Wire of the week

AFP: Lifestyle-Malaysia- Religion-Transvestites.


Islamic officials bust transvestites gala in Malaysia: report

KUALA LUMPUR, July 27, 2008 (AFP) - Islamic officials in
Malaysia detained 16 transvestites for taking part in a beauty
pageant, according to a newspaper report here Sunday.
The participants were held as they contested the "Miss Universe
Asia 2008" title at a resort hotel in the northeastern state of
Kelantan, which is ruled by the Pan-Malaysia Islamic Party (PAS),
the New Sunday Times said.
The PAS wants to turn Malaysia into a theocratic state under
Islamic rule, and has made headlines for ordering fines for women
wearing skimpy clothes and stricter enforcement of laws on separate
male and female queues in shops.
Mohamad Abdul Aziz, chief assistant director of enforcement in
the state, told the paper that 16 people aged between 20 and 30 were
detained.
Some were dressed in Malay traditional outfits and others in
evening gowns, the paper added.
Mohamad said another group of 50 transvestites who were
preparing to join the competition managed to escape arrest, while
about 300 people were present at the hotel to watch the event.
The Sunday Times said most contestants were teachers and banking
employees.
Mohamad said action would be taken against the transvestites
under Islamic Sharia law "for dressing and acting like a woman."
They could be fined or jailed for six months if found guilty, he
said.

Day 1 after warm up

Warm up day, god that was a mad one, the crew tuned up in entirety, suffering today from yesterdays excess, and by the looks of it so are many of the stop outs that i ran into this am by the looks of it.


things i learnt yesterday:

ava is a dangerous woman in a good way

its easy to shoot 700 photos.

and baeberellas is still as hot as i remember last year.

Lyd arrived as did K, A & Linda

rome and into croatia

1st july exit rome - it seemed hot (real sticky) in rome today, suppose its because I live in A/C Paradise in the gulf, slow breakfast and went back to bed, enjoyed the joys of the Spanish steps, a doupli espresso, before heading to the station to pick up my ticket and hitting the train.


1st july ferry ancona - zadar

Train down was long but not as bad as some would have had me imaginge A/C was kaput but thats the way you roll in second class- 4hrs of some of the most stunning scenery , flatlands, the mountain and then the sea. Looks like I may have to hit ancona as a holiday destination, at some point its stunning.

Entered the foot ferry for the first time strikes me that this may be the way to travel in the future - form a slow travel movement in the same way that food now has a slow movement. Take time to get somewhere - to quote gibson in pattern recognition “soul delay” seems considerably less.

As I write this im sat on the ferry watching the sun go down.

Met a few bods that are heading to the garden

evening of the 2nd june

what an afternoon, as always flights with QA are either beautiful or down right wrong

- this was good with a bizarre twist, there must have been 25 nuns on board! i dont know what it is about nuns on planes but i always think of the movie airplane - not sure why - and sadly no one was strumming a guitar.

- took the express train to Rome termini and walked to the hotel, dumped my stuff, grabbed a shower and was out the door by 8pm. had a little wander and ended up in a little trattoria around the corner, grabbed 2 bottles of peroni before bed.

have to work out what time im going to grab the train tomorrow. think it will be about midday/2pm and have a nice dinner in ancona before grabbing the ferry.

bizarre moment 2 just flicked on mtv italia and there showing thw whole of nirvana's unplugged - haven seen it in over 12 years - talk about a blast from the past - why doesn't mtv reprise this strand?

and im off going back to the garden.

im sat in doha international airport, ready for the flight to Rome, with about 50mins to go.

this break if you can call it that has been a long time coming. lots of stuff has happened since i last left Qatar. Lots of people have left, ive finally had the confirmation of the new job, which i will be starting as i return.

im unfeasible excited, Kathrin and Lyd are coming out to join me for a few days and also have a large number of my London peeps joining us. theese people will become apparent in the next few days.

Im shooting with a new body and lenses, yes i finally upgraded to a DSLR, a D80 with a range of glass. so we will see the results in coming days.

more from rome.... where i will be in the torino over night (dinner will be fab toninght)

Were going back to the garden 2008!

to quote joni mitchel.

this year im flying into rome, training it to ancona, ferry across the adriatic to zadar. looks like an unreasnoble amount of fun!

so expect hijinks and hilarity all the way// will also be blogging for http://www.run-riot.com

tomorow - exit permit fun!

wrap up

well its a little more than a week since i got back and i thaught i would put some propper reviews out and cap this blog properly

1) Garden Festival - Zadar Croatia

Wow is all i can say - Gail and Eddy you have done a fantastic job, the musical lineup was mostly mediocre (baring soil and pimp & Crazy P from this) mid level DJs playing non challenging music at best easy listening - but you know what - it doesent matter - the music wasnt what it was about - it was the sun, the beach, the beach bar, the people and most of all the VIBE. a friendlier bunch of peeps i couldnt ever ask to meet, everyone who was there was lovley!

the temperature was a even 35 every day - the skys were cloudless, the water was azure.

the accomodation was excelent seconds away from the main festival site, the basement of a little house, with a lovley little old lady who ran it - all in all excelent - this is an event which will be talked about for years after.

