LORDS OF THE MACHINE - Emirates.com

LORDS
OF THE
MACHINE
san francisco’s
pinball wizards
52

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Socotra is quite possibly the most beautiful place you have
never heard of. An otherworldly island of epic scenery, unique
wildlife and a warm and welcoming local population; this is one
of the few places you should see before you die. We take a trip
there with Spanish photographer Juan Herrero, who captures
the essence of the place brilliantly. Elsewhere, we meet a mother
who has travelled the world with her son – and relive the
adventures and misadventures that make independent travel
with a child so rewarding. We also take a trip to Amsterdam,
and one of its most charming streets – Haarlemmerstraat. We
take in Colombo, East London, and meet some of San Francisco’s
pinball wizards. And if all that wasn’t enough, we feature one of
Dubai’s most relaxing areas – Safa Park, an oasis of greenery in
the heart of the city. Enjoy the issue.
edItor-In-ChIef Obaid humaid Al Tayer ManagIng partner & group edItor In ChIef Ian Fairservice
edItorIal dIreCtor Gina Johnson • gina@motivate.ae group edItor Mark Evans • marke@motivate.ae
edItor Conor Purcell • conor@motivate.ae deputy edItor Gareth Rees • gareth@motivate.ae
desIgner Roui Francisco • rom@motivate.ae staff wrIter Matthew Priest • matthewmotivate.ae
edItorIal assIstant Londresa Flores
head of produCtIon S Sunil Kumar senIor produCtIon Manager c Sudhakar
general Manager, group sales Anthony Milne • anthony@motivate.ae
dIgItal developMent Manager Helen Cotton • helenc@motivate.ae
group sales Manager Jaya Balakrishnan • jaya@motivate.ae deputy sales Manager Amar Kamath
senIor sales exeCutIve Rahul Shivaprakash edItorIal Consultants for eMIrates: edItor Jonathan hill
arabIC edItor: hatem Omar deputy edItor: Andy grant websIte • emirates.com ContrIbutors Jeannine
govaers, Terri Kester, carmen Villain, Brittany Shoot, gene x Wang, Jade george, Tahira yaqoob, Farooq Salik,
Kartik Jayaraman, Dan Rowden, Tom cullen, Petra costandi, Lee Marshall, Theodora Sutcliffe, Juan herrero
Cover IMage: gene X hwang
InternatIonal MedIa representatIves: AUSTRALIA/NEW ZEALAND Okeeffe Media, Kevin O’ Keeffe; Tel + 61 89
447 2734, okeeffekev@bigpond.com.au, BENELUXM.P.S. Benelux; Francesco Sutton; Tel +322 720 9799, Fax +322 725
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998 1376, lucia.colucci@fastwebnet.it JAPAN Tandemz Inc.; Tel + 81 3 3541 4166, Fax +81 3 3541 4748, all@tandeminc.com
NEThERLANDS gIO Media, giovanni Angiolini; Tel +31 6 2223 8420, giovanni@gio-media.nl SOUTh AFRIcA
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rtotembrandstories.com
21
Open skies / MAY 2013

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contents / MAY 2013
34
Roy
Lichenstein’s
exhibition
continues
at the Tate
Modern
36
A stroll
down one of
Amsterdam’s
coolest streets
39
Norwegian-
Mexican
experimental
pop singer
Carmen Villain
reveals her
top tracks
42
Bespoke
luxury on the
Indonesian
island of Bali
23
Open skies / MAY 2013
56
A trip through
Safa Park,
Dubai’s (not so)
secret garden
61
America’s most
interesting
museum
64
A London
restaurant with
a difference

CONTENTS / MAY 2013
90
Stunning
photos of the
Yemeni island
of Socotra
80
Italian politics’ new
joker king – Beppe Grillo
FRONT (29)
BITS 30
Question/Grid 32
Calendar 34
The Street 36
Skypod 39
Room 42
Consume 45
MAIN (69) NEWS (103)
Have Son, Will Travel 70
Italy’s Joker King 80
Socotra Journey 90
24
OPEN SKIES / MAY 2013
70
How one
mother is
travelling
the world
with her
child
Our Man 46
BLD 51
Mapped 52
Local Knowledge 56
Place 61
Column 62
Store 64
News 105
Green 108
Fleet 118

SWAROVSKI.COM
© 2013 SWAROVSKI AG

contributors
Tom
cullen
Tom is the awardwinning
Editor-
In-Chief of Mr
Hyde, a daily email
mail-out for men
that focuses on the
latest and greatest
things to do in
London and the
surrounding area.
briTTany
shooT
Brittany Shoot
is a freelance
writer and pinball
enthusiast living
and working in
downtown San
Francisco. She has
written for Time,
The New York
Times and
the Guardian.
lee
marshall
Lee Marshall is a
freelance British
writer who has
lived in Italy since
1984. As well as
writing about
travel and culture
for various US and
UK publications,
he blogs on
Italian society and
politics for the
weekly magazine
Internazionale.
26
Open skies / MAY 2013
Theodora
suTcliffe
London-born
Theodora is
currently living
the life nomadic as
a freelance writer
for publications
including the
Guardian – with
her long-suffering
son Zac in tow.
You can find her at
escapeartistes.com.
juan
herrero
Juan is a Spanish
photographer
whose work has
been published
by Paris Match,
Der Spiegel, The
Atlantic and Vice.
He has lived
in Spain, The
Netherlands and
Cuba, and is also
a contributing
photographer at
Redux Pictures.

Pinball
Wizard
How San Francisco
became the pinball
capital of the world
(46)
36
AMSTERDAM
Take a stroll
down one of
the city’s most
charming streets
FRONT
52
COLOMBO
A Mapped
guide to the
underrated Sri
Lankan capital
64
LONDON
A new
East London
restaurant with
a difference

Bits
Cannes Film Festival
The world’s mosT waTched film fesTival is back,
and This year The line-up is more eclecTic Than ever
StarS / Michael Douglas and Matt Damon, Ryan Gosling, Muhammad Ali, and the Coen Brothers
yes, it’s that time of year again – when film fans around the world look to a town on the southern french
coast. The cannes film festival – running from may 15th to 26th – will feature cinema’s biggest names
vying for the palme d’or. This year’s line-up is particularly eclectic, with the most mainstream offering
probably nicolas winding refn and ryan Gosling’s bangkok gangster film, only God forgives. The rest
of the contenders are equally impressive, with offerings from steven soderbergh, roman polanski, alexander payne
and the coen brothers. we are also looking forward to british director steven frears’ muhammad ali’s Greatest fight,
which looks at the boxer’s refusal to fight in the vietnam war. another film that is generating excitement is steven
soderbergh’s liberace biopic behind The caladabra, starring michael douglas and matt damon. cannes is the first
festival of the season, and is often an indication of what will do well at the oscars the following year. we can’t wait.
www.festival-cannes.fr/en.html
30
Open skies / MAY 2013

Dubai is full
of surprises
When it comes to
planning a summer
vacation, the city of
dubai is rapidly gaining a reputation
as one of the places to be during the
summer months. To further enhance
its position as the ultimate summer
destination, dubai is launching a
major campaign called “summer
is dubai” spread across 13 weeks,
from June 7th to september 7th.
as a city, dubai is built for
summer. it has world-class hotels, a
plethora of air conditioned shopping
malls, water parks and attractions
such as the opportunity to ski
indoors on snow. during “summer
The region’s biggesT
fesTival, summer is dubai,
is nearly here. We find ouT
WhaT’s on offer
is dubai” residents and visitors will
be able to find a wide range of worldclass
events, exciting promotions
and value for money offers such as
amazing hotel packages for families
that include free accommodation for
two children under the age of 12 for
a 3-night stay.
“summer is dubai” begins
with the popular dubai summer
surprises (dss) festival that
transforms the whole city into a
playground of ‘edutainment’ while
at the same time giving families the
chance to grab shopping bargains.
dss will be followed by ramadan
in dubai, featuring events that will
We discover the best places to
sample breakfast, lunch and dinner
in the Lebanese capital page 51
31
Open skies / MAY 2013
allow visitors to experience the
spiritual and serene ambience during
this important month in the islamic
calendar, and also get a true flavour
of emirati hospitality and traditions.
visitors and local residents will
then get the opportunity to celebrate
together in harmony at the eid in
dubai festivities during eid al fitr.
right across the “summer is
dubai” campaign, modhesh
World, an indoor ‘edutainment’
park dedicated to dubai’s
summer mascot modhesh, will
be operational, much to the
delight of families and children.
www.summerisdubai.com
beirut bites

the question
How MAny ping-pong bALLS cAn
FiT inTo A 747-400 Aer0pLAne?
Think this is a question you will never have to
answer? Think again. This has been known to
crop up in interviews for the likes of Google
and Goldman Sachs – the idea being that
the best candidates think laterally,
asking if they can use the space
in the ovens, or the fuel cells in
the wings. Interviewers
also expect some
attempt to answer
literally – so here we
go: the 747-400 has
a passenger volume of 876 cubic
metres, plus a cargo volume of
159 cubic metres, giving a total of
1,035 cubic metres; the balls have
a diameter of 40mm (assuming
we are using Olympic standard
The world’s top eight
darts players (including
Phil ‘The Power’ Taylor,
below) will be taking part
in the Dubai Duty Free
Darts Masters at the
Dubai Tennis Stadium.
The competition will run
on May 23rd and 24th.
www.dubaidutyfree.com
The Act Dubai is the newest
player in Dubai’s growing club
scene. One part club, one part
theatre and one part restaurant,
the venue is open only on
Thursdays, and promises to
bring a mix of trashy glamour
(and Peruvian food) to the city.
Expect a good time (and some
long queues).
theactdubai.com
the grid
32
Open skies / MAY 2013
balls). This totals about 22,870,000 ping pong balls
(give or take a few). If each ball weighs 2.7 grams,
the load would be too heavy for the plane to
take off, which is just one of myriad reasons
why this has never been attempted.
So, if you are attempting to get a
job with a major hedge fund, an
investment bank, or a searchengine
giant, make sure
you know your maths,
and you know how to
think ‘outside the box’.
As for attempting to fill a 747-400
with ping-pong balls, that is a
wholey different matter – although
we presume an order for nearly
23 million ping-pong balls would
entitle you to some form of discount.
Royal Moscow Ballet will be
performing Swan Lake at Dubai
World Trade Centre between May
9th and 13th. In total, 37 dancers
– the cream of Russia’s ballet
talent – will be performing this
classic. A must for culture fans.
swanlakedubai.com
Indie rock legends – Florence
And The Machine – will be
playing Sandance this month;
news that is sure to delight
Dubai’s indie-starved fans.
The May 10th gig will see
the band joined by Keane
and downtempo legends,
Nightmares on Wax.
florenceandthemachine.net

arT By: roy LichTEnSTEin, whaaM! 1963
M ay
CALENDAR
May 22 to 26
PriMavera SoUnd
MUSic feStivaL
Expect the beaches and streets of
Barcelona to be overrun with skinny
jeans, novelty hats and fluoro-glasses
as one of Europe’s biggest and
trendiest music festivals returns. This
year’s indie festival will see the likes
of Britpop legends Blur, nick cave and
the Bad Seeds and the wu-Tang clan
performing across eight stages.
PriMavEraSounD.coM
May 10 to 13
Frieze Art Fair
New York’s foremost contemporary art fair is back this month. Based
on its wildly successful namesake in London, the Manhattan-based
Frieze exhibition will feature 180 different galleries and some of the
most exciting artists working today. There will also be daily programmes
of keynote lectures, panel debates and discussions featuring leading
art-world figures, philosophers and critical theorists.
friEzEnEwyork.coM
until May 27
Roy Lichtenstein exhibition
London’s Tate Modern wraps up its exhibition on the works of pop
artist Roy Lichtenstein this month. The showing has been the first big
Lichtenstein retrospective for more than 20 years, bringing together 125
of his most definitive paintings and sculptures.
Lichtenstein is best-known for his comic-strip style and advertising
imagery, and the exhibition will showcase key paintings such as Look
Mickey and his monumental Artist’s Studio series.
TaTE.org.uk
Place
34
Open skies / MAY 2013
Until May 11
LittLe BLack
Jacket exhiBition
Sometimes it’s the simplest of things
that make the most impact. Take the
little black jacket from fashion supremo
chanel; its versatility as a fashion staple
has inspired some of the greatest minds
in fashion to constantly reinvent it.
Such is its longevity that legendary
designer karl Lagerfeld has produced
a book and exhibition documenting
the history of the garment.
following successful stints in
London, Paris, Milan and new york,
the exhibition highlighting the cultural
impact of the jacket will be on display
this month in Dubai, featuring shots from
Lagerfeld and celebrities including keira
knightley, Diane kruger and carla Bruni.
ThELiTTLEBLackjackET.chanEL.coM
EMP Seattle page 61

the street
Haarlemmerstraat
Running west from Central Station, Haarlemmerstraat/Haarlemmerdijk is a strolling street if ever there
was one. By the time you reach the monumental Haarlem city gate, you may have squeezed your own
orange juice, had your toes nibbled by tiny fish and found the shop you never knew you were looking for.
In this coolest street in town, specialisation has reached a new high: there are shops selling just juices,
just sweets, just wool, just cookery books. Dutch staples like cheese, flowers and bikes are also on offer.
The hours will pass without you even noticing, but it’ll be time well spent. Remember to take your credit
card, because not all shops accept cash.
Words by Terri Kester / Images by Jeannine Govaers
36
Open skies / MAY 2013

