Naked brunch in a jukebox dive

Review

2008-10-08T14:03:00.001Z

THE FAÇADE OF ARMS CONTROL:
How the UK's export licensing system facilitates the arms trade
Goodwin paper #6
The UK is one of the world’s most largest arms exporters. It manages to do this under the cover of a licensing system that fails to restrict arms exports-providing only the most superficial transparency while obscuring deep ties between the government and arms exporters.

Anna Stavrianakis provides an overveiew of the licensing system and clearly explains how it does not make for an ethical policy- while showing us how the unique background and evolution of the UK arms trade, aswell as how the context of increased emphasis on national defense, means that the UK arms trade is still booming.

Her central argument is that the UK government claims its licensing system is amongst the most transparent in the world, yet it remains impossible to ascertain what equipment was exported, to whom, and when, or what equipment was refused, to whom, when and for what reason.
Cases covered by the media, for example the BAE Systems-Saudi investigation by the Serious Fraud Office, are only the tip of the iceberg. Examples relating to human rights and regional instability feature widely in the press. Exports to the USA and other NATO allies and much of the Middle East, as well as the trade between arms companies and the UK military, which make up the bulk of UK-based companies' sales, are less widely remarked on.
In general, the UK's role as one of the world's largest arms exporters and military spenders is not often seen as a problem in and of itself. This is a missing part of the debate about the arms trade. What Stavrianakis brings to the debate table is the role New Labour has played in perpetuating the way the arms trade works, while simultaneously claiming to change it:

“Arms control was a key element in the "ethical dimension" that the Labour Party proposed to bring to foreign policy. Since its arrival in power in 1997, however, the Labour government has been widely criticised for its record on arms exports, with critics pointing to the disjuncture between its rhetoric of benevolence and its practice of sending weapons to repressive states, conflict zones, and areas of regional instability.”

In this era Tony Blair hangover, it is a timely information- we do not want his role downplayed, while Labour may well have had its day for a long time, it is important that Brown’s problems and the economy don’t help to obscure the foreign policy blunders over which Blair presided. In light of the last decade, ‘ehical foreign policy’ as espoused by New Labour is the kind of hyprocrisy which needs to be addressed before it is brushed under the carpet with newer problems and challenges.

It’s the licensing system, stupid

Stavrianakis’ work on this provides a useful starting point for challenging the existing system from where it is deeply ingrained:

“The arms export guidelines are written and interpreted in such a way as to facilitate exports, and pro-control actors within government are weaker than pro-export actors. This, combined with the close relationship between the arms industry and government and the rhetoric of sovereignty and national defence, means that the licensing process is a ritualised activity that functions to create the appearance of restraint rather than significantly restrict the arms trade.”

Under new labour, the legislation provides cover for these dubious activities.
Arms control is the left hand of the government – while we tell other countries how to treat its minorities, we sell weapons to even more repressive regimes, under cover of loopholes:

“The default position is to grant licences for exports, and government-to-government deals do not require a licence (as it would be perverse for the government to licence itself ). So, for example, the Al Yamamah contracts with Saudi Arabia are government-to-government deals between the UK and Saudi governments, with arms companies such as BAE Systems acting as contractors to the government. As no licences have been granted, no details appear in the government's annual reports.”

Stavrianakis also examines the claim that the arms trade is good for the economy-a claim which has no real observable proof. She also attempts to explain why there is so little change- the massive political backing. Thatcher was famous for personally intervening to secure arms deals such as the massive Al-Yamamah deal to Saudi Arabia, and under New Labour, Tony Blair himself successfully lobbied for a £3 billion arms deal to South Africa.

So where does Stavrianakis’s work fit in global disarmament debate? It is a concise and convincingly picture of the UK’s role in the global arms trade-illuminating the webs between governments and arms exporters. It provides an ideal complement to the wider debate about disarmament and the challenges the movement faces in the future.

Anna Stavrianakis is an Economic and Social Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of International Relations at the University of Sussex

For more information about the Campaign Against Arms Trade, visit www.caat.org.uk.

Smuggling music and sex education: ‘Bravo’ magazine in the German Democratic Republic

2008-09-04T13:58:00.000Z

Where there is prohibition, a vacuum is filled with a black market. On the long list of prohibited items in the German Democratic Republic, or East Germany, the most sought-after contraband for young people was not Coca Cola, clothes or David Hasselhof (contrary to what he might think) but copies of Bravo magazine, the German cult rag for young people. Its coverage of music, film and television stars, (and Hasselhof here has to be grudgingly included) as well as its handling of teen issues, made it a highly-coveted black market commodity.

The Bravo phenomenon

Calling itself a tabloid that unashamedly targets the teen market, this muted definition of Bravo belies its prominent role in providing generations of Germans with frank sex education. Many credit the magazine, at least in part, for Germany’s free and uninhibited attitudes towards sex and the body. The magazine was founded 1956 (with Marilyn Monroe gracing the maiden cover) at a time when post-War Germany wanted to emerge from its misery and embrace modern life. Since 1962, it has given no-holds-barred advice on sex and growing up through the advice of “Dr Sommer”, resident agony uncle and real-life doctor (though Dr Sommer is a pseudonym). Generations of Germans and other Europeans in this way received their Aufklaeurung (‘clearing up’) on matters of sex.

Bravo of course is also a celebrity gossip mag. Teenagers learn about the lives and loves of America’s biggest stars along as well as the best method of contraception for young couples. Amusingly, unlike its British counterparts, (heat for example) it never pokes fun, tongue-in-cheek or otherwise, at the people it covers. Every also-ran gets treated like they are the next Elvis Presley- from international superstars like Michael Jackson to German pop runts Tokio Hotel and some of Central Europe’s most embarrassing “dance acts”- DJ Bobo and DJ Oetzi, take note. This affectionate strategy does seem to pay off, however. It should be noted that Bravo followed boy band ‘N Sync’s fortunes like a swooning teenager (its key demographic) from the mid-1990s, when they could barely fill school gyms in Germany and Austria and Justin Timberlake had yet to grow facial hair.

Despite its importance, Bravo manages to completely avoid political issues, with the exception of the environment and animal rights - issues that are deemed important to its target audience. Its most politically daring acts to date: printing a picture of Pope John Paul II and publishing stars’ thoughts on America, post-9/11.

Smuggling Bravo

Thanks to its whole-hearted celebration of Western celebrity, the Bravo was banned in the GDR, not for its sexual content but because it was labelled an example of ‘decadent Western thought’ and ‘imperialist literature’ by the Committee for Entertainment Arts. But for young people in the GDR, it formed a vital connection to the world beyond the wall because of its voyeuristic coverage of music and film stars. More than that, it was a link to the stranger world of growing up and sex, its frank treatment of which children in the West may have taken for granted.

An article in the Berliner Zeitung in 2006, marking Bravo’s 50th Anniversary, discusses the smuggling of the magazines into the GDR. One teenager used to travel to Hungary with her friends to loot the music shops for albums banned under the GDR, as well as editions of Bravo. Another girl paid the equivalent of 20 DM (£8) for the latest issue - it would have set her back about 1.70 DM had she lived on the right side of the iron curtain.

Despite its status as culturally bankrupt and unfit for GDR eyes, Bravo was thoroughly catalogued, archived and rated. Possession of Bravo was strictly prohibited, which is why it was often smuggled on 18-hour train rides from Hungary, under sweatshirts against bare skin, at the mule’s annoyance upon finding the cover illegible by the sweat. Often it would have to be peeled from the belly. For West Germans, who could pick them up while buying toiletries, this may sound somehow romantic.

Along the borders and in the Post offices, the government did its best to stop the influx of Western literature, but some Bravos managed to slip through. Covert trade of Bravo’s colourful posters in GDR schools was so brisk that it even had fixed prices: A double-sided poster went for 20 Ostmarks, a single page poster for ten. The larger posters could fetch up to 40 marks and a whole magazine would cost 100. This was at a time when young apprentices in the East earned only 120 Ostmarks per month, and children’s pocket money was not usually more than 20 marks a month. Somehow, the money was always there.
Most people brought Bravo to the GDR when returning from visits, but because the eager customs goons would search luggage, smugglers had to be inventive. Sasha Lange, in his book “DJ West Radio - My Happy GDR Youth” recounts how his mother, when returning from the West to visit his grandmother, would go to the toilet just before she went through the checkpoint, and hide various papers and magazines in her boots. Another magazine would go under her sweater.
There was further money to be made in the photographs taken of Bravo pages, again with fixed prices: “These became so valuable that they were given out as prizes at the Leipzig fun fair shooting gallery. I once won a picture of Kim Wilde, but because I was such a bad shot, I spent five marks on ammunition,” says Lange.

Lange says that the obsessive collection of posters among schoolchildren surpassed the collection of music records. Finding a poster which you wanted required making use of every contact you had, inside and outside school, to find out who had something you wanted and who might want something you had. “I had a grandmother in the West- this is how I managed to get my hands on over 80 posters of Depeche Mode,” says Lange.

Black market music

Bravo also helped people in East Germany place words and faces to the music from ‘over there’. Claudia Rusch writes in her 2003 book, My Free German Youth, that music was more difficult to censure than literature. If a book was banned, it was simply not imported. End of story. “Music was different. As soon as Western songs were played on the West’s radios and people walked down the street singing them, it was too late. They settled like fine dust on the ears of people in the GDR,“ says Rusch. The furtive and urgent collection of Bravo, with its voyeurism of music stars and colourful posters, was part of this vicarous consumption of Western music, and sated some of the hunger for banned music.

For the music-hungry in the GDR, every titbit contained in Bravo’s pages was considered sacred. “Everyone knows the anecdotes,“ Rusch writes. “The black market, the false covers of Bohemian horn music, and of course the Bravo posters, which could cost up to a month’s salary.“

Every song that contained the word „free“ became a cult hit in the GDR. Rusch laments that Bob Dylan could not have known the true importance of his 1987 concert in East Berlin, and how disappointing it was for his music-starved audience that he said almost nothing during his performance: “Like it was just another one more point on a long list of irritating obligations- but for the people there, it was like seeing God.“

Still here and not forgotten

Antje Pfeffer of the Youth Archives Project in Berlin, says that presumably the yearning for the music-and sex-education paper was nowhere stronger than in the GDR. The Archives Project documented the German history of the magazine to accompany its 50th anniversary celebrations. Pfeffer herself grew up in the GDR, and does not recall any smuggling of Bravo but remembers other curious behaviour. She has fond memories of a black and white picture of Rory Gallagher a childhood friend photographed from his copy of Bravo and then sent on to her. The Archives museum is full of such grainy, overexposed and secretly developed snapshots of Bravo stars and articles.

The subject of Bravo within the GDR was also examined by the magazine itself. In 1967 it published letters from girls from sent from ’over there,’ assuring them their names and addresses would not be printed. The letters described how they were approached by middlemen, who offered 12 Deutschmarks per page and 60 Deutschmarks for a whole edition.

Of course, there was nothing comparable at the time. Nowadays Bravo is one of many youth magazines, its copycat versions, Popcorn, Pop Rocky and Girl skimming its profits and diluting its circulation. In days past, whoever wanted to have posters of Western stars could not avoid Bravo.
Perhaps another reason to be nostalgic for the Cold War: Bravo is now available everywhere but is nowhere near as coveted.

Congrats to Lozza

2008-08-11T16:32:00.001Z

Deadline reporter cleared of interview impersonation charge
August 11th, 2008 Posted by Laura Oliver in legal
Lauren Crooks, a reporter with Scottish press agency Deadline, has been cleared of impersonating a court official to gain an interview.

Crooks was cleared of the charge on Friday after a year spent fighting the allegation and eight court appearances, the agency has said in a press release.

The reporter was arrested in August 2007 following an interview with an assault victim, whose case she had been covering at Edinburgh’s Sheriff Court.

Despite giving out her business card, the interviewee contacted police to say they had only agreed to the interview because Crooks she said she was a court official.

Crooks said she ‘couldn’t have been any clearer’ in making her position as a reporter known during the interview, even making requests for photographs to be set up for a Sunday newspaper

“I have spent 20 years in the Scottish media and everyone I have spoken to has expressed nothing but disbelief that this should have happened at all. I dread to think how much this ludicrous case has cost the taxpayer in wasted police, procurator fiscal and court time,” said Scott Douglas, founder of Deadline, in the release.

“Even more sinister is why a police force - already under fire for its deliberate erosion of media relations - went to such lengths to pursue a reporter and an agency with an unblemished reputation on a case which didn’t stand up to even the most basic scrutiny.”

Tags: Court, Deadline, Edinburgh's Sheriff Court, Lauren Crooks, press agency, Scott Douglas

Plus ca change

2008-07-23T10:33:00.000Z

Austria’s governing coalition has collapsed-will this lead to the rise of the far-right Freedom Party?

The Austrian government collapsed on Monday after months of acrimonious dispute between the nation’s two largest parties. New elections are slated for September 28 after the People’s Party (OVP) withdrew from the governing coalition.

The leftist Social Democratic Party (SPO) and the conservative People’s Party had been locked in an uneasy governing coalition since January 2007. The inconclusive results of the election in October 2006, in which the Social Democrats won 35 per cent of the vote and the People’s Party 34 per cent, meant that neither could form a government with a smaller party, and the major parties were forced to join together.

Meanwhile, fears about rising consumer prices have aggravated longstanding tensions over immigration. Public sentiment toward the European Union has also soured drastically, and analysts said that in the election anticipated this year these trends could benefit far-right parties.

The populist right-wing FPO or Freedom party’s support now stands at 20 per cent- doubling their share of two years ago, making it unlikely that a government will be formed without them. For the first time since Joerg Haider’s ascension in 1999 the party is in with a solid chance. In 1999 Haider won a nice chunk of power on the back of growing discontent with the coalition, with anti-immigration policies, Euroscepticism and promises to preserve cultural identity. Nine years later, the issues seem all too familiar, with hostility to Europe again a potent force in Austrian politics: the latest Eurobarometer poll found only 28 per cent of Austrians were positive about the EU - the lowest among the union's 27 member states

‘Big Parties’ forced to the right

Despite the official stance of the Social Democrats and the People's party to rule out a coalition with the party, the Freedom Party’s growing popularity has already forced the main parties to the right. The People's party has grown tougher on immigration - to the extent of deporting asylum-seekers resident in Austria for nearly a decade. And while still pro-Europe, the party rejects Turkish membership and is committed to hold a referendum before any such step.

The Social Democrats, meanwhile, have moved closer to the Freedom party on Europe. In April, party leader and Austria’s Chancellor, Alfred Gusenbauer, was replaced. It is widely accepted that his political undoing was both self-inflicted and multi-faceted, but most notably he fell foul of a powerful anti-EU faction in Austrian society. Hans Dichand, the 88-year old publisher of the Kronen-Zeitung newspaper, is one of Austria's major architects of political campaigns. Dichand had been writing opinion pieces for months under the pseudonym "Cato" against the EU's new Lisbon Treaty. By signing that document, Dichand argued, the government had sacrificed the country's sovereignty.