2) Exit festival - Novisad Serbia

you know what it was OK, not great - line up was good - but a lot of lackluster performances - Beasty Boys - your getting Geriatric, Lauren Hill your mediocre, Snoop Dogg - dull, Basement Jaxx - not your best and ive seen you regularly since the early days of brixton hill. Prodigy were the only mainstream highlight but the crowd was insane and intense.

Site - pretty novel but the festival suffered from being nocturnal, it would have worked so much better if there was some of it during daylight hours.

hotel putnik - served it purpose relativley close to the festival site - about 15mins before the killer hill clime to get onto the site, stupidly 70s, hessian wallpaper - you know what - it was OK!

Resteraunt - Archiv - gets 10 points - lovley little place around the corner from putnik - great food, and the terrace has wifi stolen from a local hotel.

3)into romania - 30 hr trip, 2hr bus to belgrade then 4hr wait in belgrade for train - train from belgrade to tiamasora, then a night train from Tiamasora to Cluj - Most surprised by Romania - stunningly beautiful, great people good vibe, also great to see my parents who i havent seen for ages, they seem to have relaxed into the romanian vibe pretty well with dad doing his usual things, and mum back into her artistic endevours.

3 day roadtrip during the romanian heatwave taking in the Carpathian Mountains and the cities of Sibiu (European city of the year) Brasov (Dracula country) Sinaia (very pretty ‘alpine village’ and ski centre) and Sigisouara, old citadel.


all in all 100% different from my 'normal life' but most required

and finaly home - have a minor flood - seems to be A/C related - am sorting now

Manic rush across frankfurt airport, as there was 40mins between landing from Bucharest and take off of Qatar airways flight 28 halfway across the airport, ran across the airport and grabbed boarding pass at the gate, with about 5 mins to spare, brutally efficient boarding practice back of the plane rows 30-44 first no exceptions, a 6 hr flight with time change effect.

Well as i sit here in Bucharest airport and reflect on my trip – its been fantastic, 3 weeks of eastern European beauty, from the beaches of Croatia, music festivals of Serbia, and the plains and mountains & castles of Romania, its been great,

i feel i must write more about my trip around Romania as i haven't blogged since getting to Romania and my parents place – dad took me on a trip around the cultural highlights of central romania, including Brasov, and into the mountains, as well as the European city of culture, and the birthplace of vlad the impaler (the closest thing that there is to Dracula)

stunning as you can see from the photos.

Flight one is now complete, from Cluj to Bucharest – then the flight im about to take takes me to frankfurt where i get a connecting flight to Doha on a Qatar airways flight.

romania

am nw in cluj with my fols - there happy here - im pretty drunk - i blame them

Well as i write this im in nomans land between serbia and romania, on posibly the oldest train in existence, it looks like the last time it had a refit- was sometime during the early era of Tito, with a toilet that Stalin may have used – no problems it has whisked me from Belgrade to the border fairly easily and with no stress, i have a Formica lined cabin to myself, which i availed myself of earlier for a little snooze, and i would be really comfortable if i wasn't melting into my leatheret seat at the rate of gallons per hour – its hot today maybe 37 and there is of course no A/C, i have a connection to make via Timisoara to get to Cluj at around 10pm tonight which delivers me into Cluj at about 5.30am!

I decided to skip the last day of exit – 7 days and nights of dancing in the past 12days have worn me out, decided that my bed was the best option after sleaping in till 4pm, popped out for dinner then watched before sunrise – beautiful film – just watched the sequal today – sadly not as good – but still worth checking out if you get the chance.

well i stayed up all night partied till dawn, felt great, now feel less than sub-human

well the beasty boys were a little bland, not as good as i rembered them a few years ago, left about 10 songs, but im pleased i left when i did, on the way back discovered a fantastic rock/punk band that sounded like they were streight out of 1978, full of energy and vibarancy - i will admit it i feel slightly dirty bouncing around to punk but it was soo good - there called peter & the test tube babys - so refreshing so humerous and just what i needed after a slightly flat and stodgy peppers gig!

well im sat on the vip terrace over looking the danube listening to some beautiful sounds, who seem to be doing for heavy metal what acoustek did for ambience!

exit day 1 cont.

Had breakfast/lunch at a place around the corner, caught up with some other british journalists based out of Prague chatted about festivals, had a beer in the sun, talked politics, i remember the war the first war, the atrocity's, The EU is a hot potato here, there is resentment over romania's acceptance into the European family and Croatia's place in the line, but there are other major issues here from crime to privatisation.

What i hadnt realised is the difficulty that young people have trying to travel, i know im lucky with two passports that allow me very easy access to the vast majority of the western world, but the youth here cant travel to Europe without tedious levels of visa application etc. with that comes the burden of proof of wealth. Is it punitive that Europe still punishes Serbia over the 'missing' war criminals of the Balkan wars over ten years ago? If so it is punishing the wrong people, the youth arguably the future of this region have little connection to the crimes of the past.

Back to the festival, its big, there must have been 60,000 in front of the prodigy i couldnt get within a 1000 yards of the stage, i gave up in the end, and retired to a stage with a view over the Danube.

The site of the festival isnt that big, and tbh the numbers of people are around the size of Glastonbury, its just the intensity of the crowds and the vigour they're going for it. I have to face it im old now, jumping up and down to the prodigy isn't my thing, esp if i have to fight 50,000 for the right to do it, maybe im just tired and cranky?

Going to head out and find some brunch and wifi – am posting from same place i posted from yesterday.