Hans-Sachs-Straße - Emirates.com

THE
SMARTEST
MAN IN
AMERICA?
How a 34-year-old geek
changed American politics forever

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This issue we look at a 34-year-old self-confessed geek who
has changed the face of American politics forever. His dead-on
statistical analysis of the US presidential election last year wrongfooted
a broadcast media dominated by ‘talking heads’. Can it last?
Maybe not even our cover star Nate Silver can predict that. We
look forward to a month of arts and culture in the Emirate with
features on Art Dubai, Design Days and Emirates International
Festival of Literature. Munich is Germany’s most expensive city
in which to live, but it also houses lots of heritage – we journey
down one of its most interesting streets. We also chart the rise of
the restaurateur, and discover why even the most star-kissed chefs
are heading back to the kitchen. Our photo essay sees us head to
America’s heartland, where three Swedes have produced
a stunning book of photography. Enjoy the issue.
edItor-In-ChIef Obaid humaid Al Tayer ManagIng partner & group edItor Ian Fairservice
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27
Open skies / march 2013

contents / MARcH 2013
37
Emirates Golf
Club celebrates
its 25th
anniversary
42
A tour of one of
Munich’s most
historic streets
45
Fatima Al-
Qadiri reveals
her favourite
tracks
48
We take a peek
at one of Asia’s
most surprising
city hotels
29
Open skies / march 2013
58
Design Days
puts the city in
the aesthetic
spotlight
63
Manchester’s
War Museum
66
How a Tokyo
bookshop is
raising the
retail bar

contents / MARcH 2013
FRont (35)
BITS 36
Question/Grid 38
Calendar 40
The Street 42
Skypod 45
Room 48
Consume 49
100
Three
Swedes’
photographic
take on
America’s
West
82
A road
trip across
Western
Africa
MAin (71) news (111)
America’s Smartest Man 72
An African Road Trip 82
The Rise of the Restaurateurs 90
30
Open skies / march 2013
90
Is the era of the
super chef over?
We find out.
Our Man 50
BLD 53
Mapped 54
Local Knowledge 58
Place 63
Column 64
Store 66
Live TV 115
Wolgan Valley 116
Fleet 126

SPRING SUMMER 2013

contributors
PAUL
WHEATLEY
Paul has lived in
Munich for nearly
a decade, and has
written about
the city for the
Guardian, CNN
and Fodor’s. He
has also written
a book on the
city’s history,
Munich: Monks
to Modernity,
which was
published in 2010.
FATimA
AL-QAdiri
A New York-based
Kuwaiti artist,
musician and
composer, Fatima’s
willingness to play
with a variety of
genres has seen
her feted by the
music and art press
around the world.
Nick
LANdEr
Nick Lander is
the restaurant
correspondent
for the Financial
Times. During
the 1980s he
was proprietor
of the popular
Soho restaurant
L’Escargot, and
he has recently
published The
Art Of The
Restaurateur.
32
Open skies / march 2013
NoAH
dAvis
A freelance writer
living in Brooklyn,
Noah writes
about everything
from sport to
science. He has
been published
everywhere from
Sports Illustrated
and the Wall Street
Journal to New
York magazine and
GQ.com.
LArs
AbErg
Lars has worked
internationally as
a photographer
with his work
appearing in
books, magazines,
newspapers,
exhibitions and
advertising in
Europe and around
the world.

North Star
The Daniel Libeskind-designed
Imperial War Museum is one of
Manchester’s highlights.
(p63)
45
NEW YORK
Composer and
singer, Fatima Al-
Qadiri, reveals her
favourite tracks
FRONT
54
SHANGHAI
China’s most
charismatic city
gets the Mapped
treatment
58
DUBAI
We preview
the upcoming
product fair,
Design Days

Bits
The Written Word
The emiraTes airline fesTival of liTeraTure is back.
we inTerview Three parTicipanTs
Dan Rather
Entertainment values have long been
dominant over news values, but it has
now reached the point where it’s a
crisis – news shows are now seen as
entertainment, and entertainment
draws bigger audiences and gets more
advertising dollars. Foreign news
coverage has shrunk by an alarming
degree – it’s much easier to put people
on TV shouting their opinions than it
is to maintain bureaux overseas. The
development of the 24-hour news cycle
has fuelled that – plus the development
of the internet. I am optimistic about
the future of the internet, but nobody
has figured out a business model to
support foreign news coverage and
international reporting.
eaifl.com/Dan_Rather
Kate Mosse
Writing is a profession – you have
to work at it, and some days that
means you write 2,000 words that
hardly need editing, and sometimes
you only manage 500 and you
end up tossing them all when you
re-read them. You never feel like
anything you write is ever truly
finished. There’s always a sense
of panic when you imagine what
others will think of it when they
read it. I think, in the end, you just
know when it’s finished. Being a
writer is as much about coping with
intense self-doubt as it is about
having the self-confidence to say
‘yes, that’s finished, that’s the
absolute best I could do.’
eaifl.com/Kate_Mosse
36
Open skies / MARCH 2013
Sandy Gall
The visual medium is a very
powerful one and, in many ways,
it’s unrivalled. When covering
a war, I think television is
unprecedented – reports from
Vietnam, with helicopters in the
air, ground action and stories
like the Tet Offensive worked
hugely well on camera. However,
sometimes it’s better to tell the
story in words. Writing a book is
entirely different, as there’s a need
to create something much longer. I
used to work for ITV’s News at Ten,
but I think it’s now a shadow of its
former self. The great days of TV
news are over, I think. There are no
Walter Cronkites in America now.
eaifl.com/Sandy_Gall
The Emirates Airline Festival of Literature runs from March 5th to 9th
http://www.eaifl.com/

A House In The City
bigger is not always better, at
least according to the authors
of a new book – a house in the
city. robert Dalziel and sheila
Qureshi-cortale visit nine cities
– copenhagen, melbourne,
london, new York, Tokyo, paris,
berlin, mexico and shanghai
– in order to examine the best
types of urban housing. The
scope of the book is impressive
– as is the final section, where
the authors create what they
consider to be the ideal urban
solution to contemporary
A SuShi BAR...
in GhAnA
housing, a prototype that has
been built in west london by
Dalziel and his partner Tim
battle (through their company
rational house) and was sold
on the open market. with more
than 60 per cent of the world
currently living in urban areas,
and that number set to increase
by 2 billion in the next 20 years,
never has this issue been of
more importance. kudos for the
writers for suggesting solutions
to these problems.
www.ribabookshops.com
Ghana might not be a hive of
high-end culinary activity, but
at least one new venue has
caught our interest. Santoku
is a Japanese restaurant in
Accra, with a menu developed
by the team behind Nobu, and
interiors designed by Hubert
de Givenchy. Opened last year,
the restaurant has quickly gained a devoted following, and bodes well
for the development of a top-tier restaurant scene in the city. The
space includes a main dining room that seats 95, a 12-seater sushi bar
and a 360-degree wine fridge, offering wines from around the world.
santoku-restaurant.com
Does the late-night talk show
have a future? Or is it just a
relic of the past? page 64
37
Open skies / MARCH 2013
Sultans
of Swing
Dubai looked very different when Emirates Golf
Club opened its doors back in 1988. There was
little in the way of development past the World
Trade Centre, and only a few lonely compounds
in the area surrounding Emirates Golf Club.
These days of course, everything is different,
and despite the newly laid urban fabric, the club
is still a great place to unwind, either on the
Majlis or the Faldo Course. The first grass course
in the region when it opened, it still draws in the
punters, 25 years on.
www.dubaigolf.com
Late Shows

THE QUESTION
WHY DO SMART PEOPLE
MAKE BAD DECISIONS?
It’s a common assumption
that smart people make
good decisions, and
very smart people make
brilliant decisions. Like
most assumptions, this
is wrong. Let’s take just
one example: Long-Term
Capital Management
(LTCM) was a hedge
fund led by a bunch of
brilliant traders and
mathematicians, including
two Nobel prize winners. The fund folded just
six years after it was founded. They took highly
leveraged positions and failed to account for the
possibility of an extremely rare, high-impact event,
what the writer Nassim Taleb calls a ‘black swan.’
Although the fund generated large returns in its
The ‘talented one’ from
Oasis is in town with
former Verve frontman
Richard Ashcroft for a
one-off show at Atlantis,
The Palm, on March 15.
Expect a host of hits
from Gallagher’s Oasis
days, as well as some
newer material.
atlantisthepalm.com
Algiers is one of the most
interesting cities in North Africa,
we can’t wait to check out the
medina and the plethora of old
French architecture. The locals
here are some of the friendliest
in the region, and for those
looking for a destination with a
difference, this could make for
an interesting spring break.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algiers
THE GRID
Netflix decided to
release political thriller
House of Cards in one
go, so we get to enjoy
13 episodes of Kevin
Spacey as an amoral US
politician. We splurged,
we admit it, and we can’t
wait for series two.
www.netflix.com
The Expert:
Nassim Taleb
Author of:
The Black Swan
first few years – as much
as 40 per cent between
1994 and 1998 – the fund
eventually overreached, and,
in one month in 1998 lost $1.9
billion. It failed to predict –
or react quickly enough to
– the Russian financial crisis,
and the fund was dissolved
in 2000.
The fund’s principals relied
heavily on mathematical
models, which failed to
predict the ‘rare event’ of the Russian financial
collapse. In its annual reports, Merrill Lynch
observed that mathematical risk models “may
provide a greater sense of security than warranted;
therefore, reliance on these models should be
limited.” A lesson for us all.
Small but beautiful, The
Magazine Shop and café
is a wonderful addition to
DIFC. Expect lots of local and
international magazine titles
and some rare second-hand
editions. A feast for the city’s
magazine (and coffee) lovers.
www.difc.ae

March
CALENDAR
March 7 to 9
FaShion week
JohanneSburg
The eyes of the fashion world
will be on the cosmopolitan city
of Johannesburg this month as
it showcases the very latest in
african-inspired fashion.
www.afi.za.CoM
March 18
March 1 to May 12
PIXAR: 25 Years
of Animation
Today, animation is an established medium at the very highest level of art
and film-making – but it hasn’t been an easy ride. Vital to its rise has been
the role played by computer animation company Pixar; works such as Toy
Story, Monsters Inc. and Finding Nemo have created iconic characters for
generations of children. This month Hamburg’s MKG museum hosts an
exhibition documenting the rise of the studio and the development of its
best-loved characters.
www.Mkg-haMburg.de
Marilyn Monroe
Exhibition
Featuring some of the 20th
century’s most iconic celebrity
images, Jamm art gallery’s
Marilyn Monroe exhibition
will be the first time that
legendary photographer Bert
Stern’s work will be exhibited
in Dubai. During his career
Stern took almost 2,600
photographs of Monroe, and
he was with her right up until
her death in 1962.
www.JaMM-arT.org
Place
40
Open skies / march 2013
Northern Light page 63
March 8 to 24
SculPture by the Sea
The creation of 70 unique sculptures
ensures a spectacular sight on one
of western australia’s most popular
beaches. The 9th annual Sculpture
by the Sea exhibition, held on one of
Perth’s most popular beaches, will see
one-off pieces created by prominent
australian, british and Chinese artists.
Last year, more than 220,000 people
enjoyed this very modern art project.
www.SCuLPTurebyTheSea.CoM

the street
Hans-Sachs-
Straße
Firmly ensconced in Munich’s in-vogue Glockenbachviertel
district, Hans-Sachs-Straße is characterised by delightful
independent stores – many with their own artisanal
workshops – as well as a host of top-notch restaurants
serving cuisines as diverse as Afghan and traditional
Bavarian. This grand street, with its turn-of-the-twentiethcentury
façades featuring detailed relief work, is even home
to a charming 101-year-old cinema. Arguably more than
any other, this street is something of a testament to the
Glockenbachviertel’s diverse and culturally rich core.
Words by Paul
Wheatley / Images
by Gert Krautbauer
Hotel Olympic
More than just an ‘art’ hotel, Hotel Olympic is a refined,
though far from extravagant, place to overnight. Design
and art are ubiquitous: sculptures ‘greet’ guests in the
foyer, elegant chandeliers hang from ceilings and there
is a giant, wood-framed mirror at the top of the stairs.
Wi-Fi and in-room computers highlight the modern
side of the establishment, though this is in tandem with
a carefully thought-out, classic-looking interior design.
hotel-olympic.de
Hans-Sachs-Straße 4
Tel: +49 (0) 89231890
42
Open skies / march 2013

43
Open skies / march 2013
Kranz
Just about everything created here is organic, and
whatever is not, is locally sourced. Owner Petra Kranz
prides herself on refusing to have a microwave on the
premises almost as much as she does on the muchadmired
dishes her chefs serve up. The joy here is that
high-quality fine dining sits comfortably alongside the
likes of organic burgers and potato wedges. And as
a bonus, Kranz has its own theatre, showing regular
improvisations, comedies and musical shows.
daskranz.de
Hans-Sachs-Straße 12
Tel: +49 (0) 8921668250
Eisenblätter
& Triska
A hat can make or break
even the most exquisite
outfit, and seeking the
advice of expert milliners
pays off. Astrid Triska
and Katrin Eisenblätter
clearly know what they
are talking about, after
all, along with their small
team they design and
hand-make spectacular
creations for their
boutique in a small backroom
workshop.
Eisenblaetter-triska.de
Hans-Sachs-Straße 13
Tel: +49 (0) 892605860
Arena Filmtheater
With so many of the city’s buildings severely damaged or
destroyed during Allied bombing in the Second World War and
today’s preference for modern cinema complexes, it is a wonder
this building is still here at all. The picture house opened in 1912
and several renovations later it remains something of a historic
monument to movie-going of a bygone era. It has just two
theatres, with a cosy 64 and 38 seats apiece.
arena-kino.de
Hans-Sachs-Straße 7
Tel: +49 (0) 892603265