As recently as late June, advisors warned Gusenbauer not to be swayed by the paper's clout just to boost his popularity among Austrians. But 43 per cent of Austrians read the Kronen-Zeitung, and recent opinion polls showed the chancellor with only a 16 per cent approval rating. So in a stunning display of flip-flopping, the chancellor signed an open letter to Dichand, announcing referendums for future EU treaties. Dichand acknowledged this gesture of submission and thanked the chancellor, the began to promote Gusenbauer’s colleague, Werner Faymann, as the SPÖ's candidate for chancellor in this year's new elections. Faymann has since replaced Gusenbauer as leader of the Social Democrats.

Explaining the rise

As the coalition crumbled, Haider’s former party, led by Heinz-Christian Strache, has reached out to the ranks of blue-collar workers, the unemployed and energetic pensioners who have had enough rising prices and the bickering of the "big parties."

It has also flourished since Haider branched off with a minority in 2005 to start up the BZO, or the Alliance for the Future of Austria, partly to hamper the rise of the 39-year old upstart Christian Strache. Strache, who once staged paramilitary games with fellow gun enthusiasts in the forests of the Austrian province of Carinthia and was affiliated with the now-banned neo-Nazi Viking Youth group, uses tried and tested methods to win popular support. He calls for more social services for the needy, and agitates against EU dictates. Most alarmingly, he is responsible for the political posters for his parties that have slogans like "Daham statt Islam" (Home, not Islam) and "Deutsch statt nix versteh'n" (German, not "I don't understand").

Strache's political mentor, Jerg Haider, turned the Party into the country's second-largest using the same rhetoric nine years ago. After the September election, Strache hopes have a role in shaping the new government, and his prospects look good.

How has the extreme right wing been able to develop its influence in Austria, a country where the social democrats have been in power for decades? Many point to Europhobia-Austria since its accession in1995 has had official pro-EU stance that belies the undercurrent of public dissatisfaction with Brussels- this is trend however that is not unique to Austria.

Discussions about Turkey’s accession to the EU have become mired in Austria and Turkey’s historical enmity, that reached its pinnacle in the Ottoman siege 1683 and is today manifest in uneasy relations with insular Turkish communities in Vienna. Moreover, some argue that Austrians are easily seduced by far-right rhetoric because of a fear of the consequences of immigration caused partly by its small size. People fear it may not cope with the influx of immigrants its geographic position will almost certainly expose it to if the EU borders stretch any farther.

It’s the government, stupid

Less attention has been paid to the question of Austria’s government itself. In 1999 Joerg Haider won more than a quarter of the votes, successfully capitalising on widespread disillusionment with the traditional governing parties of Austria, employing a mixture of racist agitation against foreigners, social demagogy and a campaign against corruption and nepotism.
It is a truism in Austrian politics in the last 20 years that the Freedom Party has made strong gains in times of grand coalitions. For the bulk of the post-war era, the two popular parties have ruled the nation jointly. As a result, Austria has seen decades of social calm and only cautious reform. Social philosopher Norbert Leser has criticised the coalition, arguing that by strenghening the centre, where the government benefits are hoarded, the grand coalition drives many disgruntled voters to the fringes.
Scholarly debate attributed the rise of the ultra-right is a direct consequence of the political dilapidation of the larger traditional parties.

For example, Austria's economy is characterised by a large number of small and mid-size factories that co-exist with a large portion of the economy under state control. The private factories are primarily orientated to the domestic market, and the opening up of the east European states after the Cold War, the entry of Austria into the European Union and the consequences of globalisation have increased competition and reduced the political and economic room for manoeuvre for traditional forms of social collaboration in Austria. A part of the middle class feels that its social status and its material security are under threat. It is here that the Freedom Party gains a foothold.

Throughout the 1990s the Social Democrat-led coalition government made big changes to the economy. One strategy was to consolidate the national budget by cutting back state debt and reducing the level of new debt. As in all other European countries social security payments were cut, leading to a bleak social climate. The system of proportional representation centralised and boosted the power of the ‘big parties’ and prevented opposition against government policies. Increasingly, the political establishment developed into a stronghold for economic favouritism and nepotism. The Freedom Party was able to capitalise on growing dissatisfaction with the lumbering party system. Haider repeatedly emphasised that “the aim is to complete the liberal ideas of constitutional and free rights through the liberation of the people from the political parties.... the power cartels of the grand coalition, into which both the main parties have fled in order to maintain their areas of power, will be stripped of their significance.”

The Freedom Party, now as then, touts the importance of the free economy, the most important element of which is private property. It believes politics should not be limited to the protection of existing property, but should ensure that every individual can, through their own efforts, actually acquire property.

This is reminiscent of Margaret Thatcher's propaganda about “people's capitalism”, which enabled the former British Prime Minister to mobilise sections of the middle class in a campaign to dismantle the welfare state system. The Freedom Party is also seeking to find broad acceptance for measures such as rationalisation, flexibility, wage cuts and the abolition of measures designed to protect the rights and conditions of ordinary workers.
The racist elements of the Freedom Party’s policy is a political strategy that it reinforces through its social and economic policies. Their racism serves to mobilise the most backward sections of society and to divide with growing social tensions The stripping away of all rights for foreign workers is envisaged as a means of establishing a cheap wage sector which, in turn, can be utilised to reverse the existing union-employer contract system governing wages and conditions.

What next?

On Tuesday the new Social Democrats chairman Werner Faymann declared on Austrian TV that he hopes to be the new chancellor of Austria. He promises open discussion on matters of the EU and his official line is he will be happy to work with the People’s Party. He remains firm that he will not form a coalition with the Freedom Party. However, some suspect that at least one of the main parties will form a coalition with the Freedom Party after the elections. Strache expects his Freedom Party to make strong gains and it looks like he may be right.

The last time around, in 2000, the European Union imposed diplomatic sanctions on Austria when the Freedom Party, with Haider at its head, became a member of the two-party national governing coalition. When Wolfgang Schuessel, the head of the People’s Party at the time and the elected chancellor, agreed to form a coalition with Haider’s Party, it was on the condition that Haider retire as head. The agreement still provoked the European Union into imposing sanctions against Austria.

Coalitions with the Freedom Party have collapsed in the past (as in 2003) over key policy disagreements, but this time around, with more support and a more palatable leader, the Freedom Party may get a piece of the pie with less incident.

From I can has cheezburger

2008-06-26T14:12:00.003Z

more graph humor and song chart memes

From I can has cheezburger

2008-06-26T14:12:00.001Z

more graph humor and song chart memes

Lexeth Mundi

2008-06-13T11:09:00.005Z

Got a request from some Chinese company. Once again there is confusion between "LatinLawyer, business law publication" and "Latin lawyer, attorney." You've got to love the wording of his letter though.

This is the letter:

"Dear sir/madam,

My name is XXXXX am the managing director of the XXXXXXXX in China.

it is a family business that has been functional for over XXX years.
My present goal is to instigate expansion beyond international borders.

This is an official request for legal representation on behalf of XXXXXXX. We are presently incapacitated due to international legal boundaries to exert pressure on our delinquent customers and we request for your services accordingly. We got your contact information from the Online Lawyers Directory as a result of our search for a reliable firm or individual to provide legal services as requested.

After a careful review of your profile as well as your qualification and experience, we are of the opinion that you are capable and qualified to provide the legal services as requested.

My offer is this, we will want you to represent XXXXXXXX in your Country and help to collect these outstanding bills.
If you are willing to assist, you would be paid 10%of the total sum you collect on behalf of our company.

And my reply:

Dear XXXXXX,

I do apologise for the misunderstanding but we are not in fact a law firm. We are a legal publication specialising in business law and legal news in Latin America.

We do wish you well in your search for legal representation.

Kind regards,

Alexa van Sickle

Reporter
LATINLAWYER

A multitude of sins

2008-05-16T08:40:00.002Z

Cultural Values and the “Amstetten case”: what the International and Austrian Media are Saying About Josef Fritzl
By Alexa Van Sickle

To have one incident involving children locked up in a basement may be regarded as a misfortune, but to have two just seems like carelessness. Or evidence of a troubling undercurrent in Austrian society, depending on which newspaper you read. Indeed, some coverage has pointed to a national psyche that is fertile ground for these types of incidents, simmering under Austria’s elegant façade. So how are the Austrians interpreting the case of Josef Fritzl, who kidnapped his daughter 24 years ago an kept her in a soundproof basement, fathering three children with her?

From outside Austria, people are quick to describe this as a uniquely ‘Austrian’ crime, attributed to a cultural failing that would cause and allow this type of thing to go on. Swiss papers have pointed to a culture of denial (which is a bit rich considering their banking policy,) Spain’s El Pais has described the case as “perversion and sickness becoming visible” and The Times labelled the country “indifferent.” Nigel Jones in the Daily Telegraph says “any foreigner who has lived there for any length of time will say there is something ‘odd’ about the Austrians”, which is a terrible generalisation to make. As someone who lived both in Austria (for 17 years) and Britain (for eight) I can write a list of ‘odd’ things about both countries, as well as any other I have visited.

And who are the “Austrians” who share this macabre cultural identity? The country has only been in its present form since the end of World War One, before which the empire stretched to Yugoslavia and beyond, with discrete regions defining themselves from each other. The capital, Vienna, is closer to Slovakian Bratislava than Germanic Salzburg. The current borders are like a (strangely-shaped) hoop that was allowed to fall at random on central Europe, gathering a disparate bunch of nations together and proclaiming them, for better or worse, countrymen. Look in an Austrian phone book and you will find just as many eastern European names like Vidlak and Mareschek as the German Schneider and Bauer. In a country that has so many sources of identity, it does not make sense to talk about a collective cultural psyche, if it ever does. It is equally unfair, tempting though it is, to say that all British people behave badly on holiday because they never got over losing the empire.

Culture of Blame

It would be inaccurate to state that it is only the “international” press that has pointed out the role Austria’s “shameful past” may have played a part in Fritzl’s psychosis - the Austrian press has dealt with it at length. Contrary to popular opinion, Austrians are all too aware of their country’s role in 20th century history. They are just as shocked and disgusted as anyone abroad as to how this could have happened and concede that certain “psychocultural” elements of their society may have played a role.

Fritzl has said he got a respect of control and authority from an upbringing under Nazi-controlled Austria. Yet he has also admitted to having incestuous fantasies about his mother. He is clearly a deeply disturbed individual whose issues manifested themselves early in his life, and while they were probably compounded by the anomic wartime society in which he spent his formative years, they are not solely to blame. Natascha Kampusch, the girl who escaped from her kidnapper in 2006, has also said, on Newsnight, that the wartime values that governed the parenting at the time of Fritzl’s boyhood may be partly to blame for this incident.

Blaming Fritzl’s psychoses on his own unfortunate circumstances is one thing, but it is destructive for media commentators to hijack his mention of the Nazis as a piece of evidence that an entire country is inextricably tied to a shameful past which accounts for a population’s collective ills. Using Austria’s historical ties with Nazism as symptomatic of a troubled society at large, ignores the new generations that have grown up in the 60 years since the end of the war. I am not ignoring the fact that Hitler was welcomed by the Austrians in 1933, nor that many high-level Nazis were Austrians - and probably not all exclusively of the German-identified west of the country. Hitler, for example, was from Braunau near the German border, an area which considered itself German and set itself apart from the Slavic east of the Austro-Hungarian empire.

Austria has largely managed to escape from the brow-beating “Vergangenheitsbewaltigung” (coming to terms with its past) that Germany still practices. In Austria as in all other countries, racism is still a huge concern. But painting it as an underground Nazi haven is destructive and inaccurate. At the age of 73, Josef Fritzl may be the one of the last remnants of the old generation of suppressor and victims. Most parents alive now did not experience life under Nazism at all - in fact the post-war generations are brought up to believe that racism of any kind is abhorrent, but of course it still occurs, in the more subtle provincial xenophobia and the Neo-nazi movement (which, let us not forget, counts some supporters in Britain too).

From the Inside

So for all the analysis, what is Austria saying? The Austrian coverage of the Amstetten case has also been quick to wring its hands, asking if it happened because of historical practices of denial and burial manifested itself in personality. Fritzl may attribute his own upbringing to Nazism, but drawing a line directly from Nazi crimes to Amstetten does not make sense. Much of the commentary places the blame on ‘looking away,’ which is a facet of modern life in many countries but, while it does happen there, is fundamentally at odds with traditional Austrian values. Once removed from the anonymity of larger cities, in the country and even in the suburbs of Vienna, Austria is still a land of small communities where everyone knows each other. As a long-time resident of a northwest suburb of Vienna, I can attest to this. As a modern phenomenon, the obsession with privacy is cited as an example of traditional social ties breaking down and traditional values being eroded, rather than as a practice that is culturally ingrained.

In a country that is cosmopolitan and forward in some layers of society, but still holds some provincial traditional values, incidents like this are often explained by the domestic media as evidence of a lack of social cohesion caused in part by rapid changes.

Some international press attention has identified Austria’s geography as a factor in contributing to this national sickness of privacy, as symbolised by the shadows of the Alps and the elegant and almost obsessively clean streets of Vienna. Geography has shaped this small central European country, but because as a gateway to both east and west, it has a diverse ethnic population and is historically a hub of Europe. Ascribing an outwardly pleasant appearance as covering some kind of collective subconscious evil is too simplistic.

Austrian novelist Elfriede Jelinek, 2004’s Nobel Prize for Literature winner, has always been affectionately satirical towards her home country for its traditional patriarchal values. Broadly decribed as a Marxist feminist, her novels have often dealt with the fabric of societies as ruled by the masculine male, painted as a beast in his private life who is outwardly respectable, propagating society’s values. Indeed there is something familiar to her writing of misogynist males in the Fritzl case, which resonates with her literary explorations of male power and how it feeds, and is fed by, capitalist society.

In one of her books she describes a married couple whose tranquil outer appearance conceals the daily acts of rape and violence the husband enacts on his spouse, on the very household objects it is her duty to clean in order to continue the appearance of respectability. On her website, Jelinek has suggested that it is a combination of Austrian society’s patriarchal values which respect the man in control of his woman, combined with the ‘looking away’ culture and society’s need for harmony, which has been responsible for allowing this man to enact his fantasies.

It is interesting that Jelinek has mentioned patriarchy, yet unsurprising, preoccupied as she is with the power struggles of domestic life. More interesting still is that Fritzl’s lawyer, Rudolf Meyer, said his client struck him as an archetypal ‘paterfamilias’ who loved his family, who was firm but just. Sociologists have pointed out the outdated values of the 1950s which still guides women’s expectations today, placing a woman as subordinate to a man, who should interpret all his flaws as her own failings as a wife or mother. This is provided as an explanation generally excusing a man who may sometimes be violent or abusive. The Standard newspaper ran an editorial discussing this when neighbours of Fritzl describes him a “a man’s man” who seemed highly virile and dominant. The argument ran that this type of man is still respected in Austria, a traditionally Catholic and patriarchal society. Another editorial in Die Presse has pointed to the country’s attitude to parenting and children, which places the ultimate authority on the man as head of the family, which can go some way to explaining how Fritzl was able to officially ‘adopt’ the children he fathered with his daughter.