Tea Bar
At Tea Bar, customers are
encouraged to smell and taste
before they buy. The scent of more
than 100 types of leaves fills every
corner of this modern, airy place,
where carefully composed gift
packs and novel designs of tearelated
products are also on display.
Not your cup of tea, because you
have a taste for tradition? Then
pop down the road to ‘t Zonnetje
at nr. 45: it’s one big celebration of
traditional coffee and tea.
www.teabar.nl
Haarlemmerdijk 71
Tel: +31(0)20 6233211
Small World Catering
A cosmopolitan, often Englishspeaking
crowd hangs out at Small
World, around the corner from
Haarlemmerdijk. This tiny deli,
endorsed by Time Out and Lonely
Planet, could just as easily have been
in New York or Melbourne, where
the owner hails from. The excellent
home-made sandwiches and soups,
meals and muffins can be taken out,
but many customers stick around for
a chat, especially when the sun shines
and chairs are put on the pavement.
smallworldcatering.nl
Binnen Oranjestraat 14
Tel: +31(0)20 4202774
37
Open skies / MAY 2013
Sukha
The reason why Sukha (‘joy of life’
in Sanskrit) styles itself ‘a modern
department store’ is that everything
in this airy space is for sale. From
fashion to furniture, from the
baskets on the floor to the mirrors
on the wall, every item has been
carefully sought out in countries
such as India, Peru and Morocco,
as well as locally. The lines of
poetry on the window reflect the
respect for products and people
that permeates this special store.
www.sukha-amsterdam.nl
Haarlemmerstraat 110
Tel: +31(0)20 3304001
Art Hotel Dulac
As a hotel, Dulac is a newcomer;
as a bar and restaurant, it’s
been here for many years. The
uncompromisingly modern
atmosphere of this four-star
hotel, with just 22 rooms,
starkly contrasts with the oldworld
charm of the restaurant.
Original artworks grace each of
the rooms, and natural fibres are
used for all furnishings. Best of
all: if you like walking or rent
a bike, all of the city centre is
within easy reach.
www.arthoteldulac.nl
Haarlemmerstraat 120
Tel: +31(0)20 3200220

Jordino
Always wanted a Louis Vuitton
handbag? At this exquisite
patisserie, you can buy one made
of marzipan. Such a bag could also
make a good present for Mother’s
Day: unless your mother would
prefer chocolate stilettos, or some
of the 90 scrumptious varieties of
chocolates. The candy available at
this 20-year-old family shop tastes
as good as it looks, for it’s made
from high-quality, preservative-free
ingredients. Queues build up in
summer, when the emphasis shifts
to home-made ice-cream.
www.jordino.nl
Haarlemmerdijk 25a
Tel: +31(0)20 4203225
The Movies
Few Amsterdammers have never
trodden the art deco carpet of this
100-year-old landmark cinema at
the top of the dyke. The atmosphere
at the Movies, which features four
screens showing both mainstream
and arthouse films, is surprisingly
intimate. Don’t forget to book
for dinner at the Wild Kitchen
restaurant on the same premises,
particularly if you’d like to take
advantage of the dinner-and-film
combination ticket available on
weekdays.
www.themovies.nl
Haarlemmerdijk 161-165
Tel: +31(0)20 6386016
38
Open skies / MAY 2013
Schaak en Go
Winkel Het Paard
A sign of a horse’s head points the
way to Het Paard (‘the horse’),
which specialises in chess-related
merchandise. If you like your chess
vertical, a magnetic board may be just
the thing for you, while the collection
of 5,000 chess books must be one of
the biggest anywhere. Aficionados of
go, bridge, backgammon and poker
also find much of interest here. And if
you have time to kill, a 32,000-piece
jigsaw puzzle of Keith Haring
paintings may solve your problem.
www.schaakengo.nl
Haarlemmerdijk 173
Tel: +31(0)20 6241171

Norwegian-Mexican experimental pop singer
Carmen Villain reveals her favourite tracks
1. 2. 3. 4.
Syd Barrett
Late Night
From my all-time
favourite album, The
Madcap Laughs. He
made it after leaving
Pink Floyd, and it’s
perfect from start to
finish – the lyrics, the
textures, the wonderful
sense of looseness.
Broadcast And The
Focus Group
The Be Colony
From their experimental
album Investigate Witch
Cults Of The Radio Age.
Trish Keenan had one
of the most beautiful
vocals out there – so
cold, but comforting
at the same time.
Grouper
Vital
39
Open skies / may 2013
I’ve been listening to Liz
Harris’ new album, The
Man Who Died In His
Boat, a lot. A beautiful,
melancholic record, and
this song is just stunning.
skypod
Kurt Vile
Never Run Away
One of my all-time
favourite songwriters –
it’s hard to pick an album,
let alone one song. This
is from his latest release,
Wakin’ On A Pretty Day.
Awesome vocals and
great taste.

5.
Kendrick Lamar
... Don’t Kill
My Vibe
I listened to a lot of hiphop
in my teens back in
Oslo. This is new, but it has
that old-school sound to it
that takes me right back to
those days.
6.
Maria Minerva
Fire (featuring
Chase Royal)
One of my current favourite
artists – she’s from Estonia,
but lives in London. Lovely
voice, fantastic beats, and
fascinating lo-fi production.
7. Peaking Lights
Cosmic Tides
I discovered Peaking
Lights last summer, and
have listened to them
constantly since. Their
album Lucifer has helped
me through the cold, grey
winter in London.
8.
Ariel Pink
Mature Themes
There is no one out there
quite like Ariel Pink. His
music is a combination
of out-there weirdness
and perfect pop – in my
opinion it’s some of the
best music written in
recent times.
M AY
CALENDAR
may 23 to 26
Art Basel – Hong Kong
Hong Kong’s thriving art scene receives a boost this month as the world’s
premier modern and contemporary art show, Art Basel, makes its debut in
the region.
Replacing what was formerly known as the Hong Kong International
Art Fair, the four-day event will exhibit works from 2,000 artists across 250
galleries, showcasing everything from paintings to sculptures; drawings to
installations and a range of multimedia projects. The event will be located
on its own artificial island in Victoria Harbour.
hongkongartfair.com
Colombo
40
Open skies / may 2013
Sri Lanka’s colourful
capital page 52

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www.BAlI-UlUwATU.AnAnTArA.coM
the Room
rooM 602
AnAnTArA BAlI
UlUwATU resorT & spA
While most of Bali’s tourist spots, including Seminyak and Legian, have been
gentrified by the arrival of cutting-edge boutiques, thriving beach clubs and
coffee culture, the Bukit Pensinsula (in the country’s far south) remains
relatively asperous. Anantara Bali Uluwatu Resort & Spa is a precariously
perched testimony to luxury in an area still mostly populated by bare-backed
Brazilian surfers on mopeds and the odd organic café. Built in to the soaring
cliff tops above the aptly named Impossible Beach, ocean-front suite 602’s
view stretches across the private infinity pool and out towards the limestone
cliffs and wild waves of the Indian Ocean. A sheer cliff walk takes you down
to Impossible and, in either direction, through ocean caves and rocky
outcroppings along the Bukit coast. The hotel’s Rooftop Restaurant, Bar and
Lounge draws a crowd of well-heeled locals as well as guests in residence,
and a culinary highlight is the in-house Indonesian cooking classes. From
the hotel, it’s an easy drive – via rural rice paddy farms and the occasional
cow – to Bali’s famous Uluwatu temple. Dodge the cheeky monkeys on
your way down to the natural rock amphitheatre to see the Ketcak show,
a traditional Balinese dance and music drama performed nightly at sunset.
42
Open skies / may 2013
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India +91 11 2506 1567
Jordan +962 6 5684 771
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Seychelles +248 225 862 • Turkey +90 212 465 315
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For a complete list of worldwide destinations, please visit thrifty.com
©2013 A licensee of DTG Operations, Inc. or its affiliates.

film
bRoken city
Something is rotten in the Big Apple. Or at least
that is what we can presume from this political
thriller starring Mark Wahlberg and Russell Crowe.
Crowe plays the mayor of New York who hires
a former cop turned private eye (Wahlberg, not
exactly playing against type) to investigate his
wife. As always, things are not as they seem, and
soon Wahlberg is (predictably) sucked into a shady
world of power, politics and violence. This won’t be
winning any Oscars, but there are far worse ways to
spend 109 minutes.
album
45
Open skies / MAY 2013
consume
book
What We
talk about
When We
talk about
the tube
John
Lanchester
The Tube is 150 years old this year, and to
celebrate, Penguin has released a series of 12
books – one for each of the network’s lines. One
of the series’ most interesting books is John
Lanchester’s contribution, What We Talk About
When We Talk About The Tube. He takes the
reader on a informative yet whimsical look at the
Tube – part historical narrative, part first-person
confessional. Lanchester’s writing – as evidenced
in his previous books Whoops! and Capital – is
always compelling, and he brings humour and a
sharp eye to London’s transport behemoth.
Random access memoRies
Daft Punk
Disco dancers rejoice – Daft Punk are back. Yes, the fourth
studio album (their first since 2005) from the reclusive French
duo is here, and it does not disappoint. Expect their usual mix
of twisted funk, electronic weirdness and house mash-ups,
replete with guest appearances from the likes of Pharrell
Williams (who sings on the record-breaking debut single
Get Lucky). Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-
Christo have broken barriers since they burst onto the scene
in the mid-1990s, and this album will be no different.

our man in
Pinball Wizards
Pinball enthusiast Brittany Shoot discovers San Francisco’s
thriving pinball culture and the tournament players ready to
welcome even novice players into the fold
When I moved to
San Francisco 18
months ago, I
had no idea I’d
landed in fierce pinball wizard
territory. I grew up with two
machines, a Bally Paragon and
a Williams Pharaoh, in my
Midwestern basement. Much like
you never forget how to balance on
a bicycle, my hands instinctively
at the ready
/ Pinball is both
a competitive
and welcoming
pursuit
know how to handle a wide-body,
late-1970s pinball machine. But
I hadn’t played a proper game in
at least 15 years when I started
competing in tournaments.
Per capita, San Francisco
might have the highest
concentration of high-ranking
competitive players in the United
States. Many of the men and
women at local tournaments are
within the top 100 players on
the planet, according to rankings
from the International Flipper
Pinball Association. While the
best SF players might test your
mettle during competition,
they’re also just as likely to offer
pointers to beginners. If the
46
Open skies / MAY 2013
Images by Gene X Hwang
robust SF pinball scene surprised
me, the warm welcome I received
from my competitors was even
more impressive.
My experience is far from
abnormal, and I have a couple
of theories about why this
happens. For one, competition
makes us all better. Moreover,
a fledgling game like pinball
can only survive based on
collective demand. Players
need competitors. Collectors
need buyers. Welcoming fellow
pinheads into the fold creates
more opportunities for everyone
— including a truly incredible
array of bars and arcades where
public practice is encouraged.