Artefact
Another splendid independent boutique, this time
focused on clothes for the fashion conscious. Run
by Birgit Eßlinger Gewänder, Artefact also sells
some wonderfully imaginative jewellery.
artefakt-muenchen.de
Hans-Sachs-Straße 13
Tel: +49 (0) 892603108
44
Open skies / march 2013
Adolf Mathes Haus
The best tribute to the skill of
the artisans at this quaint craft
shop is that you cannot tell by
the façade or by the wares on
display that each and every item
has been expertly created by local
homeless people out of one of
three materials: ceramic, metal or
wood. It is the ideal place find a
unique gift.
Hans-Sachs-Straße 16
Tel: +49 (0) 892311450
Electum
Located right at the far end of
the street, Electum is home to a
mesmerising mélange of designer
lights – and a particularly illuminating
way to finish a perusal of Munich’s
finest selection of independent stores.
electum.de
Hans-Sachs-Straße 22
Tel: +49 (0) 89221714

New york-based musician and composer
Fatima al-Qadiri reveals her eight favourite tracks
1. 2. 3. 4.
Treble clef
Ghetto Kyote
One of my favourite
tracks of all time, and
an early grime classic. A
Chinese folk orchestra
gone PlayStation synth
mad, the simple structure
of Ghetto Kyote has had a
big impact on the genre.
Nabil Shuail
Sadeni
I’m a Kuwaiti child of
the 1980s, and any kid
growing up in the Gulf
during that decade would
most likely get frisky
when Nabil Shuail’s
angelic falsetto beckons.
45
Open skies / march 2013
Paul anka
Smells Like Teen Spirit
This is Paul Anka’s
big-band version of
the Nirvana classic.
Normally, I’m not a fan
of covers, but this surreal
version of Smells Like
Teen Spirit is a
real treasure.
SKYPOD
hussein al Jasmi
Habibi Barchaloni
It translates as ‘My
darling is Barcelonian’.
A love song from Hussein
Al Jasmi, a beloved
Emirati voice, dedicated
to his favourite football
team, FC Barcelona.

5. Googoosh
Man Amadeam
Iran’s grand pop singer
and 20th century style
icon, Googoosh delivers
one of her sweetest
songs. Simply titled I’ve
Come, it’s filled with a
gentle but exuberant joy.
6. Ñengo Flow
Noche Para Adultos
This Puerto Rican MC
raps over ice-cold, post
apocalyptic melodies in a
reggaeton gem.
7. The-Dream
Love vs Money
A vastly underrated
American singer,
The-Dream is a master
arranger of vocal
harmony. The way the
synths meld with his
voice in Love vs Money
offers a moving vision
of lovers’ angst.
8. Isao Tomita
Reverie
From one of the pioneers of
electronic music. Listening
to this is like being whisked
off to an idyllic childhood
scene. It’s taken from one
of Tomita’ finest albums,
Snowflakes Are Dancing.
march
CALENDAR
march 27 to april 21
Melbourne
International Comedy Festival
Victorians have a lot to be happy about – Melbourne’s weather, culture and
frequent world-class events see it constantly lauded as one of the world’s
most liveable cities – and let’s face it happy people like to laugh. The city’s
annual comedy festival returns at the end of this month with Australia’s
best and brightest funnymen stepping up to the mic alongside some of the
world’s very best comedians.
www.comedyfestival.com.au
Shanghai
china’s chic metropolis
page 54
46
Open skies / march 2013

Shopping at Qatar Duty Free
is a pleasant and relaxing experience.
With a wide collection of the world’s finest brands, enticing promotions, and exciting raffles,
now shopping at Qatar Duty Free is your destination of choice.
As one of the fastest growing Duty Free operations in the region, we are committed to
offering you good service and value for money. Our friendly, multi-national staff members
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www.fullerToNBayHoTel.coM
the Room
rooM 0109
fullerToN Bay
SINgapore
Singapore’s waterfront has changed dramatically in recent years: its
colonial heritage has been dwarfed by gleaming new towers and, of
course, the Marina Bay Sands development, a Macau-style resort that
aims to bring in Chinese gamblers from the mainland. Across from
the Sands lies the slightly more restrained Fullerton Bay Hotel – a
low-slung glass structure that manages to combine the light touch
of a boutique hotel with the quality of a luxury five-star. Room
0109 manages to make the most of its surroundings: floor-to-ceiling
windows reveal an infinity Jacuzzi on the small deck outside, a nice
touch for a city hotel. Even nicer is the view across the Bay when
the Marina Bay Sands light show erupts after dark. The hotel’s
other strength is its restaurants, particularly the Saturday morning
‘hangover’ brunch at Clifford, its waterfront brasserie. The hotel
is deceptively big but manages to convey a sense of calm that is
almost as relaxing as a dip in the Jacuzzi. One of the best – and most
surprising – city hotels in Asia.
48
Open skies / march 2013
INTERNET SPEED: 10MB
PILLOWS: four
iPOD DOCK: yes
CLUB SANDWICH
DELIVERY TIME:
18 minutes
COMPLIMENTARY
SNACKS: chocolates and
fruit every day
TOILETRY BRAND: Bulgari
EXTRAS: Nespresso
machine, infinity Jacuzzi on
balcony, Bose soundsystem
DAILY NEWSPAPER:
The Straits Times,
International Herald Tribune
TV CHANNELS: 24
VIEW: 4/5
RATE: from $700

BOOK
The Thief
Fuminori Nakamura
Despite being big in Japan, the
award-winning author Fuminori
Nakamura is largely unheard of in the
West. With plans to crack the rest of
the world, his publishers have devised
a plan to translate his novel The Thief
into English. Told from the perspective
of a pickpocket, the seasoned criminal
weaves in and out of busy Tokyo
crowds, stealing wallets so smoothly
he sometimes doesn’t even remember
doing it. Nakamura’s prose is so
competent that his work has been compared
to literary giants such as Ernest
Hemingway.
aLBuM
FILM
49
Open skies / march 2013
consume
The NexT Day
David Bowie
It’s been a decade since the idiosyncratic
frontman last released a new album, so the
announcement of The Next Day comes as a big
surprise. Choosing to team up with old cohort
Tony Visconti – who previously worked on
albums Space Oddity, Low and Scary Monsters
– is less a of surprise, as Bowie has promised
a more classic sound to the album. If his lead
single Where Are We Now? is anything to go by,
we can expect good things.
emperor
American and Japanese cultures couldn’t be more different, and
the bridging of these differences is the crux of Peter Webber’s
latest film, Emperor. Set in the aftermath of the Second World
War, the Allied forces have taken control of Japan – a country
in ruin. Under the orders of the de facto ruler, General Douglas
MacArthur (played by a commanding Tommy Lee Jones), an
investigation is launched to decide whether former Japanese
leader Emperor Hirohito should be tried and hung as a war
criminal following the 1941 attacks on Pearl Harbor.

our man in
Northern Lights
Former The Charlatans frontman, Tim Burgess,
takes Geoff Brokate on a tour of his favourite
Manchester haunts
wall of
sound /
Afflecks, a
Manchester
institution
The room was full and
there was a buzz
about the night’s
DJ, Tim Burgess. I
arrived with a sense
of expectation. It was easy to spot
the celebrity in the room, over in
the corner hiding behind a mop
of blonde hair. Although looking
every inch the indie icon that he is,
Tim has a quiet and unassuming
presence that is able to hold the
attention of the crowd. At the age
of 23, Tim Burgess, self-confessed
‘street kid,’ went international
with the success of his band, The
Charlatans. This was 1990 at the
height of the ‘Madchester’ music
scene, and Tim was in the middle
of one of the world’s most dynamic
music periods.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s
Manchester was home to bands
such as Joy Division, New Order,
The Smiths and Stone Roses,
which exploded onto the music
scene at a time when formulaic
pop music, care of Stock, Aitken
and Waterman, was clogging up
the charts. Throughout the night
hordes of people would come and
50
Open skies / march 2013
say hello as Tim gave his time to
friends and strangers alike. He told
me his outlook “is based on being
decent to other people, working
hard and making sure there is time
to stop and take it all in.”
Tim was born in Salford, just
a stone’s throw from Manchester,
and was brought up in Cheshire.
“When I was a kid, Manchester
was always spoken about, in
terms of music, with great
reverence… I realised some of
the best bands in the world were
from there.” states Tim, still with
a hint of respect for his musical
heritage.
Now more than 20 years on
he is still as fresh-faced as ever.

But his fame reaches beyond the
world of music. As well as owning
recording studios and record
labels, he has become a big hit on
Twitter and is making forays into
the coffee business, writing and
charity work.
The Northern Quarter, which
Tim describes as Manchester’s
equivalent to Greenwich Village
in New York, or Soho in London,
is thriving with quirky shops,
boutique bars and eateries. It’s
also home to Tim’s favourite
record shops, Vinyl Exchange
and Piccadilly Records, which he
rarely passes without going in.
We visit Afflecks Palace, a shop
Tim labels as a rite of passage
for young music fans. It’s full
of young hipsters looking for a
bargain. It’s like an indoor version
of London’s infamous Camden
Market, and homage to everything
indie and alternative.
Although Tim spent 12 years
living in LA, and is now based
in London, Manchester is still
home for him, and he returns
on a regular basis to record,
perform live gigs, and to DJ. “It’s
a kind of an ever-changing place
that retains the same values.
Manchester’s like an old friend.
Its appearance changes but
underneath it’s still the same.”
Tim likes the popular no-frills
Eight Day Café, where we enjoy
some hearty organic vegetarian
food. It’s on Oxford Road in
Manchester’s student area, which
class acT
/ Legendary
record shop
Piccadilly
Records
is home to yet more bars and,
according to Tim, some of the
city’s best live music venues. One
reason that Manchester produces
so much great music is because of
its profusion of venues. “There are
loads of really enthusiastic people
putting on events every night
of the week. A band can
go from its first gig to a
stadium without leaving
the city.”
Teacup is a great
coffee shop that’s perfect
for late-afternoon people
watching. It has a huge
array of cakes and a
bewildering selection
of teas. When asked
to tell a story from the
‘Madchester’ period,
Tim becomes animated
and tells us of the time
he began to realise that
he was actually a part of
it, not just an observer.
It was one night in the
infamous Haçienda club,
and he looked around
51
Open skies / march 2013
to realise he was discussing
project ideas and album covers
with the scene’s biggest names.
It brought it home that he was
involved in one of the UK’s biggest
music movements. “Just the term
‘Madchester’ is enough to send a
shiver down the spine of lots of
TWITTER
PITCH
The Bookworm
Bookshop, library,
bar, restaurant and
much more. Join us
for book talks, live
music, networking
events and the best
selection of books
in Beijing
@BeijingBookworm
shakespeare
and company
Shakespeare and
Company opened
in August 1951 and
since then has grown
from a bookstore into
an institution in the
heart of Paris.
@Shakespeare_Co
scoff
/ Soup
Kitchen
provides
a variety
of homely
food
In honour of this month’s Dubai literature
festival we scour Twitter for some of the
world’s most beautiful bookshops
The last
Bookstore
We’re The Last
Bookstore, a used
and new bookstore
in Downtown LA.
Come visit us.
Browse. Maybe
even buy a book.
@lastbookstorela
10 corso como
The official Twitter
feed of Milan’s 10 Corso
Como. A bookshop
dedicated to art,
fashion and design.
@10CorsoComo
livraria da Vila
Open 26 years ago,
Livraria da Vila reigns
as one of the most
charming and beautiful
bookshops in Sao Paulo.
@livrariadavila

norThern lighTs/ The Northern
and Teacup are just two of the myriad
attractions on offer in the city
people who were there at the time.
What was it they used to say about
the 1960s? If you remember it, you
mustn’t have been there.”
It’s at night that the Northern
Quarter becomes the city’s
meeting point. Scenesters,
football fans, business types and
even a few Madchester diehards
come together to indulge in
eating, drinking and communal
sing-alongs, all with the musical
backing of some of Manchester’s
most popular exports.
In The Northern we find that the
spirit of Madchester is very much
alive. The walls are adorned with
photographs of Manchester’s iconic
musicians and the soundtrack is
pure Madchester.
Although Manchester’s
musical heyday has passed, Tim
says that it’s still a great place to
come and hear live music, and
you might be lucky enough to
catch a band before it makes it
big. We swung by one of Tim’s
favourite places, The Soup
Kitchen, to see live music by up
and coming bands.
It’s a canteen-style place with
communal long tables. It’s packed
full of people tucking into the soup
and other simple fare on offer.
The Castle Hotel on Oldham
Street is another of Tim’s live
music tips. The Castle has
a traditional style, and the
friendliness of the staff and
customers give me the feeling that
I’ve just entered my local pub.
With the recent release of
his second solo
album Oh No I
Love You, and
his ever-growing
coffee blend,
Tim Peaks, Tim
explains that
he isn’t afraid
of life and its
responsibilities:
“there’s no better
way of learning
than failing,
so everything
counts.”
Excited about
having his own
brand of coffee,
Tim laughs
saying that it started as a virtual
coffee shop on his Twitter page. It
then caused a stir in the world of
social media by actually becoming
a national brand. The proceeds
of his new venture are going to
charity, and Tim Peaks coffee is
52
Open skies / march 2013
At night the
northern
quArter is
the meeting
point for
scenesters,
footbAll
fAns And
businessmen
available in a selection of cafes
and festivals around the UK.
Talk turns to another of
Manchester’s successful exports
and popular pub topics: football.
A big fan of Manchester United,
Tim is impressed with Alex
Ferguson. Tim feels that although
not Mancunican
by birth, ‘Sir
Alex’ best sums
up Manchester
“because he came
from outside and
fitted in so well.
It’s a welcoming
place to the right
people. There’s
nobody more polite,
but he has a core of
steel and gets the
job done. He never
knows when to call
it a day. These are
very Mancunian
qualities.”
The charming
northern hospitality and
entertainment were endless. By
the end of the night, I acquired
a few Mancunian qualities of
my own as I enjoyed the party
atmosphere without quite
knowing when to call it a day.