The Cultural and the Personal

It is tempting to ascribe to personal behaviour in cases like this a national explanation as we try to understand the myriad causes of something that is almost unthinkable. Explanations that focus on a national or cultural set of neuroses, such as have abounded in the media discussion of the Austrian cases, are pop psychology that will only go so far to explain things. Far beyond the gleeful Freudian interpretations this man will attract, the truth will lie in several explanations, including the more relevant point of Frizl’s private history - like Natascha Kampusch’s captor, Wolfgang Priklopil, Fritzl had an overbearing mother figure whom he idealized.

That said, one of the genuine tragedies of this case is failings of the state in the adoption process, and of course the “looking away” factor, which is a modern but by no means uniquely Austrian phenomenon. Nobody expects their neighbours (then again, maybe they will now) to be harbouring a second incestuous family in their cellar, so even if things seemed suspicious you might be even less, not more, inclined to investigate. Not knowing what one’s neighbours are up to, or even their first names, is the norm.

It is tempting to try and understand the causes of incidents by attributing broader cultural causes to individuals’ behaviour. School shootings in the US have a place in our consciousness as an ‘American’ type of crime, but intelligent coverage was mostly concerned, and rightly so, with the issue of gun control, rather than blaming Marilyn Manson or an American mindset. It would also have been tempting to explain the case of Armin Meiwes, who ate another man after finding a willing volunteer on the internet, as a uniquely German crime because it could hint at sordid tastes caused perhaps by the country’s outward reputation for order and efficiency - but this would also have obscured the real issues.

Criminal psychologists working on the case say that, for the sake of the victims, we need to understand why things like this happen, and ascribing a Landesmentalitaet (country mentality) will hinder this understanding and obscures important issues, like preventing these types of things from happening again.

A sporting chance

2008-04-09T11:36:00.000Z

Why the Olympics is a perfect arena for protest

China likes to paint itself as a victim. The only English language channel, CCTV, plays daily documentaries about the Japanese occupation and their inherent cruelty. A total boycott of the Games would play right into their hands and prove to its citizens that the world is ganging up on it, completely unprovoked, and its reaction would be petulant, at best. It is also unfair on athletes, not least Chinese ones. Protests of the kind in London and Paris this week are an effective way of signalling disapproval with the limited tools ordinary citizens have-public displays and symbols.

Protesting is fair game

China’s achievement of lifting millions out of poverty is not to be sniffed at, but the argument that sports and politics should not mix, and that protesting at the torch run is unsportsmanlike, (“vile misdeeds” they called it) does not wash. Athletic competitions have long been an arena for the continuation of politics by other means. The torch run through Tibet, for example, is blatant political posturing and the Olympics itself is being used by China to show its citizens that the one-party government has international legitimacy. The torch run itself, long abandoned, was revived by Germany in 1936 as a symbol of the Nazi party’s perceived ideological and cultural link with ancient Greek civilisation. The torch was carried through the Balkans in 1936 to signal its new power over the region (before invading it shortly afterwards). You can also bet that the amount of medals won by China and the US in August is going to be very significant indeed.

The Olympics are a truly international event and protesting is one of the only avenues people have to draw attention to various issues- be it the oppression of Falun Gong followers, imprisoned journalists and human rights activists, the Tibetan issue, Darfur, and of course media censorship. Once the Olympics is over, China will continue to go about its business of becoming a superpower. While public protests might not do much good in the long run, they will show countries in the future that if they have skeletons in their closet, they will deal with international murmurings of disapproval and a PR disaster at the very least. The current international actions might also make the IOC (International Olympic Committee) more cautious about selecting host countries with better human rights records, and eliminate the possibility that it will be awarded to a country with dubious credentials. Because like it or not, the country will interpret the awarding of the Games as tacit international approval.

Is it unfair that China is losing face in this manner? We can’t pretend that our own hard-fought and imperfect liberal democracies don’t have blood on them, or that feudal Tibet was a utopia. And of course the British government’s collusion in keeping working conditions in China poor and preventing workers from forming trade unions means we can’t expect our officials to speak up the way the mayor of Paris and various other officials did, with banners and marches that caused the torch run to be cancelled. There will be protests in 2012 for Britain’s involvement in Iraq, but what China is purposefully overlooking is that many people are protesting its treatment of its own people as well as its international actions, while the government is trying to paint protesters as misfits with an irrational and catch-all Sinophobia. It is very unlikely that in 2012, people will protest about how the UK treats its citizens, even with the tightening of civil liberties- its foreign policy will be the main target.

However, even if we draw a line under the past and forgot China’s appalling human rights regime, giving it a chance to make a fresh start which was the admirable aim of the IOC in the first place, the media censorship in recent weeks is the tip of an iceberg which on its own would be unacceptable. It is China’s ‘bad luck’ that we now live in an unprecedented climate of human rights concern coupled with more access to information. Of course, in 1936 this was not the case, and human rights law was not codified in any serious manner until after World War 2.

There is an international spirit of ethics laid out in the Olympic charter, and Beijing made certain campaign promises to win the 2008 bid. The most important of these was an improved human rights record and free media access to journalists. The IOC says it cannot get involved in the recent events, despite the fact that China's actions contravene explicit promises Beijing made to IOC officials as a condition for being awarded the 2008 Games. Countries need to know if they get the Olympics they will be under scrutiny.

The host nation is given the Games as a token of its support for the Olympic charter and its commitment to fair play, and as such it is subject to certain ethical obligations, sporting and otherwise, as a member of the international community. Awarding the Games to Seoul in 1988 had a positive impact on South Korea’s development, but China has shown that it has not fulfilled its promises and even more, that it does not really care.

It is important to show, in the small avenue that we have been given, to signal disapproval. Countries like Saudi Arabia that become rich and powerful without social development (in this case through a resources jackpot) become like fortresses and totally invulnerable to world opinion (when was the last time the House of Saud wrung its hands over its international reputation?). This is the only chance to show China that the world is indeed watching, and even without all the other issues, media blackouts are unacceptable.

‘Everyone else is doing it so why can’t we’

The Games are barely four months away, and it does not look likely that China will allow the media freedom it has promised. China has an obligation to the IOC to provide open internet access for the 30,000 journalists expected to cover the games, Kevan Gosper, vice-chairman of the IOC co-ordinating commission, said on Tuesday. Blocking the web during the games “would reflect very poorly” on Beijing, Mr Gosper said, drawing attention to criticism of China closing down internet access during last month’s unrest in Tibet.
Concerns over internet access were among issues raised on Tuesday by the IOC in talks with the Beijing organising committee.“This morning we discussed and insisted [on access] again,” said Mr Gosper. “Our concern is that the press is able to operate as it has at previous games.”However, the IOC said that, so far, access for the media was not yet provided “and it was still on the table for discussion”.
Beijing had given clear assurances that the required access would be delivered, the IOC said, “but operationally, it isn’t up to the mark yet”. Jiang Yu, a foreign ministry spokeswoman, said she acknowledged that China banned some internet content, but said other countries did the same. She declined to say if the internet would be unrestricted for journalists during the games.This excuse does not even work for teenagers, and is also an almost contemptuously childish attempt to deflect attention from their own media crackdown.
Our media coverage is of course not perfect either, but it does not even bear comparison with the total control and imprisonment of ‘critics’ that China is attempting. And what of these ‘other countries?’ To whom are they referring? The Open Net Initiative, made up of research groups at the universities of Toronto, Harvard Law School, Oxford and Cambridge, conducted a study in 2007 to find out which countries had government controls on the internet. Burma, Iran, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Pakistan and Uzbekistan were on the list along with China. None of these countries are likely to get the Games any time soon, and if they did protests would be even louder. China can’t have it both ways. They can’t agree to make changes as a condition for hosting the Games and then welsh on the promises because ‘other countries do it too’.

It is a good idea to find Games hosts that are not in the old boys club of international politics, and having the world’s attention after decades of isolation can be a good thing. The IOC said in 2001 that awarding Beijing the Olympics would have a positive impact on human rights in the country as it would be forced to change in the spotlight of world attention, but this has not happened. As Human Rights Watch said when Beijing was awarded the Games: "We think that the human rights record of a country should be taken into serious consideration by the International Olympic Committee in selecting the site for the 2008 Olympics, but we are not opposed a priori to China getting the Games. Experience with the 1995 U.N. Women's Conference in Beijing has shown that having thousands of people from around the world in China can focus attention on the country, including on the degree of state control and fear of political protest."

Protesting is the only way international attention is going to be a positive thing, and if not bring about changes, at least let China know that the world has not entirely been fooled. This is a one-time chance to attract international attention at a truly international event, and is fair game as part of the IOC’s aim of effecting changes by awarding the Games. After the Olympics, this avenue might be closed forever.

Veiled Sentiments: Does the burka stand up in court?

2008-03-20T15:34:00.002Z

(With apologies to Lila Abu-Lughod, who coined the term "Veiled Sentiments" for her ethnography in Egypt.)

Published in London Progressive Journal 27 March 2008
Veiled Sentiments: Does The Burka Stand Up In Court?
By Alexa Van Sickle

The burka debate landed in Vienna’s provincial court this month when Austria tried its first case of homegrown terrorism. Mohamed, 22, and his wife, 21, Mona M, were arrested last September and charged with membership of a terrorist organisation and producing a video calling for attacks in Austria and Germany. Targets included international institutions in Vienna (OPEC and the UN) and venues staging matches for football's European Championships next June.

Courtroom drama

The couple denied all the charges, but ahead of the trial the attention was on whether Mona, who wears a niqab (which covers her face in black cloth) should be allowed to wear it on the stand. Some argued that the law demanded at least part of a person’s face to be visible, and others that her face covering could be interpreted as an exercise of her right to remain silent. In the absence of a legal precedent, the decision was up to the case judge.

On the first day of the trial, judge Norbert Gerstberger said, referring to the fully-covered Mona, "May I ask the court wardens who the hidden person next to them is? Is it the accused?” When she replied that she can’t reveal her face for “Islamic reasons” and that she was entitled to religious freedom in Austria, Gerstberger told her that seeing a defendant’s face was central to the jurors’ task and that religious protections did not apply because her choice of dress constituted an "individual interpretation" of her religion. He excluded her from court under paragraph 234 of Austria’s penal code, arguing that unsuitable clothing constitutes ‘unreasonable conduct of a defendant’. He invited her to return any time should she decide to reveal her face.

The couple’s defence lawyer, Lennart Binder, pounced on this development to bolster his central argument that the prosecution was an “Islamophic affair,” adding that making her reveal her face violated her human rights. The argument is commonly evoked for this type of cultural stalemate - and is how Shabina Begum won the right to wear a niqab to school in the UK. Of course, whatever the origins of wearing a burka, jilbab, niqab or abayah, people should indeed be allowed to wear them in public as they wish, which they can in Austria. But it was not the wearing of a niqab itself that was ruled unreasonable conduct, but her refusal to reveal part of her face when asked to by the court.

“I gave it a lot of thought,” said Gerstberger after that first day of the trial. “It is unthinkable that in any court in the EU, someone could appear with their whole face covered.” The law makes exceptions in the case of highly contagious diseases like TB, and witnesses in mafia cases who are in danger of retribution from the organisations.

Beyond religion

This trial is unusual because the judge alludes to the fact that it is cultural interpretation, rather than scripture, that sanctions this type of dress. The Koran calls for modest dress for both sexes but does not explicitly demand face covering. In other words, the judge questioned the religious underpinnings of the niqab, something that is not often dealt with in the Europe-wide debates about whether it should be worn in public or in classrooms.

Of course one could argue this is beside the point, that human rights law is supposed to make provisions that people can wear what they like, whether that is a niqab or nothing at all, for cultural, religious or frivolous reasons. This is a valid point, but it was Mona herself who invoked the argument of religious freedom. Judge Gerstberger even made the point that this dress convention was not one of the five pillars of Islam. Anas Shakfeh, the president of an Austrian Muslim organization, says face covering is not an Islamic duty and that only a small proportion of Muslims globally take this step. Speaking to the Austrian paper, the Standard, he said he “knew of no precedent” to the case in Europe.

Whose culture?

While the name burka has become a catch-all phrase to describe female Islamic dress of any kind, it is worth noting that the burka is regionally tied to Afghanistan, and includes mesh covering the face. Mona’s black niqab has a small slit for the eyes, and is more common in Saudi Arabia. Mona is an Austrian citizen, the offspring of a Viennese convert mother and an Egyptian man who used to work at the Qatari embassy. The mother wears a veil, but does not cover her face, and says that Mona only started wearing the niqab three years ago. Therefore her dress is neither a religious or a culturally dictated practice, and the judge’s argument that it is her individual interpretation holds water. The niqab is not traditionally aligned to Egypt, although it is increasingly common on the streets of Cairo.

Sadly, the cultural origins of this modest dress are again beside the point. The court is not unfairly attacking Mona’s right to wear a niqab, as the defence lawyer argues. It would be naïve to think that rulings of this kind exist in a cultural vacuum, but a person would have received the same treatment if they had been wearing a mask, or appeared in court naked. (Imagine the human rights group for that one). It is the practical matter of identifying a defendant and evaluating their testimony that underpins the law that a person’s face should be at least partially visible. It is not that she is wearing a niqab - for which she has no real religious prescription - but how it interferes with the administration of justice which is problematic for the court, and for this reason her actions were ruled unreasonable. There is also the practical matter of identification: In Italy a wife faced court herself when she attended her husband’s trial in a burka. She was tried under a 1975 public order statute barring people from wearing clothes that conceal their identity from security personnel "without a valid reason."

Burka case law

Articles 9 and 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, below, refer to religion and freedom of expression:

ARTICLE 9

1. Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice and observance.

2. Freedom to manifest one's religion or beliefs shall be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of public safety, for the protection of public order, health or morals, or the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

ARTICLE 10

1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. this right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises.

2. The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or the rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.

The limitations to religious expression are those “prescribed by law”. Austrian human rights lawyer and state attorney Bernd-Christian Funk told the Standard: “This ruling is not only valid, but necessary. There is no violation of human rights, as limits to religious freedom begin where they obstruct order and safety - such as criminal proceedings.”

The Law Society of England and Wales, which represents 100,000 solicitors, said that wearing of full-face veils dids not breach any professional conduct rules. Judges can ask for a veil not to be worn if there is a reasonable objection, such as a witness or defendant not being able to hear properly.