You can easily spend an
entire day playing pinball in
San Francisco. First stop: Musee
Mecanique at Fisherman’s Wharf,
an arcade filled with vintage
mechanical games and carnival
memorabilia. To beat the crush
of giddy tourists that fill the bayside
warehouse, I arrive right when
the doors open. Dan Zelinsky, the
second-generation owner, glides
up on roller skates to greet me.
As a young boy, Dan’s father, Ed,
started amassing a stockpile of
coin-op orchestrions and antique
slot machines. Zelinsky and his
sons now maintain the collection,
which is open to the public 365
days a year. “I think what’s
fascinating to people is that you
can interact with pinball,” he
explains over the chorus of bling!
bling! that fills the arcade. “Unlike
a video game console, a pinball
machine is something that you can
participate with physically.”
I play a few rounds on an old
Gottlieb Sing-A-Long before I
head back into town. As I leave the
waterfront, I swing into Boudin
Bakery for one of its famous
sourdough rolls. The chewy bun
tides me over until I make it to
Gestalt Haus in the laid-back,
mural-covered Mission District. I
pull up a seat at the bar and order
a kielbasa, side of warm potato
salad, and Delirium Tremens
pale ale — but not before I play a
game of Funhouse. Manager Ryan
Blumenthal is a pinball enthusiast
and rumoured to be responsible for
the rapidly expanding collection of
machines at the back. The line
of players that wait patiently each
night for their turn to plunge the
ball is proof that pinhead manager
or not, Gestalt knows how to tap
into the cultural zeitgeist and keep
local barflies satisfied.
Next, I head for Shotwell’s, a
dimly lit cash-only Mission pub
that’s ostensibly one of the oldest
bars in all of California.
In a nook that houses
side-by-side Medieval
Madness and Theater of
Magic machines, I sidle
up to Eric Wagensonner,
one of the administrators
of the Pinball Map
smartphone locator
app (pinballmap.com).
It’s a natural role for
a location player who
delights in sharing
secrets discovered the
old-fashioned way: by
ambling between bars,
testing out the games on
site, and sampling the
IPAs on tap. Shotwell’s
47
Open skies / MAY 2013
doesn’t offer any bar fare beyond
a basket of pretzels, but prides
itself on being BYOF: bring your
own food. The burritos and fresh
guacamole from nearby taqueria
San Jalisco can’t be beaten.
As we scoop salsa onto warm
tortilla chips, Wagensonner
confides that just two days ago,
a nearby club notorious for its
run-down machines brought in an
Avatar. If we were casual players,
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in the game / Pinball league night at Free Gold Watch in Haight Ashbury
we might care about a new Stern
game in the neighbourhood. But
we smirk at one another and shrug.
There are too many places where
the machines won’t be sticky from
spilled beer or have burned-out
backboard lights. We won’t bother.
Between the Mission
and neighbouring Castro district,
there are dozens of
bars with machines
tucked into an
alcove: Doc’s
Clock, Kilowatt,
Molotov’s, and
Lucky 13, to name
a few. Spending
several hours
moseying between
them all doesn’t
feel retrograde
so much as the
epitome of San
Francisco’s unique
blend of laid-back
attitude and competitive edge. In a
town where everyone has an idea
for the next big tech start-up or a
Between
mission
and castro
district are
dozens of
Bars with
pinBall
posturing hipster pastime
(if not both), there’s an ambitious
undercurrent in everything we do.
But most San Franciscans are
also unusually welcoming and
helpful, embodying a mellow
Californian vibe that takes the
edge off our overly friendly
American tendencies. Pinball – part
esoteric interest,
part practicereliant
skill, part
friendly rivalry, part
collective pursuit
– is an organic
convergence of
core San Francisco
values.
It’s league night,
so Wagensonner
and I make our way
through the fog to
Free Gold Watch,
a screen-printing
and design shop in
the Haight that has ten machines
and counting. There are a number
of pinball clubs in Northern
48
Open skies / MAY 2013
California that host regular practice
nights, but long-time player Per
Schwarzenberger only recently
founded the first San Franciscospecific
league, hoping to encourage
more regular matches in the city.
As Wagensonner and I approach
the door to the cavernous store, we
hear the thunk-thunk-thunk of pop
bumpers and spot our pal Andrei
Massenkoff, a true wizard of the
sport and the 2011 Professional and
Amateur Pinball Association
World Champion. The SF native is
bent over White Water, a machine
with a leaderboard that (like most
in the shop) bears his initials. He
glances up and beckons me to watch
him hip-check the machine. “Do you
know how to release multiball on
this one?” he asks, gently bumping
the console. He might be one of the
best players in the world, but he’s
also just a regular guy who eagerly
offers tips to his friends. I watch
until his final ball drains. Game
over. He steps aside and gestures
chivalrously. It’s my turn now.

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B
Jade George, co-founder
and editorial director
of The Carton food
magazine, shares her
favourite places to eat
out in Beirut
Breakfast
Mikhael Laiterie. It’s where the
dairy-savvy Beirutis go to pick up
fresh laban for their yoghurt-based
dishes like kibbe, stuffed zucchini
and vine leaves, and sheesh barak.
Mikhael is an institution unknown
to many, yet popular among its old
regulars. The setting is a little on
the dingy side but you’ll cosy up in
the first five minutes you’re in there.
Although known for its outstanding
yoghurt, Mikhael is the king of
traditional Lebanese breakfast,
whether it’s eggs baked in a clay pot,
homemade jams, labneh or savoury
pastries. Ask for the eggs with
awarma – a sort of meat confit – and
make sure to leave with enough
jarred goods (and yoghurt) in hand.
Monot Street, Monot,
Beirut
Tel: +961 (1) 327226
B
L
L
Lunch
Beirut’s food scene is never
brought up without mention of
Souk El Tayeb – an organisation
that supports Lebanese
producers and farmers, and
runs a number of restaurants
and farmers’ markets. Souk El
Tayeb’s restaurant Tawlet is a
canteen-like venue on the uberboho
side of town. No matter the
day (except Sunday, when they’re
closed), this hidden gem is always
bustling with an interesting
mix of clientele. As for the grub,
Tawlet – which means ‘table’ in
Arabic – is an all-you-can-eat
affair offering everything from
hot and cold dishes to dessert,
arak and homemade lemonade.
The producer’s buffet hosts a
different cook every day. Be it
a housewife introducing the
traditional food of her village,
a farmer demonstrating what
can be made from his organic
produce or a professional chef
experimenting, you’re always
bound to leave with a huge
smile on your face.
Tawlet
Chalhoub Building, Sector 79, 12
Naher Street, Jisr El Hadeed, Mar
Mikhael, Beirut
Tel: +961 (1) 448129
soukeltayeb.com
51
Open skies / MAY 2013
D Dinner
D
BLD
People do not associate
Lebanon with Japanese
cuisine, but that’s because
Maki is yet to be discovered.
Lebanese founder Mohamed
‘Oliver’ Zeitoun resides in
Kuwait, where he launched
the first Maki outlet. Patrons
in Kuwait City line up outside
asking for cones of fusion
temakis to gobble down in their
cars when all three outlets in the
city are fully booked. Zeitoun’s
father is an olive oil enthusiast
and makes it in limited batches
in the South of Lebanon, which
Oliver then snatches for his
restaurants. Maki’s cuisine is
Japanese fusion, and they source
some of their produce from the
Japanese Ministry of Agriculture
to get their hands on ingredients
that make all the difference to
their offering. Maki has some
killer cuts of raw fish. I secretly
wish that Maki could remain
my private sanctuary, but it
would be a crime for a place
like this to shut down.
Beirut Homes Bldg.
Habib Basha El Saad Road,
Sodeco, Ashrafieh.
Tel: +961 (1) 426222.
olivermaki.com

mapped
Colombo
Hotels
1. Tintagel Colombo
6.914638 79.869581
Awash with vibrant colours, surging crowds and a sun-drenched steamy climate, Colombo holds some
2. Casa Colombo
6. Ministry of Crab
10. Skky Bar
pretty 6.874899 powerful 79.861114 calling cards. But 6.933263 this 79.844275 buzzing, upbeat city boasts 6.921499 79.847681 much more than balmy 6.874899 weather 79.861114 and
a beachside location. In Sri Lanka’s cultural (and literal) capital, contemporary galleries continue to pop
3. The Havelock Bungalow
7. Nihonbashi
11. The Loft
up all over the city, along with a dizzying array of gourmet restaurants, trendy rooftop bars and stylish
6.885588 79.866111
6.920064 79.848028
6.897625 79.855550
6.910731 79.861533
late-night hangouts. Spice-filled food stalls line the pavements, whilst bustling markets provide the
4. Park Street Hotel
8. The Mango Tree
12. Qbaa
16. National Art Gallery
perfect opportunity to put your bartering skills to the test and perhaps bring home a treasure or two.
6.917467 79.858482
6.912499 79.854155
6.887920 79.862123
6.914502 79.864599
www.Hg2.com
HOTELS
01. Tintagel Colombo
02. Casa Colombo
03. The Havelock Place Bungalow
04. Park Street Hotel
06
Fort
09
Colombo
Harbour
10
07
Kollupitiya
Restaurants
5. The Gallery Café
6.898550 79.855246
13
Bambalapitive
05
rESTauranTS
05. The Gallery Café
06. Ministry of Crab
07. nihonbashi
08. Mango Tree
Jinthupitiya
08
11
04
02
16
15
52
Open skies / MAY 2013
Bloumendhal
12
14
Maligawatta
01
Kurunduwatta
03
Bars/Clubs
9. The Brewery by O
6.933263 79.844275
Narahenpita
BarS / CLuBS
09. The Brewery by O
10. Skky Bar
11. The Loft
12. Qbaa
Orugodawatta
Nawala
SEDAWATTA
GaLLErIES
Welikada
Welikada
North
Galleries
13. Saskia Fernando Gallery
6.912499 79.854155
14. Barefoot Gallery Colombo
15. Colombo National Museum
13. Saskia Fernando Gallery
14. Barefoot Gallery Colombo
15. Colombo national Museum
16. national art Gallery
SINGHAPURA

HOTELS
01 Tintagel Colombo
With just ten rooms on
offer, Tintagel makes
the ideal intimate refuge
from Colombo’s noisy
city streets. Several past
prime ministers have lived
here, but it now houses
sumptuous suites, a swanky
dining room and a low-lit
indoor pool.
02 Casa Colombo
With its ornate entryways,
colourful lighting and
individually designed rooms,
Casa Colombo is steeped in
opulence and eccentricity.
At the hotel recently named
best designer boutique hotel
in the world, each and every
feature has been finished
to perfection.
03 The Havelock
Place Bungalow
Hidden down a verdant
side street in the middle of
downtown Colombo, the
Havelock does urban retreat
02
incredibly well. In the hotel,
housed in a restored colonial
building with an idyllic garden
setting, it’s hard to believe you’re
just moments from the city centre.
04 Park Street Hotel
Park Street Hotel pays homage
to bygone eras with its colonial
architecture, carved wooden
doors and extensive collection
of paintings. Many of the deluxe
rooms here feature high-vaulted
ceilings and come with fantastic
views out over the gardens.
rESTauranTS
05 The Gallery Café
Situated at the Paradise Road
Hotel, this restaurant-cum-gallery
is housed in the former residences
of famed Sri Lankan architect
Geoffrey Bawa. Diners can sample
authentic Sri Lankan flavours
along with menu staples such
as black pork curry and jaggery
crème brûlée.
06 Ministry of Crab
Located in an old Dutch hospital,
Ministry of Crab seeks to celebrate
Sri Lanka’s bountiful seas with an
entire menu dedicated to whole
crabs. Diners are encouraged to
get their hands dirty and sample
an assortment of different spicings
and flavourings.
53
Open skies / MAY 2013
08
06
07 Nihonbashi
With a menu inspired by its founder’s
dual heritage, Nihonbashi unites
Sri Lankan and Japanese cuisine. Its
flagship location features dishes like
karapincha tempura, which balance
the delicacy of Japanese fare with Sri
Lanka’s superb native ingredients.
08 Mango Tree
Mango Tree combines the flavours
of north Indian cooking with Sri
Lankan ingredients in sweet-and-spicy
harmony. Dishes like fried cuttlefish
and curried paneer, corn and green
chillies balance robust flavours, fresh
produce and plenty of heat.

ArTiSTiC MeriT / The Saskia Fernando
Gallery showcases contemporary art
bars / clubs
09 The Brewery by O
A perennial hotspot in Colombo’s
bar scene, The Brewery by O is
housed in the old Dutch hospital.
Serving a great selection of beer and
cocktails, this is where Colombo’s
hipster crowd come to party.
10 Skky Bar
Rooftop bars are a staple of
sultry Colombo evenings out,
and Skky Bar might just be the
city’s most stylish open-air venue.
A menu of highbrow cocktails and
light Japanese fare is somehow
even tastier when offset against
panoramic cityscapes.
13
11 The Loft
Home to some of Colombo’s
best cocktails, The Loft is
kitted out in trendy industrial
furnishings, with bar stools
fashioned from old tractor seats.
The bar’s signature cocktails,
like the mint julep and the fruity
matador, go down a treat.
12 Qbaa
Colombo’s small wine-bar scene
has a fantastic new addition in
Qbaa, which stocks an impressive
bottle list and dishes out fusion
cuisine ranging from baked crab
to succulent steaks. Live music
and a rooftop dining area set the
scene for late-night lounging.
54
Open skies / MAY 2013
GallErIEs
13 Saskia Fernando Gallery
Sri Lanka’s contemporary arts
scene is rich but under-profiled,
and the Saskia Fernando Gallery
is working to change this. Visitors
to Colombo can stop by every
day to see pieces by noteworthy
local artists, including painter
Ruwan Prasanna and sculptor
Prageeth Manohansa.
14 Barefoot Gallery Colombo
This multi-disciplinary space
is an ideal spot for a quick dip
into Sri Lanka’s dynamic arts
community. The gallery plays
host to exhibitions, concerts,
poetry readings, film nights and
plays, and also has a café to help
weary culture vultures refuel.
15 Colombo National Museum
Established back in 1877, the
Colombo National Museum
is housed in a stunning
neoclassical building that is itself
worthy of a visit. Sri Lanka’s
largest museum, the Colombo
National Museum displays
historic paintings and artefacts
from the country’s long history.
16 National Art Gallery
Conveniently adjacent to
the National Museum, the
National Art Gallery comprises
of three primary exhibition
spaces – a permanent collection
of portraits and landscapes
from Sri Lanka’s past, and two
wings showcasing the best of
the country’s up-and-coming
contemporary art scene.