schilo van coevorden,
executive chef at the
Conservatorium hotel
in Museumplein, shares
his favourite places to
eat in Amsterdam
B
Breakfast
Just off the Vondelpark, you’ll
find De Joffers. It’s a fairly
traditional café that opens early,
serving all the usual breakfast
staples like toasties, eggs, teas
and coffees. I always have a
cheese and ham toastie, a glass
of fresh orange juice and a hot
chocolate, as I don’t drink coffee.
There are people there before
work, some are having early
meetings while, it being Oud
Zuid (the Old South area of the
city), there are also plenty of
well-off people who don’t need to
work at all. There’s a real village
feel and it’s great for relaxing
with the day’s newspaper.
Brasserie De Joffers
Willemsparkweg 163, 1071
GZ Amsterdam
Tel: +31 20 6730360
brasseriedejoffers.nl
B
L
L
Lunch
At weekends, my wife and I will
sometimes treat ourselves to a
shopping trip at the Bijenkorf
[Amsterdam’s biggest department
store] followed by lunch in the
small streets nearby, which is
where you’ll find the city’s best
Asian restaurants. The place
we head to most often is called
Oriental City – it’s basic and
pretty cheap, but it serves up
the best dim sum you’ll find in
Amsterdam. The fact that the
restaurant is always packed with
Chinese people says it all, but a
few locals are starting to discover
it, too. I love Asian cuisine
and tell any tourist visiting
Amsterdam to try an Indonesian
restaurant – Indonesia was a
Dutch colony, and you can eat
better Indonesian in Amsterdam
than in Bali.
Oriental City
Oudezijds Voorburgwal 177-179,
1012 EV Amsterdam
Tel: +31 20 626 8352
oriental-city.nl
53
Open skies / march 2013
D
D
Dinner
BLD
&samhoud places is in the new
docks area of the city, next to
Central Station, but is a really
special venue. Downstairs,
there is a lounge bar serving
tapas-style food, while upstairs
is a two Michelin-starred
restaurant. It’s modern, with a
big open kitchen, but the food is
inventive and superb. I love the
tomato burger, but chef Moshik
also does a great three-ways
langoustine dish, as well as
fantastic things like mushrooms
that taste of chocolate. Really
innovative stuff. As chefs,
we have access to excellent
products – the Netherlands is
the world’s biggest exporter
of fresh vegetables – and that
produce is really showcased at
restaurants like this.
&samhoud places
Oosterdokskade 5,
1011 AD Amsterdam
Tel: +31 20 2602094
samhoudplaces.com
WOrDs By MATT WArnOCk

CHANGNING
mapped
15
Shanghai
Shanghai is a city of superlatives: the most populous city in China and the most populous city proper
in the world; it also has the busiest container port on the planet and is China’s financial and cultural
power house. Its skyline is as iconic as its food, and with a distinct European influence, it’s one of
Asia’s most fascinating cities. www.Hg2.com
HOTELS
Jing’an
04
11
07
09
Xuhui
01. Pudong Shangri-La Hotel
02. JIA Hotel
03. Waterhouse Hotel
04. URBN Hotel
02
10
Dapuqiao
Rihui Yicun
RESTAURANTS
05. Lost Heaven
06. M on the Bund
07. Charmant
08. Din Tai Fung
13
Huangpu
BARS / CLUBS
09. Cotton’s
10. YY’s
11. Boxing Cat Brewery
12. Bar Rouge
54
Open skies / march 2013
12
06
05
Dananmen
Huangpu River
14
01
Upper Gangbacun
03
08
16
Dongshufang
GALLERIES
13. Urban Planning Exhibition Hall
14. Shanghai Art Museum
15. Municipal History Museum
16. Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA)

HOTELS
01 Pudong
Shangri-La Hotel
Set among the forest of
skyscrapers that make
up the Lujiazui financial
district, Pudong Shangri-
La forms an integral part
of the modern Shanghai
skyline. The rooms here
are elegant and spacious with
opulent marble bathrooms and
expansive Bund views.
02 JIA Hotel
With its gorgeous art deco
exterior and collection of
contemporary sculptures, JIA
is a haven for art lovers. Its 55
studio rooms are individually
decorated, and most have a
corner balcony – perfect for
appreciating the stunning
skyline and watching the sun
go down over the city.
03 Waterhouse Hotel
Located in a converted industrial
building at the Shiliupu wharf,
Waterhouse Hotel is a small
02
06
boutique inn with just 19 rooms.
Shanghai architecture firm Neri &
Hu are responsible for the ‘urban
chic’ design, and Gordon Ramsay’s
protégé Jason Atherton is the
culinary expert behind in-house
restaurant Table No.1.
04 URBN Hotel
Located just north of Jing’an
Temple on a pretty boutiquelined
street, URBN boasts
interiors made from 100 per cent
recycled and reclaimed materials,
and yet does not compromise on
style. Guest rooms are chic and
minimalist with sunken baths
and spacious lounge areas and a
champagne and caviar bar are at
your disposal.
55
Open skies / march 2013
CItySCAPe / Baidu Bridge and the spectacular Shanghai skyline
rESTauranTS
05 Lost Heaven
It’s not easy to find authentic, and
delicious, flavours from the Yunnan
Province outside of its borders, but at
Lost Heaven they only serve the real
deal. Tastefully decorated with rich,
dark wood and gold accents, this is a
popular spot for romantic dinners.
06 M on the Bund
Treat yourself to dinner overlooking
the river at M on the Bund. The menu
here features a selection of gourmet
European, North African and Australian
dishes. At the weekend they serve a
decadent brunch with eggs Benedict,
blueberry pancakes and cocktails.
07 Charmant
Charmant specialises in Taiwanese
cuisine and serves everything from
bubble tea and shaved ice desserts
to tasty omelettes, stir-fried beef,
and cuttlefish balls. The drinks list
is equally impressive, running from
tapioca-ball tea to exotic juices via
beer and Chinese wine.
08 Din tai Fung
Serving traditional Shanghainese xiao
long bao, or steamed soup dumplings,
Din Tai Fung is a bit of a local institution.
There are a handful of branches around
town, but the restaurant inside the ‘Bottle
Opener’ skyscraper tends to be less
packed than the others, and comes with
some spectacular views.

ars / clubs GallErIEs
09 Cotton’s
Cotton’s is one of the
classiest places to experience
Shanghai’s nightlife. It has
everything a good French
Concession bar should:
a beautiful villa location,
crackling log fires in the
winter, red velvet furniture,
and an outdoor terrace
overhung with leafy branches.
10 YY’s
Despite its convenient French
Concession location, Yin Yang
(better known as YY’s) still
somehow remains wonderfully
off the beaten track. This
means that you can almost
always get a table, sharing
the smoky, wood-panelled
space with local bohemians,
a decrepit piano, and several
propaganda posters.
14
11 Boxing Cat Brewery
This venue started as a single
microbrewery out in the
western suburbs, but now boasts
several locations downtown –
our favourite being the Fuxing
Xi Lu branch. The on-site
brewing vats churn out seasonal
ales including IPAs, pilsners
and altbier, while a selection
of Southern American food is
served from the kitchen.
12 Bar rouge
Located on the Bund, Bar
Rouge features a bewitching
meld of Chinese and European
design, with elaborate glass
chandeliers, luscious velvet
furnishings and a spacious
terrace looking out onto the
neon Shanghai skyline. You’ll
pay top dollar for your drinks,
but when you see that view, you
definitely won’t begrudge it.
SHAngHAi Art MUSEUM / One of
Asia’s best art museums, this is set
across five floors
56
Open skies / march 2013
13 Urban Planning
Exhibition Hall
This futuristic white building
at the eastern end of People’s
Square is one of the most
interesting and interactive
museums in Shanghai. Telling
the story of Shanghai through
the ages, there’s a plethora of
diverse work on display here,
including archive photographs,
models and simulators.
14 Shanghai Art Museum
Well known for its striking
1930s marble interior and
art deco furnishings, the
Shanghai Art Museum exhibits
everything from oil paintings
to pop canvases across
five floors and 12 spacious
exhibition halls.
15 Municipal History Museum
One of Shanghai’s quirkiest
exhibition spaces, the
Municipal History Museum
houses an eclectic mix of wax
figures, architectural models
and artefacts originating from
the Ming and Qing dynasties.
Don’t miss the dioramas of
the Bund and the Dangui
Teahouse – which features a
Peking Opera soundtrack.
16 Museum of
Contemporary Art (MOCA)
Taking residence in the former
greenhouse of the People’s
Park and showcasing fun,
youthful and exuberant
displays and installations,
MOCA is one of the city’s
most popular gallery spaces.
Make sure to stop by the
third floor café to soak up the
greenery of the surrounding
park over coffee.

LOCAL
KNOWLEDGE
SPM
A Design For Life
DESIGN DAYS DUBAI
AIMS TO PROMOTE
AESTHETICS IN
THE EMIRATES
When the
flamboyant
Frenchman
Jean Royère
opened his
first design studio in the 1930s, it
was not in Paris but Alexandria
in Egypt.
Other branches followed in
Beirut, Amman and Tehran, their
ornate products all distinguished
by his hallmarks of rich, jewellike
colours, organic forms and
precious materials.
Royère’s lavish style found
favour with the Middle Eastern
elite and he spent his career
designing commissioned pieces
for the likes of the Shah of Iran
and King Hussein of Jordan.
“If you go to the palaces in
Tehran, they are fully designed by
Royère, from the walls and lights
to the chairs, desks and doors,”
says Guillaume Cuiry, director of
La Galerie Nationale in Dubai’s
Alserkal Avenue.
He was not the only designer
of his time to look eastwards:
the famed Swiss architect and
designer Le Corbusier was key
to the regeneration of newly
liberated Chandigarh in India in
the 1950s while the late French
58
Open skies / march 2013
Words by Tahira Yaqoob
designer Charlotte Perriand
travelled extensively throughout
Japan and Vietnam in the 1940s
and 1950s.
This month, that long-standing
marriage between Eastern tastes
and influential Western design
is being firmly cemented with
Design Days Dubai (DDD), a
homage to the best of the world’s
design and now in its second year.

Sitting alongside the firmlyestablished
Art Dubai fair, it aims
to introduce a new audience
to the aesthetics of high-end
design and its close association
with fine art. And rather than
being a glorified furniture sale,
its director Cyril Zammit says
it is a natural extension of the
contemporary art fair as the
buyers are “people who already
collect art and have the potential
to invest in design.”
“They are all collectible
pieces,” he adds. “They still
have a functionality but I try
to avoid considering them as
furniture pieces.
“Technically, you could use
them in your house but this type
of work is becoming increasingly
exclusive and is a form of art.”
They include, in this year’s
eclectic offering, a lamp made
from 20,000 hand-painted
toothpicks and shipped with great
difficulty by the gallery Broached
Commissions from Melbourne,
Australia; an upended brass Taj
Mahal turned into a table, and
from Galerie Sofie Lachaert in
Belgium, a seemingly delicate
paper-thin bowl constructed from
real bricks and mortar.
Practical they are not – as
Zammit says: “You would not
want your children playing
with them” – but they do aim to
present the possibilities of interior
design beyond mere function.
They also seal Dubai’s ambitions
to be regarded as an international
hub of design alongside more
recognised fairs such as Design
Miami/Basel, and Pad in London,
Paris and New York.
“Design Days Dubai has
enabled the city to be ranked
among an elite group – London,
Paris, Basel, New York and Miami
– which host fairs specialising in
both art and design,” says Zammit.
If its aspirations were not
clear enough from that statement,
they are embodied in the bold
More than
a glorified
furniture sale,
it’s a natural
extension of
the art fair,
just focusing
on design
declaration set to hang at the
entrance to the fair.
Brussel’s Victor Hunt Gallery
displayed the work Clock
Clock (White) in Miami last
year featuring 24 wall clocks
programmed to collectively display
the time or spell out messages.
In the city known for building
the biggest, the tallest and the
most extravagant, the gallery
will be coming in March with
the piece – only this time with
260 clocks, to be used as an
announcement board at the fair.
But if Dubai is to outdo
its rivals, it has its work cut
out. While Saudis, Kuwaitis
and Indians were extravagant
spenders last year, few Emiratis
bought work and the pieces that
sold were largely decorative but,
says Zammit: “We had a lot of
interest last year from visitors
wanting to learn.
“It is still quite a premature
market and very obvious pieces like
mirrors, tables and chairs sold but
I think buyers
are slowly going
toward more
abstract pieces.”
In terms of
scale, Dubai’s
offering of
29 largely
international
galleries,
including
nine from the
59
Open skies / march 2013
Middle East, is on a par with the rest
of the world.
Can it really add value to the city
though when so few designers and
pieces are from the region and when
an interest in design is still nascent?
Cuiry says the Middle East holds
a special appeal for that very reason:
“Europe and America are very jaded.
In Paris, they know Royère and Le
Corbusier and the first discussion is
about the price.
“Here they act on a feeling simply
because they like the design. Last
year I saw the appetite of visitors;
they wanted to learn.”
Originally based in Paris, he
decided to open his Dubai base last
year after an influx of customers
from Qatar, Kuwait and the Emirates
to his French outlet.
“For a long time, we have had art
collectors coming to our gallery in
Europe,” he says. “After some time we
realised something was happening in
the Middle East.”
Perhaps it is because of the
historic links with the likes of
Royère – Cuiry says “50 per cent of
designers in Beirut are close students
of his style” – but the burgeoning
appreciation of design is starting to
take hold regionally.
The Majlis Gallery in Dubai,
started more than 20 years ago by
interior designer Alison Collins, who
was enticed by the ambiance of the
old district of Bastakiya, is displaying
a bronze table
shaped like a tree
by Damascus-born
Mustafa Ali.
And while the
J&A Gallery’s
collection of
industrial-style
furniture made
from reclaimed
oddments from
central European

