Features

Golda Slept Here

Suad Amiry

Doha: Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation, 2014

Pp. 201

Having already published several excellent books on different aspects of Palestinian reality, Suad Amiry finally turns to her own field: architecture. The setting and subject matter of “Golda Slept Here” are the beautiful old Palestinian homes in the part of Jerusalem that was occupied in 1948, now dubbed West Jerusalem. Yet her approach to these houses is more than professional: “What truly interested me in a building, a place, or a country were the stories that lay behind them, or in this case under them... if only buildings could tell their stories.” (pp. 79 and 19)

The book’s title is a reference to the Bisharat mansion which was commandeered as the residence for none other than the late Israeli prime minister, Golda Meir. The title, “Golda Slept Here”, also signals that Amiry is continuing her characteristic style of intertwining the personal and the political, and packaging both in biting humour and irony. If there is any doubt about the irony that invades Palestinian lives, the subtitle — “Palestine: the Presence of the Absent” — says it all. The book is brimming with people who are fully present in this world, many of them in Palestine, but whom draconian Israeli laws render “absent” in order to deny them access to their homes and property.

Amiry was inspired by the Nakbeh Survivors Silent March, commemorating 60 years since the majority of Palestinians was displaced. In May 2008, 100 participants followed 10 Palestinian owners to their mansions and villas in Talbiyah, while the current Israeli occupants watched “from behind curtains and the big and small windows of those same houses. The intolerable pain of one and the fear of the other have haunted me ever since, and pleaded with me to become the topic of my book”. (p. 4)

To complete her research for this book, Amiry had to sneak into Jerusalem, where she would probably have been born were it not for the Nakbeh, and where her friend, Huda, is waiting to give her a tour of “the biggest real estate robbery in modern history”. (p. 23)

The tour adds to Amiry’s collection of stories about how individual Palestinians were driven from their homes, what they remember of them, and how they have tried to return. There is indeed much pain, but also incredible love, persistence and daring.

The story of architect Andoni Baramki’s love for his home has an almost fairy-tale quality but without the happy ending. Builder of some of the most beautiful and durable structures in Jerusalem neighbourhoods like Musrara, Katamon and Baq’a, Baramki and his family were expelled from the house he loved most in 1948.

Keeping watch over it for two decades across the armistice lines, he went with a pile of documents and a smile on his face to the Israeli courts after the 1967 war, only to learn that he was a “present absentee” and thus barred from living in it. To complete the irony, his son, Gabi Baramki of Bir Zeit University, was later to visit it reinvented as an Israeli museum. 

With Huda Al Imam and Nahil Aweidah, who are cousins, Amiry sneaks from East to West Jerusalem to visit the Aweidah family home which Amidar, the Israeli government agency entrusted with “absentee” property, is planning to sell. They also see the Palestine Broadcasting building where Amiry’s father once worked, Villa Harun Al Rashid where Golda Meir lived in the 1960s, and Huda’s family house in the Greek Colony which she regularly visits to honour a promise made to her father years before.

Their seemingly harmless tour is something of an adventure: Huda is jailed for the day, and threatened with deportation for repeatedly “bothering” the Israeli family who now occupies her family’s home. Amiry must scurry away for she has entered Jerusalem “illegally”.

Such visits inevitably evoke detailed, emotion-laden memories of the day people were expelled from their homes, and their pre-war lives. This is Amiry’s real focus. She is trying to break the Palestinian habit of speaking in the collective “we”, while avoiding, due to shyness, fear or unresolved pain, “the very personal story of being thrown out of her or his home, living room, or bedroom”. (p. 172)

Amiry doesn’t claim to be free of the “we” syndrome, but admits to not having dared visit her father’s original home in Jaffa. Nor in all her conversations with Um Salim, as recorded in “Sharon and My Mother-in-Law”, did she ask her about leaving her home — a gap rectified in this book. 

Remembering the personal side of the story and sharing memories is important, not only for hanging on to Palestine, but for hanging on to one’s self and to normality which, among all that Israel has stolen from the Palestinians, is what Amiry protests the most. “Golda Slept Here” is a giant, creative step towards overcoming the “we” syndrome; hopefully, others will add their stories.

BARCELONA — The boom in smartphones among often careless users has made happy hunting for hackers, whose virus attacks and hijacking of unprotected mobiles are multiplying, experts warn.

Security analysts and companies at this week’s Mobile World Congress, a top wireless telecom fair in Barcelona, Spain, said phone makers and users must be on guard to stop hackers getting into your pocket.

“With smartphones we are going through what we went through 15 years ago with personal computers,” said Tanguy de Coatpont, head of the French branch of international anti-virus firm Kaspersky Lab.