LOCAL
KNOwLEDGE
Park Life
ThirTy-eighT years afTer iT was builT on The decaying safa ciTy,
safa park is an oasis of calm in The middle of a busy meTropolis
Think of any major
city in the world
and you can usually
conjure up an iconic
park associated
with it. From Central Park in New
York to Hyde Park in London and
Golden Gate Park in San Francisco,
there is almost always an urban,
green oasis synonymous with the
metropolis it is based in. They are
attractions in their own right as
well as a retreat from the chaos
of city life.
As Dubai’s urban sprawl has
rocketed exponentially, Safa Park
has increasingly become that
heartbeat, a vital greenbelt giving
those who live and work in the city
different air to breathe.
When the park was created in
1975, it was only ever intended to
be one of many public spaces
in the fledgling United Arab
Emirates, founded four years
earlier. Then on the fringes
of Dubai, it was supposed to
clean up an eyesore, a sandpit,
which had become home to the
makeshift dwellings of south Asian
immigrants. Surrounded by desert,
with a couple of standpipes and no
electricity or sewage facilities,
Safa City was unkempt, unsanitary
and in dire need of regeneration.
Dubai Municipality moved the
immigrants to other parts of the city,
demolished the makeshift plywood
village and began sowing the seeds
of the park in place today. Almost as
old as the country it is in, which has
expanded to absorb it as it spreads.
Once on the outskirts, its rolling
green lawns now lie on Al Wasl
56
Open skies / MAY 2013
words by Tahira yaqoob / images by farooq salik
Road at the very centre of Dubai.
Looking at the changes on the
horizon as well as inside the
park is like holding up a looking
glass to Dubai’s astonishing,
accelerated development.
Pictures from the 1970s show
the park’s canopy surrounded by
barren wasteland, with only the
now-defunct Metropolitan Hotel
looming out of the dusty haze
on the landscape and little else
in view other than the old Abu
Dhabi–Dubai road.
Fast forward to 2013, and
the horizon visible from the
verdant bougainvillea-filled
park shows skyscrapers jostling
for space, overshadowed by
the gleaming pinnacle of the
Burj Khalifa, as Dubai reaches
ever skywards.

No city can keep up a frenetic
pace without pausing to catch its
breath. As the American Planning
Association says, parks “act to
define the shape and feel of a city.
They function as a conscious tool
for revitalisation, can stem the
downturn of a commercial area…
and provide a landmark element
and a point of pride.”
So while Dubai’s dizzying
heights can be seen from every
spot in the park, reminding visitors
of the world of commerce lying
beyond, life slows to a leisurely
crawl within the boundaries of the
park’s 64-hectare site.
Visit Safa Park on any morning,
and even before the working day
has begun and you will find that
its running track is bustling with
joggers, yoga and pilates classes
are being held in shaded nooks,
and its restaurants are filling with
those seeking their first caffeine
hit, with visitors representing a slice
of multicultural Dubai.
For a three-dirham entrance
fee, there are picnic areas, barbecue
stations and children’s playgrounds
with a Ferris wheel and miniature
train track. Alongside them sit
three lakes with pedalos for hire,
fountains, waterfalls and forestry
with thousands of varieties of trees
and bushes, from date palms to
acacias and Washingtonia robustas,
water worLd / Boat rides are on offer
for the more adventurous visitors
Literary Life / Sarah Malki, The Archive’s librarian and programme manager
providing homes for the 200-plus
species of birds dwelling there,
including Alexandrine parakeets,
red-vented bulbuls and terek
sandpipers. There are even iguanas
who have made the park their
home and can be seen basking on
the lush grass in the sun.
And more recently, there have
been bustling markets, concerts
in the amphitheatre zand the
newest addition, a treasure trove
of Middle Eastern history and art
books in a library which doubles
as a community centre, with
a coffee shop, workshops and
exercise classes. The Archive,
57
Open skies / MAY 2013
Almost As old As
the country it is
in, sAfA PArk hAs
GroWn to mirror
the GroWth thAt
of the city, Which
hAs exPAnded
to Absorb it As
it sPreAds
opened in November last year by
Ahmed and Rashid bin Shabib, the
owners of Brownbook magazine,
is the most recent development in
the park and gives a new lease of
life to a site traditionally favoured
by parents and keep-fit enthusiasts.
Echoing the ambience of the
Shabib brothers’ other venues, The
Pavilion in Downtown Dubai and
The Shelter in Al Quoz, it lends
a rarefied air for freelancers and
entrepreneurs looking to work
in a relaxed environment, with
floor-to-ceiling windows allowing
sunlight to stream in and offering
tranquil views. At weekends, it is

out and about / Mahmood Qaiser, Alexander McNabb and Dru Campbell enjoying the park’s facilities
packed with families enjoying a
day out or painting at a pop-up
studio on its terrace.
British public relations firm
director Alexander McNabb,
48, is a regular and loves working
there on his laptop as well as
holding publishing workshops.
“There is a whole group of
people here who all know one
another,” he says. “It is great for
self-employed people. I like the
park best early in the morning
before the day begins, when people
are walking their dogs or running
– it is just teeming with life and a
lovely way to start the day.”
Sarah Malki, 26, the Lebanese-
Syrian librarian and programme
manager at The Archive, says it is
an appealing workspace because,
“It gives the impression of being
outdoors and lets in lots of light.”
She adds: “Because it is
in a public park, it is accessible
to everyone.”
Pakistani-born milliner Naz
Nejmi, 32, spends nearly an hour
jogging around the outskirts of
the park.
“I much prefer it to the gym,
because I am out in the open air,”
she says. “I have been coming
to Safa Park for most of my life.
Sometimes at the weekend I
come for barbecues with friends.
It is a lovely way to spend a day,
but I do not think there is a park
culture here yet among young
people, like there is in New York
or in London.”
German Melanie Beese, whose
monthly flea markets near gate
5 attract thousands of bargainhungry
shoppers arriving as early
as 8am, says that is changing.
“People love it because it
is not all about the shopping.
It is a social community event
where you can walk around
and everyone is friendly. The
atmosphere is amazing, and
people often bring a picnic. It
is great to have this facility.”
Last summer, three South
American friends based in Dubai,
and headed by Peruvian Lilian
Velasquez, began organising
cultural night markets in the
park to give a platform to
amateur and professional artists,
performers and craft makers.
Velasquez says she chose the
park because, “In Dubai we do
not have a place where people
can showcase their talent.”
For others, Safa Park is simply
part of the fabric of the memories
58
Open skies / MAY 2013
expatriates form as they go about
their everyday lives.
Australian midwife Dru
Campbell, 39, remembers holding
a picnic on the grass to celebrate
her son Ryan’s first birthday.
Now three, he loves tearing
around the playground, while
his mother finds it “tranquil and
green and safe”.
Lebanese advertising executive
Lina Hajo, 29, has brought visiting
family members to the park, giving
the youngsters a chance to explore
the playground and chase seagulls.
“Sometimes, at the weekend,
we bring our breakfast,” she says.
“It is great for children, and I
love the smell of freshly-cut
grass and greenery. You do not
feel like you are in a city.”
For Pakistani radio station
administrator Mahmood Qaiser,
30, his daily walks around the
park’s perimeter are a time for
quiet reflection and an escape
from the hustle and bustle of
the workplace.
“I can breathe fresh air and
enjoy the trees,” he says. “I love
the fact it is so relaxed, and people
are always friendly. I feel very
comfortable here. It is a little oasis
of calm in the centre of the city.”

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EMP Museum / Seattle
61
Open skies / MAY 2013
place
one of the most interesting museums in north america, the EmP museum is dedicated to music, pop culture
and science fiction. Designed by Frank Gehry and founded by microsoft co-founder Paul allen, the museum has
hosted exhibitions dedicated to everyone from the muppets creator Jim henson to rock legend Jimi hendrix.
Photo: IKartIK Jayaraman

COLUMN
RISE OF THE INDIE MAG
Ink on paper – dead, right? Wrong. A glut of intelligent and engaging
independent titles is keeping the printing presses busy
You may have heard many
times recently that print
is dying. And with a
group of (previously)
big-money publications closing their
print offerings and going digital,
you may think that it is time to say
goodbye to our dear old friend.
But you’d be wrong. We have
entered an age of intelligent, im-
Words by Dan Rowden / Illustration by Roui Francisco
mersive – and quite frankly, awesome
– independent magazines,
although you’d be forgiven if you
hadn’t noticed. The big names
may be feeling the economic
downturn, shutting off their
printing presses and being written
about in the world’s media, but
the “underground” world of indie
magazines is growing – and the
62
OPEN SKIES / MAY 2013
output is quality and engaging.
Titles like Offscreen, Kinfolk,
Apartamento, Little White Lies
and The Smith Journal are
examples of popular independent
magazines with large followings
(from all over the world – this
is not a localised phenomenon),
which sell thousands of copies of
each issue. In fact, most of their

issues completely sell out. These
titles are just a tiny selection of
this ever-expanding segment of
publishing, created by individuals
or small editorial teams who
somehow produce amazing print
magazines on tight budgets.
There’s a new energy and
verve in magazines, and it’s these
independents who are driving
the industry forward, constantly
pushing quality and innovation
levels. The established dinosaurs
of this new world are adapting to
stay in touch – some successfully,
some not.
If you look just behind the
covers of indie mags (don’t worry,
you won’t have to look too far as
there are not many ads in these
magazines) at their mastheads,
you will see teams of two, five, ten.
How do such small teams produce
such great magazines? The
answer is simple and concise, and
here’s the kicker: the digital world
of the internet.
As with other analogue industries
like music and photography,
forced into change during what
we like to call the “digital revolution”,
publishing is now cool and
niche, and being pushed ever
forward by passionate youth with
new ideas.
Without the internet, this print
revolution would likely never
have happened (admittedly, it’s
the internet itself that has brought
on the apparent print downturn).
It’s the power of two of the
net’s great features that has enabled
a new breed of independent
publishers: free knowledge and
self-promotion. Without sounding
like it’s not very difficult to create
a magazine—and I’m exaggerating
a bit to make my point, but
nowadays, if you can use Google,
you can start a magazine. Watch
a few InDesign tutorials, read up
about typesetting, research stock
and printing methods, and you’re
ready to publish.
Thankfully, even with this easily-accessible
information available
to anyone who wants it, the quality
of independent magazines is
mostly incredibly high. This is because
content rules supreme, and
production values are definitely
not an afterthought. Passion for
print is another required ingredient,
and this clan of self-publishers
is overflowing with the stuff.
It costs a lot of money to
print 5,000 copies of your first
issue, and to get to the second
issue you will need to sell a large
proportion of those boxes sitting
in your living room. This will
come down to two
things: producing a
magazine that will
sell, and being able to
sell it.
This is where the
second great feature of
the internet comes in
handy: self-promotion.
Social media is a
brilliant and increasingly
accessible tool,
and clever publishers
use it daily to make
sure they are getting
their magazines out of their living
rooms and into readers’ hands. Can
you imagine what it would have
taken just 20 years ago to produce
something in, say, Australia, and
get it noticed and bought by thousands
around the word? Today,
someone armed with just an image
of their magazine’s cover can post
it instantly across multiple online
platforms, gaining views, website
visits and hopefully purchases
with little effort. The internet has
never been used more successfully
63
Open skies / MAY 2013
we have
entered
an age of
intelligent,
immersive
independent
magazines
as a marketing tool as it is today,
and the publishers who have capitalised
on it are the ones reaping
the benefits.
It’s not just purely about the
printed product anymore, either.
Some publishers are turning to digital
and online reading platforms
to promote their purely print
products. Releasing a teaser (or
even the full issue in some cases)
as a digital preview drives readers
to buy, or at least seek out,
the print copies. There are also
multiple cover blogs, like Coverjunkie
or Magazine Wall, where
impressive amounts of covers are
uploaded monthly, and thousands
of magazine fans are posting their
favourite covers to image-cataloguing
sites like Pinterest. This
is fuelling interest
in obscure titles,
best-sellers and
student projects
alike. Print is
thriving online,
and publishers
who don’t take
advantage are,
quite frankly, fools.
So, when
you next think
about starting a
magazine, just look
around (online).
There are plenty of people who
have been in your position, used
the internet to their advantage
(both to learn and gain exposure)
and created a printed product
that thousands now have on their
bookshelves around the world.
Put down your magazine, log on,
and exploit the information and
platforms that the internet offers.
Everything’s possible.
And don’t worry. Print’s not
going anywhere just yet.
Dan Rowden runs magpile.com