this Market
is difficult as
people are not
faMiliar with
the aesthetics
but the trend
for design is
growing
factories, hospitals and flea
markets gives more than a passing
nod to the Bauhaus modernist
style – a world away from the
UAE’s love of all things bling – its
founder decided to open his only
outlet in Dubai.
Director Sebastian Jaroslawski
says: “Our customers come from
across the Middle East, India
and Russia and Dubai is a hub
for the region.
“I like the raw aspect of
industrial architecture and design
and of trying to give older pieces
new value.
“This is a difficult market
because people are not familiar
with the aesthetics but there are
a number of private villas which
have been built in the Bauhaus
Forward thinking / Cyril Zammit prefers to think of the objects on
display at the fair as collectibles rather than furniture pieces
style in Jumeirah recently so there is
a growing trend for this kind of thing.”
For Trevyn McGowan, co-director
of Southern Guild gallery from
South Africa, it is “a given” that the
audience for Dubai’s longer-running
contemporary art fair is made up of the
same people buying collectible design.
“You are reaching the same market.
It is symbiotic rather than a hindrance
to have both an art and a design fair,”
she says.
That growing awareness is being
nurtured throughout the
Emirates. The design fair
has invited visitors to be
accompanied by experts
guiding them on provenance
while last September, Dubai
Culture and Arts Authority
dispatched four Emiratis on a
six-month training course in
Dubai, London and Barcelona
to learn all aspects of design.
Meanwhile the American
University of Sharjah’s school
60
Open skies / march 2013
of architecture, art and design has
been providing undergraduates
with a grounding in product design
to “define, enhance and transform
the world around them”.
Collector Ramin Salsali
says design is closely tied in
with wellbeing; that creating
an aesthetically pleasing
environment is more conducive
to productivity: “We are
surrounded by products with
great design, from toothbrushes
and mobile phones to computers
and cars.”
Zammit agrees: “Design is
everywhere.”
He points to Dubai’s iconic
skyline and the diversity of
furnishings on sale, priced from
$5,000 to half a million dollars,
by way of example.
“Design not only provides a
pragmatic solution,” he says, “it
enhances the aesthetic of a city
and even acts as a signature.”

Twenty
arts spaces
One district
• Ayyam Gallery
Barakat Gallery
Carbon 12
Desert Fish Studio
El Marsa Gallery
Etemad Gallery
FN Designs
Gallery Isabelle Van Den Eynde
Green Art Gallery
Grey Noise
• Gulf Photo Plus
La Gallerie Nationale
Lammtara Art Production
Lawrie Shabibi
Mojo
Salsali Private Musuem
Satellite
Shelter
Showcase
The Fridge
Dubai
Sheikh Zayed Road, Exit 43, Al Quoz 1, Dubai T: +971 (0) 4 416 1900 alserkalavenue.com

3 - 31 MARCH 2013
3 rd & 4 th March
`Romeo & Juliet’:
Globe Education
Shakespeare’s Globe
Abu Dhabi Theatre - Breakwater
20
Plácido at the Palace
With The Czech Philharmonic
Conducted by Eugene Kohn
th March
Emirates Palace Auditorium
24 th March
Piano Passion:
YUNDI in Recital
Emirates Palace Ballroom
Book Now
timeouttickets.com
Info Hotline:
+971 (0)50 - 907 6158
5
25 Years of Arab Creativity
In partnership with Institut du Monde Arabe
Curated by Ehab El Labban
th - 31st March
The Gallery at Emirates Palace
22 nd March 23 rd March
Joshua Bell &
The Czech Philharmonic
Conducted by Jiří Bĕlohlávek
25
The Rahbani Legacy
By Ghadi & Oussama Rahbani
th March
Emirates Palace Auditorium
www.abudhabifestival.ae
14
Mariinsky Ballet:
Homage to Fokine
Mariinsky Ballet & Orchestra
th & 15th March
Emirates Palace Auditorium
Gilberto Gil:
A Taste of Brazil
Emirates Palace Auditorium Emirates Palace Auditorium
26
Festival Gala with Bryn Terfel
& Bechara El Khoury:
‘Poème Orientale’
Conducted by Jiří Bĕlohlávek
th March
Emirates Palace Auditorium
Abu Dhabi Festival
Programme
/abudhabifestival
@AbuDhabi_Fest
/abudhabifestival
Official Venue Official Media Partners
Official Airline
Partner
Main Sponsor
Celebrating
a Decade
of Distinction
Presented by

Imperial War Museum North / Manchester
63
Open skies / march 2013
place
Designed by Daniel libeskind, and opened in 2002, this was the first branch of the museum outside southeast
england, it was based on the concept of a globe broken up by conflict into shards and rebuilt. each shard –
representing earth, air and water – gives the building its striking shape. the museum houses a number of
permanent and temporary exhibitions.
Photo: Michelle McMahon

COLUMN
TALK WARS
David Letterman and Jay Leno have
dominated the late-night TV schedules
for a generation. So why the animosity?
And will they ever retire? Words by Michael Hogan
It’s hard to imagine now,
as they slug it out in the
ratings and gossip columns,
but Jay Leno and David
Letterman were once best
friends. In 1975, they met on the Los
Angeles stand-up circuit, hit it off
and became firm friends. Letterman
admired the confident style with
which smooth, lantern-jawed Leno
controlled the stage. Leno thought
gangly, sarcastic Letterman’s material
was stronger and more original.
Together they got hired to write 15
64
Open skies / march 2013
jokes per week for comic Jimmie
Walker, who starred in the long-forgotten
sitcom Good Times.
It wasn’t until the late 1970s
that both men started to carve
out parallel careers as talk show
hosts, both filling in for their idol
Johnny Carson on NBC’s The
Tonight Show as he started to wind
down towards retirement. In 1982,
Letterman landed his own vehicle,
Late Night With David Letterman.
Despite Carson anointing
protégé Letterman as his preferred
successor, Leno eventually got
the big gig. He was seen as more
mainstream, a corporate player,
a safer pair of hands. Letterman

promptly defected
to rival network
CBS, changed one
word of his show’s
title (‘Late Night’
became ‘Late
Show’) and scheduled
it against
Leno’s. The pair
have been locking
horns ever since.
They’ve both
had a hiatus –
Leno handed over
to Conan O’Brien
for a year and Letterman took time
off for heart surgery – but pick up
a copy of TV Guide today and the
schedules look the same as they
did a generation ago, dominated
by the same two icons, behind the
same desks, with backdrops of the
same cities.
Over the same period, other TV
genres have been turned on their
head. The influence of HBO and
high-concept series like Lost have
made drama more ambitious and
cinematic. The comedy landscape
has been transformed by The
Simpsons and deadpan mockumentaries.
Sports coverage is now
HD and 3D, with countless camera
angles and high-tech analysis.
News now rolls 24/7, served by the
internet and ‘citizen journalism.’ So
why not talk shows? How have they
remained virtually unchanged?
There’s a large element of “if
it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” at play
here. Leno and Letterman dominate
the late-night market, drawing
around four million viewers
apiece. Younger, edgier rivals like
O’Brien, the two Jimmys (Fallon
and Kimmel) and Scottish expat
Craig Ferguson have devoted cult
followings but don’t punch nearly
as hard. The big two mean big
business. Despite the economic
downturn, both earn their networks
close to $200m in advertising
revenue per year. Leno and
Letterman are two of the best-paid
stars on TV, earning an annual
by now, both
are half man,
half desk and
as addicted
to the buzz of
a late-night
show as much
as the money
salary around
$30m apiece,
but they’re
worth it.
This is partly
because their
programmes
make for habitual
viewing.
Talk shows
remain a nightly
ritual for millions
across the
States – watched
before bed with
a nightcap and a newspaper, or in
bed with cocoa and a book. Most
Americans are fundamentally
conservative and resistant to change.
Breakfast news and bedtime chat
bookend their working day and woe
betide anyone who tries to tinker.
Indeed, talk shows play a much
more important role in the US than
they do anywhere else. They’re
not just about big-name celebrity
interviews, but also take in topical
satire, sketches, stunts and spoofs –
material that’s spread over multiple
formats in most other countries.
Feeding off the daily news cycle,
they’re cultural arbiters that help set
the tone of political debate.
During presidential campaigns,
both big parties monitor the
late-night shows to gauge how
certain issues and personalities are
playing with the electorate. “The
monologues are evidence of when a
certain story really breaks through,”
said Chris Lehane, Al Gore’s former
campaign press secretary during the
2000 election. “If it makes it onto
Leno or Letterman, it means something.”
Surveys show that more than
a quarter of all adults gain their information
about election campaigns
from late-night comedy.
It’s here, though, that the big two
are being challenged and regularly
beaten by satirists Jon Stewart and
Stephen Colbert – hosts of The
Daily Show and its spin-off The
Colbert Report respectively. With
an issue-driven agenda and ironic
65
Open skies / march 2013
standpoint in the same ballpark as
spoof newspaper The Onion, these
Comedy Central upstarts are shorter
– just 22 minutes plus commercial
breaks – and tend to book more
worthy, newsy guests. Their adoring
audience is young, well educated
and politically engaged – but
around half the size of the big two’s.
Entertainment will always trump
‘infotainment.’ Never underestimate
the sheer star power brought by
Hollywood A-listers that are the
province of Leno and Letterman.
Of course, their longevity brings
with it accusations of complacency
and staleness. Their heyday, arguably,
was during the mid-1990s,
when Madonna’s potty-mouthed
appearance on Letterman became
the most censored in history, while
Hugh Grant tried to rehabilitate
himself after the Divine Brown scandal,
only to be met with what’s now
one of Leno’s most famous lines:
“What the hell were you thinking?”
Certainly it was the 1990s when
UK chat shows became obsessed
with replicating the US model –
notably Jonathan Ross, who’s made
several stabs at ‘a British Letterman,’
but also Chris Evans, Danny Baker,
Frank Skinner and the underrated
but influential The Jack Doherty
show on Channel 5. However, most
UK chat shows these days follow a
Parkinson/Wogan template. Graham
Norton and Alan Carr perch on
chairs next to their guests, with lots
of knee-touching – more naughty tea
party than late-night lock-in.
Back in the US, the big two have
signed contracts until the end of
2014, by which time Leno will be 64
and Letterman 67. An hour of live
TV five nights per week is a tough
gig but don’t bet against either of
them extending those deals.
By now, they’re half man, half
desk and addicted to the buzz as
much as the big bucks. They’re still
equipped with a team of top writers
and a steady stream of starry guests
and that’s unlikely to change anytime
soon.

store
Daikanyama has been
known for many
things in post-
Second World War
Tokyo, not least as
the premier hangout of Tokyo’s rich
and famous. From the maze of small
streets, and winding lanes in the area
around the station, lined with neat
little cafes, to restaurants serving
European or top-of-the-range
Japanese dishes, and, according to
the locals, some of the finest dining
Tokyo has to offer, and this in the
city with the most Michelin stars on
Tsutaya Books
Words by Mark Buckton / Images by Antony Tran
the planet, Daikanyama is everything
much of the rest of Tokyo is not.
Tall buildings are few and far
between. Rush hour is more about
people crowding the pavements as
they walk their chihuahuas midmorning
than the rush to work. And
whatever time of day it is, the pace
is more English country village than
the world’s largest metropolis.
And, in recent months, arguably
the largest sole contributor to
this laid-back neighbourhood in
the middle of almost 13 million
Tokyoites stands Tsutaya Bookstore.
66
Open skies / march 2013
Part of its parent company CCC’s
plans for more than 100 new stores
in the coming years, the T-Site space
is a bold, innovative move in an
industry that is more often in retreat
these days.
A slow five minute amble –
nobody rushes in Daikanyama
remember – from the station of the
same name on the Tokyu Toyoko
Line, the area is just far enough
from Shibuya to avoid the crowds
of locals and tourists that throng
south-west Tokyo’s teenage hotspot.
Yet, it is close enough to attract

the more affluent, slightly older
20-somethings, women mostly,
looking for that something a little
more relaxed, classy and upmarket.
At T-Site they can tick off all these
boxes. A complex named after the
Tsutaya video store chain found
all over the Tokyo region, T-Site
consists of a Starbucks, an upmarket
lounge bar and, surrounding these,
one of Tokyo’s best bookstores.
Occupying the first floor of
two of the three buildings in the
complex, the Tsutaya Bookstore
is the main draw for most, but
compelling / Tsutaya’s T-Site branch manages to combine the quirkiness of an independent store
with the plush interiors of a five-star hotel
rather than the cramped aisles so
common in such Japanese stores,
the space, floor-to-ceiling windows
and airy feel sets this store apart
from the competition.
The sheer scale of the space is
impressive: the ground floor holds
140,000 books and magazines, while
the upper level contains more than
80,000 DVDs and 100,000 music
CDs. The print selection ranges
from the expected (Elle, Condé Nast
Traveller) to the unexpected: outof-print
Japanese magazines, firstedition
cult novels and European
67
Open skies / march 2013
independent magazines. What really
sets Tsutaya apart is the extras –
you can book flights or hotels from
the travel book section; if you can’t
find a DVD you want, staff will
burn a movie of your choice in
under 30 minutes.
Japanese scrolls decorate a
number of cubby holes in the walls –
in the cursive Chinese script used on
these islands for two thousand years.
Ceramics produced by local artists
stand ready to be inspected or just
to sit quietly in the background on
other shelves.