In Florida in 2006, a court held that it was proper to require a driving license applicant to be photographed without a veil. Expert evidence at the trial showed that there are exceptions to being veiled in Islamic practice, usually for identification.

In Maryland, a Muslim athlete who wore a blue and orange unitard under her uniform to a high school athletics tournament was not allowed to compete because officials ruled the unitard, which she assured them was “non performance-enhancing”, contravened regulations on multi-coloured clothing. This may seem rather less reasonable than asking someone to show their face in court- after all there are special uniforms for Muslim Olympic athletes. One also has to wonder if a multi-coloured unitard-clad person leaping over hurdles wouldn’t attract more attention than other athletes in plain old shorts and t-shirts, and therefore defeat its stated purpose of preserving the girl’s modesty.

Public spaces

A fortnight ago in Vienna, the matter came to an uneasy compromise when Mona submitted a written statement explaining her views, which was then read out by the judge in court. A written statement may be better than none at all, but this probably did prejudice her case as it could have made her less trustworthy in the eyes of the jury. Mona M and her husband were found guilty - he got four years, she got 22 months.

Playing the human rights card will only attract the kind of debate that could lead to calls for a public burka ban, as a response to a perceived outright refusal to make concessions to the country’s secular practices. Mona chose to wear a niqab, but there are some women who have no choice. Dressing (sorry) the ruling up as Islamophobic will draw the kind of attention to the case that will be detrimental, in the long run, for Muslims who can and do exercise the freedom to wear burkas or niqabs in public spaces, a freedom they might be losing in other parts of Europe.

The campaign for a public burka ban, which has had the most momentum in Belgium and the Netherlands, is championed by politicians who want to promote integration. This is ambitious, but near-sighted and counterproductive. By failing to address the strength of the cultural impetus behind this kind of covering, public burka bans will stop these women from going out at all, preventing them from working and studying.

This Viennese case is a precedent of sorts. With any luck, the judge’s ruling on Mona’s conduct will not be hijacked by people who will use it as evidence of Islamophobia. Mona received the ruling she did because her refusal to reveal her face contravened court practice and is not anchored in any religious demand. Hopefully the case will serve as an example that there are practical rules enshrined in law that are not hostile to the culture of the burka, but are simply concerned with the administration of justice.

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Berlin and the business of nostalgia

2008-03-11T12:35:00.001Z

A Guide to Berlin’s Odd Souvenirs
By Alexa Van Sickle London Progressive Journal 8 March

Travel writer and novelist Paul Theroux once remarked that souvenirs serve no other purpose than to show you’ve arrived somewhere. Granted, he made this comment when he was confronted with fake shrunken heads in Mexico, but what is it about travelling that makes us buy things we wouldn’t want for free at home? Finding a souvenir that somehow captures the essence of a place is on the wishlist for many travellers, and keepsake hunters are spoilt for choice in Berlin.

Berlin’s battle scars pull in more and more visitors every year. When the Berlin wall, one of the Cold War’s most powerful symbols, came down and David Hasselhof gave a concert prancing triumphantly on the ruins (though I hasten to add that he played far less of a role in Germany’s reunification than he likes to think), Berlin began to reclaim its glory. While it is now a self-consciously modern city, its role in the events of the previous century never fails to fascinate visitors. The Ostalgie movement of the last few years provides us with scores of quirky keepsakes that are a more rewarding bounty than the usual fare of doorstoppers and spoons.

Berlin and Ostalgie

Ostalgie is a yearning for life and culture under the socialist German Democratic Republic (GDR) which spawned a fascination with objects associated with GDR life. The word is a combination of ‘East’ and ‘nostalgia’. While the flames were fanned by media hype, the movement was also rooted in genuine disillusionment with the new world order, caused by economic hardship in the East. After a decade of free market capitalism, some in the former East Germany felt they had more job security under the GDR. Ostalgie peaked in 2003 with the release of the film Goodbye Lenin, and a wave of TV programmes and shops which celebrate the fallen republic.

As the phenomenon grew, so did the debate about whether it is appropriate to be sentimental about life under a regime which shot those who tried to escape.

In Goodbye Lenin, 20-year old Alex tries to protect his mother from learning that her beloved socialist state is no more after she wakes up from a coma in a fragile state.

He feeds her only GDR products, switching the labels on jars of imported gherkins so his mother thinks she is eating the local brand, and recycles old news programmes. While the film is very funny and casts an affectionate gaze towards some aspects of day-to-day life in the GDR, it does not sweep the more sinister aspects of the GDR under the carpet. It is a tragic film that, more than anything else, examines the struggles of a family that never fully recovers from the political realities of life in the GDR. Politicians were up in arms about the GDR achieving cult status, but Ostalgie is more of a fashion trend than real political sentiment, and so the market for fondly remembered GDR objects is thriving for natives and tourist alike.

Soviet Kitsch

Shops like ‘Ossiladen.de’ and ‘99% Ostprodukte’ specialise in products from the former East Germany, selling anything from egg holders and football kits to honey, wine and hand soap. You can also hunt for GDR trinkets at the ‘nostalgia market’ along the south bank of the ‘museum island,’ where gruff men sell hats, army coats, flags, and buckets of Soviet army badges like abandoned loose change. There must be thousands of old uniform buttons. Where do they all come from? “Russia, GDR, you know,” says the man. I’m not sure he really knows either. I ask another vendor, who says he buys them wholesale on trips to Russia. I want to find out if they come from abandoned uniforms, personal collections or other flea markets? He shrugs. I guess I’ll never know.
But is it art?

Artists flocked to Berlin from all corners after reunification, attracted by cheap rent and rapid cultural and social changes. In the early 1990s, Berlin was definitely the place to be. The city still has a thriving arts community, with artist collectives like the Kunsthaus Tacheles in Berlin Mitte, where you can buy art at four in the morning if you want to. ‘Tacheles’ is the Yiddish word for ‘straight talk’, a reference to its location in the old Jewish quarter. The building itself began life as a department store in 1907, but is now run by a group of artists and performers. In the 1980s it was an arena for covert criticism of the GDR, but it really took off as an artists’ mecca after reunification in the spring of 1990. The exterior is missing a wall, which makes it look like a giant, graffiti-painted dollhouse. Now it is a music venue, a club, a bar, art galleries and cultural centre all in one. A row of shops attached to it sell unique postcards, canvasses and sculptures made by local artists, and there are free exhibitions and gigs late into the night.

Cement On Sale

Checkpoint Charlie, the former border crossing between the respectively Soviet and American-run sectors of Berlin, attracts the bulk of the wall-gazers because of its museum and souvenir shops, where you can buy chunks of the wall and scale models of wall sections with some of the wall’s most famous murals, which you can see in living colour at the East Side Gallery near the Ostbahnhof. The gallery, which is the longest part of the original wall (1.3km) that still remains and is effectively a mile-long open-air art exhibition, has over a hundred paintings by artists from all over the world who came to Berlin to decorate it in 1990. Most of these old paintings are still there and are regularly restored, while some are recent and made by local artists. Probably the most fascinating piece of the city, it is an imposing and beautiful structure, and only seeing it life-size makes you realise how ridiculous it really was.

Cars

Trabant cars are another fondly remembered piece of GDR life. ‘Trabant’ means fellow traveller in German and was inspired by the Russian satellite ‘sputnik’, which launched in the same year as the little car, in 1957. These cars can be found, large or small, all over Berlin. Under the GDR, people waited years to get one and so took great care of them, becoming skilled at repairing and maintaining them - the average lifespan of a Trabant was 28 years. You could buy them for only a few marks after reunification and though they are still cheap they are now collectors' items. The green ones are the most popular as they are said to bring good luck.

Little Green Men

Created in 1961 by a traffic psychiatrist who thought people would respond better to a friendly symbol than an impersonal figure, the distinctive GDR traffic light man or “Ampelmaenchen” now has entire shops dedicated to reproducing its squat form. A little man in a hat, (which the creator feared might be too “petit bourgeois”) people campaigned to save it when, after reunification, there were moves to standardise traffic lights to the West German model. The green man became another mascot of the Ostalgie movement, and some towns in Western Germany have now adopted it, along with a female counterpart. Ampelmaenchen shops offer bags, t-shirts, hats and keyrings - standard souvenir fare, admittedly, but then those of us who live in other cities have to make do with the conventional green man.

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Florida Cubans and Republican Foreign Policy

2008-03-11T12:33:00.001Z

Florida Cubans and Republican Foreign Policy
By Alexa Van Sickle London Progressive Journal 8 February

Whether Bush or Gore actually won the election in Florida in 2000, the Cuban American vote will have influenced the result. Most Cuban Americans in Florida are staunch Republicans, led at its core by the generally affluent exile community that fled the island when Castro came to power in 1959. About 400,000 of the 3 million Republicans in Florida are Hispanic, and most are of Cuban descent, living in Miami’s exile neighbourhoods, Hialeah and Little Havana.

Republican candidates know tapping into this pool will give them a real advantage in the state, and to do so they compete to parade their anti-Castro credentials. In Florida last week, Republican candidates Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee courted the Cuban American vote by downplaying their tough-on-immigration stance and expressing their support for Cuba’s continued isolation. The clear winner of the Cuban Americans’ affections, however, was ex-soldier and anti-Communist John McCain, who won the Florida primary this week. He did so by reminding the exile community that he was committed to fighting for Cuban freedom as a pilot during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, and promising a continued hard-line stance towards Castro.

Any consideration of loosening the screws on the embargo brings loud protests from Miami, where Florida Cubans wield considerable influence and stubbornly insist on stonewalling Cuba. As one of the most successful immigrant groups in the US, their clout come not only from sheer numbers but from politicians and business leaders from a local to a national level.

They tend to view any discussion of easing the blockade as a betrayal to Washington’s supposed commitment to Cuba’s freedom, and in doing so do not realise that they are only making life difficult for Cubans, who under their country’s system lack the mechanism to put pressure on the government, which is the primary purpose of economic isolation. Since Bush came to power the embargo has been tightened several times, with no success in its goals, which flip-flop between destabilising Castro and encouraging democracy in the country.

The last time around, in 2003, when Bush was beginning his campaign for re-election, I was in Miami to conduct anthropology fieldwork among Cuban Americans. The day I arrived in Little Havana, an open letter to Bush from a Cuban American congressman appeared in the Miami Herald newspaper, written in response to rumours that he might change his Cuba policy. The message was clear: “If you ease the embargo, you can forget my support. And the support of my friends.” This would mean the loss of a large Republican power base, and one which is beginning to splinter; anti-Castro exiles feel Bush has not been strict enough, while younger Cuban Americans and those born in the US might feel time is right for a change.

Cuban Americans’ voting practice sets them apart from other Hispanic communities in the US, who tend to vote Democrat due to their liberal stance on immigration. Many Cuban Americans switched to the Republican party in 1962, disgusted with Kennedy’s Bay of Pigs fiasco, and have stayed with the GOP through Reagan’s anti-communist rhetoric and the party’s no-tolerance policy towards Castro. But this stance is not exclusive to the Republican party- Clinton successfully won many Cubans over by signing the 1996 Helms-Burton Act, tightening the embargo and attempting to impose penalties on third parties who trade with Cuba. The Act has been condemned by the World Trade Organization and is illegal under international law.

For all the threats and promises bandied back and forth by the exile community and Washington, nothing much changes. It is plain to see that the blockade, after 45 years, is not achieving its goals. It only evokes international sympathy for the regime which the leader then exploits, much like Saddam Hussein did when the humanitarian disaster caused by UN sanctions in Iraq garnered enough sympathy to obscure the fact that he was not complying with UN inspections, committing human rights abuses, and generally still up to his old tricks.

Economic embargos are a blunt instrument which punish the population, not the government. They only work when leaders are vulnerable to pressure from its people, which is simply not the case in most regimes to which it is applied. In the case of Cuba, it is an all-purpose political tool for both sides: the US uses it show voters it is doing something to promote freedom in Cuba, and Castro uses it blame the country’s economic woes on the US, which is certainly not the only reason for its problems.

Regardless of how they choose to vote, Cuban Americans need to use their influence to strike while the iron is hot. They could help shape policy at a crucial moment when the momentum of Castro’s possible departure could bring about positive changes for people on the island. The younger generation of Florida Cubans need to use their numbers to push for a more constructive method of helping their Cuban counterparts. Economics and human rights commentators have said that opening up trade would benefit the Cuban people economically and speed up Castro’s departure, removing his last scapegoat for Cuba’s problems. It is also safe to say that Cuba no longer poses any nuclear threat - the strategic purpose of political isolation has long since expired.

As the oldest generation of hard-line Cuban exiles gives way to a younger and more open one, the political landscape of Florida is changing. The power base in Florida is shifting, with a large number of non-Cuban Hispanics settling in the area who have Democrat sympathies- the Republican party may no longer take Florida’s votes for granted. American-born Cubans (ABCs) need to use this chance to support engagement with Cuba if they really want to help ‘free’ its people.

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Interview: Pakistan Human Rights Commission

2008-03-11T12:32:00.000Z

Interview: Human Rights Commission of Pakistan
By Alexa Van Sickle. London Progressive Journal 1st February

At a time of intense uncertainty in Pakistan, Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) gave us their view on the ongoing crisis.

What has the situation been like on the ground? What can you tell us about the atmosphere and ordinary peoples’ reaction to the events of the past week? Is there still rioting?

HRCP: The situation on the ground is quite unstable. The election campaign is in low key. Wherever it picks up reports of violence emerge. The general atmosphere is of fear. We do not know if the people will come out to vote. There is also frustration among the people as widespread agitation against government has not been able to create any dents.

Has your organization experienced any difficulties?

Benazir Bhutto’s assassination has not materially altered the situation so far as our work is concerned. We were having difficulties in operating in areas such as Swat and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, where the government is using troops to fight militants.

Who do you think is responsible? Do you believe it is the same group who are responsible for the suicide attacks on Bhutto’s motorcade on October 18th?

We do not know who was responsible for the Oct. 18 incident. That attack and the Dec. 27 attack could have been carried out by the same group. But we are not sure which group it was. The safest guess is that the people behind the attack on Benazir were not happy with the prospect of a government opposed to the militancy. The suspects in order of priority are: the ISI-CIA alliance; the ISI-militants coalition; or, religious militants acting alone.

What are the wider implications of this event?

The wider ramifications of the event are that the right wing pressure on Pervaiz Musharraf has increased and he may be obliged to seek accommodation with the militants. The State can also lean further on the side of theocracy.

How have the media in Pakistan covered it?

Extensively, and in some cases they have overdone it.

A British team from Scotland Yard is going to be sent to Pakistan to help the inquiry. What are your comments on this?

The visit by the Scotland Yard team is good as far as it goes, but apparently it does not go very far.

Her widower and others, including your organization, have called for a wider inquiry, perhaps including the UN. Do you think this is likely to go ahead?

We have called for a UN inquiry into Benazir’s assassination, as have several other NGOs, although we are not very hopeful of that happening.

