It’s hard not to worry a little about the state of the world given all the brutal attacks these past six months, harming civilians going about their day-to-day lives. Late last year there were the attacks in Beirut and Paris, and since then there have also been attacks in Turkey as well as Belgium, just last week.… Read More The attacks in Beirut, Paris, Brussels, Istanbul, Ankara…
Given the events of the past week, I’ve been thinking a lot about both Paris and Beirut. It’s been an emotionally exhausting week, to say nothing of the actual tragic events in both cities and elsewhere.… Read More A bit of Paris and a lot of Beirut
I just read that Skye Gyngell’s new restaurant opens today at Somerset House in London. Whenever I think of that beautiful building, I think back to a moment in December 2005 when I stood in front of it, watching the ice skaters whizz by on the temporary outdoor skating rink installed for the winter. Skye Gyngell, by the way,… Read More Petersham Nurseries Cafe and other fine dining memories
To be perfectly honest I remember almost nothing about my long-ago visit to Avignon, a pretty but sleepy medieval town in the south of France. I never imagined I would return, let alone to attend the city’s major performing arts festival, Festival d’Avignon, and its fringe, ‘Le OFF‘. Although the festival is now in its… Read More Festival d’Avignon et le OFF, the biggest theatre in the world (‘Le plus grand théâtre du monde’)
Leaving Marrakech, I knew I was on a plane bound for France because every second person on the plane had a duty free bag with a carton of Gauloises or Camels. There were also plenty of Moroccan families returning home to Lyon, which gave me some new, though vague thoughts about French multiculturalism, especially following… Read More A wander through the ancient city of Lyon
It’s the first day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere and thinking about the changing of seasons, a memory floated into my mind today of going to Sainte-Chapelle in Paris in 2011 to hear the Four Seasons by Vivaldi in an evening concert. It was towards the end of our stay in Paris, and I wanted… Read More The Four Seasons in Paris and Bergen
We stepped out of Lamarck-Caulaincourt metro station, where Amélie Poulain held the arm of a blind man and vividly described the street life around them: We wandered the streets of Montmartre, where she lived: Found Café des Deux Moulins, where she worked: Came across her favourite grocery store, where she shopped: And walked up the steps of the… Read More Searching for Amélie in Montmartre
The Travels of Elephant Woman 