The staff dress like concierges in
a five-star hotel, and the ambience
is less ‘musty bookshop’ and
more high-end members’ club.
They carry iPads and can make
knowledgeable recommendations,
a fact many Western bookstores
would do well to note.
The centrepiece of the store
is Anjin – a café and bar – which
looks more like a high-end
lounge than a bookshop pit stop.
Oversized couches and a grand
piano complement a huge archive
of magazines on iPads.
Wait-staff dressed in black
aprons and waistcoats over high-
collared white shirts approach
with iPads, from which customers
can select a range of teas, coffees
as well as a large array of spirits.
The café, like the rest of the store,
is open until 2am every night –
the late closing a reflection of the
site’s ambitions to be a social hub
as much as a retail one.
While many question the
ambition of such a store,
particularly in the current climate,
it’s hard not to be impressed
with the scope of what has been
achieved here.
Tsutaya’s parent company, CCC,
founded and run by 60-year-old
68
Open skies / march 2013
Muneaki Masuda, has operated
retail outlets ever since Masuda’s
first store – a video-rental store –
opened in Osaka in 1983.
In a recent interview with
Monocle, Masuda claimed that
profit was not the only motivation
behind the site: “The reason for
the shop is to give knowledge
workers a place to gather,” he
said. “People ask me about profits.
But you don’t know about profits,
if you are doing something that
nobody has done before.”
That contrarian attitude is
reflected in how he chose the
books. He deliberately eschewed
best-seller lists and instead asked
authors to name their favourite
titles. The resulting selection
does have an independent feel,
and it’s this sense of quirkiness
alongside the shop’s polished
interiors that makes the site so
compelling.
Lovers of print will hope that
this originality will translate into
profit, and, eventually, more such
stores throughout the country.

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72
politics
How Nate Silver
became the most
respected man
in US politics
travel
Main
82
An epic road
trip across the
West Coast
of Africa
90
Food
We discover
how the modern
restaurant trade
is changing
Into the West
Three Swedes rediscover
America’s beautiful heart
(p100)

PROFILE

THE
SMARTEST
MAN IN
AMERICA?
How a 34-year-old geek changed
American politics forever
by noah davis

Karl Rove was apoplectic. He
couldn’t understand what was
happening. Well, he could,
but the Republican political
strategist-turned-talking head
did not want to accept the facts. He
refused to believe the numbers. Fox
News, the conservative television
network where he worked, had just
called the state of Ohio for President
Barack Obama. It it were true the incumbent
would spend another term
in the White House. But Rove had
polls showing that the election was
much closer, showing that former
Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney
would prevail. Fox News’ people
disagreed. And so, on the night of
November 6, Rove found himself
melting down on national television,
while the country watched with a
mix of horror, amusement, disgust,
and anger. He, of course, was wrong
in his assumptions. There was one
thing Rove and his overly confident
Republican cohort did not take
into account: statistics. By the end
of the election cycle, one man would
embody all that nearly drove Rove
around the bend.
If there was a single winner of
November 2012’s presidential election
in the United States, it was
Obama, who won four more years
after a gruelling campaign against
Mitt Romney. But if there was a
second winner, it was a then-34 year
old who grew up in Michigan and
followed an unusual path to fame
and fortune. Nate Silver, the man
and the brain behind the election
prediction website FiveThirtyEight,
used numbers to make his mark on
one of the most important political
contests in America’s history. His
algorithm successfully called the
result of the tightly contested campaign,
an occurrence that elevated
Silver to a rarified height in the national
consciousness.
On November 7, Obama woke
up as President-elect, ready for
a second term, while Silver, who
probably didn’t sleep on Election
Night, found himself with a higher
Go TiGers / Nate Silver’s love of
baseball, and the Detroit Tigers,
translated into his first statistical
prediction model
74
Open skies / march 2013

profile than he ever could have
imagined when he started posting
his statistics-related thoughts on a
left-leaning website in late 2007. But
Silver’s rise into the political stratosphere
normally reserved for politicians-turned-television
windbags or
journalists who write for The New
York Times, The New Yorker, and
other respected publications did
something else as well. By proving
the doubters wrong, by showing
that intelligent formulas and smart
algorithms could see facts as they
were, not facts that were tinged
with bias, Silver delivered a decisive
uppercut in the ongoing battle
between maths and political punditry.
The nerd became the king,
showing the United States and the
wider world that what we think we
knew isn’t always true. It’s a difficult
lesson to learn, but one that is vital
in our complex times.
Nate Silver did not originally
learn statistics to solve the problem
of political polls. Initially, he had
a simpler need: to win his fantasy
baseball league. After gradating
from the University of Chicago with
a degree in economics, the son of the
political science department chair at
Michigan State University took a job
with the consulting firm KPMG. But
Silver, a baseball fan since his youth,
found the gig dull and he needed
another outlet. He started fiddling
with a system that would come to be
called Player Empirical Comparison
and Optimization Test Algorithm,
or PECOTA after Bill Pecota, a
journeyman infielder who spent
time with the Detroit Tigers team
for which Silver supported.
The goal of his creation was to
use past performance on the field
to predict future results. Baseball,
a sport that is obsessed with statistics,
offered mountains of data.
Silver simply needed to develop a
workable model that would make
sense of the variables. He spent
years refining the formula, eventually
quitting KPMG to play online
poker where he made $400,000 in
75
Open skies / march 2013
three years, according to Sports
Illustrated. In 2003, Baseball Prospectus
purchased PECOTA and
hired Silver to manage the company’s
projections.
Numbers were paying off.
Fantasy baseball, in which people
‘draft’ players from different teams
to create their own club and then
play other managers in their league,
was exploding in popularity. Baseball
fans, long rooted in traditions
such as the value of batting average
and earned run average, were beginning
to understand the importance
of new statistics, highlighted in Michael
Lewis’ bestseller, Moneyball.
Silver, PECOTA, and Baseball Prospectus
came along at the perfect
time, serving as a place where fans
and fantasy players on the cutting
edge could pay for advance information.
Hundreds of thousands
Karl Rove found himself
melting down on national
TV, while the country
looked in horror, disgust
and amusement. The
statistics had beaten
the talking heads
did. Life was good as 2003 became
2005, then 2007. But, once again,
Silver found himself bored.
The 2008 presidential election
felt like an extremely important
moment in American history. After
eight years of George W Bush,
the country found itself divided,
searching for a new leader. Neither
Democratic nor Republican Party
had a candidate who was sure to
win the nomination.
The rise of Twitter, Facebook,
and other forms of social media, in
addition to the relentless assault
of cable news programmes aiming
to capture audience share added
to the attention the country paid

to the coming election. Polling
firms dramatically increased their
output and pundits, desperate for
a ‘story’ to tell, used any change
in the numbers to enhance their
overblown points.
On November 1, 2007 – roughly a
year before the election – a blogger
using the pseudonym ‘Poblano’ started
posting detailed breakdowns of
the polls on DailyKos, a liberal site.
The items discussed the failings
of individual polls, the dangers of
jumping to conclusions based on
limited or faulty information and
assumptions, and offered a more
informed take on statistics. Poblano
slowly gained a following, launching
the site FiveThirtyEight in March,
2008 with the tagline ‘Politics Done
Right.’ The URL, FiveThirtyEight.
com, is a reference to the number
of electoral votes in the country.
(To win the presidency, a candidate
must secure at least 270 electoral
Some argued that
politics was about
momentum, instinct
and feel. Silver
argued that is was a
numbers game, albeit
a very important one
77
Open skies / march 2013
BiGGesT Loser / Karl Rove’s
infamous election night
appearance on Fox was a turning
point for many pundits
votes. Each state gets two votes for
its senators and another one vote for
each representative in the House,
determined by the state’s population.
(Yes, this is a rather ridiculous
process.) As the visibility of the site
grew, so did the interest in the real
identity of the blogger.
Poblano, of course, was none
other than PECOTA’s Nate Silver.
He was still working for Baseball
Prospectus, but he had also turned
his attention to making sense of the
reams and reams of polling information.
He revealed himself during the
summer and continued parsing the
tight battle between the Democratic
candidate, Illinois Senator Barack
Obama, and the Republican one,
Arizona Senator John McCain. Each
day, Silver’s algorithm updated the
state of the race. The formula took
the polls and other factors into account,
to determine the probability
of a candidate winning their state,

thus earning its electoral votes. Silver’s
computer ran thousands of
projections and determined the
most likely scenarios.
As with the baseball world half
a decade earlier, some people in
the political realm weren’t ready to
hear what Silver was telling them.
Politics, they argued, was about
feel, momentum, and instinct. The
statistician, on the other hand, believed
it was a game – after all, what
is politics but an important game?
– in which truths could be revealed
through numbers and facts. Long
held beliefs might be false, or at least
incomplete. In Silver’s view, all that
mattered was the algorithm.
The ultimate test of the theory
came on November 4, 2008, the day
of the election. Silver’s formula predicted
a landslide for Obama. The
country went to cast their votes, then
turned their attention to the television
where pundits yelled, screamed,
and pontificated. The numbers started
rolling in. The result was a landslide.
Silver correctly predicted the
winner of 49 out of the 50 states,
missing Indiana by a single percentage
point. He also nailed the victor
in all 35 senatorial races. Silver, the
The 2008 election
results made Nate
Silver a star, as he
correctly predicted
the winner of 49 out
of the 50 states.
Statistics went
mainstream
78
Open skies / march 2013
nerd king of baseball, added a political
crown to his mantle.
The gradual stream of people
discovering FiveThirtyEight turned
into a torrent during the final days
of the election and immediately afterwards.
The accolades followed as
well. Silver spoke at a TED conference
in 2009, attempting to explain
the presence of racism in voting
patterns. He served as the keynote
speaker of South by Southwest Interactive,
one of the most influential
tech gatherings in the United
States. He signed a book deal, wrote
a monthly column about data(!) for
Esquire, and played in the World
Series of Poker. Time named Silver
one of the The World’s 100 Most
Influential People. “The point is not
how precisely he calls the results but
that after reading his analysis, you
actually know something you didn’t
know when you started.
“In a world choking on retreaded
arguments long worn bald of the
facts, this type of analysis has proved
to be stunningly — and reassuringly
— popular,” is how Bill James, the
father of advanced baseball stats and
a man whose life work Silver built
upon with PECOTA, wrote about his
disciple in the issue.
FiveThirtyEight lost a bit of
relevance after the presidential
election but still found ways
to influence the conversation.
Silver and his team of colleagues
focused on the mid-term elections
in 2010, but also injected a
little bit of whimsy into the site.
In April 2010, Silver published
an epic post titled Double Down
by the Numbers: Unhealthiest
Sandwich Ever? in which he used
data and numbers to determine
if Kentucky Friend Chicken’s
newest offering – bacon, cheese,
and sauce squeezed between
two fried chicken buns – was the
worst fast food item to eat. The
conclusion: “It’s a high bar to
clear, but it’s the closest thing to
pure junk food of any ‘sandwich’
being marketed today.”

