December 2016

The Stiperstones, Shropshire - The mythical resting place of Saxon Earl Wild Erik

 

The Peshawari Cricketers of Al Hamra

Every evening, after the Maghrib sunset prayer (صلاة المغرب), Pakistani migrant workers from Peshawar meet to play cricket on wasteland in Al Hamra, Riyadh.

Flanked by malls and motorways, they bowl gaffer-taped cricket balls along a linoleum crease at wickets made of breeze blocks.

They play play till the light is gone. Saudis look on, bemused.

γνῶθι σεαυτόν
know thyselfie

Arabia

“Yet I wondered fancifully if he had seen more clearly than they did, had sensed the threat which my presence implied – the approaching disintegration of his society and the destruction of his beliefs. Here especially it seemed that the evil that comes with sudden change would far outweigh the good.

While I was with the Arabs I wished only to live as they lived and, now that I have left them, I would gladly think that nothing in their lives was altered by my coming. Regretfully, however, I realize that the maps I made helped others, with more material aims, to visit and corrupt a people whose spirit once lit the desert like a flame.”
― Wilfred Thesiger, Arabian Sands  

Kerala, India

May - July 2016

El Camino de Santiago del Norte & El Camino Primitivo

900km through the Basque Country, Cantabria, Asturias and Galicia.

  

Just then they came in sight of thirty or forty windmills that rise from that plain, and no sooner did Don Quixote see them that he said to his squire, 

"Fortune is guiding our affairs better than we ourselves could have wished. Do you see over yonder, friend Sancho, thirty or forty hulking giants? I intend to do battle with them and slay them. With their spoils we shall begin to be rich for this is a righteous war and the removal of so foul a brood from off the face of the earth is a service God will bless."

"What giants?" asked Sancho Panza.

"Those you see over there," replied his master, "with their long arms. Some of them have arms well nigh two leagues in length."

"Take care, sir," cried Sancho. "Those over there are not giants but windmills. Those things that seem to be their arms are sails which, when they are whirled around by the wind, turn the millstone."

— Don Quixote, Part 1, Chapter VIII

   

Spring 2015

July 2015
Valencia & Andalusia  -  Ramadam in the Caliphate of Corduba

 

خلافة قرطبة

Phuket


Song Birds of Southern Thailand

The caged birds compete with one another. The aim is to sing as many times as possible within a given time. The time is measured using a metal bowl with a hole in it. When it reaches the bottom of the bucket, the time is up and the next heat begins.


 The bird's owners shout and coax their birds to sing. Some have special clicks and whistles which they have trained their birds to respond to, whilst others shout their bird's name. At the end of a heat, the winning bird advances to the next round.
Between four and six bird calls seemed to be the average. One bird only managed two. Another, eight; his owner's hand was shaken by several impressed onlookers.

 

Phuket