Do you think this event indicates a larger, bolder presence of terrorists in Pakistan and the region?

Yes, obviously. It is also confirmed by what is happening in the northern areas of Pakistan. The former interior minister, Aftab Sherpao, himself targeted in two suicide bombings in 2007, said yesterday that Pakistan’s policy on Taliban is failing and gave a grim assessment of the situation in Pakistan in general. He talked about the risk of “total Talibanization” of the North-West Frontier Province.

What are the implications for security in the region?

Security is difficult. But obviously, it’s not as bad as to cut off Pakistan from the rest of the world.

There have been disputed accounts about the cause of Bhutto’s death; the PPP say it was gunshot wound to the neck, while the interior ministry claims she injured her head inside her armoured car dodging the bullets. This has sparked discussions of a cover up or a sidestep of responsibility in terms of her personal security. What are your comments on this?

Official security arrangements for Benazir were not satisfactory. Hosing down the crime scene within hours, not conducting a post mortem, and the government claims ,before subsequent withdrawal, that she died after hitting her vehicle’s sunroof lever did not inspire confidence in the government. Government's negligence and incompetence, if nothing else, was all too obvious.

The election has been postponed until February 18th due to violence and damage caused to election buildings. What do you think the results will be on February 18th and how do you think they will be influenced by this tragic event?

We cannot predict the outcome of the elections, but their fairness has been widely and consistently questioned. The security situation makes electioneering difficult and the voter turnout, which has been steadily decreasing with each election might be very low on account of the atmosphere of fear. The caretaker interior minister stated two days ago that politicians’ lives were in grave danger.

Do you think the elections will be fair?

We have serious doubts.

Do you think someone will be able to fill her shoes in terms of her charisma and commitment to human rights and democracy?

It would be difficult.

What is the future for democracy in Pakistan? How has this event affected it? What do you think needs to be done to improve the situation, and what role can organizations such as yours play?

Democracy in Pakistan is still far away. We are trying to persuade political parties to be firmer in their defence of democracy and explore the possibility of united elections.

What’s next for the PPP? And for Musharraf?

The PPP will go through a difficult period of reorganization, but for a couple of years it has been saved from breaking apart. As for Musharraf, he is enjoying a charmed life and losing his cool. But at the moment, he is apparently firmly in the saddle.

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Book Review: My Life by Fidel Castro

2008-03-11T12:31:00.003Z

Published in London Progressive Journal 18 January 2008

Book Review: "My Life" by Fidel Castro
By Alexa Van Sickle

Fidel Castro's memoir shares a title with Bill Clinton's autobiography of 2004. But those who picked up the latter in the hope of reading the juicy stuff about Monica Lewinsky will be similarly disappointed if they skim Castro's version for gossip about Che Guevara's illegitimate children or the details of Castro's 638 (and counting) assassination attempts. This is a lengthy conversation between two book covers, in question-and-answer form and lumped into titles like "Bay of Pigs," "Summing up a life and a revolution," and "Cuba and Neoliberal Globalisation."

Ignazio Ramonet, Castro's biographer and conversational sparring partner, has been criticized for not confronting Castro about some aspects of his regime, but this was never meant to be a judgement of Castro's Cuba: these are Castro's memoirs. He had the final cut, and as such it should be viewed as the version of history that Castro wants people to read; he edited it from his sickbed in 2006.

As he says himself: "People know more or less the entire history of Rome, or what is said to the the history of Rome, because history is full of anecdotes," so this volume should be seen as precisely that.

Cuba's history is furnished with plenty of fact but it is also opaque- there has been deliberate muddying of the waters on both sides of the Florida Strait. Castro himself is finely balanced between relic and icon, hero and tyrant, and Ramonet hopes this book will "lift the veil from the Castro enigma." We are left with the distinct impression that Castro might not want this. There is very little about his private relationships and the minutiae of a life that might make him more accessible. What remains, then, is to sort the fact from the spin: to the world of fact belong the successes of the Revolution in the fields of education and healthcare; literacy and life expectancy are among the highest in the world.

It is also a fact that Cuba has been subject to a relentless campaign of biological attacks, psychological warfare and a disastrous economic blockade that nobody in the United Nations supports- with the notable exceptions of the US, Israel, Palau, and the Marshall Islands. One can only imagine what would have happened if Cuba had any oil. Through the last four decades, Castro has managed to make nine US presidents look foolish, and this is currency in Latin America. In the region where the US has meddled, with disastrous results, in the affairs of Mexico, Chile, Panama, and Nicaragua, it is no wonder that he is admired for his cojones if not for his politics.

The chapters covering his childhood and earlier struggles seem, at worst, like one of his long-winded four-hour speeches, but it is well worth raking the coals to find the embers. There are a good deal of historical gems here, ripe for the picking in this era of Cold War nostalgia. Espionage, propoganda, lies- and that's just the Nixon administration, who spread the rumour that children in Cuba were being shipped off to the Soviet Union to be turned into tinned meat. Castro has also included letters sent between himself and Kruschchev during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, and even a letter he sent (which went unanswered) to Saddam Hussein warning him against invading Kuwait.

Some of Castro's longest answers are in response to Ramonet's (and indeed the reader's) questions about the treatment of human rights and political prisoners in Cuba. You can only admire his politician's treatment of them, but his defences of the humanitarian credentials of his regime don't always ring true- just this week, people were arrested for giving out copies of the Declaration of Human Rights in Havana.

Evaluating him or his regime is beside the point. People are not of merit to the study of history for their ethics- quite the opposite, in fact. Call it a reserve of the true leader or an individual who likes the sound of his own voice, but he is articulate, well-informed and passionate, which are not qualities found in abundance in today's politicians. Though he can be pompous and convoluted in his speech at face value, his talent for speeches is converted into good prose. Of course, he may be the last of a type- and for this reason alone the book is an important historical anecdote. Which brings us to the most burning question- summed up in Ramonet and Castros's final conversation; "After Fidel, what?" A lengthy response is boiled down only to: "I will stay as long as I believe myself to be useful. Not a minute less, or a second more." (I don't think I have given away the ending).

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Tom Cruise Outed (Again?)

2008-01-07T16:49:00.001Z

It sez here that Tom Cruise has been exposed as the Number 2 in the church of Scientology. If they mean he is a scientologist s**t, who am I to argue?

Currentness

2007-09-25T14:59:00.000Z

Yes it has been a while! Since my last blog post I ve been back to Europe for my cousin's wedding (i missed wine in Asia) and back to Bali for my surfing camp. After catching up with Eric and Gabs on their swansong week in Syndey I drove to Melbourne for some long overdue catching up with two of my very favourite people, ever. So i ve bene writing, chilling, meeting lots of awesome people and generally basking in the weekends.

Bali, SA Times

2007-09-25T14:52:00.000Z

Bali is a small island in the Indonesian archipelago, nestled just east of Java and easily traversed by motorbike – it's a surfer's paradise.

A ‘Hindu island in a Muslim sea’, it is the only Hindu-dominated island in the world’s most populous Muslim country.
Indonesian beliefs are too complex to slot into a particular world religion; Bali’s practices in particular are deeply fused with ancient local arts and rituals, which sets it apart from more centralised Hindu practices in India or Nepal.

This creates a laissez-faire spiritual culture which is nonetheless rich and active, less concerned with cycles of rebirth than with local and ancestral spirits. Most shops and warungs (grill/restaurants) place small offerings of food to various spirits, and these small baskets dot the beaches, marking the sand between beach towels and surfboards. This unique religious culture has intrigued many anthropologists, especially the Harvard professor Clifford Geertz, who used the example of Bali’s unique blend of Hindu and local traditional practices to contribute a new method to the study of cultures which he called ‘interpretive’ anthropology.

By observing and interpreting different rituals or social practices, he argued it was possible to discover its meaning for the culture and in doing so to expose various social patterns and relationships. This method was a departure from traditional anthropology, which sought to discover the structure and functions of a society. While many have awarded Bali no-go destination status as a result of not one but two bombings targeting tourist areas in the last five years, missing out on an island that sets itself apart from its host country in so many ways would be a real shame.

Bali and Tourism: A troubled relationship
Bali has had a few difficult years following bombings in 2002 and 2005, which targeted Kuta and Jimboran, both tourist-heavy areas. The blasts had a devastating effect on the economy, particularly the tourism industry on which so many Balinese depend. Local workers faced job losses and salary cuts as a result of this economic downturn after the ‘crown jewel’ of Indonesia was targeted.

Jemaah Islamiyah, an Indonesian terrorist network, was thought to be responsible for the 2002 bombings, but the organization’s spiritual leader condemned the 2005 attacks, saying nonetheless that the blasts were a sign of God’s displeasure with the Indonesian government. These events, coupled with a reputation as a destination ‘ruined’ by large groups of Western travellers, has dented its otherwise robust tourism.

As a result, intelligence services in Indonesia have been stepped up and its neighbours have rallied around it. Numerous authorities all over the world have urged people not to abandon the island and its inhabitants.

The Ubud Writer’s festival was started in 2002 by Janet de Neefe, an Australian writer living in Bali, to draw the community back together. The Balinese are urging people to come back, and many travel writers accept that there are now many places in the world that are potential targets for terrorist groups; travelling anywhere nowadays is a calculated risk and places should not be avoided out of fear.

After the 2002 bombings, surfers loyal to the famous Balinese breaks were the first travellers to come back to the shell-shocked island. In 2007, Bali is experiencing an upswing and while Kuta could give the Khao San Road in Bangkok a run for its money in terms of backpackers, souvenirs and Red Bull T-shirts, there are plenty of places on the island where you can avoid crowds, exhaust fumes and people offering dubious services.

Bali surfing
Bali has a huge range of travel options, from 5-star resorts on the beach to basic hostels, and has been a major surfing destination for decades. In 1936, an American named Bob Koke moved to Kuta from Hawaii and set up the Bali Hotel with his wife. In the 1960s, other surfers came to the island and discovered the Bukit peninsula, where the surfing breaks attract surfers from across the globe, from novice to professional level.

The peninsula also plays host to various surfing competitions and local surfers have been very successful in international competitions, surfing with a distinct Balinese style. There are more surfing schools in Bali than you can shake a stick at, and most are located in Kuta, but the Bukit peninsula, in the south of the island, is the true surfing mecca, where dedicated surfers stay in relative isolation from Kuta’s crowded beach. There are a number of beaches on this peninsula which offer different conditions, and surfers will travel to a beach which offers the best conditions for the season or time of day.

Padang Padang Surf Camp
Andrew Roberts, a dedicated surfer who spent many years working in IT in Asia, opened up the first surfing camp of its kind on the Bukit peninsula just over a year ago, inspired by similar camps in Costa Rica and Portugal. While there are many places to stay and learn to surf in Bali, at Padang Padang the surfing education is all-inclusive rather than organized through a third party.

This means beginning surfers and instructors can form a rapport with their instructors and get the most out of the surfing lessons. Students are taken to surf waves at the numerous breaks in the area according to their ability and experience. Andrew’s camp offers all equipment and instruction, and even organizes motorbikes and car rentals. Close to all the main beaches on the peninsula, Padang is an ideal place to learn, improve, meet other surfers and get to know the local culture, as well as stay in a quiet, secluded area that is within reach of Kuta if the need for thumping nightlife arises.

Close to the camp there is also the ‘monkey temple’ at Uluwatu, where a traditional Balinese musical drama is performed every night. A visually spectacular event performed by more than 100 people, it depicts a battle in which monkeys help Prince Rama defeat the evil King Ravana. Macaque monkeys, bold and intimidating, but not unfriendly, (unless you consider the theft of your sunglasses a hostile act) are all over and can be fed with bananas that are sold at the temple doors. These monkeys are considered sacred and honoured residents of the temple.

Sukhavati
For those wishing for total seclusion and relaxation further inland, there is the Sukhavati, a luxurious getaway which accommodates 14, designed with groups of friends or large families in mind who can enjoy a truly private holiday.

While it is located in the jungle, sightseeing spots and beaches are still easy to reach. Sukhavati has on-site spa facilities and serves excellent local cuisine. Entertainment is also available within Sukhavati so it is ideal for anyone who wants to avoid crowds and backpackers and enjoy a retreat from the busy beaches and freelance massage therapists

Sai Kung Article for SA Times

2007-09-25T14:50:00.000Z

Hong Kong’s history is a breeding ground for the imagination: Opium wars, British and Portuguese colonisation, shameless entrepreneurs, a rich cinematic history and ten years ago, the handover to China. Its status as a gateway city has made it a hotbed for trade of all kind, illicit and otherwise. The skyscrapers on the admittedly smoggy skyline can attest to its status as a beacon of development and people spill out of bars in the Lan Kai Fong and Soho districts- but it is worth wandering across the bay to Kowloon and the New Territories to spend some time in Sai Kung, a small fishing village that is anything but sleepy, barely an hour from the city centre by public transport.

Sai Kung

Sai Kung started its life as a place of meeting and trade for fishing merchants.
Many European ex-pats settled here and while the British government packed their bags ten years ago, some have never left or have returned to this agreeable peninsula, within reach of the city but shaped by secluded villages, islands, and some of the best beaches in the region. Sai Kung Town started as a place of meeting and trade for fishing merchants and developed into a market hub about a hundred years ago. It has had its share of myths and legends woven into its history; the Dongjiang Guerilla force,who used to help Allied prisoners-of-war escape back to their countries during WW2, is said to have had its underground headquarters in a café which is presently a tailor shop. It is also said to be the residence of choice for organized crime bosses, the Triads.

Known as the leisure garden of Hong Kong, it has in the past been known as an ex-pat haven thanks to the number of people who worked at the old airport, but this changed when the new airport was built further away on Lan Tau island. The ex-pat population that remains today are a small core of loyal Hong Kongers who consider this peninsula their home. Many of them were born here or have spent most of their lives here. A ‘Blackpool with Palmtrees’ Sai Kung is not. Cooking smells emanate from narrow alleyways, pet shops are wedged between stalls selling fresh seafood from plastic tubs, and middle-aged men congregate on street corners with their shirts folded above their bellies, affectionately called ‘The T-shirt flip.’

There is a healthy mix of bars in Sai Kung that are rarely empty, like the Boozer on Yi Chun Street. Deane Trainor and his wife, Hilda Fuertes, took over the space in October last year after managing Xtreme, another bar in town. Many of their customers followed them to the new venue and spend hours socializing, watching sports or feeding the remarkable jukebox. The Boozer does not serve food but customers can bring their own, which makes it a very relaxed place to drink. Mr Trainor has been in Hong Kong for 11 years: “I lived in central Hong Kong until I visited a friend here in Sai Kung five years ago, and decided to move here. I’ve lived almost everywhere around Hong Kong and this is definitely my favourite area.” Hilda agrees it is the “best place to live in Hong Kong.” Over five years, Mr Trainor said he has seen many of his friends return home to the UK when they could no longer afford to live or send their children to school here. There are fewer Westerners here now, mostly because wages are lower and education here isn’t free, so many people are going back home.