The combination of intelligent
analysis, approachable
number-crunching, success, and
occasional levity kept Silver’s blog
moving along, and The New York
Times came calling. During the summer
of 2010, he signed a three-year
deal with the publication, which
would host FiveThirtyEight on its
own site. The opportunity gave Silver,
who left Baseball Prospectus
the year before, more resources and
more freedom. He and his team of
writers and statisticians kept producing,
gearing up what was sure
to be a wild and intense 2012 campaign
season. But no one could have
predicted exactly how crazy things
would get, nor how completely Silver
and stats would win in the end.
The intense coverage of the 2012
election made the glut of information
that outlets spewed forth in
2008 look like a cute little endeavour.
Media outlets around the country,
desperate for advertising dollars,
staffed up their political teams
in an effort to capture eyeballs and,
in turn, revenue. For the entire year
before the November event, the
election was everywhere. It was,
increasingly and inevitably, overwhelming.
Through it all, Silver and
his FiveThirtyEight team kept writing
and refining their algorithms.
Somewhere along the way, an interesting
thing happened. The statistician’s
numbers, which gave the
Obama a decided advantage over
challenger Mitt Romney, started to
diverge from the story news outlets
– specifically right-wing ones –
were telling. Their reporters found
a much closer race than a glance at
Silver’s predictions would indicate.
Silver found his work assaulted by
everyone from Newsweek’s David
Frum and Niall Ferguson to MSNBC
co-host Joe Scarborough. It was all
very dramatic.
The attacks, however, also
demonstrated a fundamental flaw
in the understanding of Silver’s
work, which deals with probability,
not certainty. A 70 per cent
chance that Obama would win
meant exactly that: if the election
took place 100 times, he would win
in 70 of them. Applying probability
to a one-off event, be it a coin flip
or a presidential election, can be a
difficult concept to explain but the
vehemence with which pundits
attacked Silver was unfair, more
representative of the need to create
drama than the importance of
telling the story of the campaign.
Silver, it seemed, became a proxy
for a discussion about the state of
the media in the web age.
At the same time, he had a great
deal riding on the outcome of Tuesday,
November 6. In Silver’s model,
President Obama’s chances for
Silver found himself
and his work
attacked by both
sides of the political
spectrum. He proved
them wrong, again,
in the 2012 election
re-election had risen to almost 91
per cent, despite the fact that the
two candidates were basically tied
in the polls. Television pundits,
Democrat and Republican alike,
were apoplectic at this fact. Furthermore,
the Michigan native was
experiencing unprecedented visibility,
with 20 per cent of visitors to
The New York Times’ website going
to FiveThirtyEight the day before
the election.
The vote tallies started to roll in
on Election Night, and it became
increasingly clear that Silver’s
methods were superior to the punditry.
The election was tight, but in
the end it was a rout for Obama and
one for Silver as well. His algorithm
did even better than it had four
years ago, successfully calling the
80
Open skies / march 2013
result of all 50 states, as well as 31 of
the 33 senatorial seats. The sitting
President had four more years and
maths’ champion had his biggest
victory ever.
Overnight, Silver transformed
from ‘That FiveThirtyEight guy’ to
a legitimate celebrity. Someone recognised
him on top of the Sun Pyramid
at Teotihuacan, a moment he
jokingly said was “a sign of the Apocalypse.”
He hit the talk show circuit,
wearing a Cookie Monster shirt
on Conan O’Brien’s late-night show.
His book, The Signal and the Noise
that was published two months before
the election, jumped to No. 1 on
The New York Times non-fiction
bestseller list. A poker tournament
flew him to Australia to participate.
It was a good time to be Nate Silver.
He also fueled the next trend in
journalism: data journalism. Numbers,
formulas and algorithms will
play an increasingly important
role in understanding and explaining
the world. Silver helped prove
the masses would pay attention.
When the 2016 election rolls
around, the networks will have
their blustery pundits. Those
people aren’t going away. But
Silver and others like Sam Wang of
the Princeton Election Consortium
team that also nailed the 2012 outcome,
will be on TV, countering the
hot air with facts and logic. Political
coverage in the United States is better
for the efforts of an unassuming
baseball fan from Michigan.
At his TED talk in 2009, Silver
explained to the audience that he
spent his days looking for predictability.
The reasons: if something
is predictable, it’s designable; the
only hard part is building the model.
That observation has been one of
the major keys to his astonishing
success. No one, however, could
have designed a model that anticipated
Silver’s rise.
Noah Davis is a writer living in
Brooklyn, New York

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TRAVEL

The Roads
Between Us
Frank Bures goes on an eye-opening – and hair-raising
road trip across Western Africa
Engine off!” yelled a policeman
standing in
front of our car, pointing
his machine gun at
the driver. “Get out!”
It was still dark, long before
the sun would come up, and
we had just started out from a
city in southern Nigeria called
Osogbo. The taxi was packed
with people heading north, when
our driver tried to run through a
checkpoint. Before he could make
it, one of the policemen jumped in
front of us.
The policeman, machine gun
now cradled in his arms, came towards
the car.
“Let me see your particulars,” he
yelled at the driver.
The driver turned off the engine
and got out. Together, they disappeared
behind the car, while the
rest of us waited. Waiting was something
I was used to by then, and time
was something I knew I would be
spending a lot of on this trip. I was
on my way to Abuja, where I would
take another car north to Niger.
There, I would get to the Trans-
Sahelian Highway, which is one of
the few — if not the only — completed
legs of the Trans-African
Highway network, a system which,
in theory, will someday join all parts
of the continent, revolutionise travel
and trade, and usher in a new era of
road-fueled prosperity so great, it is
hoped, that human right champion
Nicholas Kristof will be out of a job.
It is one of many such schemes
for improving Africa’s notorious
roads, which take countless lives in
accidents every year. The carnage
costs countries around 2 per cent

oad rules / A broken windshield is just one of the hazards of an African road trip
of their GDP, while the delays, paperwork
and the rest end up costing
much more. So I wanted to travel
across one of these new roads to see
where it might be taking the continent,
and how it might change things
for better or worse.
In the dark the other policemen
at the checkpoint milled
around, while we all waited patiently,
in silence. There was no
gunshot. After a while, the driver
reappeared, opened his door, got
in, and turned the engine on. The
policeman waved us through, and
we drove on.
Some days later, I was crammed
into an impossibly small space in
a minivan in Niger. There were
some 25 other people who had embarked
on a 13-hour journey across
the empty, austere landscape to
the capital Niamey. I stared out the
window at a country that felt a little
I was crammed
into a minivan in
Niger, facing a
13-hour journey
across the
empty, austere
niger landscape,
wondering if I
would have the
full use of my
extremities when I
got there
84
Open skies / march 2013
like a game park with no game, like
Tatooine with trees. The two-lane
road was freshly tarmacked in some
places, with bright painted lines. It
should have been fast, but we hit
check points and speed bumps so
often that so we couldn’t go much
faster than the camels that once
traveled this route.
All I could really focus on, however,
was whether I’d have the full
use of my lower extremities when
we got there. My feet tingled, and it
was impossible to turn my body any
way other than to look out the window,
So I sat and tried to will the
feeling into my toes. I remembered
the words of Shiva Naipaul.
“I sit absolutely still,” Naipaul
wrote about being on a bus in Kenya
in North of South, “trying to work
myself into the trancelike state of
mind which, I have discovered, is
the sine qua non of long-distance

journeys in
this part of the
world. It is a
state of mind
that combines
fatalism,
self-surrender
and a steely
determination
to maintain
one’s toehold
of possession.”
I tried every
manoeuvre to
get the blood
back into my
toes, but it just
resulted in a
different parts
losing circulation.
So I tried
to forget about it and conjure up that
trance-like state. I stared ahead at the
road, at the trees, at the far-off horizon.
But just as I thought I might
achieve it, the driver slowed for a
checkpoint and a wash of clear yellow
liquid ran down the windshield, and I
remembered seeing two goats being
strapped up there before we left. I remembered
thinking PETA would not
be pleased. I also remembered thinking:
glad that’s not me.
Now, however, I wasn’t sure
who had the worse seat.
Further down the road, somewhere
in Burkina Faso, we pulled
over to pick up some passengers.
As the minivan slowed, a thin white
stream of smoke started to pour out
of the dashboard — just a trickle
first, then in billows. The driver
pointed to the smoke, mumbled
something and jumped out.
“Get out! Get out!” yelled the
man next to me.
I jumped out.
We stood by the side of the
road waiting for the smoke to
clear. The man’s name was James.
He was small and wore oversized
glasses that made him look like a
miniature version of MC Hammer,
circa 1987.
James was on his way home
He was small
and wore
oversized
glasses that
made him look
like a miniature
MC Hammer,
circa 1987.
His name was
James
from Niger to Ghana, where he
planned to sell the cow hides he’d
bought. He spoke both English and
French, and was one of the few
people I’d met who traveled fluidly
between Francophone and Anglophone
West Africa, which were regarded
by many as alien worlds.
When the smoke cleared,
the new passengers’ bags were
thrown on top, and the driver motioned
for us to get back in.
“This road,” James said to me in
a conspiratorial tone as we drove
on, “used to be full of armed robbers.
Now the army patrols it. But
the road from Ouaga to Mali is still
very dangerous. Many armed rob-
86
Open skies / march 2013
bers! Don’t take small cars. Take
the big moto. In small cars sometimes
the driver is on the inside, if
you catch my meaning.” He cast a
suspicious glance at our driver.
“I catch it,” I said.
“Do you like business?”
he asked.
“Yes,” I said. “I like business.”
“I love doing business. Any kind
of business. I am a businessman.
There is only one kind I can’t do,
and that is killing people. But any
other business, I can do it! There
was one business I was doing, and
I was arrested twice in Cape Verde.
I spent one year in jail there.”
“What business was that?”

land route
/ Bures’ trip
took him from
the centre
of Nigeria
to Dakar in
Senegal on the
coast
“That business was illegal.”
“The money must have been
good,” I ventured.
“Yes,” he said, and smiled at the
memory of how good it was. “But
I don’t do that business any more,
because I don’t have contacts. But
if I got contacts again, I would just
go do it. Because, you know, there is
no easy way in Africa.”
The road was a long one. I
switched in and out of vans. I rode
all day, then crashed in whatever
town we stopped in. I didn’t really
see many sites, but I saw a lot of life,
and of characters like James. I had
strangers buy my meals in Niger. I
got swindled in Mali. I slept on the
ground in bus parks, and on the bus,
and in hotels where I’m pretty sure
I was the only guest. I ate, oddly,
just about every permutation of the
baguette, a most welcome and delicious
legacy of the French.
By the time I reached the border
in Senegal, I was starting to know
the ropes. One things I’d learned
is that it’s not a good sign when
the bus won’t start, which is what
happened just as we were about to
enter the country.
“All the men! Outside!” yelled
the driver.
There were many men — and
women — on the bus from across
the region: Aliwaliou, a thin
trader from Guinea with stomach
problems; Omar, a soft-spoken
teacher from Ivory Coast; Yousof,
an eager businessman from Timbuktu;
Kennie, a loud, friendly
Nigerian on her way to anywhere
but Nigeria.
We climbed down, walked
around behind the bus, and started
pushing. Omar was standing next
to me. He smiled.
“Now you are an African!” he
said and laughed.
We pushed. The bus inched
forward. The driver popped the
clutch, and the engine roared. The
horn blared and we all ran around
and jumped on.
We crossed a wide river and
droved on toward Senegal, where
we stopped at the customs office.
But as I listened to the driver talk
to the officer, I could
tell there was a problem.
I could hear
words like “border”
and “closed” and
“tomorrow,” none of
which seemed like
good words to hear.
Everyone headed
back to the bus.
“Why can’t we
cross?” I asked Aliwaliou.
“There is an election,”
he said, “so they
have closed the border.
We must wait until tomorrow.”
“So what can we
do?”
“Nothing,” he said,
and shrugged. “We
wait.”
87
Open skies / march 2013
We drove back to Mali and
stopped in a parking lot just off the
main road. It was surrounded by low,
one-room brick houses, shops and
food stands. I sat down with Kennie,
who spoke hardly a word of French,
but who was having a fantastic time
laughing with two women who
spoke no English.
“You know,” I said, “the bus isn’t
leaving today.”
“Yes,” she said. “They say there
is no way. The roads are closed.
But it’s okay, because like this, I
am making friends. We are family
now. The road
The passengers
were mainly
men and they
were from
all over, from
Ivory Coast,
Timbuktu,
Guinea and
Nigeria
is closed, but the
road between
people is open.”
The Nigerians
appeared at dawn
— six of them.
They were young
men, in their early
20s. They stood in
the road as if they
owned it. One of
them was singing
— something hiphop,
something
Nigerian.
We’d all risen
early after a long
night on the Malian
side of the border,
spent lying on thin
reed mats laid over
rocky dirt. At 7am

the bus lumbered out onto the road
and stopped. The driver blasted
the horn, then started rolling again.
Everyone started running for it, so I
ran too.
This time, we raced through
customs, then drove to the Senegalese
immigration section. Just
before we got there, the Nigerians
got up, leaped off bus and disappeared
into the crowd.
At the immigration office, we
handed over our passports.
“Is this everyone?” the officer
asked, looking around suspiciously.
We all looked around too, as if we
didn’t know what he was talking
about. He went back to his office.
Names were called. Passports were
retrieved.
We drove back the way we’d
come, and just before we reached the
highway, I saw the Nigerians running
at top speed. One by one they
jumped back on the bus. But just
as the last one got on, a policeman
on a motorcycle raced around from
behind and pulled us over. Four of
them jumped off and ran away. Two
others stayed to plead their case.
The rage inside the bus was
palpable. Everyone started yelling,
and it felt as if the crowd was on the
edge of becoming a mob.
“Nigeria is the worst country in
Africa,” Omar said.
The concrete road
had disintegrated
into a million
tiny rock pillars.
Sometimes the
bus shook so much
I could barely see
One of the Nigerians looked at
me. “Can you translate?” he said.
“Can you tell them we paid the
driver, and he has our passports?”
Yousuf came onto the bus and sat
next to me. “Nigerians are very dangerous!”
he said. “Very dangerous!”
Another Nigerian came over.
“What is wrong with these people?”
he asked me. “Tell them they are just
making things worse.”
One by one, the Nigerians came
back to the bus. There was more
88
Open skies / march 2013
yelling, more vitriol. The Nigerians
made some phone calls, and after
two more hours of haggling, the
fees seemed to have been paid. The
policeman got on his motorcycle
and drove off, and so did we.
A silence descended as we
headed into Senegal. We wound
around through low hills on a good
road before it straightened out and
turned very, very bad. The concrete
had disintegrated into a million
tiny rock pillars. Sometimes the bus
shook so much I could barely see.
When we stopped for lunch, one
of the Nigerians bought me an orange
soda. They were nice kids once
I got to talk to them, glad to get out of
Lagos, all heading to Cape Verde and
maybe beyond. Basically, they wanted
what everyone on the bus wanted: to
reach the promises at the other end.
The bus drove all night, and it
was late when I drifted off. Around
4am we stopped to drop off some
people. Far ahead, I could see the
lights of Dakar. I waited for us to
move on, but nothing happened.
“All the men!” the driver
shouted. “All the men outside... and
the boys!”
We got out and went around to
the back of the bus. Cars whizzed
by us on the freeway. We pushed.
The bus crawled forward. The
driver let out the clutch once,
twice, then three times.
We kept pushing. On the fourth try
the engine caught. The driver revved
the motor. A loud cheer went up, and
the horn blared in the night. Then we
rolled on, at last, to wherever each of
our roads would take us.
Frank Bures is an award-winning
writer who lives in the US

