle above the tree line, between bleach-white rock faces. Watch out for bears and marmots crossing. Past Tenaya Lake, the moonscape transforms into what could be the grounds of a home-counties estate: these are the lush Tuolumne Meadows, at more than 8,000ft. The Tioga Pass is at 9,950ft, then it’s an ear-popping 3,500ft descent to Mono Lake, a huge, greenish expanse with stalagmites of salt poking out from the water’s surface. When you hit its shore, take a left for a detour to Bodie, a deserted mining settlement (£4; parks.ca.gov), or turn right for Death Valley, 200 miles south. But first, a lunch of crispy fish tacos with pineapple and mango, overlooking the lake, at the Whoa Nellie Deli (whoanelliedeli.com). Find it inside the Mobil petrol station.
The wheels: anything sexy and top-down, with good brakes, is ideal (not the hideous, boxy, unresponsive modern-day excuse for a Chevrolet that greeted me at San Francisco airport).
On the stereo: something sweeping, with strings. The first Arcade Fire album would do it.
The package: Tailor Made Travel (0800 988 5887, tailor-made.co.uk) has a seven-night fly-drive from £1,179pp, including flights from Heathrow into San Francisco and back from Las Vegas, car hire and B&B stays in San Francisco, Yosemite and Death Valley. Martin Hemming
I have done this with Bill the other way around and is thoroughly recommended
Ullapool to Thurso, via Cape Wrath, Highlands
When you get to Ullapool, it feels like you’re already at the end of the road. You’re 600 miles by car from London, 225 miles from Glasgow and 100 miles north of Fort William, but you head north and keep driving, past sea lochs and cliffs, over bogs and in the shadow of mountains. The roads are mostly single-track; with each wiggle, they draw you deeper into a world where there’s little sound but the wind. Cape Wrath is the trip’s climax. To get to it, park at Durness, get the ferry over the Kyle of Durness (£6) and join the tourist minibus (£10 return; capewrath.org.uk), which covers the last 11 miles, through an MoD bombing range. You’ll now feel closer to the fjords and forests of Scandinavia than the cities and suburbs of the south. You leave the bus and find yourself on a vertiginous cliff, staring across the Atlantic. The sense of wilderness is awe-inspiring and unsettling. Who would have thought you could feel so far from home and still be on the same island?
The wheels: speed is not necessary; stopping to make a cup of tea while overlooking an empty beach is. Happy Highland Campers (07796 675639, happyhighlandcampers.co.uk), based in Inverness, has 1970s VW vans from £495 for a week or £249 for a weekend.
On the stereo: anything that builds from quiet to a top-of-your-voice moment. How about Sigh No More, by Mumford & Sons? Sean Newsom
"It never occurred to me the scale of the Romney fundraising capability. I was fully prepared to be outspent 2-to-1, even 3-to-1. But when you’re up to 5- or 6-to-1, you’re being drowned. You’re not going to be able to match it."
– Newt Gingrich, in an interview with the Washington Post.
We went to Simpsons in Birmingham last night and stayed over in a delightful French themed room.
We had the tasting menu with selected wines – the wines were delicious some more interesting than others – not sure if I would have the Chateau Musar from the Bekaa Valley again but I am glad that I have tasted it and you would not tell it from a Bordeaux. The Dunkertons with the Camembert was inspired.
Simpsons gained a Michelin star in 2007 and has maintained its reputation since – I will be back if I can afford it! It rained all day and night – in the summer al fresco it would be even more enchanting.
SIMPSONS TASTING MENU with selected wines
CHICKEN LIVER PARFAIT Salt baked beetroot, toasted sour dough Gewurztraminer Les Folastries, Domaine josmeyer, Alsace, France, 2009
CITRUS CURED SALMON wasabi peas, pea shoot salad, sesame tacos Pouilly-Fume : Domaine Les Berthiers, Dagueneau, Loire Valley, France, 2009
SCALLOP squid, chorizo, piquillo peppers, wild rice, garlic and almond puree Albarino, Rias baixas, North Atlantic Coast, Spain, 2010
HALIBUT 55°C confit potatoes, radish, caviar, cucumber, seaweed butter Eroica, Riesling, Cht Ste Michelle & Dr Loosen, Columbia Valley, Washington State, USA, 2008
ROAST QUAIL butternut squash, spinach, dried fruits and granola Julienas: Chateau des capitans, Duboeuf, Beaujolais, France, 2009
WILTSHIRE LAMB crispy sweet breads, gnocchis, watercress, white asparagus and rosemary jus Chateau Musar: Gaston Hochar, Bekaa Valley, Lebanon, 2004
CAMEMBERT soaked in calvados, baby salad, apple, honey vinaigrette and sour dough Premium organic cider, Dunkertons, Herefordshire, England
LEMON TARTLETS (Colin) cashew nuts, honey mousse, mango sorbet and basil Vin de Constance: Klein Constantia, Constancia, South Africa, 2006
RHUBARB CUSTARD CRUMBLE (Jean) SOUFFLE rhubarb ice-cream Gewurztraminer V dges Tardives: Rene Mure, Alsace, France, 2007
Top Row (L-R): Amy Winehouse, Sir Paul Smith, Ian Curtis, Nick Park, Robin Day, Lucienne Day, Francis Bacon, Roald Dahl, Alfred Hitchcock, Lucian Freud, Kate Moss, Paul Weller, Sir Tom Stoppard, Danny Boyle, Sir Mick Jagger, Fanny Craddock, Mr Chow.
Second Row: Martin Parr, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, John Peel, Sir Terence Conran, Robyn Hitchcock, JRR Tolkien, JK Rowling, Anish Kapoor, Mary Quant, David Bailey, Harold Pinter, David Chipperfield.
Third Row: Agatha Christie, Barbara Hulanicki, John Hurt (slightly raised), Gavin Turk, Rick Stein, Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Jonathan Ive, Tracey Emin, Sir David Lean, Peter Saville, Sir David Attenborough, Lord Norman Foster, Justin De Villeneuve, Sir Ridley Scott, Sir Terrence Rattigan, Vidal Sassoon, Richard Curtis, Mark Hix.
Middle Row: Delia Smith (in Norwich City scarf), David Bowie, Twiggy, Audrey Hepburn, Gary Oldman, Damien Hirst, Stella McCartney, Mary McCartney, Alexander McQueen, Dame Vivienne Westwood, Dame Helen Mirren, Grayson Perry, Wreckless Eric.
Fifth Row: Richard Rogers (in profile), Noel Gallagher, Dame Shirley Bassey, Jeremy King, Chrissy Blake, Sir Peter Blake, Chris Corbin, Rose Blake, Sir Elton John, Daisy Blake (in roller skates), Ian Dury, David Hockney.
Bottom Row: Monty Python foot, Elvis Costello, Liberty Blake (with flag), Victoria Vintage (on the drum head), Eric Clapton.
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