store
There are two kinds of people
in London. There are those
that have eaten at The
Clove Club, and those that want to.
Named after the supper club
that front-of-house team Daniel
Willis and Johnny Smith previously
operated out of their Dalston flat,
The Clove Club’s new permanent
home is inside the stunning Grade
II listed Shoreditch Town Hall,
East London.
Built in 1865, the Town Hall was
for more than 100 years one of the
grandest vestry halls in the city.
The Clove Club
Words by Tom Cullen / Images by Petra Costandi
Having ceased to be the base for
local government during the 1960s,
it is now a popular arts and events
space, run by Shoreditch Town
Hall Trust. But more than that, it is
home to the city’s most anticipated
restaurant launch of 2013.
The story behind the birth of
The Clove Club, which opened
on March 4, is a delightful one.
Daniel and Johnny attended the
same nursery at the age of four
and grew up together. “We both
worked in kitchens,” says Daniel.
“Johnny at Pizza Express, aged 19,
64
Open skies / may 2013
and me at the first Living Room
in Manchester, aged 21. Post uni we
both started working in a restaurant
in Manchester called Croma, then
we moved to London in 2008.”
Shortly after that they met Isaac
McHale at a boat party, in Croatia.
Funny how meetings can change
people’s entire professional lives.
Chef McHale had been trained
by Tom Aikens, and spent six years
working with Brett Graham at
the Michelin-starred Notting Hill
restaurant, The Ledbury. It doesn’t
end there. His CV includes work

at Marque in Sydney, Momofuku
Sam Bar in New York and Noma in
Copenhagen, named World’s Best
Restaurant in 2010, 2011 and 2012.
The three of them set up the
first incarnation of The Clove Club.
“It was in Dan and Johnny’s flat,
in Dalston,” recalls Isaac. “We did
pheasant with pumpkin and some
slow-cooked duck eggs with bacon,
cabbage and chestnut. It went down
very well.”
They hosted three nights in that
flat. All three sold out. All three
received superb reviews. “We did a
Curated bites / The Clove team ask their diners to trust them with the menu, and they will do the rest
few more. One with Penhaligon’s.
One in a disused office in Canary
Wharf. People seemed to like it.”
That’s an understatement.
People were clamouring to eat
their food. Hopeful diners followed
Twitter accounts to find out where
they’d be cooking next, so that they
could lay their hands on the muchsought-after
tickets. This energy,
this excitement, this intensely loyal
following would be crucial to the
launch of the restaurant.
“Then we opened at the Ten
Bells,” says McHale. Isaac, fellow
65
Open skies / MAY 2013
chef James Lowe, Daniel and
Johnny were given a temporary
three-month residency to bring
sophisticated, tasty food to the
East London pub, which happened
to have been patronised by many
of Jack The Ripper’s victims. Chefs,
like Jack before them, made a killing,
and were asked to stay for good.
“Then things went a little crazy,”
says Isaac. “James and I travelled
the world in 2012, appearing at food
symposiums and festivals. Daniel
and Johnny stayed at home and
looked after the Ten Bells. Now

James is off looking for his own
place and we three [Isaac, Daniel
and Johnny] are finally opening our
own restaurant. The restaurant of
our dreams.”
The next question was
financing. “We didn’t want to go
to one big investor,” says Isaac,
“someone who might want a huge
say in how we did things, how it
would look. And we knew that
people were excited by our food, so
we crowdfunded.”
So great was the enthusiasm
for their food that die-hard diners
invested in them. Friends and
family bought into it, sure, but
people they had never met were
convinced by their food to pay for
them to find a venue and start their
own restaurant. “Banks weren’t
lending. People wanted to be
involved, and that way it could be
our little project.”
There was no ‘little’ about it.
A red, green and gold interior was
ripped out and replaced with a
simple, classic design.
In the bar area, tabletops
are made from reclaimed
Georgian timber, while original
boxing-spectator chairs from
the assembly hall’s past life
make up the seating.
Bar food includes a choice of
seasonal plates and larger dishes
designed to be shared. Pick of
the bunch is Isaac’s now legendary
buttermilk fried chicken and
pine salt.
Wander through to the
restaurant area and you’re in
McHale’s territory. Quite literally.
If the kitchen were any more open,
you’d be manning the meat station.
Beneath the high ceiling, cooks
conjure The Clove Club’s smart
dishes. Ogleshield puffs, spinach
and clams with sunflower seeds
and mint, snails and parsley and
roast rib of Hereford beef with wild
garlic aioli.
66
Open skies / may 2013
But the deal-breaker here is
that you don’t choose your dishes,
just as you couldn’t when The
Clove Club was a supper club. For
US$70 you are served whatever
McHale wants to give you – three
starters to share, followed by six
tasting-sized dishes. And it really
could be anything.
Is it arrogant to assume you
know what your diners want?
“Not a bit,” says Isaac. “They were
doing it this way at Chez Panisse
in New York years ago. It’s nothing
new. No, there’s no arrogance. If
we’ve found the best beef butcher
in the UK, somewhere in Cornwall,
then we want people to experience
that. Imagine if they didn’t order
it? Doing it this way means we can
put all our energy into our dishes.
“We can make sure they are as
wonderful as they can be.
“Besides’, he says with a
chuckle, you can order off a menu
in the bar if you don’t trust me.”

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BOLD.SMOOTH.CLASSIC.
SPECIAL EDITION
TENNESSEE WHISKEY

Secret Island
A photographic journey through
the enchanted island of Socotra
(p90)
Open skies / MAY 2013
Main
70
famILy
A mother on her
travels around
the world with
her son
80
POLITICS
A profile of
Beppe Grillo,
Italy’s new
joker king

PROFILE
HAVE BOY,
WILL TRAVEL

For many, an extended trip around the world is a daunting prospect.
Yet, as Theodora Sutcliffe explains, bringing her young son Zac along
for the ride was the best decision she has ever made

When my son and I left
London in January
2010, I had no idea
that we would still
be travelling the world now. I had
planned for a year-long round-theworld
trip. Because, of course, you
can see the world in a year, right?
Since then, we’ve walked to
Everest Base Camp, trekked deep
into the jungle to meet nomadic
hunter-gatherers, dived an undersea
volcano, seen the sun rise over
Uluru, soared in a hot-air balloon
over Cappadocia, goggled at the
Harbin ice sculptures and sung the
Indiana Jones theme tune inside a
deserted pyramid.
We’ve slept in hammocks, in
bamboo shelters, on beaches,
in tents in the snow, and at over
5,000m above sea level and 377m
below it. We’ve experienced temperatures
well over 40°C and below
-30°C, travelled on camels, motorbikes,
horses, tuk-tuks, tricycles,
jeeps and more, and awoken on the
roof of a boat to dolphins leaping
against the sunrise.
Zac spent his 12th birthday
paragliding in Nepal, his 11th at
a theme park in Beijing and his
10th ice-skating in his father’s
home town, Brisbane. He’s driven
a pickup truck, skated on a glacier
lake, walked on the Great Wall Of
China, climbed on the ruins of Angkor
Wat, seen the Parthenon, the
Blue Mosque and Petra, sampled
foods from dragonflies to buffalo
skin and petted animals from
kangaroos to elephants.
We live with extremely little:
typically one bag each. When
something wears out or becomes
climate-inappropriate, we trade it
in for something new.
And, to be honest, I wouldn’t
change a thing.
Well, maybe I would change a
few things.
Zac would be the first to tell
you that planning is really not
my strong suit, and visa mishaps
have been the bane of our
lives. That and anything that involves
parallel parking, or geography.
Yes, despite travelling the
world for more than three years,
I remain unequipped with any
sense of direction and still can’t
reliably tell left from right. When
we were road tripping in Lebanon,
it was Zac, my map-reader, who
had to point out that the reason
the motorway had come to a
sudden stop was that it was still
under construction.
72
Open skies / may 2013
Zac and I had talked about doing
a big trip since we went on holiday
to Mexico when he was a toddler.
We had a wonderful time sleeping
in beach huts, chasing iguanas and
blue land crabs, climbing Mayan
pyramids and giggling at monkeys.
I’d enjoyed his company so
much that I wanted to do a big trip
with him when he was old enough
to both enjoy it and remember it.
So when, after the year from hell in
2009, I decided to take the jump and
actually do this, family and friends
were, well, very cool, to be honest.
My mother is now an eminently
respectable retired headmistress,
but she and my father had travelled
overland to Afghanistan during the
1960s, and as I’d travelled in Mauritania,
Mali and elsewhere during
my university holidays, they were
hardly going to have a fit of the vapours
about me riding a motorbike
to Timor Leste with their grandson
on the back.
Zac’s father was also on board
with the idea, particularly since
Skype enables him to keep in regular
contact with his son. He came
out to see us once in the first year
and we spent Christmas together
in Australia that year. Last year we
flew Zac Bali-Australia-Bali and

Beirut-London-Cairo, so they had
time together in England, France
and Oz. One friend, who had done
a six-month round-the-world trip,
did explain how very exhausting
fast travel can be – she once slept
in a different place each night for
eight nights solid, with journeys
and sightseeing every day. That,
in fact, is one of many reasons that
we now travel more slowly, sometimes
taking houses or apartments
for stops of a month or several,
and alternating that with periods
of fast travel, typically overland.
We spent a lot more time in Dahab,
Egypt, than we’d originally intended
to last year, because it’s a delightful
little town, the desert and
the diving are wonderful, the kittens
are adorable, Zac has friends
there and he can ride a bike around
town and, well, why be in a hurry
to move on?
On longer stops, where we’ll
rent a house or an apartment, we
can absorb more of the culture of
a place, make meaningful friendships
and enjoy downtime. I’ll have
a kitchen to make my own coffee
in the morning, we can cook our
own food and I won’t have to think
about when to do laundry. We’ll
have our local shop that we wander
to, our local restaurants that we eat
at – we become a bit more a part
of a community. And, of course,
we both have more personal space
than we would while, say, sleeping
in a tent.
Although I barely worked for our
first year abroad – I have a blog, EscapeArtistes.com,
which I’ve maintained
since we set off – I now work
as a freelance writer. I’m old enough
We slept in beach
huts, chased
iguanas and blue
crabs, climbed
mayan pyramids
and giggled at
monkeys
to remember not only my first
email but also my first computer,
and I can’t emphasise enough how
much the internet has transformed
the world. I know quite a few travelling
families where one or both
parents work online, be that in web
design, coding, marketing, tutoring,
graphic design, translation or medical
transcription.
73
Open skies / MAY 2013
It’s an alternative lifestyle,
certainly, but the stereotype of
cornrow-braided hippies with
grubby, feral children really does
not necessarily apply, if it ever did.
There is a lot of freedom in this
lifestyle, and a lot of variety.
We can go from skiing in northern
China to trekking in the Himalayas
or diving from a liveaboard,
and the day’s rhythm will be different.
Depending on where we are, we
might breakfast on bacon and eggs,
on roti and dhal, on rice and pickled
vegetables, on yoghurt and honey,
on noodle soup, on ful – the list is
endless. And, no, Zac has never been
a picky eater. And, yes, we do have
innards of steel.
By far the most common question
I get asked in non-Western cultures
is: “Where is your husband?”
Mercifully, I’m thick-skinned
enough not to mind that the response
is often pity. It is unusual
to be a mother and child travelling
solo, but, with very few exceptions
– our situation opens up areas
of society that might otherwise
be closed.
In fact, one of the great joys of
world travel, particularly coming
from a child-unfriendly Anglo
culture, is how very welcoming

TRAVEL TIPS /
CHINA
Even in Beijing and Shanghai,
let alone in less touristic cities,
fairly few taxi drivers speak
English. Carry a card from your
hotel with the Chinese address
and get a local SIM card for your
phone so you can text yourself
the Chinese address of where
you’re visiting, or ring the place
and hand the cab driver your
phone. Google Maps and Apple
Maps are almost equally useless
in China, and Baidu maps are
only available in Chinese.
Carry a guidebook or a print
map. Trains, whether sleeper
or bullet, are a great way to
explore China, though you need
to book a day or two ahead.
In big cities, there’ll always
be someone at the station or
booking office who speaks
English: hotels can also book
tickets for you. Don’t even think
about travelling during Chinese
national holidays.
people are to a mother travelling with
a child.
Other travellers accept us, and
we also meet other travelling families,
both organically and through a ne work
of connections we’ve formed with other
long-term travellers on and offline.
One obvious question I get asked a
lot, typically by people who haven’t
met Zac, is what we do about
his education.
Somewhat to my surprise, the
first response from Zac’s then-headmaster
when I said that I wanted to
take him out for a year’s travelling
was, “Well, that’s fantastic! He’ll learn
much more doing that than he would
do here, but do keep up the Maths and
English.” And this is, basically, what
we’ve done. We loosely use a philosophy
I call “world-schooling”, and
we remain technically within the UK
home-schooling framework.
That means Zac leads his own learning,
which derives from what’s around
him, although we agreed at the get-go
74
Open skies / may 2013
One of the great joys
of travel is just how
welcoming people are
to a mother with a
young child in tow
that he did have to do some maths and
writing, and now his writing has to be
in a range of genres.
He’s visited science museums
everywhere from Kuala Lumpur to
Istanbul, made silver jewellery in Bali
and thrown pottery in Cairo, and when
he wanted to learn physics, I found
him an online tutor. Diving coral reefs
provides an amazing insight into ecosystems,
as does helping out at a turtle
sanctuary and exploring rainforests;
he’s learned about geology in Australia
and the Sinai; and he’s witnessed the
effects of climate change writ very
large in the Himalayas. He’s spent
time in Greece, Turkey, Lebanon,

snapshots /
Zac in Sinai, on
the Great Wall of
China, and with
mum Theodora
on a boat ride in
Borneo
75
Open skies / MAY 2013