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penfolds.com

CULTURE
The Rise Of The
Restaurateur
90
Open skies / march 2013

Is the era of the super chef over? Nick
Lander argues that the chef is headed
back to the kitchen and the restaurateur
is about to take the spotlight

Short lived / elBulli, in
Catalonia, was the poster boy
for molecular gastronomy
before it closed in 2011
92
Open skies / march 2013

My love affair with
restaurants began
in 1980 when, aged
28, highly optimistic
and equally
naïve, I took on the 25-year lease of
a five-storey building in London’s
Soho. This, since 1926, had been
home to L’Escargot Bienvenu and
had become one of the city’s best
loved French restaurants.
I renovated it. I shortened its
name to L’Escargot. And nine
months later, scarred but unbowed,
I re-opened it with a brasserie on
the ground floor and three rooms of
restaurant on the first and second
floors. Our menus were short and
seasonal, written entirely in English,
a most unusual distinction
in those days when French was
the lingua franca of the restaurant
world, and our wine list featured
the best from all over the world at
prices that today seem incredibly
low. It was my professional home
until ill health forced me to sell it
in 1988.
In 1989 I swapped sides of the
professional divide when I became
the restaurant correspondent of
the Financial Times. Since then I
have witnessed several remarkable
changes in this fascinating business.
There has been the fall of France
from its seemingly inviolate culinary
pedestal. There has been the
emergence of extraordinarily talented
chefs from Australia, Denmark,
Portugal, Spain and the US. There
has been the rise and, it seems, now
gradual decline of interest in molecular
gastronomy, as well as the
insatiable fascination of the media
with life behind the kitchen door
which has led to the emergence
of so many celebrity chefs. And,
perhaps most satisfactorily for any
restaurant industry observer, there
has been the growing confidence
of so many restaurant goers. As we
continue to learn and to demand
more, standards will only rise.
But one other major current
change is even closer to my heart,
and it is that change which prompted
me to write my most recent
book, The Art of The Restaurateur.
I firmly believe that the days of
93
Open skies / march 2013
the ‘super chef’ may now be over, and
that the role of the restaurateur may
finally be restored to the importance
it once held.
The era when restaurant goers
wanted above all to be dazzled
by the food put in front of them,
cooked by such chefs as Ferran Adria,
Heston Blumenthal and Grant
Achatz, may finally be drawing to a
close. What customers now want,
above all else, is good food and
good wine, and to be considerately
and sensitively looked after – and
it is the delivery of these three ele-
The era when restaurant goers wanted above all to be
dazzled by the food put in front of them is drawing to a
close. What customers now want is to be looked after
ments that propels every restaurateur
to put in a long and hard day
and night’s work, often seven days
a week.
This shift in what their customers
are looking for takes the
restaurateur’s profession back to
its origins in Paris in the mid 18th
century. This, in turn, explains
why, to the surprise of many, there
is no n in the word restaurateur.

10 eSSeNtiAl
QUAlitieS
For A
reStAUrAteUr /
• A Good SeNSe oF
humour, the sine
qua non. So much
can go wrong and
customers can be so
unpredictable that
this is the bedrock
on which restaurants
built.
• A love oF Food,
wine and one’s fellow
human beings.
• hAve A NoSe For
the right location. I
don’t believe that it
is location, location,
location, but if you can
pick an inexpensive
site on its way up
the concomitant
cheap lease can allow
you to open slightly
under the market and
will go some way to
cushioning your many
early mistakes.
Restaurants first emerged in Paris
at a time when the city’s wealthier
classes began to believe that there
was a strong connection between
good food and good health. The most
immediate, and refined, dish at that
time was known as a ‘restaurant’, a
clear and nourishing court bouillon,
or soup, and those who began to make
a living from serving it became known
as ‘restaurateurs’, those who restored
their customers to good health.
Paris remained the centre of the
profession for many decades until the
French began to teach the rest of the
world how to open restaurants and to
take care of their customers’ appetites
and general well being. But wherever
they went the set-up was always the
same: the restaurateurs were the only
ones known to their customers or the
wider public, while the chefs stayed
firmly behind the kitchen door.
That situation changed in the
1970s as ‘la nouvelle cuisine’ spread.
The publicity which this new style of
lighter cooking attracted, also associated
with considerably smaller portions,
saw the emergence of chefs such
as Paul Bocuse, Roger Verget, Jacques
Lameloise and Alain Chapel. And as
their fame grew, that of the restaurateur
began to wane. The late Jean-
Claude Vrinat was the last restaurateur
(as opposed to chef ) in France
to hold the maximum three Michelin
stars for his restaurant, Taillevent, in
Paris, but he and his restaurant were
demoted to two stars the year before
his untimely death in 2008.
There are, I believe, a number of
diverse reasons behind the return of the
restaurateur.
The first is the economics that lie
behind these top restaurants. It was late
one night in 2010 in the bar of the Imperial
Hotel, Tokyo over a large gin and
tonic that Feran Adria – the chef behind
the now closed world-famous restaurant
El Bulli – gave me an insight into this
world. The financial crisis was already
under way and although the euro crisis
was yet to begin, Adria was already fearful
for his fellow chefs. “What no-one
really appreciates,” he explained, “is
94
OpeN skIes / maRch 2013
trAil BlAZer / Heston Blumenthal’s
Fat Duck and its pub ‘spin offs’ is a
model that has been repeated
The restaurateurs were
the only ones known to
their customers, while the
chefs stayed firmly behind
the kitchen door
that running such a small, albeit highly
expensive restaurant like El Bulli is like
financing a Formula One racing team,
or being the owner of a haute couture
label. They are so labour intensive they
can never make a profit. They are truly
a labour of love.”
But what can make up for this lack of
profitability is all the associated revenue
streams a loss making, but internationally
renowned, restaurant can attract.
In El Bulli’s case it was via best-selling
books and close associations with a
beer producer and a hotel chain. For
Heston Blumenthal at The Fat Duck in
Bray, the maxim that in restaurants the
overall profitability is in inverse propor-

tion to the quality of the food that
is served, is borne out by his two
highly popular pubs, The Hind’s
Head and The Crown, both in the
same picturesque village. The number
of customers these will attract,
and the profits generated, will far
outstrip his initial restaurant. And
all of these will be enhanced by his
subsequent links with Waitrose and
Channel 4 TV.
But these restaurants emerged
in a different, and seemingly more
certain world, one that also affected
our response to what these
chefs put on the plate.
At that time, shocks and
surprises, variations, often complete
re-interpretations or ‘deconstructions’
in menu speak, of
dishes we had longed held dear
seemed wonderfully exciting, original
and witty.
And often, but not always,
they tasted good, too. And,
however they tasted, they
always looked good on the cam-
era, something that always added
to their appeal.
Today, this is not the case. The
front page of every newspaper
every day seems to carry enough
shocks and surprises. We have
reached a point where we no
longer want them on the plate.
These two significant changes
have taken place against the background
of an even more important
change in the way we live.
Since 2008, for the first time
in human history, more than half
of the world’s population lives
in cities rather than in the countryside.
And not only are restaurants
today an established attraction
for any traveller to any city
but, as I researched my book, I
came to appreciate quite what an
extraordinarily important role
the most exemplary restaurateurs
have played in the renaissance of
our inner cities.
In New York, Danny Meyer
opened up Union Square Café and
95
OpeN skIes / maRch 2013
brought this once run-down area
back to life, as he did for a second
time when he opened Shake Shack
in Madison Square Gardens. Drew
Nieporent had the same effect on
what was 20 years ago the dark,
dingy and somewhat dangerous
area known as Tribeca. But once
the lights went on in his Tribeca
Grill, customers followed and the
area flourished.
This impact has subsequently
been repeated across numerous
other cities. In London, no-one felt
safe walking down Exmouth Market
close to the home of Sadlers
Wells ballet, but once Mark Sainsbury
had displayed that he too possessed
that essential combination
of youth, courage and naivety in
opening Moro in 2002, the whole
street came alive. Neil Perry had
the same impact when he opened
Rockpool down by the Rocks in
Sydney. So too did his fearless compatriot
and fellow chef, Michelle
Garnaut, when she opened her res-

• UNderStANd FiNANCiAl
arithmetic, a P & L account,
and how important it is
to use your cash wisely,
i.e. to pay your small and
independent suppliers as
soon as you can.
• iNSPire, leAd FroM
the front and communicate.
Be there, even if you’re
not that competent. An
Australian restaurateur
summed this up when he
said a restaurateur must
‘loiter with intent’.
• APPreCiAte thAt the
two most important pieces
of paper in any restaurant
are not the menu and the
wine list as every TV
show maintains they
are but the lease and the
alcohol license.
taurants in Shanghai and Beijing.
While many cities have been revived
by the achievements of these restaurateurs,
another aspect of our rapidly
changing lives seems to be ensuring
that the skills of the restaurateur will
continue to be in demand.
Restaurants make up one particular
aspect of the retail industry, but they
share, with only the health and beauty
segment, a great advantage over all the
others and that is that their sales are impervious
to the internet. While online
purchases force the closure of what were
once regarded as seemingly impregnable
high street names as customers switch to
buying on line, this is something that cannot
be replicated for restaurants. If you
want a pre-theatre drink, lunch or dinner
at a new restaurant that has been well reviewed,
then the only option is to go out
physically to enjoy them. Restaurants cannot
be experienced via cyberspace.
And as restaurants have come to
play a greater role in our lives than ever
before, as rents rise and we cook less,
despite the growing number of cookery
books, the honourable profession of the
restaurateur has been boosted by two
other developments.
The first is that the restaurant business
harbours very few secrets. Selling
prices on the menu are, by law, on pub-
96
OpeN skIes / maRch 2013
The front page of every
newspaper carries enough
shocks and surprises. We
have reached a point where
we no longer want them on
the plate
lic display, and there are very few variables
in the main cost elements of rent,
wages or buying the essential food and
drink. It is a business with a distinctly
low-cost entry point, however much
money may subsequently be spent on
the final design.
And, as a result of spending so much
of their working lives in such a transparent
business, restaurateurs are remarkably
frank and generous with their
advice. What struck me most forcibly in
conducting my interviews with these
restaurateurs was quite how open and
willing they were to talk about their
successes and their far more painful
failures. And it transpires that even the
most seemingly successful restaurateur
has had to close at least one restaurant,
with one describing it as, “the most
costly but the most didactic experience
of my career.”
Many of the aspects of the openness
of the restaurateur’s profession
BiG PlAYerS / Drew Nieporent
and Jean-Claude Vrinat

Your Passport to Happiness

are set out in Setting the Table, written
by New York restaurateur, Danny
Meyer, a copy of which is to be found
in every thoughtful restaurateur’s head
office. At the outset, Meyer turns the
conventional view of the restaurateur’s
role upside down by explaining that
his primary function is not to look after
his customers but rather to look after,
and train, his staff so well that they in
turn can look after his customers to the
standards he demands.
And it is this sense of being welcomed,
looked after, nurtured and
then, refreshed, sent back into the
world that is an essential human need
and one that only restaurateurs can
fulfil. However talented the chefs may
be, they are invariably behind the kitchen
door, dealing with their customers’
orders.
By the time I had finished my book,
I had reached the conclusion that
however diverse restaurateurs are,
and however varied their restaurants
may be – and those in the book range
from those with three Michelin stars
to those simply serving noodles –
there seem to be ten essential qualities
to the art of the restaurateur.
And of these, two seemed more important
than all the others. The first is
a sense of humour, a trait that is vital
when dealing with the general public,
but important here too as the media
continues to focus on this business.
Quite a few chefs began to believe the
publicity that they generated and that,
ultimately, proved their downfall.
The second is a love of good food
and wine and one’s fellow man and woman.
Restaurateurs fulfil a function in
society that is humane and life enriching
and that is why I believe that the
overdue recognition of all those who
practice this often gruelling profession
is to be welcomed. And fully enjoyed.
Nick Lander’s book The Art of the
Restaurateur is published by Phaidon
98
OpeN skIes / maRch 2013
• CoMBiNe viSioN ANd
determination. One
without the other simply
is not good enough.
• CoMBiNe StUBBorNNeSS
with ability to bend to
popular demand. Hold
on to what has led you
to open but be prepared
to bend particularly to the
increasing importance
of women!
• CoMBiNe iNNer
sensibility with a thick
skin. Understand what is
going on; keep abreast of
what is in the air; but don’t
get too upset by criticism
or a swinging review. A
restaurateur’s biggest
enemy, says Joe Bastianich,
in my book is not the
restaurant reviewer but
his or her ego.
• FiNAllY, ANd i Believe
that this is the most
recent and most
difficult challenge for
restaurateurs, is, to
be aware and responsive
to: the environment;
climate change; the
importance of your
local community; and
the power every
restaurateur has to
do good.

