After the Second World War, however, their star waned, but now a new show, at the suitably Deco De la Warr Pavilion, will celebrate their extraordinary achievements.`Modernity: British Colour Linocuts of the Twenties and Thirties’, runs until 23 January at the De la Warr Pavilion, Marina, Bexhill on Sea, East Sussex (01424 787900).The new machine ageClaude Flight encouraged his students to capture the dynamism and energy of “the new machine age” and so he sent them to the London Underground (top right, Cyril E Power’s Whence & Whither, c.1930); car race tracks such as Brooklands; sports meetings (right, Power’s The Runner, 1930) – rugby, soccer, dirt-track racing; ice rinks (above, Power’s Skaters, c.1932); fairgrounds to see the roller coasters and merry-go-rounds; and the streets of London to record buses hurtling along. Others who worked at the Grosvenor included Cyril E Power, who lectured on architecture, and the young Sybil Andrews, the school secretary. sketchbook 1
Claude Flight saw the humble linocut as a way of creating images that would capture the movement and excitement of city life in Twenties and Thirties Britain. The Eritrean flag is one of the newest in the world, with an olive branch running through the laurel wreath to represent the different ethnic groups in this small country.
She was about to complete her national service when the war began. Bodies are left to rot along the front, among burnt-out tanks and souvenirs of lives – photographs of girlfriends and boyfriends, buttons, caps and boots. There are plenty of groups in Somalia and northern Kenya who will do Eritrea’s bidding to destabilise Ethiopia and, maybe, achieve some form of independence themselves.Peace talks have come to nothing. Out of a population of three million, virtually all 18- to 25- year-olds, including many women, are mobilised. Often described as Africa’s biggest war, it is also the continent’s forgotten conflict, in which thousands have died in 18 months of trench fighting.
Played by women and children, the Zwarte Piets have gold earrings, white ruffs and colourful velvet tunics and breeches, but it is not their fashion sense that today causes sidelong glances Their white faces are blacked up. Genuine US-inspired restaurants are actually as rare as a rodeo in Macclesfield
Buffalo Grill, 12-14 Chapel Street, Edinburgh (0131-667 7427) Mon-Fri lunch and dinner, Sat, Sun dinner It’s not big, it’s not brash, it’s not bad. Nibbling another homemade truffle among the hummingbirds on Hacienda Bukare’s veranda, after a day spent on a glorious beach, it’s very hard to disagree.Hacienda Bukare is exhibiting at the International Festival of Chocolate (see Truffler opposite for details) and can be contacted via Geodyssey (0171-281 7788). Travelling with the Arabs and speaking their language, Asher brilliantly chronicled a timeless way of life, under threat, as he saw it, from the twin evils of drought and development.
His was a world of camel-rustlers and charcoal- burners, living by an ancient code of honour which combined a casual attitude to violence with a surprising and touching gentleness.The Arabs of the desert would offer their last cup of water to a stranger but would kill you without a qualm if you laid hands on their camels or their women. Asher envied their simple existence; these were men who still believed that the world was flat and “whose alphabet lay in the tracks left by camels in the sand”. As one nomad, Mohammed Belal, told him, cradling a baby son in his lap: “What good is school? Look around you Green bushes Tall grass Water Fat camels which eat well. What more do we need? His school is here in the wadis.”I read Asher’s book over and over, attracted by the romance of the nomadic life which was happening just outside my town. I, too, saw these people coming to market with their buttermilk and their goatskins, their faces covered by headcloths to shield them from the desert wind.
I knew that I could never be like Asher; without his skills, honed in the SAS, I would not survive two nights in the desert.His was a Boy’s Own Adventure story, a tale of Kalashnikovs and cattle- thieves, of dehydration and danger and strange encounters with officials, policemen and bandits. It was not for me, yet still I longed to get beneath the skin of the Sudanese people in the way that Asher had managed to do. After three years of juggling work and desert treks, Asher resigned his teaching post to live with the Kababish nomads. I never rode a camel or joined a nomadic tribe, but I like to think I found something of the same spirit and values among the people of Babanusa.Like Asher, I was overwhelmed by the generosity of people who had almost nothing to give; like him, I was inspired by their simple, unquestioning Islamic faith. When the time came to leave Sudan, as a final act of solidarity we decided to share in the Ramadan fast, going without food and water during daylight hours for a month. It was then that I came to understand the hunger and thirst which had accompanied Michael Asher and his companions across the desert, and the communal nature of a society in which strangers share all that they have in order to survive.In Search of the Forty Days Road was published by Penguin in 1986, but is now out of print. We left behind Khartoum’s wide dusty streets and their lines of colonial buildings, and headed out on a single-decker bus towards Sinja.