Restaurants and Bars

The village’s traditional business still flourishes, and fresh fish is caught daily which can be bought right off the boats lining the waterfront, including shrimp, shark and shellfish. The seafood is really the main pull for the people coming to Sai Kung- any restaurants on the waterfront will not disappoint. They even display the catch of the day in tanks so you know what you will be eating (which will occupy the kids but it is probably best not to tell them it is their dinner). The Cru Wine and Grill on the square at Wan King Path does a delicious Surf n’ Turf as well as red-and white wine platters. Scarecrow, an Italian restaurant, does excellent thin-crust pizzas which are a popular takeaway for consumption in the pub. A little further west in Hebe Haven, Hebe 101 has a lovely view over the bay, an excellent wine list and a list of specialities as long as your arm. The Boozer does happy hour from 5pm-9pm, and Poets (‘from bad to verse’) next door has a nice old-style pub feel. A few minutes away, Steamer’s do excellent cocktails, try the ‘Nothing’ (a refreshing drink made with melon liqueur).

Water sports

There are plenty of things for the active traveller to do in Sai Kung. An afternoon of wakeboarding (the lovechild of waterskiing and snowboarding with possible DNA contribution from a skateboard) costs 550 HKD (about 35 GBP), including the boat, a driver and boards. You can go kayaking or just lie on one of the many beaches- the town beach is popular with dog walkers because the tide is sometimes so low you can walk out to the small islands on the horizon, but there are dozens along the coastline. There is a surfing beach a little farther to the east reachable only by boat or hike called Tai Long Wan. You can also hire sampans or junks to take you on cruises around the smaller islands or hire a boat for your own fishing trip.

Hong Kong: Ten Years On

This July marks the ten-year anniversary of Hong Kong’s ‘reunification’ with China. It is a ‘SAR’- a special autonomous region. As residents of an open and diverse city and Asia’s business capital, Hong Kongers see themselves as distinct from so-called ‘mainlanders.’ The handover ten years ago sparked fears of Hong Kong’s decline under the Chinese central government, and people fled in droves to Vancouver or back the UK. The ten-year celebrations this year, with the obligatory fireworks, were for most another day to have a party; initial fears about tanks rolling in from Beijing were not realized (so far) and the biggest problems the city has faced have been economic, and of course the SARS scare in 2003. Sai Kung residents fear the spectre of urban renewal and development which threatens their peaceful town, of which they have reason to be proud.

And finally…

Last April, the central government gave Hong Kong two panda bears, Anan and Jia Jia and as a reunification gift. Though some felt the gesture had political undertones, the pandas are a main attraction at Ocean Park on Hong Kong island. It is estimated that people visiting them will spend 400 dollars (25 GBP) on panda merchandise alone. Ocean Park is an amusement park in the style of Disneyland (a branch of which is also in Hong Kong) but with more animals- dolphins, seals, aquariums with jellyfish and now the noble panda. The brow-beaten but cuddly panda has been a symbol of extinction for decades- the emblem of the World Wildlife Federation and constantly at threat thanks to bamboo plant depletion or their lazy reproductive habits. I couldn’t resist a visit and a day at Ocean Park is really an experience. The park straddles a hill overlooking the South China sea, with a rollercoaster that dangles you over the water. What more could one want? Go and see the pandas before they sign movie deals with Disney.

The Hong in Kong

2007-06-20T07:49:00.000Z

So here I am in lovely Hong Kong, a funny in-between place of Asia, the world and paradise. It is a welcome place to be after the intricacies of travelling China ("Hello, do you know where.... -NO!!") and it's been great to see Isla again. I am staying at her place in Sai Kung, which is a smaller village the east of Kowloon (the bit that is still attached to the mainland- but only by geography as HKers take a rather dimmer view of 'mainlanders' as they call them.Sai Kung is beautiful and has everything you'd ever need, shopping-wise, also it has a beach and all its attendant water-sports and boats which makes me very happy. Despite spending my formative years in a landlocked and mountainous country I think I am a sea-legs kind of person, probably due to beatiful winter holidays in Cape Town. An only regret at leaving China is that in HK all the English translations are accurate and devoid of phrases like "do not dump odds and ends in nightstool" and "beware of nipping hand." Though I think "Wan King Path" speaks for itself. We tagged along to the Dragonboat races (more photos to follow when I get my arse in gear) and got taken to a party by boat which had a live band and free drinks. I think I see what keeps people here!! Here s a few wee photaes for the lovely Edinburgh crew who miss Isla as much as I do:

Watch me get censored

2007-06-07T12:40:00.000Z

Lhasa to Beijing in 48 hours

The Lhasa to Beijing train line is the jewel in the newly polished crown of China's development boom and upcoming Olympics, where they hope to showcase the country and the progress they have made in the last decade. This makes China a very exciting place to visit, but the Chinese government have no qualms about developing new land at the expense of the ancient architecture that many come to China to see. Shanghai is undergoing a particularly riogorous facelift and much of the country seems to be a work-in-progress, with building sites rather than traditional houses being the norm. At the Forbidden City in Beijing a sign reads: 'A single act of carelessness leads to the eternal loss of beauty', advice which seems all too relevant as China looks toward the future.

The train line itself, which was slated to be finished a in 2007, actually completed its maiden voyage in July 2006, to great fanfare, and was celebrated as an incredible feat of engineering that many thought was impossible, or crazy. The line, travelling 1 118 kilometres, cuts through the perma-frost of the Tibetan plateau with stilts, and is the highest railway line in the world. Its first year was not without some technical hitches- parts of it had to be repaired late last year as the permafrost shifted, and reaching heights of over 5,200m, a passenger died of altitude sickness, which can affect people from heights of 2 000m. There is also controversy about the Tibetan issue- many worry that the train will spell the end of the line for Tibet, as it will speed up the immigration of ethnic Han Chinese who have already travelled to Tibet in droves and threaten to edge out the indigenous Tibetans, tightening their hold on the area. Though Tibet is nominally an 'autonomous region', visitors to Lhasa can see that it is dominated by the Chinese population that have settled there.

Lhasa and Tibet

The train station in Lhasa is a monolithic but imposing building set against the mountains of Lhasa- it looks like it was opened just last week, which is what Lhasa looks like- apart from the remaining monasteries on the outskirts of Lhasa and the somewhat forlorn-looking Potala Palace, the old seat of the Dalai Lama, Lhasa has a busy and modern feel, with wide roads and neon signs earning it the nickname 'Lhasa Vegas' among travellers. There is a strange harmony of old Tibet and Lhasa's identity as a new city- Tibetans, in traditional dress, amble along supermarket aisles, spinning prayer wheels and popping chewing gum loudly near your ear. There are hundreds of Tibetan pilgrims prostrating themselves in front of Buddhist temples, while Chinese people on mopeds barely glance at them as they whizz by. There is a clear sense that there are two separate societies in Lhasa but people are loath to discuss the issue. As a result of this disparity it is an interesting place but nobody can pretend that the mystique that draws people to this formerly off-limits city still exists.

The train station is a massive hall of marble and space, spotless, with guards directing you to your train. We found our carriage and prepared to jump on the train when a sign on the door caught our eye: "Do not put danerous (sic) product. Get on the trainthrowing stump." Anxious not to fall foul of the Chinese authorities, I wondered what this could mean. I couldn't work it out so I chalked it up to another amusing example of 'Chinglish'- the direct translation of idiomatic Chinese into English.

It is a 48 hour journey from Lhasa to Beijing with the train reaching speeds of 160 km/h. Our journey began at 8.30 in the morning, bang on time, and we began to cut through the Tibetan plateau, some of the most inhospitable but beautiful landscape on earth. The first 12 hours of the journey are spent traversing this region, where there is not a single settlement to be seen- the train tracks seem to be the only man-made thing on the horizon. There are hundreds of wild yaks, donkeys and antelope to be seen, and very few people. The train stations we pass are just platforms without buildings, and seem somewhat inexplicable.

In China train classes are divided into soft and hard sleepers-soft being the more luxurious option. Fearing the concept of a hard sleeper we took this option, but a look at the hard sleepers revealed they were very nice too. The soft sleepers have small TV screens, which are impressive at first but seem to have only one channel. Music is also continuously played in the train and is very hard to ignore. At times it is a welcome accompaniment to the landscape but at bed time it is well worth figuring out the volume switch. In the afternoon, a sound like escaping gas starts to fill the cabin. we look for a leak of some sort but then a steward comes in and adjusts something behind my head- this is the oxygen valve, which pumps air through the train to help passengers cope with the altitude. At 5,000m, there is only about 50% of the oxygen in the air that is present at sea level. To compensate, we breathe more heavily and are prone to severe headaches, nausea and fatigue. Coming from Lhasa, at a height of 3 700m, we have acclimatised, but passengers coming from Beijing will feel the altitude.

On the first leg of the trip, we pass Namtso, a sacred lake known for its striking turquoise colour which is the result of the melting of a nearby glacier. There is a dining car on the train, which we eagerly approach around dinner time. We try to mime our desire for food- and are told, simply, "No."
"No food?" we repeat. "No. Not for you. Tomorrow maybe." We look at the other diners and point at their food. We sit down regardless and point again at our neighbour's plate. We are then given what he has. We are slightly baffled by this encounter but realise later that they meant they had no English-translated menu on the first day, which then made its appearance the next. Though this is a train which will be geared towards tourists, eventually, no English is spoken at all, so it is best to have a basic catalogue of food words in your head or at least a good phrasebook.

China

Waking up the next morning, the landscape has changed completely. Gone are the windswept mountains and snowy peaks of Tibet-we are now in China proper. There are rice terraces, corn fields, and endless concrete stilts which will eventually support a highway running next to the train line. Not a square meter of land in sight has not been built upon or recruited for agriculture in some way. At Xining we start to follow the Yellow River which starts to cut through the kind of steep green mountains for which China is famous. The towns themselves are less distinctive, though the occasional roller coaster or mosque sets them apart. I notice that not even the most basic mud hut on the outskirts of a town does not have a shiny satellite dish. Towards the afternoon, the landscape in the Shanxi province becomes more challenging, leaving an impression of beautiful lakes and mountains with dozens of tunnels. Towards the evening we reach the agricultural zone of the province where farmers have set the fields alight to quicken crop rotation. Bright orange fires rage barely 20 feet from the train. As mentioned, we now have the valuable commodity of an English menu and can point at this instead of at someone's plate.

The train reaches Beijing at 7.30am on the second day- an hour ahead of schedule. We are woken unceremoniously and all but booted off the train, blinking, into the bustle of Beijing West Railway station. It is a thoroughly pleasant trip, though it remains to be seen if it is a positive thing for all concerned. Visitors might be taken aback at the gruff manner of the staff, who seem to either bark at you or treat you as objects of curiosity-it's best to put this down to cultural conventions and not to take offence. The train line may have been an overly ambitous project, but avoiding internal flights when travelling across an emissions-heavy country should be a positive thing. It may also spread awareness of the Tibetan issue which is being sidelined in the rush for Olympic glory.

2007-06-01T04:10:00.000Z

2007-06-01T04:07:00.000Z

So, Tibet. Where to start? Well when people say it is just China, it doesnt actually prepare you for the fact that it is just China. With a couple of monasteries. There are still lots of Tibetans walking around Potala Palace on pilgrimages, spinning their prayer wheels and chewing gum, but the Lhasa itself looks like a small town in the US- hi tech traffic lights and giant supermarkets, with not much character. The monks have mobiles (popular ringtones include Hotel California and Titanic) and Nikes.

Bungy-The Last Resort

2007-05-21T08:41:00.000Z

I took a day trip from the smells, smells and sounds of Kathmandu to jump off a bridge. It was three buses full of Isrealis, 3 irish people, and an american guy. When we got to the place the bridge looked a wee bit threadbare- and we all just got a number (weight) written on us (which must have been quite unsettling for the Isrealis, considering) and basically got herded onto the bridge en masse. I chatted to the irish folk (as is the way so often with these things, I d seen them before several times but it didn t register until later). This bungy jump is apparently the 3rd highest in the world at 160m- and it was great fun- the worst part is waiting on the bridge in the crosswinds. The locals use this bridge quite frequently as it joins a farming hillside to the road- but it s closed off during bungy sessions. As I was finished I tried to get some shots from the top I stood with about 40 locals who were being held up by the last jumper- i think something someone in the trade would call "a reluctant jumper" who stood on the edge for 20 mins, completely unaware that her hesitation was screwing up the local timetable. Anyway, we re off tmrw for Tibet- so I ll be reporting from there next.

YAy photos

2007-05-18T08:03:00.001Z

Photos

2007-05-18T07:41:00.000Z

2007-05-18T06:58:00.000Z

Blog traffic here is a nightmare- and i think this is why I cannot upload my photos onto this blog. I know how lazy people are so if you realllly want to see some photos follow this link: http://picasaweb.google.com/Lexeth to see them. They are not complete.
Our days here consist of negotiating the hazardous roads of Thamel (imagine the Khao San road in Bangkok with better-concealed sex workers but more sleazy rickshaw drivers) to use the internet and eat the same menu at the same restaurants. I am going to a place called the Last Resort 12 km from the Tibetan border tmrw to Bungy jump over a river gorge. It is the 3rd highest in the world apparently tho i dont think any superlative can be taken at face value here ("best value meal. real food") Nepal is interesting but the volatile political situation (a flimsy government threatened by Maoists) and the national sport of cheating each other (according to a Dutch prisoner we went to see)i find incongruous with the Buddhist temples and philosophy they try to spout. Hey I know religion and hypocrisy are no strangers to each other in fact they are often bedfellows). Which i am aware people do to travellers all over the world but it s very wearying. The travellers themselves are either certifiable insane or pretending to be. Until today I thought the worst thing in the world was dogs dressed up in little coats, but now I know it is parents putting bindis on their toddlers. Which are vsriations of the same theme I suppose. Hey, three weeks without eating meat. Bring on China!!
xx

Gaylords, Temples and the Monkeys of Doom

2007-05-15T11:34:00.000Z

We ve been busy since Tina came back from the mountains. It was Hannes' last day so he took us to the Monkey Temple, a complex Buddhist collection of temples and prayer wheels on a hill overlooking Kathmandu. The temples are said to be Brahma's hair and the monkeys his lice...the city used to be a lake from which a lotus grew...bla bla... in laymen's terms we all know these are temples dedicated to Buddha where people go to spin prayer wheels and leave food offerings, which the monkeys then eat which is why they congregate around the temple. Around Kathmandu's Durbar Square I also spotted some amusing things that could qualify as FHM send-ins. There is also an old Hindu temple with Kama Sutra carvings where lots of young men hang out-clearly they think this is where they ll meet loose women. Oh well. The only females in the area were of the bovine variety-and I m not talking about American tourists. :P It looks like this computer is having trouble uploading pictures, but i ll try to put them up soon. In the meantime Tina has put hers up on Picasa so you can see stuff here: http://picasaweb.google.com/twalsberger

My Karma ran over your Dogma

2007-05-11T06:49:00.000Z

Back in Kath- been a few days now. The Himalayas were very pretty an all but most of you probably know I don't see much merit in walking slowly up a mountain- hurtling down one of skis at breakneck speed is an entirely different matter and something I do like.
My camera was stolen on the way to Syabru Besi (9 hour bus ride, made tolerably onle by sitting on the rood even in the company of 600 chickens squeezed into 4 boxes) and while it was insured up the jacksy (sp?) i need to get another one here so that I can still do stuff for the paper. We just have to make sure we don t get saddled with a fake.
I ve been hanging out here for a few days, went with an Styrian/Adoptive Vorarlberger we met trekking to the more historic part of Kathmandu last night and it was very cool. We went to see the Kumari, a living Goddess, who is a chaste girl chosen from a high caste at a young age, and has to match 32 physical characteristics before she gets put in a dark room with a few other potential The Ones, where men then parade around in dead buffalo heads. The one who remains the most calm during this display then has the dubious honour of sitting in a temple and showing her face to tourists at 4pm every day, come hell or high water (and Kathmandu has plenty of both). The selection process seems like a weird version of Survivor or Pop idol (Goddess idol?). The Kumari is said to protect the city. then, when she starts to menstruate she is condidered defiled and they have to look for a new one. It is bad luck to marry and ex-Kumari (bad luck to be one too after the age of 12 it looks like). Anywayyyy accrording to legend, this tradition started when a Malla King with a certain prediliction for said wee girls felt so guilty after defiling her that he made her a goddess.
Sooo the last few days have been a wee bit more cultural- I am planning surfing camp in late July if anyone wants to come with me.
Peace innit.