BATIŞEHİR
THE BIGGEST INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY
AT THE BEST LOCATION IN ISTANBUL!
Batışehir which is located at the center of İstanbul, one of the favorite cities in the world
where there is a shopping street of luxurious brands next to the big shopping malls
offering all the prestigious opportunities of life is waiting for you to enjoy life or to
make a profitable investment.
• 10 minutes to Atatürk Airport
• 10 minutes to Maslak , the center of
the business world
• At the intersection point of TEM and
E-5 which are the main
transportation roads in İstanbul
• Within the “Shopping Street”
with popular brands
• Next to the big shopping malls
444 5 343 / batisehir.com
AFFILIATE EMLAK KONUT

into
the
west
BY
lars strandberg
lars Åberg
ronnie nilsson

desert road,
monument valley, utah

motel sign,
shoshoni, Wyoming

Caravan,
middlegate station,
nevada

four hats in a Car
halleCk, nevada

winter road,
ruby mountains,
nevada

BRIEFING
115
LIVE TV
Live TV makes its
Emirates debut,
with live sports
and news infl ight
115
QANTAS LEAP
Qantas tie-up
opens Australia
up to Emirates
passengers
116
WOLGAN WIN
Wolgan
resort plants
10,000 tress in
ecological drive
Haneda High
Emirates launches daily fl ights
to Tokyo’s Haneda – the airline’s
third destination in Japan
(113)

Emirates’ First Class
Lounge in Dubai
Emirates Skywards has announced
the introduction of ‘Platinum,’ a new
tier which sits above Blue, Silver and
Gold. The Platinum tier has been
developed to enhance the travel
experience for frequent travellers
and to offer additional benefits to
members who have earned over
150,000 Miles.
“The new tier is designed to
show our most valued customers
how important they are to
Emirates and to offer greater
recognition and benefits to those
who choose to fly with us on such
a frequent basis,” said Thierry
Antinori, Emirates’ Executive
third destination
in Japan announced
Emirates has strengthened its
ties with the Far East having
announced the launch of daily
non-stop flights between Dubai
and Tokyo International Airport
(Haneda Airport). Starting on
June 3rd 2013, the new route to
Haneda – currently Asia’s second
busiest airport – will be Emirates’
131st destination and the third
in Japan, alongside Osaka and
Tokyo’s other airport, Narita.
Located in the suburb of Ota-ku,
Haneda handles the majority of
domestic flights to and from Tokyo,
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.
new tier launched
allowing Emirates passengers the
flexibility to connect to an additional
70 destinations across Japan –
including Mount Fuji, Hakone,
Kyoto and Osaka – and the
rest of Asia, as well as offering more
options of flights to and from Tokyo.
And, with the new daily flight
to Haneda, Emirates SkyCargo
will be able to provide an
additional 210 tonnes of cargo
capacity per week, further
supporting Japanese exports and
Dubai’s reputation as an important
business and transport hub.
113
Open skies / march 2013
NEWS
Vice President, Passenger Sales
Worldwide.
For the first time, Platinum
members will receive exclusive
benefits usually reserved for First
Class passengers, including First
Class check-in, baggage delivery
and access to the First Class
lounges in Dubai with a guest.
To enable Platinum members to
share their benefits with the rest
of the family, a Gold ‘Partner’
card has been introduced, which
means that a family member can
enjoy Gold privileges even when
travelling separately.
www.emirates.com/skywards

US$150 Starting Rate.
Terms and conditions apply
Emirates will be introducing daily flights to Warsaw from Feb 6.
Here’s our pick of what to see in the Polish capital
Your home in Dubai
ﻲﺑﺩ ﻰﻓ ﻚﺘﻴﺑ
Located in the heart of Dubai
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Opposite Metro Station
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Walking distance to Burj Khalifa, world’s tallest skyscraper ﻢﻟﺎﻌﻟﺍ ﻰﻓ ﺝﺮﺑ ﻝﻮﻃﺃ ، ﺔﻔﻴﻠﺧ ﺝﺮﺑ ﻰﻟﺇ ﺓﺮﻴﺼﻗ ﺔﻓﺎﺴﻣ
Dubai Airport - 15 min.
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Close to Business Hubs ( DIFC, DWTC ) ( ﻲﳌﺎﻌﻟﺍ ﻱﺭﺎﺠﺘﻟﺍ ﻲﺑﺩ ﺰﻛﺮﻣ ،ﻲﳌﺎﻌﻟﺍ ﻲﺑﺩ ﺰﻛﺮﻣ ) ﻝﺎﻤﻋﻷﺍ ﺰﻛﺍﺮﻣ ﻦﻣ ﺐﻳﺮﻗ
Spa & Outdoor Swimming Pool
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Sheikh Zayed Road, P.O Box 116957, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Tel: +971 4 323 0000 Fax: +971 4 323 0003 reservation@emiratesgrandhotel.com
www.emiratesgrandhotel.com

Qantas
network
opens
up for
emirates
passengers
Emirates’ customers can now begin
enjoying the benefits of what the
Emirates and Qantas partnership
has to offer, following the opening
up of bookings to a number of
Qantas domestic destinations, with
travel from 31st March 2013.
live tv
makes
onboard
debut
Emirates has launched a new live
TV product called ice TV Live,
as part of its ever-increasing
on-board entertainment package.
The new channel will offer
passengers BBC World News,
BBC Arabic, Euronews and, for
sports fans, Sport 24 – a channel
dedicated to major sports events
around the world.
February’s Sport 24 highlights
include Live English Premier
League and Bundesliga football
matches. Coverage of more events
will be added soon, but 2013 will
feature coverage of the Australian
Open, Wimbledon, US Open tennis,
ATP Tour Masters 1000 series, ATP
World Tour Finals, US Open golf,
and the British and Irish Lions Tour.
Passengers can choose from 32
Australian destinations that Qantas
operates to, including Canberra,
Port Lincoln, Cairns and Hobart,
opening up Australia to passengers
from all over the ever expanding
Emirates network.
“Installing this type of satellite
communication equipment that
allows live TV on an aircraft is no
easy feat,” explained Adel Al Redha,
Emirates’ Executive Vice-President
of Engineering and Operations.
“Emirates continues to enhance the
features of its inflight entertainment
system with its partner Panasonic.”
2013 will build upon Emirates’
reputation for constant product
innovation. In addition to ice
115
Open skies / march 2013
Emirates’ Skywards
members will also be able
to earn Skywards Miles on
Qantas international flights and
domestic flights that are part of a
continuous international journey
with Emirates or Qantas.
TV Live, the Boeing 777s will
feature mobile phone and Wi-Fi
services. Not only is Emirates
upgrading the B777, but the
entire ice-equipped fleet will see
improvements in the first few
months of the year. These include
a greater choice of music than
ever before, more Arabic TV and
films, the introduction of African
movies, and a dedicated CBeebies
channel for younger flyers.

green
Desert life
The monitoring of
the desert is of vital
importance to the
Middle East.
Since it was set up
by Emirates in 2001,
the 225km 2 Dubai
Desert Conservation
Reserve (DDCR) has
allowed for significant
research to be carried
out in partnership with
various conservation
projects.One of the
latest organisations to team up with the DDCR is
conservation tourism company Biosphere Expeditions –
a non-profit wildlife organisation that runs conservation
expeditions for environmental volunteers.
Recent fieldwork carried out over Biosphere’s various
week-long expeditions has seen around 200km 2 of the
DDCR surveyed, leading to the sightings of nine different
species of wildlife including the Arabian gazelle, desert
eagle owl, lappet-face vulture and desert fox.
Emirates provides over a million dollars of
yearly funding to the DDCR – which covers five
per cent of Dubai’s land area – allowing continued
conservation work.
WinD breakers
Wind farms in Spain continue to set records for the
amount of wind energy generated. For the first time
more energy was generated in Spain by wind farms
over the past three months than any other source –
including both nuclear and coal-fired power stations.
Wind energy now represents more than a quarter
of Spain’s total power generation – in January 2012,
the country’s wind farms delivered over six terawatt
hours of electricity.
The scope of the country’s wind-generated
energy is only set to grow as new offshore wind
farms continue to come online.
22% emirates aircraft are more than 22% more fUel efficient than
aircraft
the global fleet average
(soUrce: the emirates groUp 2011-12 environmental report)
116
Open skies / march 2013
Wolgan Valley
Tucked away in Australia’s Blue Mountain World
Heritage Area, the award-winning Emirates Wolgan
Valley Resort and Spa continues to fly the flag for
sustainable, conservation-based luxury tourism.
The Emirates-owned carbon-neutral resort’s recent
conservation works have begun to bear fruit – in some
cases literally. In partnership with the Australian
Ecosystems Foundation and Greening Australia around
10,000 trees were planted in order to help restore
vegetation in the area and control erosion levels – in
addition to 200,000 trees already planted on site. In
parallel to these revegetation programmes, research by
the University of Western Sydney has also been carried
out at the resort to assess whether certain species of
plants will germinate after a fire.
The resort is often applauded for incorporating
ecologically sustainable design principles and resourcesaving
technologies, including rainwater collection,
full recycling of domestic water and heat exchange
technology to reduce energy consumption.
The increase in electricity generated from wind
turbines allows the country to remain on track
to meet its goal of generating 40 per cent of its
electricity from renewable sources by 2020.
20%
operations are over
20% more fuel efficient than ten years ago
(soUrce: air transport action groUp)

• Contract Drafting & Review
• Business Setup , Offshore & Free Zone Companies
• Corporate & Commercial Legal Services
• Litigation & Arbitration
• Debt Collection
• Banking, Insurance & Maritime Cases
• Real Estate, Construction & Labor Cases
• Trademarks, Patents & Copyrights
DUBAI
EMIRATES TOWERS, 14TH FLOOR, SHEIKH ZAYED ROAD P.O. BOX: 9055, DUBAI, UAE
TEL: +971 4 330 4343 | FAX: +971 4 330 3993
contact@emiratesadvocates.com | www.emiratesadvocates.com
ABU DHABI
Tel: +971 2 6394446
auh@emiratesadvocates.com
SHARJAH
Tel: +971 6 5728666
shj@emiratesadvocates.com
RAS AL KHAIMAH
Tel: +971 7 2046719
rak@emiratesadvocates.com
JEBEL ALI
Tel: +971 4 8871679
jafz@emiratesadvocates.com
DUBAI INTERNET CITY
Tel: +971 4 3900820
dic@emiratesadvocates.com
DIFC
Tel: +971 4 4019562
difc@emiratesadvocates.com
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FOR 24 HOUR LEGAL ASSISTANCE, PLEASE CALL +971 (50) 328 99 99
WITH AFFILIATE OFFICES IN SAUDI ARABIA,
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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.
118
Open skies / march 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 timefor
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.

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
customs declaration form immigration form
All passengers arriving into the US need to complete a Customs DeClaration
Form. If you are travelling as a family this should be completed by one member
only. The form must be completed in English, in capital letters, and must be
signed where indicated.
free as possible. The Cabin Crew will offer you
two forms when you are nearing your destination.
We provide guidelines below, so you can correctly
complete the forms.
120
Open skies / march 2013
cabin crew will be happy
to help if you need assistance
completing the forms
The immigration
Form I-94 (Arrival /
Departure Record)
should be completed if
you are a non-US citizen
in possession of a valid
US visa and your final
destination is the US or
if you are in transit to
a country outside the
US. A separate form
must be completed for
each person, including
children travelling on
their parents’ passport.
The form includes
a Departure Record
which must be kept safe
and given to your airline
when you leave the US.
If you hold a US or
Canadian passport,
US Alien Resident
Visa (Green Card),
US Immigrant Visa or
a valid ESTA (right),
you are not required
to complete an
immigration form.

12%
the percentage of global Co2 emissions
from the aviation industry
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.
t he 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
theunited Kingdom**.
* subject to change
** only british citizens qualify under the visa
waiver programme.
3.5
the number of people employed worldwide
in aviation and related tourism
121
Open skies / march 2013

ROUTE MAP
122
OPEN SKIES / MARCH 2013

123
OPEN SKIES / MARCH 2013

124
Open skies / march 2013

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Open skies / march 2013

FLEET
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
The Fleet
Our fleet cOntains
201 planes Made up
Of 190 passenger
planes and
11 cargO planes
Boeing 777-300eR Number of Aircraft: 87 Capacity: 354-442 Range: 14,594km Length: 73.9m 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
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Open skies / march 2013

AiRBus A380-800 Number of Aircraft: 31 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: 8 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 31/03/2013
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Open skies / march 2013

Next month will see us take in Prague,
with a Mapped guide to the Czech capital,
as well as discover one of Nairobi’s
most interesting streets. We get a tour of one of
Melbourne’s most fashionable districts from one
of the country’s hottest new designers. Closer to
home, we meet one of Dubai’s longest-serving
carpet sellers and learn a few tricks of the trade.
We also remember one of the most glamorous
football teams of all time, and one of the strangest:
the New York Cosmos. We find out if 3-D
printing has a future and we take a lo-fi photographic
tour of a European surfer’s paradise.
See you next month.

Aaron Basha Boutique • 685 Madison Avenue • New York • 212.644.1970 • www.aaronbasha.com
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