Jordan, Palestine and Egypt, so he
knows about some of the ancient cultures
in that region, both the ones he’d
learn about in school in Britain and
others that he wouldn’t, and the common
roots of the three main monotheist
religions.
But the most important element that
long-term travel brings is
his global perspective on
current affairs. He can
see World War II, which
for the typical British
child is a gallant British
battle against Hitler that
started in 1939, in the
context of competition
in the Pacific, the end of
multiple European empires
(not only the British),
and the rise of nations,
as well as from the
British perspective.
That said, we’re not averse to conventional
schooling. Zac agreed that a term
in a Chinese school would improve his
Chinese, which he has been learning for
more than a year, and, though learning
even to speak – let alone read and write
– Chinese well is a lifetime project, he’s
currently in school in Harbin, China.
Which, as you can perhaps imagine,
is also helping with his maths.
CEntral pErk / Zac inside one of the
pyramids in Egypt
The most
important
element that
long-term
travel brings
is a global
perspective on
current affairs
I do wonder how this lifestyle will
shape the man Zac will become. Whenever
I meet people who travelled long-term
as children, or who moved country frequently
because of their parents’ careers,
I ask them how their childhood has affected
their abilities to form friendships
and relationships: so far, I haven’t met one
person who has regretted
it, though, admittedly, it’s
hardly an unbiased sample.
Zac has been back to
England twice since we left,
and the connections with
his old friends seem to still
be there. He has made new
friends as we travel, keeps
up with some of them online,
and makes an effort to
meet up with others when
it’s possible. His approach
to these friendships doesn’t,
in fact, seem that different
to many adults who travel or live overseas.
He seems to be able to pick up the
connections and interact naturally as
though no time has passed, though this
may change in the teen years.
Skype is a godsend for us. He can play
computer games online with friends all
around the world, all engaged in solemn
discussions about which Creeper to slay
from their different time zones.
77
Open skies / MAY 2013
Egypt
If you’re doing a Nile cruise, opt
for a felucca, the traditional
sailing boats, or the paddle
steamer Sudan, rather than a
big cruise boat or a dahabiyya.
Dahabiyyas are supposedly
sailing boats, but in practice
they almost always use their
noisy, dirty diesel engines.
Feluccas are basic, with
absolutely no facilities, but you
can stop where you want and
create your own adventure;
the Sudan is the boat on which
Agatha Christie travelled the
Nile. Aswan and Abu Simbel
are much more Zen than Luxor,
while at Dahshur, as opposed
to Giza, you can climb inside a
pyramid and have it completely
to yourself. It should go without
saying that as a woman you
should dress conservatively
while on the streets: if you’re
a single parent, it’s probably
worth wearing a wedding ring.

The experience of long-term travel with
a child is in many ways richer than that of
travelling solo or with another adult.
I’ll actively seek out activities, from
white water rafting, ziplining and zorbing
to theme parks, spice gardens, bird
gardens, butterfly farms, train museums,
science museums and water
parks that I wouldn’t if
Our relationship
is negotiated,
rather than
dictated, even
more so than is
the norm in one-
parent families
I was travelling solo or
with a partner. And as
Zac grows, he’s more
and more proactive
in terms of choosing
what we do.
Our relationship
has changed and developed
as he’s grown
from a little boy of nine
to a tween.
Travel has not only
made him adaptable but independent:
we’ve done exercises in independence,
be that taking himself to the local shop in
Bangkok, or meeting me at a specific restaurant
in Ubud, Bali. He seems to be thriving
on a long and challenging school day
in a difficult foreign language as an ethnic
minority of one, so he’s hardly tied to my
apron strings.
Our relationship is typically negotiated,
rather than dictated, even more
so than is the norm in one-parent, one-
LIFe sIZed /
Zac about
to tuck into
some Turkish
ice cream
child British families. One example? For
this school project, we discussed what
bedtime and getting up time would enable
him to be well rested, get everything
done, and get some downtime. He settled
on a 9.30pm bedtime and 5.40am wakeup
and, despite the fact that, left to himself,
he’d naturally stay up until 1am and not
get up until 10am, he is
sticking to that.
I don’t have to cajole
him into bed and out of
bed like I did in the UK,
and I suspect that’s because
it’s his choice. He
is committed to this project,
he’s aware that he’s
learning and he’s working
to maximise that
learning.
Will we live this lifestyle
forever? No. Zac wants to go to a
good university, which means he’ll need
an IB (International Baccalaureate),
and I’d like him to have the experience of
high school somewhere with more of a
social side to it than mainland China.
But, for now, we’re both happy,
and looking forward to our next
adventure – Mongolia.
You can follow Theodora and Zac’s
adventures at escapeartistes.com
79
Open skies / MAY 2013
IndonesIa
With more than 17,000 islands
scattered over more than
5,000km, Indonesia takes time
to get around, so pick one or
two areas and focus on those.
In Bali, get out of Kuta, the
tourist zone in the south, which
is like Benidorm or Cancun for
Australians, and head inland to
Ubud, a much better place to
experience Balinese culture.
Bali’s beaches are overrated,
unless you’re a surfer. For
beaches, head to one of the
smaller surrounding islands or
the beaches of another Kuta, on
the island of Lombok. Indonesia
has some of the best diving in
the world, so it’s really worth
trying at least a fun dive, even
if you’ve never dived before.
Scuba is an option for kids as
young as eight.

Profile
THE
MANY FACES
OF BEPPE GRILLO
A former comedian, actor and cabaret performer
has risen from nowhere to dominate Italian politics.
Lee Marshall profiles Italy’s new joker king

A
fter Italy’s February
2013 general election,
the world’s media
turned its attention
not to the narrow overall
winner, under-achieving centreleft
leader Pier Luigi Bersani, nor
to the runner-up, former prime
minister Silvio Berlusconi and his
centre-right alliance.
Instead, the spotlight was
focused on the man who finished
a very strong third and ended up
holding the balance of power:
Genoese comedian Beppe Grillo, cofounder
of the Movimento 5 Stelle
(M5S), or Five Star Movement,
which was running on an anti-austerity,
anti-party-politics, anti-corruption,
citizens’ power platform.
“Clown prince takes Italian election
by storm,” announced CNN.
com. “Beppe Grillo: Italian clown
or new hope?” asked Deutsche
Welle. “Send in the clowns,”
echoed The Economist on its cover,
beneath full-length photos of Grillo
and Berlusconi.
But to stress Grillo’s comedy
past, as these headlines do, is to
play down the impact of a political
revolution that Andrea Teti, Director
of the Centre for Global Security
and Governance, has described in
an article for Egypt Independent as
a potential “Italian Spring.”
The international media has
made this mistake before with an
Italian politician. By focusing on
his off-colour jokes, his un-PC
gaffes, his judicial tangles and his
bunga-bunga parties, the press
outside of Italy has long painted
a picture of Silvio Berlusconi as a
grotesque, priapic joker and stage
villain that nobody in their right
82
Open skies / may 2013
movie days / Grillo and French actor
Coluche during the 1985 Cannes Film
Festival
minds would choose as prime minister.
This is to underestimate the
talent, as well as the danger, of one
of the wiliest political survivors
that Europe has produced in the
last 20 years.
In the same way, it’s equally
easy to dismiss Beppe Grillo as a
charismatic, anger-fuelled standup
comedian who has managed
to translate his electrifying power
over a live audience into the political
arena. To some extent, all
this is true. But the Grillo phenomenon
is more complex than
the ‘comedian’ tag would suggest,
and it’s worth trying to understand
it in depth, because it’s possible
that a version of what Grillo
has achieved in Italy – a piloted,
populist citizens’ revolt – may be
coming to a ballot box near you
sometime soon.

mouthful / Grillo’s oratory style is
all passion and fire, a holdover from
his days on the comedy circuit
83
Open skies / MAY 2013
Beppe in Ten
easy steps
01 The name
‘Nomen omen,’ the saying goes: sometimes, a name can be
prophetic. This is certainly true of Beppe Grillo. Beppe,
a diminutive of ‘Giuseppe,’ suggests a common touch, a
man of the people. Grillo means ‘cricket,’ but also has associations
in Italian with mad ideas, as in the expression
‘ha la testa piena di grilli’ – he’s full of bizarre whims. It’s
difficult to believe it’s not a stage name – but it isn’t.
Back in the day, if you searched for ‘grillo’ on Italian
Google you’d find information about the common
cricket, Gryllus campestris, the Sicilian grape variety
Grillo and perhaps a nod at Pinocchio’s sententious
friend Il Grillo Parlante, known in English as Jiminy
Cricket. Now you have to scroll down through pages
and pages of Beppe Grillo. The first result returned is
always Beppe Grillo’s blog, which is by far the most
widely read blog in Italy.
02 The look
Short, squat and angry, with a mane of unruly grey hair,
Beppe Grillo emanates pent-up power and frustration.
He’s always on the move – during his stand-up shows
and political rallies, he prowls around among his audience,
waving his arms to underline points. He sometimes
gets so carried away that he inadvertently spits at
adoring fans and spectators, and even in formal headshots,
his mouth is rarely closed. There’s a twinkle in his
eyes, but also something diabolical. We’ve always been
fascinated by scary clowns – think of the Joker in Batman.
Most of the time, Grillo keeps this edge of menace
under wraps, but he also knows when to unleash it.
03 The origins
Beppe Grillo was born in Genoa in July 1948, three
months after the Christian Democrats were swept to
power in Italy’s first post-war elections. His father owned
a factory that specialised in metal soldering torches, and
the family was comfortably off, if not wealthy.
After qualifying as an accountant, Beppe worked
for a while in his father’s firm, but it was comedy that
really inspired him. He began working the Italian cabaret
circuit, and in 1976 had his lucky break, when
Italian TV personality and compère Pippo Baudo went
to see him in a Milanese cabaret club. Baudo turned
out to be the only spectator that evening, but Grillo put
on a two-hour show for him anyway, which left Baudo
“shocked at his bravura”.
Soon, with Baudo’s help, Grillo became a fixture of
those interminable variety shows, mixing comedy, sen-

timent, songs and dancing girls, that have always been
a staple of Italian TV. Gradually, he revealed himself to
be a master at playing an audience. He could wind them
around his finger to the point where, even when he
dropped his simpatico mask and revealed a more bitter,
contemptuous side, they would still go on laughing.
The other thing Grillo loved was to see how much
he could get away with. Then as now, Italian TV variety
shows are generally recorded live, with routines
that may be rehearsed but are rarely scripted. With
each TV appearance, the Genoese comedian used the
freedom this format allowed to become bolder, more
polemical and also more experimental.
Until he pushed his paymasters too far.
04 The Rubicon
Beppe Grillo’s defining moment – his personal
Rubicon – came on another Baudo-hosted prime-time
variety show, Fantastico, in 1986. This was five years
before the explosion of Mani Pulite, the kickbacks
scandal that brought down the then Italian prime
minister Bettino Craxi, and destroyed the parties
that had dominated Italian politics since the Second
World War: Craxi’s own Socialists, and the Christian
Democrats of Giulio Andreotti.
All this was in the future, however, when Grillo
began to tell a joke about the Italian Socialists, a delegation
from which had recently been on an official visit
to the People’s Republic of China. Grillo has Claudio
Martelli, then Craxi’s right-hand man, turn to his boss
on arrival in Beijing, with the question: “But wait a
minute – if there are a billion people in this country,
and every one of them is socialist – then who are they
stealing from?”.
Grillo was dropped by RAI (Italy’s state broadcaster)
like a hot potato. The weak point in what has
become a foundation stone of the ‘Grillo vs the establishment’
legend is the fact that the comedian was back
on RAI less than two years later. But it’s true that his
TV appearances after the Fantastico incident became
increasingly sporadic. The truth seems to be that Grillo
was already moving on from a medium that he clearly
despised (on one of his final RAI appearances, he
branded those watching at home as “18 million imbeciles”).
Before long, he began to explore other outlets
– the street, the piazza, and the big tent – for a brand of
political satire that was becoming ever more polemical.
And yet, then as now, he refused to be branded as
a man of the left or of the right, attacking both sides
with equal gusto. At times he sounded like a guy on a
soapbox at Hyde Park Corner – except that, across the
country, he had an audience of millions. The ideas he
threw up during his shows ranged from widely-shared
critiques of, for example, what he saw as Italy’s corrupt,
overpaid political class, to slightly cranky per-
sonal campaigns like the promotion of zero-detergent
‘biowashball’, which in a consumer magazine’s test was
shown to have more or less the same cleaning power as
washing one’s clothes in plain hot water.
05 The associaTe
It wasn’t until 2004 that Grillo began to translate
his fury against the system into political action.
This was the year he met Gianroberto Casaleggio, a
Milan-based web guru with hair even wilder than
Grillo’s. Casaleggio is sometimes viewed as the eminence
grise of the Movimento 5 Stelle, the man pulling
Grillo’s strings. What is certain is that Casaleggio inspired
Grillo, previously a techno-Luddite who went
through a phase of destroying a personal computer on
stage at the end of his shows, to reconsider the Inter-
84
Open skies / may 2013
close encounter
/ Pier Luigi Bersani
was Grillo’s main
opponent during
the elections
ADoreD / Grillo addressing his supporters at a rally
in Rome

