Donkeyshott & Xuitlacoche

Unkindness to fellow travellers   Memorandum To: MR. PULAT, Ministry of [Soviet] Civil Aviation MR. ARDYMOV, Transit Manager INTOURIST From: M.A. HALL, PASSENGER ON SU Z44 HELD IN TRANSIT SINCE 12/7/81 Date: 19/7/81 Subject: TREATMENT OF AEROFLOT TRANSIT PASSENGERS               (TO BE READ WITH ATTACHED MEMO. OF 16/7/81) Tonight, one full week after arriving at Moscow airport too late to catch a confirmed onward flight to Mogadishu, myself and six other passengers are finally die to be released from Sheremetyovo transit hotel to fly to our destination. The missed connection was no fault of our own. Nothing was achieved in finding us an alternative flight within a reasonable time. I regret to say that in the following three days since I sent my memorandum of the 16/7/81, I can record no improvement in the treatment of transit passengers, except some improvement s in the quality and variety - not the service - of meals. Everything I wrote in the previou

Trabazon port, by Feyza Darling Mom and Dad, In a few hours we'll be arriving in Istanbul. We caught the ferry from Trabzon on Friday and it's been a very pleasant and restful two days sailing on the Black Sea . It's beautiful, and the little ports are crowded and not too expensive. We've stayed on deck, as it was much cheaper even than the dormitory beds. To and Phil slept on deck in sleeping bags, while the twins and I slept in the VW - everytime we stopped we bought bread and fruit and kebabs to eat on board. Only today did we have a meal in the restaurant and it was pretty expensive. It's fun, but alas, no place to wash, except your face! So after over 48 hours, we're pretty grubby and smelly! Yesterday, the twins birthday - not really celebrated, except that they got a few extra cokes, and a German lady in a Kombi made them each a chocolate pudding! The deck is pretty crowded- and agains we met a couple we first met at the border in Pakis

From New Delhi to Nice Helmand river Tony Hall's plans and notes based on Mary Barnett's log book 5th July Delhi to Amritsar 7am Leave. Arrive around 4pm - stay at Mrs Bandare's Guest House. 6th July Amritsar - Lahore Level fertile country - allow time for border crossing. 7th July Wednesday Lahore - Peshawar (443km = 275 miles) Industrial areas, then across fertile plains to Jhelum. Mountain road to Rawalpindi - busy fairly wide GT road to Peshawar 8th -10th July (Thursday to Saturday) Peshawar to Kabul (205kms = 90 miles) Peshawar to customs 56kms Khyber road, quite winding and narrow in parts, but not very difficult. Pass closed sunset to sunrise. 30 Afghanis toll payable at Sarobi (80kms before kabul) - through gorge to Kabul Sunday 11th July Kabul - Kandahar - pre-dawn departure Take ample petrol and food. 512 kms - 318 miles Modern highway, Resthouse (Petrol) at Ghazni (146 kms from Kabul) Gradual ascent (Highest point 9000ft) then ea

By Eve Hall Published in TRANSITION Volume 4, number 16, 1964 They called her Shiela, because that's what she was, a Sheila, a Johannesburg Moll. She had three different surnames I knew of, Dreyers, the most infamous. She came to the prison with Victor as her alias, and I think she had used van Wyk not long before. She was not quite 19, and very pretty, tall, with short wild blond hair, (the black dye had grown out when I met her), blue eyes, a very snub nose, long firm legs, large perfect breasts and a small waist. She slouched badly and it was her pride that she had, in the seven months she had been there, worn out three pairs of the prison's shoes. She had tatoos on both her arms and an ornate Micky Mouse on one large thigh. When I was first hustled into the communal eating room, harassed by the very thorough search given to political prisoners, naked under my striped dressing gown, staggering under a load of blankets, sheets, uniforms, I hardly saw the women sitt

Picture of Bosham sunset from Jakeof  Andy , did a portrait session with Patti Smith , and while he took her picture he remarked: "My brother Phil used to really like you." "Yeah? Really. Well that's it. I have to go now." "Come on", said Andy, "it's only been a few minutes". "Well you got more time than I gave Robert Mapplethorpe " , she said, and left. Andy meets a lot of well-known people in his line of work. He said Roman Polanski was a wanker. Or was he talking about someone else? But you have to admire Polanski as a director: Le Locataire scared the hell out of me. In one scene the protagonist sees the sillouette of a man looking out at him from a toilet across the courtyard, and so he runs around the block through the corridors to find out who it is who it is. He finds the toilet. It is painted in yellow, and covered in Hieroglyphs, but there is no one there. He looks out back at his own apartment an