Nepal for Dummies

2007-04-25T10:34:00.000Z

NB: the Orient Express story is the unedited version- so before u gleefully point out my spelling and grammatical errors and despair at the folly of my chosen career path...um..take this into consideration and stuff...yeh i m articulate me.

So... where was I? where wasn t i? the train journey was cool but i thnk next time i will opt for the nonstop one. being marched to the Turkish border at 4am to have my passport stamped was not fun. I think this may be why the EU is sluggish about their accession. you heard it here first!

I spent 4 hours in DOha, which was interestng, most of you will know why. I had a hot dog and a root beer float from A and W, an american chain. Go figure!

I am now in Thamel district of Kathmandu. There are no traffic laws here- u walk on the road and perhaps drivers will do u the courtesy of honking before they run u over. We went to a bar yesterday to avidd a sudden downpour and power outage. It was run by a woman from Innsbruck who played I Am From Austria by Rainhard Fendrich. Twice.
There is a hippie at our guest house called H20. As in water. DOnt ask i dont know. I trust if i return from Asia with a new name and bad clothes you will all chip in and pay for a cult-deprogrammer! And i promise not to pee on myself. (If you find this statement bizarre, watch Holy Smoke with Harvey Keitel and Kate Winslet)
i think we will chill here for a few days then cathc a bus to some hot springs before trekking i Anapurna.
Peace. (Argh)

Orient Fed Ex (the SA Times article)

2007-04-25T10:14:00.000Z

The Orient Express was once the most famous rail journey in the world. In its peak years, the 1930s, it was the most-travelled and most comfortable way to get from London to Istanbul.

The historic route first ran in October 1883, darting from London to Paris before snaking through Italy, Austria, Hungary, Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria and finally to Istanbul. The true descendant of the original train today only goes from Paris to Vienna and will be discontinued in June, when the Strasbourg-Vienna line will take its place. However, the route of the old train is still possible to travel, and bisects some of the most beautiful land in Europe, and stopping in the most illustrious cities. The travel writer, Paul Theroux, said that trains are places to visit in their own right. With the rise of cheap Europe-wide flights, it’s easy to forget about the joy of watching the landscape and people change as you cross borders on the ground rather than in the cultural vacuum of airports. I took the Eastern leg of the old route, from Vienna to Istanbul, which takes you from the gateway to the East to the gateway to Asia. Vienna, thanks to the widening of Europe to the east, once again occupies her true place in the center of Europe. During the cold war Vienna was separated from its sister cities in the eastern bloc, Prague and Budapest. The end of the cold war and the widening of the EU has reinstated the once-busy transport links between Vienna and eastern Europe. The bloc borders and then the wars of secession in Yugoslavia made many of the stops on the route no-go areas. Today the route is again open, which for travellers can only be a good thing.

There are a number of routes one can take to Istanbul. From London you can go via Italy or France, or both. From Vienna it is possible to go via Belgrade in Serbia and then Sofia in Bulgaria, but I opted for the northern route: Budapest, Bucharest and Bulgaria.

Vienna – Budapest

Austria and Hungary were once held together by Empire, but their fates diverged following Austria-Hungary’s disintegration after World War 1 and then again after World War II when Hungary fell under Soviet control, separating the countries by an arbitrary East-West border. Budapest and Vienna are often compared because they are staggeringly similar in architecture, both nestled on the river Danube. Budapest was the capital favoured by Princess Elisabeth (known affectionately to the Austrians as Sissi) the wife of Emperor Franz Josef, who cut an almost Princess Diana-like figure as the princess of the people in the old days of the Empire. A country girl by birth, Sissi found her Hungarian subjects altogether warmer and more welcoming than the high-minded and stuffy aristocrats of Viennese society. Her image on postcards and mugs in Vienna is entirely unavoidable (another Princess Di parallel).

The Vienna –Budapest leg is three hours long, making it an ideal morning trip with lunch in Budapest. Austrian trains are famously clean and comfortable, with a lovely dining car where you won’t be shooed out if you linger over coffee for the entire journey. In fact it is probably a good idea because unless you take the luxury Orient Express route this will be the last dining car you will see. The old train station restaurant at Budapest Keleti, Baross Terem, is worth a visit if you don’t have much time to spare. It serves traditional Hungarian food, rich and hearty meals, in a large ballroom-like space quite at odds with the chaos of the station. Otherwise, a walk around the center will reveal a larger, busier and to many, more interesting version of Vienna. Markets and pavement cafes are plentiful and a walk up the castle will show a stunning view of the city. I particularly enjoy the contrast of familiar architecture and a truly baffling language, Magyar, which is remarkable to hear so close to Germanic Austria and completely unlike the other Latin-rooted languages of the region. It’s a good idea to check and double check which train is yours-often trains are idling so close together on the platform that you can get on the wrong one (and I speak from personal experience when I once boarded a train to Thessaloniki). Stock up on food- the night journey to Bucharest, lasting about 12 hours, offers only peanuts and crisps from a decidedly cranky train conductor.

Budapest-Bucharest

The sleeper compartments are comfortable and, to my surprise, empty. Perhaps people are taking advantage of cheap flights into Romania now. The landscape still resembles Eastern Austria, flat and yellow farmlands, but waking up in the morning you can see houses built right up to the railroad tracks, where people appear to be having picnics. I particularly enjoyed seeing a Lada, a small Soviet-built car exported in large numbers to its Communist subjects, being pulled by a cow. The landscape is different too-vineyards and oilfields stretch over hills where thick-woolled sheep graze are chased by dogs. At midday we pull into Bucharest.

Romania has just entered the European Union and is enjoying an upswing in economy and development. Bucharest was once a beautiful city with Medieval architecture, but most of this was razed in favour of North Korean-inspired apartment blocks by Caucescu, the Communist dictator and ruler until the popular revolution in 1989. As I jump off the train, the surly conductor warns me with a wry smile to keep my eye on my bag. Bucharest, while it doesn’t have the beauty of Vienna or Budapest, is interesting to explore, perhaps for this reason. It has a remarkable parliament building and some pretty squares. I think it is also interesting to see a country where a revolution occurred barely 17 years ago. The contrast between the Soviet and older architecture is also intriguing. The biggest pull for travellers to Romania is still Transylvania and the Dracula tour- there are scores of spooky old castles (no doubt adorned with plenty of garlic). The train actually cuts through the Transylvanian mountains so if you want to see them make sure you reach them during the day. In the afternoon, I board the train to Istanbul for the last leg of my journey.

Bucharest-Istanbul

This train is livelier than the Budapest-Bucharest leg. Travellers bustle in and out of each other’s compartments and someone plays Arabic music loud enough for the whole carriage to hear, and you begin to feel you are moving towards the East. Crossing into Bulgaria you can see the landscape change once more, from ploughed fields into rocky mountains and cliffs, where houses are precariously hanging on the edge. For a few miles you run parallel with a road where trucks, sports cars and horse-drawn carriages jostle for space. In the dead of night we reach the Turkish border and are roused from sleep to enter the border compound to show our passports. Later, mosques begin to appear on the horizon and modern developments hover on the edge of sunny towns. We arrive into Istanbul at mid-morning. The Orient Express restaurant, built in 1890, greets you from the platform. In the morning, it is deserted, but looks inviting. The Hotel Pera Palas, where Agatha Christie wrote Murder on the Orient Express, is nearby.
It is said that if one only had one look to give the world, one should gaze upon Istanbul. The city has been the capital of countless empires and has retained the influences of all the great civilizations to make the city their home. The European side and the Asian side are divided by a bridge, and as a city Istanbul truly does straddle the continents-perhaps approaching it from Asia by train it may look different.

How to do it

Train travel is the best way to get a feel for the true size of the country, and by extension, the world. If you enjoy languishing trains and gazing out of windows, this trip is for you, but it helps to be both a train and a travel enthusiast.

You can make this journey in style by taking the Venice-Simplon Orient Express, which is a full tour package, with stays and sightseeing tours at the city stops. See www.orient-express.com, The true luxury experience will set you back abut 4 000 pounds including luxury accommodation.

From Vienna, making reservations through the Bundesbahn (Austria’s state train), getting to Istanbul costs just 155 Euros (pounds) with three Euros extra for sleeping berths. On this route you have make two changes but the Belgrade-Sofia-Istanbul route is non-stop.

LA Story

2007-04-07T08:51:00.000Z

The Standard- a hotel with a rooftop bar with a pool and strange pods with waterbeds in them where you can faux-celebrity spot. edinburgh would be a cooler place if it had one of these! I met up with Helen in LA after driving down the Pacific Coast Highway from SF and after that I was thoroughly converted to the weather, automatic cars, (how far I have come from that day in NY, Suz) and mexican food (which I was obsessed with anyway so it was a natural progression). I saw some very amusing bumper stickers on the drive down (Eat Well, Stay Fit, Die Anyway) which really reflected the diversity of the natives (I m not being PC and referring to Native Americans). In Ventura I saw a car covered in Anti-Abortion stickers: "God is Pro-Life." (Um, how do you know that? Does he speak to you?) Then there was a jesus-mobile parked next to a "Don't blame me, I voted for Nader" person. Helen and her mate Sean took me all over the city in a day, including China Town and the revolving restaurant on top of the Westin Bonaventura Hotel, which has a transparent lift where they filmed a bit of True Lies.
Am back in London now- I will be posting more things from the trip though I just need to fix my computer. I received a text from my flatmate Susanna, saying only "Chopped foot. Can hardly walk." I had horrible visions of how she did it (incluing a vincitive knife thrower) but turn out you shouldn't run with plates.

Vancouver

2007-03-22T00:09:00.000Z

Oh Canada.. I do love it. My paternal grandfather was Canadian and we used to come here every year (but on the East Coast)so I feel an affinity with the country though they ask me many questions when I come here at immigration which pisses me off. Here are some pics from 'Couver, as Jessica calls it. The setting is amazing and the city is very pretty, it seems almost like a huge city in miniature. I went all over downtown and then met up with Adam Lloyd, another London to Vienna car trip survivor of 2005-it was with him that Kieran and I and Tina stayed in a hotel in Frankfurt overlooking a brothel (numbered windows...MING!). I like Vancouver and it s nice to see snow-capped mountains when you walk around the streets but my heart still belongs to New York and Toronto. (I can have two right?). So met up with Adam and two of his Canuck mates in the evening and we discussed who the best Canadians are. I feel it is important that people know Pamela Anderson is from here, and Corey told me that Nelly Furtado used to clean hotel rooms in Victoria, on Vancouver Island, with her mother when they went to uni there. Now's she s a maneater..crap that song will be in my head. Sooo here are my fave Canadians and their origins: Pamela Anderson (Vancouver), Kim Cattrall (Samantha from Sex and the City..Vancouver), Joni Mitchell (also Vancouver) Matthew Perry (Chandler...Ontario), Alanis Morissette (Toronto), Neil Young (don t know), John Candy (don't know), Leonard Cohen (dont know). People I likes less: Avril Lavigne and Shania Twain (both from Ontario), Joshua Jackson (Pacey off Dawson's Crack) and Bryan Adams.

The Nitty Gritty-

2007-03-21T19:04:00.000Z

Messenger conversation this morning:
Amy says:
Hello Lexi
Amy says:
How are you? xxx
Palabra says:
ello love
Amy says:
Are you stil away?
Palabra says:
good just updating blog
Palabra says:
aye vancouver
Palabra says:
going to whistler tmrw
Palabra says:
!!!!
Amy says:
ooooh you lucky devil
Amy says:
did you get to meet up with gaby etc in the end
Amy says:
when are you coming home?
Amy says:
have you met ny nice men?
Amy says:
have you eaten any prawns yet
Palabra says:
LOL
Palabra says:
i m putting that in my blog

Train Edmonton to Vancouver

2007-03-21T18:52:00.000Z

Can I first of all just say how bloody huge this country is? We were on a train for over 24 hours and we barely made it across 1/8 of Canada. The track took about 6 years to lay. In fact we just went across British Columbia and a small part of Alberta. The Rockies are supposed to be very beautiful but it was snowing the whole time so we could only see the foothills- but it was lovely nonetheless- looked a bit like Austria but bigger. The train has a glass dome on the top of some carriaged so you can see out 360 degrees- these were full of elderly Brits who looked happy but still slightly bemused they had chosed to spend their twilight years shunting around in a glass box looking at trees. I read most of the way which was good- and it was nice to be still for a while. Then this korean steward barked something at us and all I could make out was the word 'moose' so I put my book down and tried to see them for about half an hour, then we got to lake called Moose Lake and i realised that was what he was trying to say.
At dinner I sat with a german and couple from Atlanta, Georgia. It was one of the most stilted social events ever- the german was trying to have a chat about the EU and Hillary Clinton and the couple wanted to bitch about the fact that the US mint was not printing 'In God We Trust' on their new bills. Sheesh. This last photo I took by accident when I was trying to take a pic of the train but its funny.