net as a tool for bypassing standard forms of political
expression and aggregation.
Casaleggio also provided the technical and strategic
knowhow that allowed the comedian to launch
his blog, Beppegrillo.it, in January 2005. It was an instant
hit, and by 2007 was the seventh most popular
blog in the world, though it was written in a language
that is not widely spoken outside of Italy – a country,
moreover, where fewer than 40 per cent of households
have access to a computer.
06 The movemenT
With the blog going viral within Italy and some of
Grillo’s posts attracting over 10,000 comments, it
soon became clear to Grillo and Casaleggio that there
was a need to channel the wave of support that they
had unleashed. It was proposed that activists – initially
known as ‘Friends of Beppe Grillo’ – should use
the social network Meetup to organise local groups
and, in the comedian’s words, “to discuss and develop
my blog posts”. In what would become a defining
trait of the movement, debate was free but under the
watchful eye of Grillo, who would be the final arbiter
of all decisions, develop the movement’s statute and
rules and, occasionally, expel activists considered to
have transgressed.
Initially, meetings revolved around environmental
themes – particularly the need for clean and sustainable
forms of waste disposal – and calls for greater
political transparency, accountability and citizens’
participation in government. As in other grassroots
protest movements, from Occupy to the Arab Spring,
social media contacts fuelled real-life encounters and
activism. The Italian media began to take notice of
Grillo’s followers, who were dubbed, with a touch of
condescension, grillini (little crickets).
Though he railed against what he saw as media lies
(“the press is paid to slander us”, is one of his many
pronouncements on the subject), Grillo is himself an
able stager of attention-grabbing events and stunts.
The 2007 Bologna rally that established the ‘grillini’ as
a force to reckon with was known as ‘V-day’ – a reference
to a well known Italian swear word, used as an
invitation to a political class that Grillo and his followers
considered to be corrupt and out of touch with the
electorate to pack their bags and leave. Later, on the
eve of the Sicilian regional elections in October 2012,
Grillo swam the three kilometres across the Strait of
Messina from Calabria to Sicily – a stunt that critics of
the comedian compared to the elderly Chairman Mao’s
propaganda-coup swim in the Yangtze River of 1966.
In October 2009, with the number of activists growing
by the hour, Grillo and Casaleggio organised the
loose network of civic lists into the Movimento 5 Stelle.
The ‘five stars’ of the name stand for the movement’s
85
Open skies / MAY 2013
YesterdaY’s man
/ A ripped poster
of Silvio Berlusconi
during the election in
Livorno
five priorities: access to clean public water, sustainable
transport, local development, telecoms connectivity
and protection of the environment.
Over the next couple of years, M5S lists managed
to place a few local and regional councillors in north
and central Italy. But it was only when a M5S candidate,
Federico Pizzarotti, was elected mayor of Parma
in May 2012 with 60 per cent of the vote in a run-off
against a traditional centre-left candidate that Italians
began to think of the ‘grillini’ as more than just a fringe
‘anti-politics’ protest movement.
In the February 2013 Italian general elections, M5S
ended up polling a remarkable 25.5 per cent in the
lower house Camera dei deputati and 23.79 per cent
in the Senate. In the lower house, this was more than
any other party; but the electoral alliances of the rival

Face oFF / Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti on the Porta A Porta TV show before the election
blocs, coupled with Italy’s complex electoral laws,
meant that Grillo’s movement, which has always steadfastly
refused to make binding deals with other parties,
came in third in both houses in terms of its number of
seats. Still, with neither Bersani’s centre-left alliance
nor Berlusconi’s centre-right bloc holding a working
majority in the Senate, the grillini held the balance of
power – and at the time of writing, the stalemate was a
long way from being resolved.
In line with the movement’s rules, M5S has declared
that it will not accept its share of the public funding
that the Italian state doles out to parties according to
their electoral strength – a sum of well over 100 million
euros. M5S parliamentarians will also be taking
a cut in salary and expenses, though the movement’s
programme promise that its elected representatives’
salaries should be “in line with the average national
wage” – currently around 1,400 euros net according to
national statistics institute ISTAT – has given rise to a
lively debate within the movement.
Interestingly enough, Grillo will not be among those
parliamentarians. The movement’s statute forbids anyone
with criminal convictions from standing for office.
And in 1988, Grillo received a suspended 14-month sentence
for manslaughter for a 1981 accident in which the
jeep he was driving slid on ice on a mountain road and
fell into a gully, killing two of the comedians’ friends and
their nine-year-old son. Grillo had managed to open the
door and throw himself to safety at the last minute.
07 The TesTimonial
On 19 February 2013, during a campaign rally in Milan,
Beppe Grillo received his highest-profile testimonial to
date: from Italian Nobel prize-winning playwright Dario
Fo, who told the crowd that the rally reminded him of
an anti-Fascist demonstration he had attended after the
end of the war in 1945. “Back then we didn’t get the Italy
we wanted – now it’s your turn to try!” he exhorted. Fo
has since published a book of conversations with Grillo
and Casaleggio. He has also, in interviews, drawn a line
from Grillo back through himself to the giullari – court
jesters or wandering entertainers – of medieval Italy.
“He is from the tradition of the wise storyteller”,
Fo said after the Milan rally, “one who knows how to
use surreal fantasy, who can turn situations around,
who has the right word for the right moment, who can
transfix people when he speaks, even in the rain and
the snow.”
08 The criTicisms
There is one overriding criticism of the movement
founded by Grillo: that beneath its veneer of web-based
democracy, this is an autocratic, top-down organisation
entirely controlled by one man – or rather two, given
Casaleggio’s important behind-the-scenes role. There’s
a certain truth to this. Grillo is president and legal representative
of M5S, and holds exclusive rights to its
symbol and logos. The movement has its own independent
website, but it’s revealing that, according to web information
company Alexa, this ranks only 4,893 among
Italian websites, while Grillo’s blog, which M5S activists
continue to view as their real online home (and which is
named as such in the movement’s ‘non-statute’), comes
in at number 43.
86
Open skies / may 2013

While policies are debated enthusiastically by the
rank and file, Grillo has the final word on many issues,
and uses his blog posts to issue guidelines and rules
– such as the blanket ban on TV appearances by M5S
members during the election campaign. When Federica
Salsi, a M5S local councillor in Bologna, defied the ban
to go on a talkshow, Grillo expelled her from the movement,
together with a regional councillor, Giovanni
Favia, whose off-air comment that “Casaleggio is manipulating
us all … there’s no democracy in the movement”
provoked one of Grillo’s more strident online outbursts:
“If anyone thinks I’m anti-democratic … or dishonest,
then they should get the hell out of here,” he fulminated.
Other critiques of Grillo have focused on the fact
that, although the M5S has attracted a large proportion
of disaffected left-wing support, his brand of anti-austerity,
pro-patria populism is not a million miles
from that of far-right parties such as Greece’s Golden
Dawn. Grillo’s pronouncements on immigration, for
example, have been contradictory.
He berates Italy for its treatment of asylum seekers,
but back in 2007 he wrote: “Every day I receive hundreds
of letters on Roma gypsies, it’s a time bomb, and
must be defused. The borders of the fatherland used to
be sacred, politicians have desecrated them”.
Finally, there’s the accusation that M5S’s much
-vaunted web-based model of democracy is no more
than window-dressing. When online primaries were
held in December 2012 to select the party’s parliamentary
candidates, only just over 20,000 of the movement’s
250,000 estimated members actually bothered to vote.
09 The plaTform
The 28 points in the pre-electoral manifesto of Beppe
Grillo’s Movimento 5 Stelle were all prefaced by ‘Not in
my name’. They included:
* Not in my name will the welfare state be dismantled
* Not in my name will political parties receive a single
euro more of public funding
* Not in my name will Italy remain in the euro without
consulting the electorate
* Not in my name will our small and medium industries
be destroyed
* Not in my name will large retail chains destroy
local shops
* Not in my name will those seeking political asylum be
treated like cattle
* Not in my name will Italy ever again take part in other
people’s wars, as it did in Afghanistan and Libya
* Not in my name will high-ranking public officials be
awarded salaries fit for a king
* Not in my name will Italy be squeezed dry to purchase
our public debt from French and German banks
* Not in my name will people be forced to remortgage
their homes to meet tax bills, nor will their main residences
be subject to property taxes
10 The one-liners, funny and serious
* Who do you find in criminal gangs today? If you look
hard, they’re made up of bankers, politicians, magistrates
and perhaps, just very occasionally, a real criminal.
* Italy is a country of cheats and tricksters. I was in
Rome, on a bus, and I stamped my ticket, click-clack.
The driver turned around and said: “What the hell
was that noise?”
* My daughter asked me if she could do a screen test
for Saranno famosi [Italy’s version of the TV talent
show Fame]. I said to her, “can’t you just do drugs like
everyone else and have done with it?”
* The Internet is one of the few glimmers of hope we
have for standing up for ourselves, and restoring to
politics the spaces stolen from it by economics.
* We don’t need power stations that produce a million
megawatts. We need a million citizens producing a
watt each. [Writer’s note: the maths is Grillo’s own.]
88
Open skies / may 2013
Lee Marshall is a writer and journalist based in Italy
who writes for the weekly Internazionale.

JUAN HERRERO'S STUNNING SHOTS REVEAL THE
MAGIC OF THE YEMENI ISLAND OF SOCOTRA

GREETINGS

Fishermen handling a shark they captured in Ras Irsel, the deserted easternmost point
of the island. Fishing has traditionally been the primary occupation of the people of
Socotra along the coasts. The waters of the island are crammed with all kinds of fish
and some rare species, such as the Acropora palifera and Rhincodon, which is only
found on Socotra
SHARK TALE

95
Open skies / january 2013

DRAGONs'
FOREST
A DRAGON BlOOD TREE FOREST FAciNG
DiRhuR RivER vAllEy. ThE DRAGON BlOOD
TREE iS A SOcOTRAN icON AND ONE OF
ThE mOST STRikiNG plANTS ON ThE iS-
lAND. ThiS STRANGE-lOOkiNG TREE iS
ONE OF iTS cOuNTlESS ENDEmic SpEciES.
ThE DRAGON BlOOD’S RED SAp hAS BEEN
uSED AS mEDiciNE AND DyE FOR huNDREDS
OF yEARS. ExpERTS SAy ThE FuTuRE OF
ThE SpEciES iS ThREATENED mAiNly DuE
TO climATE chANGE which hAS lED TO
pOOR REpRODucTiON OF ThE TREE

THe WALK
Descending from the humid rainforests of the Haghier
mountain highlands, still far from the southern coast, sky
and land open in a hotter savannah-like landscape which
lead the way through valleys to the crisp blue ocean. These
prairies are dotted with small stone villages, in most cases
just a few clustered houses shared by extended families.
Two men from the mountain villages lead our way to
a house, where we share a meal of goat and rice, as well as
find shelter from the cold night

99
Open skies / january 2013

PARADISE
Along the deserted north-eastern coastline, the massive dunes of Arher rise up steep
cliffs facing the Aden sea. Crossing between the dunes are fresh water streams that
originate in the mountains above, making the landscape even more surreal

EXPERTISE YOU
CAN TRUST.
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T +971 4 435 9999
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T +971 4 449 5111
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T +971 4 379 7711
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T +971 4 453 4020
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T +971 4 282 7788
welcarehospital@mediclinic.ae
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T +971 4 288 1302
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T +971 4 453 4040
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Mediclinic Al Qusais
T +971 4 258 6466
qusais@mediclinic.ae
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T +971 4 366 1030
sufouh@mediclinic.ae
MOH 1622230613

BRIEFING
106
NEW ONLINE
Introducing the
sleeker and more
user-friendly
online portal
108
SOLAR FLIGHT
The Solar
Impulse
prepares for its
next voyage
114
ROUTE MAP
Discover
the world as
connected by
Emirates
Trans-Atlantic
Emirates launches a new daily trans-
Atlantic fl ight from Italy to the US
(106)

• Contract Drafting & Review
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WITH AFFILIATE OFFICES IN SAUDI ARABIA,
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Perfect timing
Don’t miss your next Emirates flight.
Make sure you get to your boarding gate on time.
Boarding starts 45 minutes before your flight and
gates close 20 minutes before departure. If you
report late we will not be able to accept you for travel.
Thank you for your cooperation.
NEWS
ConCourse A
by The numbers
Emirates’ impressive new A380 hub at Dubai International Airport
is the first facility of its kind in the world. Let’s crunch the numbers:
Dhs12
billion
cost of construction
14
restaurants
528,000m 2
size of the facility
2552
seating capacity in the
Business Class Lounge
105
Open skies / MAY 2013
1491
seating capacity in
the First Class Lounge
15
million
annual passenger capacity

