It has been the most remarkable few days. There’s been an underlying undertow in the air, an unseen wave that clutches at the feet, sweeping the sand away and undermining security. If you’ve ever stood at Bar Beach in Lagos with Atlantic high rollers surging towards you and crashing down, foam and spume everywhere, droplets…
Aromatics of Desire
Pheromones are the lineal ancestors of hormones as EO Wilson says. These chemical signals have several outstanding advantages. Small amounts can produce a signal that lasts for hours. They are energetically cheap to manufacture and can be broadcast quite readily. At one extreme they can cover barely a few millimetres. At the other extreme they…
City of Death to the Temple of Desire
The temperature was dropping in time with the darkening, approaching dusk. I walked across from Hotel Raspail, crossing the Blvd Raspail, through rue Hygens where clutches of youngsters sat on the doorsteps to the Ecole Bert and Gymnasium Huygens. They huddled ever closer together as if some secret conclave was in session, passing whispered messages…
Hearth
It snowed, without stopping, for over nine hours. That was a number of years ago. Today it has rained all day. Then, the streets were empty and an unusual silence sat where the car tyres normally swished by. It was white everywhere. Although it was nighttime, the air was bright and clear, silvery blue, and every…
Diwaniya
Last Friday I attended a diwaniya. This was a male only gathering. My host, Ahmed, held irregular diwaniyas, inviting his friends round to his home. He told me that diwaniyas can be political but his were social in nature. When I arrived there were already 6 or 7 men there. I took my shoes…
Travels into wilderness
Now, in the Assir, I was standing on a mountainside forested with wild olives and junipers. A stream tumbled down the slope; its water, ice-cold at 9,000 feet, was in welcome contrast with the scanty, bitter water of the sands. There were wild flowers: jasmine and honeysuckle, wild roses, pinks and primulas. There were…
Giulietta’s balcony
We are in Italy and have travelled two and half hours through olive groves, vineyards, oleander and the occasional maize crop. The road from Milan to Malcesine is a drive on roads sandwiched between the Alps and the country and then between the Alps as backdrop and Lake Garda on one side and the dramatic…
Pessoa’s Book of Disquiet
We were staying at the Custom Hotel, a boutique hotel. It was an ash colored building on Lincoln Boulevard. Our room had the double bed in the center. And there was a light that changed color according to our disposition- red, blue, green or via an interactive program into a color that spoke to our…
Loire
At Léré we ate an improbable dinner at the Lion d'Or, much like seeing the Taj Mahal in Walsall. We had come in to moor, as usual, bow in and Jan handling the ropes. The stern turned out before I killed the engine. I shouted out 'I've lost control!' and both our pulses quickened. A…
Empty Quarter
The Middle East is always a challenge to my values, my sensibility. Yet it also intrigues me with its concealment of the transactions, the human intercourse that propagates life. It's a mystery how the electrifying romantic messages that wet the juices are transmitted. The women are, at least superficially, cloistered, veiled and, self-effacing. The men…
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