Alphabet City Avant Garde in the Hamptons

2007-03-16T19:40:00.000Z

Road Trip to the Hamptons, Dahling

2007-03-16T19:16:00.000Z

Apparently the look on my face when confronted with an automatic car was "priceless" but as soon as I figured out the pilot's cockpit that is an American car we were off, and decided, withouth a map, to go to the Hamptons in Long Island, where New Yorkers go during the summer- party central during the summer with lovely beaches. Montauk, on the very north of Long Island, is where Phoebe's mom lives (Friends references again) and also where Chandler peed on Monica when she was stung by a jellyfish.
The Hamptons, though, appeared to be slightly shut- it is off-season but it was cool to see the tweeness of upstate New York only 45 mins from the city. We had lunch in Montauk and then went to the lighthouse and the beach and saw people surfing (!!!) in mid-March in the Atlantic.Eeek. We had a great radio station- all 90s music and we had to face facts that we are officially 90s children- and getting older- you know I did not get ID'd in NY for 3 days?!! I was gutted.

"Hello, this is Big Bruvaaa..."

2007-03-16T19:05:00.000Z

Label reads: "This phone is tapped. your conversation is being monitored by the US government courtesy of the Patriot Act 2001, S219." There are so many things wrong with this: the tapping, the fact that people KNOW they will be tapped so they won't use it to plan a terrorist attack on, say, the hot dog stand on 6th and Columbus, but on the other hand it gave us the chance to use it and add "bush is a C***" randomly in the conversation with the other person thinking we had some sort of political Tourette's...
In other news, we have Lythia, Mathieu, and Susanna faking it outside a shop called Shoegasm in the Village..

Who ate all the pies???

2007-03-16T18:54:00.000Z

Brooklyn- so good Beckham Inc named their kid after it...

2007-03-16T18:30:00.000Z

We met up with one of Sanna's mates just off Houston St, near Little Italy, and went to an Italian irish bar before moving on to a nice wee wine bar and then another one that served food- not nachos or anything but real FOOD. I had some lovely Bruschetta with white truffle oil (which i ve never had before) at 3am so I was very pleased. Also loving the fact that there are cabs everywhere. The next day we hung out in Brooklyn, going all the way from downtown Flushing Avenue (Orthodox jews and trucks) down to Red Hook (factories and trains). Brooklyn was founded in the 17th Century byt the Dutch, the Brueckelen clan. I guess the name was corrupted somewhat over the years. We were on a quest to find the best Key Lime Pie in the city, which was on the southern tip of Brooklyn. We also went to a place called DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge) where all the artists hang out now that Soho is too expensive and filled with Asian tourists. We also saw plus-size mannequins at the plus-size store.. Further south you can really see the dutch architecture-it s bizarre because the houses are dutch with english signs. After we found the pie in a darkened warehouse with a doorbell, we took our tired feet back to the city and went for hot dogs at Grey's Papaya, which were famous for some reason but i don't know why except that they were in the movie Fools Rush In with Chandler and Salma Hayek...

Ellis Island

2007-03-16T17:36:00.000Z

Ellis Island-the first stop for about 12 million immigrants who came to the US between 1850 and 1924. (the ones who come now cross the river from mexico lol). To get on the ferry you have to go through security and take your shoes off etc...argh. Anyway the skyline is really beautiful (thought it seemed different somehow but i couldn t quite think how..) but the statue of liberty, like Jesus, looks smaller in real life. there is a museum on Ellis island that tells you all about the medical tests, court cases and stuff people had to go through to get in to the country. It was quite interesting and nicely done but i think it would be better if you could trace your ancestors...

Gimp York

2007-03-16T17:20:00.000Z

This is a fake baby (!) wearing my gimp mask. Also on the throne at Chumley's where we chatted to two yanks about politics without wanting to shoot them. IS this progress or what??? Also for a night we stayed in a wicked Soho-type loft- like a massive studio with log cabins for bedrooms. the lady who owned it looked like Ellen but she was straight, and she had a dog called Munch (i think and pray that it s named after the artist. she didnt have carpets..

Bling in the City

2007-03-16T17:01:00.000Z

Loooook at the Bling on Canal Street (this is downtown area around Chinatown and Little Italy) and this is what people wear in new york. Nice. We walked all around Little Italy but like so much of the world, it is being taken over by China. Chinatown is encroaching on it so much that Little italy is now only one street (also I imagine the Sopranos types are moving to the suburbs, like Tony). After downtown we went to Chumley's, a bar which used to be a speakeasy and so has no signage. Also we were promised "free-roaming Labradors" which never materialised though we did have Labrador lager so think maybe the time-out guy was on drugs.

The only gimp in the Village

2007-03-16T16:57:00.001Z

This is on Bleecker street (where the apartment in Friends is set).

The only gimp in the Village

2007-03-16T16:57:00.000Z

This is on Bleecker street (where the apartment in Friends is set).

Funny Stuff

2007-03-16T16:51:00.000Z

This is a man made entirely of Lego, and Susanna models a Banana bullet, i think it was called, anyway it was in the design shop at the Museum of Modern Art and you put your banana in it so it doesn't get bent (more bent??) in your purse/briefcase/pocket. Why didn t i invent it??

Big

2007-03-16T16:45:00.000Z

"I said you be ebony, I'll be Ivory!!!"
This is the big piano in FAO Schwartz, the toystore on 5th Avenue that Tom Hanks jumps around on in Big. Also they act out the scene from the movie on weekends, I'm assuming with Tom Hanks lookalikes??

Pics from Brazil

2007-03-16T16:23:00.000Z

Here are some of the best Rio pics, and some gimp gallery, very overdue.

The Lex in Lexington, Ground Zero, and stuff

2007-03-10T14:58:00.000Z

I m going to put up the best photos from Brasil up as soon as i find a computer that lets me- in the meantime Gabi and Eric have done a pretty comprehensive blog of our time in Rio, with lots of photos, so check it out, the link is on the right side of the page.
So we are now in New York, it's seven years since i ve been here but once i got here it s strange how much i remembered about where stuff is, although everything is just square and numbered so it s not such a challenge. Suz and I are staying in a hostel on the upper west side, next to central park, called Jazz in the City, which is very good and v cheap but we re thinking of moving on to downtown, to the village or something. the first thing we did was go and check out ground zero- the most visited building site in the world. And thats s really all it is, a building site. To their credit, new york has not put up a giant memorial with a giftshop selling american flasg embroidered with 'never forget.' There are a few photos from the actual day and a list of people who died. we went into the hotel opposite to look from above but there is really not much to see- except the original entrance to the underground tunnels is still there.
Anyway, from there we took the subway up to the museum mile and went to the guggenheim- the closest sanna will get to a religious pilgrimage lol after her art history years. Most of the permanent collection was away but there was a good thing on spanish painters, lots of picassos and dalis, and portraits of royals: sample audio on those headphones you get: "In this painting, Charles II, the last ruler of the Habsburg dynasty, looks frail. This is the result of six generations of inbreeding." LOL. We then walked up fifth avenue (Saks, Tiffany's, Bergdorf's for all you NY sitcom-watching people). We went into FAO Schwartz, the giant toy store where Tom Hanks danced on the giant piano thing (which i did too after being told off for jumping the line). We ended up at the Museum of Modern Art, Moma, and were v tired by the end of it because let s face it, art is tiring. Then we walked to Times Square to check out the neon and watched Hannibal Rising, which was brilliant. We also saw a lady carting her dog in a wheelie carrier bag which was no less brilliant and also funny.
I think you can get anything you want here from Subway ads. Don't like your husband? 1-800- DIVORCE. Don't like your feet? 1-800-Bunions1. (I guess bunions was already taken).
You can also take a Sopranos tour, which I might, yay. But we might take a road trip out of state so gotta check that out now.

Dancin shoes

2007-03-07T12:56:00.000Z

We went to a house club last night-waited in a queue for over two hours with the backs of air conditioners dripping what was not likely to be clean water over us. Also an electric pole broke and was leaning over us dangerously, near dripping water eek. But the music was very good, and we were standing in the queue with a German guy whose mate (who was also visiting) runs Dub Club in Flex, in Vienna. Bizaaaarree. About to fly to New York, we ll see how customs work out for me- they don t like me. Is it because i made a joke about them in 2002? Who knows. They certainly don t.

2007-03-03T16:36:00.000Z

HEEEO

2007-03-03T16:29:00.000Z

So far so good. In the United Kingdom of Ipanema and no trace of red Brits spilling out of Irish pubs. Bonus! Although we had it on good authority that beautiful people hang out here, we have yet to see any. but sitting on ipanema beach you can get all manner of things on sticks- cheese, prawns, chocolate. it´s the way forward!
We did manage to meet up with Antonia the other day and she showed us around a little, and we went to an old-fashioned Samba club which was really nice. Also we went to see that big statue of Jesus (and I can confirm that he is much smaller in real life) but we were expecting some sort of reverant atmosphere- i´v e read that people walk the 9 km up the mountain (through 2 favelas) on their knees as a sacrifice to ensure the success of the Brazilian football team (hey who am I to scoff, it clearly works!) but all we found at the top was a Brass band and lots of tourists wearing Ohio State jumpers. Wouldn t be so proud, boys.
Today and yesterday we went surfing with mixed success. The gimp mask has been making some appearances and i ll be putting up photos soon. Have some issues with the computer.

Pics

2007-02-26T18:08:00.001Z

Concrete Jungle is massive.

Guess what they sell. Snigger.

2007-02-26T18:08:00.000Z

´What do you mean it´s not on straight?!

The return of Afro -Lex

2007-02-26T17:51:00.000Z

So I´m walking along, and I see this door open and 3 men with a huge buggy with 100s of umbrellas of all shapes and sizes attached to it. They seem quite frantic and this makes it harder to control the buggy. They totter past me and set up shop on the next block. The sun is shining. Then the sky opens up and before I even get to the next corner, I am soaked through. They grin at me as I walk past, but I will not buy an umbrella- I always lose them. I can see them from the net cafe tho- they re making a killing. It´s really pouring down, thunder and lightning, the works. I am reminded that I am now in a part of the world where the weather can do scary things. Yeah I know it floods in the UK sometimes and the winds in Scotland can do a lot of damage but it´s different innit.
I should have known really-my hair acts as a natural barometer. I´d barely left the aiport when the humidity brought out Afro-Lex. Yeh did you see that episode of Friends where they go to the Caribbean? Monica? Yeh that´s me pretty much.
Gabi and Eric have been delayed which is okay cos I can start researching for the Rio piece for the SA times.

Sao Paolo-and a mini rant

2007-02-26T16:34:00.000Z

On the cab on the way to town, I saw a man striding purposefully over a bridge with what looked like a rifle but it was really an umbrella on closer inspection. This is what no sleep on a red-eye flight does to you- also I just watched Babel and in Inarritu´s world, everything that could be bad, is.
There is an imaginary line that colonisers drew to divide South America between the Portugese and the Spanish, but what I´ve noticed (with my total lack of expertise) is that this line divides the continent according to its sporting obsessions. Arriving in Cuba in March 2003, everywhere you looked you could see baseball diamonds or kids playing cuatras esquinas (baseball on street corners with a ball made up of tape). Back then I was a wannabe anthropologist, doing my fieldwork on baseball and politics in Cuba. (now i am wannabe journalist and i´M kicking myself for not being fluent in Spanish yet so I can be there when everything changes. Though Cubans are the most baseball-mad, the rest of South America, especially Venezuela and Colombia, have well-developed baseball training academies and send many of those players to the Major Leagues. In Brazil it´s all about the football, obviously.
Gabs and Eric just spent some time in Cuba, and they said it seemed to be in a bad way. A teacher I was with in Cuba in 2003 says he has gone back every year and it is certainly getting even harder to live there. Things are uncertain and nobody talks about Castro´s illness. It makes me really sad. I wonder if Cuba would be like Brazil if Castro had never happened-vibrant but poor, with its own problems revolving around drugs and gangs. It seems that in Cuba, there is just not enough money- it´s a matter of trying to make ends meet. Sure Cuba´s health and education programmes mean literacy and life expectancy are higher than that of the US, but what good does this do if you´re a neurosurgeon who has to drive a cab to make ends meet? Castro once said: ´We have the best -educated prostitutes in the world.´ Castro has made steps towards liberalizing part of the economy but W has cut the number of remittances Cubans in Miami and also the number of cultural exchanges between the US and Cuba- which bring over much-needed medical supplies. In 2003, W was actually going to loosen the embargo slightly, but a letter to him from Cuban-American Republican voters told him to forget their support if he did so- he needed their votes to keep Florida. So he did nothing. Now we all know that W is a ´tard, but the Cubans in Miami should know better.

Shepherd's Bush-West London Massif.

2007-02-25T12:41:00.000Z

"This is my dungeon. Please help yourself to tea and biscuits."

Nearly gone

2007-02-25T01:14:00.000Z

'Lula,' President of Brasil

As many of you know, I have a soft spot for Latin American leaders. Anyway so I'm off to Brasil tomorrow, meeting up with Gabi and Eric and hopefully also catching up with a couple of people who have moved out there. Rio is one of those places people say you can't describe but I guess I'll try my best.

Photo Tourette's

2007-02-24T23:27:00.000Z

You know when you wake up in the morning and feel like dressing up as Monica Lewinsky?
More to the point, I ve just realised that I m doing the same finger gesture in this picture as in the one in the last post- that's a time difference of 7 months between each picture. Why did no one tell me I had a problem? You can't even tell if it's ironic.

From Monica and Fr...

Meet the Gimp

2007-02-24T23:06:00.001Z

This is my travelling gimp mask. It is actually a Mexican wrestling mask but you have to admit that's not what springs to mind. We bough it on Neal Street in Covent Garden one night and then we decided to it would be funny if I took it travelling with me, Amelie-Gnome style. So I will be wearing it at some of the world's most elegant and important landmarks. Watch this space, especially you two naughty Scots who co-parented the plan.
This is another one I tried on before we decided on a green one. With a crucifix. Which will be making an appearance shortly.

From Lozza pics

The Queen's coronation scoop (and I don't mean Liz)

2007-02-24T17:49:00.000Z

The journalist who broke the story of Edmund Hilary's successful ascent of Everest was a young correspondent for the Times called James Morris. The news broke on the Coronation day of Queen Elizabeth II. James Morris later became a woman and changed his name to Jan. Who knew?

This is me and my mate Henrik on Everest last year (not really).

From Skiing Kaprun

journalism

2007-02-24T17:25:00.000Z

The end of my education (for real this time i promise).

Spending a lot of time in Farringdon pubs. This, we have learned, is what journalists do. I don't think it's a coincidence that the Guardian building and 16 pubs (and a very fine karaoke bar) are within 100 feet of our college. Apologies by the the way to the people in the pictures-but bear in mind that as of 1 August 1988 I have copyright. And you are not victims of a sex offence. (That I know of...)

From Horseshoe

Messing about in the Horseshoe in Clerkenwell

From Horseshoe

My most excellent tutor Andrew. Notice the unusually large head to his left.