EmiratEs and thE magpiEs
There are no bigger teams
in Australian sport than the
Emirates-sponsored Aussie rules
giants Collingwood FC.
Affectionately known as the
Magpies, the Melbourne-based
team is the most supported club
of any sport in Australia and one
of the most successful teams in
the history of the AFL – with an
enviable 15 premiership titles to
their name.
With the season recently
under way the Magpies have
started well, and are gearing up
for this month’s clash against
bitter rivals the Geelong Cats on
May 18 – a game that is expected
to attract around 80,000 fans to
their home ground the MCG.
nEw transatlantic
flight
STarTing laTer ThiS year Emirates will launch a
new trans-Atlantic daily flight connecting mainland
Europe and North America.
The non-stop route from Milan’s Malpensa
Airport to New York JFK is scheduled to launch
on October 1.
Customers looking to fly on the award-winning
airline will be able to seamlessly connect from
points all over the US, including the West Coast,
taking advantage of Emirates’ partnership with
JetBlue, and across Europe, maximising the airline’s
frequent flyer partnership with easyJet.
Operating with a Boeing 777-300ER, the flight
will be an extension of one of Emirates’ existing
three daily, Dubai to Milan flights.
Emirates is proud to be
continuing their partnership
with the club, which started
back in 1999 when the airline
had only one daily flight between
106
Open skies / MAY 2013
Dubai and Australia. Today
Emirates offers 84 weekly flights
to Australia including daily A380
services to both Melbourne
and Sydney.
UpdatEs to
EmiratEs.com
alwayS looking To make things that little bit
easier, Emirates has revamped its website making
it simpler for customers to manage their Emirates
Skywards account, flights and redemptions.
Emirates.com’s newly designed account section
now allows Emirates Skywards members to manage
a booking, upgrade a ticket and check-in online
while monitoring their miles balance and browsing
through the different benefits of membership.
Currently the content, information and FAQs
about the programme are available in 16 languages.

green
Soaring Solar power
The world’s firsT solar-powered plane,
Solar Impulse, has announced that it will
attempt to carry out a fuel-less coast-tocoast
flight across the US later this year.
Following on from its impressive
5,000km fuel-less round trip between
Switzerland and Morocco last year,
the team behind the high-tech aircraft
has declared its intentions to fly from
a booSt for
biofuelS
researchers aT The US Department
of Energy (DOE) have announced a
possible breakthrough to help boost
sugar yields in the ongoing quest to
develop sustainable biofuels.
A recent announcement from the
Joint Bioenergy Institute (JBEI) – a
DOE subsidiary – claims that they
have successfully engineered a way to
cost-effectively extract a higher level
of organic sugar from plants, allowing
for a larger yield, which in turn can be
used to produce advanced biofuels.
The research has focused on
engineering healthy plants whose
lignocellulosic biomass – the most
abundant organic material on Earth
– can be broken down into simple
three
number of hours a standard tV could be run on the
energy saVed by recycling one aluminium can
(source: recycling-reVolution.com)
Moffett Field in Mountain View,
California — the home of NASA’s
Ames Research Centre – to New York,
powered only by solar panels.
The single-seater prototype aircraft
– piloted by the Swiss explorer and
aviator Bertrand Piccard – only weighs
1,600 kilos but has the same wingspan
as an Airbus A340 (approx 60m).
Because of its size, the aircraft will fly
at a relatively low altitude of 6,000 feet
amd a cruising speed of about 69km/h.
Although solar-powered commercial
aircraft may still be a thing of the future,
the continual success of the Solar
Impulse is a step in the right direction.
If all goes well, the team intends to
attempt a round-the-world flight in 2015.
sugars, which will then increase the
amount of fuel sugars available to
produce advanced biofuels.
The US Environmental Protection
Agency announced that 77.6 million
gallons of biodiesel were produced in
February this year, meaning that the
US has exceeded its biodiesel targets
for two consecutive years.
108
Open skies / MAY 2013
89%
the amount paper recycling has increased since 1990
(source: dosomething.org)
a greener
tomorrow –
Quick update
emiraTes’ laTesT
environmenTal initiative
‘A Greener Tomorrow’ has
got off to a fast start.
This is the first time Emirates
has rolled out such an initiative,
and the aim is to support a
not-for-profit environmental
or conservation organisation
by providing a funding award
of $150,000, helping them
to achieve positive
environmental outcomes.
To date, the Greener
Tomorrow team has received
hundreds of enquiries and a
significant number of applications
from groups all over the world,
covering a diverse range of
environmental themes.
The initiative received
a great deal of interest
from Emirates’ Facebook
fans, with more than 22,000
people engaging with the post
and many fans choosing to
nominate organisations about
which they are passionate.
Visit the website and
Facebook page for updates
on the shortlisted groups.
The winning organisation
will be announced on World
Environment Day, June 5.

P.O. Box.17684, S3-1221 Jebel Ali Free zone Dubai UAE
Tel: + 971 4 880 7995, Fax: +971 4 880 7996, E-mail: info@sourcerite.ae
www.twitter.com/FitFlopME || www.facebook.com/FitFlopMiddleEast
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Sport, Courir, Debenhams, Galaxy Sports, Shoe Mart, Blue Salon, The Athletes Foot, Shoe Citi, Ozone || UAE : Beyond the
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Iconic, Matjar Al Watani, U-Mark, Sport One, Zahid Trec, The Athletes Foot, Sun & Sand Sports, Go Sports.

COMFORT
Comfort
in the air
smart traveller
drink plenty of water
rehYDrAte With WAter or Juices frequentlY.
Drink teA AnD coffee in moDerAtion.
travel lightly
cArrY onlY the essentiAl items thAt You
Will neeD During Your flight.
wear glasses
cABin Air is Drier thAn normAl therefore
sWAp Your contAct lenses for glAsses.
use skin moisturiser
ApplY A gooD quAlitY moisturiser to ensure
Your skin Doesn’t DrY out.
keep moving
exercise Your loWer legs AnD cAlf
muscles. this encourAges BlooD floW.
make yourself comfortable
loosen clothing, remove JAcket AnD AvoiD
AnYthing pressing AgAinst Your BoDY.
to help you arrive at your destination feeling
relaxed and refreshed, emirates has developed
this collection of helpful travel tips regardless
of whether you need to rejuvenate for your holiday
or be effective at achieving your goals on a business
trip, these simple tips will help you to enjoy your
journey and time on board with emirates today.
110
Open skies / MAY 2013
Before Your JourneY
Consult your doctor before travelling
if you have any medical concerns
about making a long journey, or
if you suffer from a respiratory or
cardiovascular condition.
Plan for the destination – will
you need any vaccinations or
special medications?
Get a good night’s rest before
the flight.
Eat lightly and sensibly.
At the Airport
Allow yourself plenty of time for
check-in.
Avoid carrying heavy bags through
the airport and onto the flight
as this can place the body under
considerable stress.
Once through to departures try and
relax as much as possible.
During the flight
Chewing and swallowing will help
equalise your ear pressure during
ascent and descent.
Babies and young passengers may
suffer more acutely with popping
ears, therefore consider providing
a dummy.
Get as comfortable as possible when
resting and turn frequently.
Avoid sleeping for long periods in
the same position.
When You Arrive
Try some light exercise or read if
you can’t sleep after arrival.

p.c. Studio - Photo Tommaso Sartori
Anne, the creative director, and the two loves of her life: Jacob and Michel. Michel is designed by Antonio Citterio
www.bebitalia.com
B&B Italia Showroom: Jumeirah Beach Road, Dubai - UAE Tel: +971 4 346 6932
Baituti Showroom: Zaabeel Road, Dubai - UAE Tel: +971 4 334 4478
bebitalia@baituti.com www.binhendi.com
DESIGN PORTRAIT.

VISA & STATS
Guide
to Us cUstoms & immigration forms
Whether you’re travelling to, or through, the United States today, this simple guide to completing the US
customs and immigration forms will help to ensure that your journey is as hassle free as possible.
immigration form to cHange
From 30th April to May 21st, the paper
immigration Form I-94 (Arrival/
Departure Record) will be gradually
phased out.
Passengers who previously needed
the I-94 will be provided with a
Customs and Border Protection
admission stamp on their travel
document. This will act as an Arrival
Record. The phase out process will
happen gradually over the month of
May and depends on your destination.
The following dates and destinations
mark the start of the new process,
when paper forms will no longer
be required:
customs declaration form
All passengers arriving into the
US need to complete a Customs
DeClaration Form. If you are
travelling as a family this should be
112
Open skies / MAY 2013
CABIN CREw wILL BE HAPPY
TO HELP IF YOU NEED ASSISTANCE
COMPLETINg THE FORMS
The forms will be phased
ouT as follows:
may 07: Flights to New York & Houston
may 14: Flights to San Francisco TUS,
Seattle and Los Angeles
may 21: Flights to all remaining
destinations
After May 22nd it will no longer be
necessary for passengers to fill out
paper forms on their arrival in the
United States by air.
On exiting the United States at any
time, passengers issued a paper I-94
should surrender it upon departure.
completed by one member only. The
form must be completed in English,
in capital letters, and must be signed
where indicated.

ELECTRONIC SYSTEM FOR
TRAVEL AUTHORISATION (ESTA)
If you are an international traveller wishing
to enter the United States under the Visa
Waiver Programme, You must apply for
electronic authorisation (ESTA) up to 72
hours prior to your departure.
ESTA FACTS:
Children and infants require an
individual ESTA.
The online ESTA system will inform
you whether your application has
been authorised, not authorised or
if authorisation is pending.
A successful ESTA application is valid
for two years, however this may be revoked
or will expire along with your passport.
APPLY ONLINE AT WWW.CBP.GOV/ESTA
NATIONALITIES ELIGIBLE FOR
THE VISA WAIVER*:
Andorra, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brunei,
Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland,
France, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland,
Italy, Japan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania,
Luxemburg, Malta, Monaco, The Netherlands,
New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, San Marino,
Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South
Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the
UnitedKingdom**
* SUBJECT TO CHANGE
** ONLY BRITISH CITIZENS QUALIFY UNDER
THE VISA WAIVER PROGRAMME.
113
OPEN SKIES / MAY 2013

ROUTE MAP
114
OPEN SKIES / MAY 2013

115
OPEN SKIES / MAY 2013

116
Open skies / MAY 2013

WHERE ARE
YOU GOING?
TELL US OR UPLOAD A PIC AT
FACEBOOK.COM/OPENSKIESMAGAZINE
TWITTER.COM/OPENSKIESMAG
117
Open skies / MAY 2013

FLEET
The Fleet
Our fleet cOntains
204 planes Made up
Of 193 passenger
planes and
11 cargO planes
Boeing 777-300eR Number of Aircraft: 88 Capacity: 354-442 Range: 14,594km Length: 73.9m Wingspan: 64.8m
Boeing 777-300 Number of Aircraft: 12 Capacity: 364 Range: 11,029km Length: 73.9m Wingspan: 60.9m
Boeing 777-200LR Number of Aircraft: 10 Capacity: 266 Range: 17,446km Length: 63.7m Wingspan: 64.8m
Boeing 777-200 Number of Aircraft: 9 Capacity: 274-346 Range: 9,649km Length: 63.7m Wingspan: 60.9m
Boeing 777F Number of Aircraft: 8 Range: 9,260km Length: 63.7m Wingspan: 64.8m
For more inFormation: www.emirates.com/ourFleet
118
Open skies / MAY 2013

Airbus A380-800 Number of Aircraft: 34 Capacity: 489-5 17 Range: 15,000km Length: 72.7m Wingspan: 79.8m
Airbus A340-500 Number of Aircraft: 10 Capacity: 258 Range: 16,050km Length: 67.9m Wingspan: 63.4m
Airbus A340-300 Number of Aircraft: 7 Capacity: 267 Range: 13,350km Length: 63.6m Wingspan: 60.3m
Airbus A330-200 Number of Aircraft: 23 Capacity: 237-278 Range: 12,200km Length: 58.8m Wingspan: 60.3m
boeing 747-400F/747-400erF Number of Aircraft: 1/2 Range: 8,232km/9,204km Length: 70.6m Wingspan: 64.4m
aircraft numbers as of 30/05/2013
119
Open skies / may 2013

JUNE
Next month we feature one of the best
photographers in Europe and his unique
take on Dubai. His work has been exhibited
across the world, and we will show
you a side of the city you have never seen
before. We try out a local culinary treat at one
of the city’s best – and most hidden – restaurants.
We also talk exclusively to renowned
British architect Sir Norman Foster about his
work, his art and the future of the city. One of
the world’s greatest superheroes, Superman, is
back this summer with a new film directed by
Zack Snyder. We take a look at the man (of steel),
and the myth, and figure out if this latest
instalment will put the franchise back on track.
See you next month.

PRESENTS
STARRING
NICOLE KIDMAN
www.omegawatches.com