From the picture gallery of cars in South Africa Women's NATION - Kenya The Friday Commentry By Eve Hall, 1966 I have often wanted to write a dirge on "cars I have known" - or more specifically, on one car.  Araminta a little green Austin who was born in 1935, and died an ignoble death at the age of 17. She was beautiful in her prime. Square as a little box, and just as comfortable. She embarassed our relatives, annoyed and frightened our friends, and invariably made us late for any appointment. She was also, unhesitatingly, not to be relied on; but she rolled down hills wonderfully - except for the time a fool mechanic forgot to tighten the screws on one of her wheels. She limped painfully down a very steep hill, with her family sitting inside her, unconscious of impending disaster.We didn't notice the extra wobble from the everyday ones, but it did seem that passing motorists looked at us with more than usual horror. But with a fine instinct of

Mac Wiseman and the Osborne Brothers: I am a Stranger here Mac Wiseman: The house of the rising sun Ralph Stanley: I'll remember you love in my prayers Allman Brother's Band: Ramblin' Man The Band: The Night they Drove old Dixie Down The Del McCoury Band: Smokin' gun Ralf Stanley and the Clinch: I am the Man Ralf Stanley: Calling you James Carter and the Prisoners: Po' Lazarus The Dubliners: Dirty Old Town Sweeney's Men: Sally Brown Mark O' Connor: Appalachia Waltz Abigail Washburn: Old Timey Dance party Edgar Meyer: Please don't feed the Bear

Magritte: Le Blanc Seing In the Spirit of "Nous" The character of the Gods of the old days were based on the assumption that the natural world possessed intelligences. But it was only when pre-Socratics like Pherecydes abstracted these intelligences somewhat into powers or forces in the Heptamychos that other philosophers later came to see these powers as intelligible. Pherecydes, said to be Pythagorus' tutor, wrote of a more abstract creative principle, Zas , rather than the human-like, Zeus . Zas existed in "time" ( Chronos ) on earth and Pherecydes was probably influenced not only by the Theogony of Hesiod and Homer's epic, but by Phoenician cosmology too. Having assumed that, not only was nature possessed of intelligences, but that these intelligences themselves were potentially intelligible, Thales, Anaximander, Pythagorus and later Anaximenes were now in a position to try and understand the natural world: to become

Auntie Connie was the first female lawyer in South Africa, and my Grandfather's older sister. She wrote about her experiences as a child with her father, mother and brothers in South Africa as they trekked across the highveld and lowveld. Auntie Connie was married to Uncle Jack and I remember them well. They were two very cheerful, intelligent and positive people, with a large Pretoria family. Here she is recounting his memories to "Loco Voco" published in 1986 and edited by C. C. Callaghan. * * * Why on Earth did they do it? What on Earth induced my young parents, who were both members of large, suburban, university-oriented English families, to leave England only two years after my father was appointed science Master at the Dulwich school in London ? What induced the two to set out, toddler in tow, to make a new life three weeks away on a Union Castle liner? Was it the spirit of adventure? Was it a geologist's desire to see what things looked like in situ? Or wa

  Heini Göbel (on the left) in Die Zwölf Geschworenen   "Look Phil", said Chris, and he showed me a DVD with Heini on the cover. Chris loaded it up while Lothar, who had just successfully come out of a week long artificially induced coma, talked to me about the best way to kill a wild boar. "They are clever animals, he said, very clever, and when the full moon is out there is no point in trying to hunt them, they'll see you." He was showing me pictures of an animal, with long, rough, hazelnut hair, laid out on a forest floor in autumn. The boar was more bear than pig. This is what the big horned old boars looked like in ancient times. Lothar squatted behind the animal, his complexion was rosy then, his body still bulky. He pointed to the boars testis in the picture; they were swollen up into twin balloons, and said: - "You can't eat this kind, the flavour is too strong, although some of the local Romanians do. It's an a

Darling Mom, In a few days, I'll be going out to Ghana . I couldn't phone you today (Sunday) because our phone is out of order. Perhaps Tony managed to make a quick call to you from work - yes, he was in the office all day again today, preparing for the arrival of some journalists who have been invited to Addis to write about the new developments in the ECA [Dad was in charge of restructuring the communications side of the ECA.] - that's the UN's Economic Commission for Africa. I'll try to phone you from my office tomorrow. I've been working all day to, but at home, all kinds of last minute things to do before I leave on Thursday morning. To had a good birthday - cards and letters from all the family, and two birthday "parties": an impromptu celebration at the office, organised by his cabinet office colleagues, with a cake and presents. And on Thursday night we invited a group of people (mainly To's work colleagues) for dinner at Castelli's