“There are more and more security problems because with their processing power they are really like little computers, permanently connected.”

Kaspersky’s most recent study showed that 28 per cent of users were ignorant of the risks of cyberattack on their smartphones.

Just over a quarter of users in that study said they knew of the risk but were not worried about it.

Analysts said that attitude had fuelled attacks on smartphones by hackers over the past two years.

“We are seeing an increase in volume [of attacks] of sometimes more than 400 per cent quarter on quarter,” said David Grout, southern Europe director of Intel Security, a global software protection firm.

That is small compared to the scale of attacks on personal computer operating systems such as Windows, but “it is a bigger and bigger risk”, he said.

“Hackers have to hand lots of personal information contained in a smartphone, particularly financial details.”

Innovation, not security

James Lyne, global head of security research at anti-virus firm Sophos, said phone makers must do more to warn customers of the risks of attack on their unencrypted phones.

Most consumer smartphones are not designed primarily with security in mind, with the exception of certain specialised models.

Launching its new flagship smartphone Galaxy S6 smartphone in Barcelona, South Korean giant Samsung vaunted its sleek design, wide-angle camera and wireless charger, but said little about anti-virus protection.

“The mobile market is driven by innovation and focused on adding marketable features rather than security and privacy concerns,” Lyne told a gathering at the congress.

Other lower-profile products stress security, however, such as the Blackphone, whose second-generation model was unveiled in Barcelona.

Selling for more than $600 (543 euros), the Blackphone 2 by US company Silent Circle promises encrypted calls with protection against cyberattacks and spying by intelligence agencies.

It is competing with phone maker Blackberry for business clients, hoping to lure companies who fear their employees’ unsecured phones are a security risk.

Tech security experts say smartphone users should install antivirus programmes on their phones.

French company CS Communication et Systemes presented at the Barcelona congress a protection device in the form of a miniature card that is inserted into the handset.

Ransomware attacking phones

Most cyberattacks nowadays target Android, the widespread smartphone operating system developed by US Internet giant Google, said de Coatpont.

“It is a very open platform that has 80 per cent of the market.”

Apple’s iOS system, used on iPhones, is generally considered more secure but is not immune from attack either.

Sean Sullivan, a researcher at anti-virus and online security firm F-Secure, said hackers successfully attacked a gay dating iPhone application in Britain.

The hackers hoped that users would be reluctant to report the attack since the attack obtained sensitive information about their sexuality, Sullivan said.

He added that the smartphone world may need a wake-up call to boost security — something comparable to Cryptolocker, Russian “ransomware” that struck in 2013.

Ransomware, which seizes control of computers and demands money to unblock users’ data, is now targeting smartphones too, Sullivan said.

SAN FRANCISCO — “Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor” is king of the Game Developers Choice Awards.

Monolith Productions’ gritty action-adventure game set between J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings” was honoured as the game of the year at the 15th annual ceremony, which is held during the Game Developers Conference.

“I want to thank everyone at Monolith Productions,” said studio head Kevin Stephens as he was backed on stage by dozens of employees. “There are about 40 people up here. I holed them away for two years to make this game, and now I’m letting them loose on GDC.”

The artsy mobile puzzler “Monument Valley” from us two captured the most trophies, picking up the best visual art, mobile and innovation awards.

“The last 12 months has been completely insane, and it’s far bigger than we ever expected, said executive producer Daniel Gray. “We’re genuinely humbled by the rest of the people in this room.”

Bungie’s shared-world sci-fi shooter “Destiny” was honoured for best technology, while Creative Assembly’s intergalactic horror “Alien: Isolation” was awarded for best audio.

“When I first started watching people play our game, it was a big shock to me how much the audio affected how people played and how long they would spend hiding inside lockers and listening to the sounds of the station,” said studio director Tim Heaton. “If I’d realised how much effect it had, we probably could have made a shorter game.”

Other winners included Cardboard Computer’s adventure game “Kentucky Route Zero” for best narrative, Blizzard’s trade-carding title “Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft” for best design and Stoic Studio’s Viking-themed role-playing game “The Banner Saga” for best debut.

Frontier Developments’ updated space-trading simulator “Elite: Dangerous” landed the audience award, which was selected by online votes.

David Braben, developer of the original “Elite” in the 1980s, received the Pioneer Award for his influential work, which featured revolutionary 3D graphics and moral quandaries for players.

Brenda Romero, a veteran game designer, was presented with the Ambassador Award, which recognises individuals who have helped advance the gaming industry.

Hironobu Sakaguchi, the Japanese creator of the long running “Final Fantasy” series, was honoured with the show’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

“I’m still chugging along,” Sakaguchi said through a translator. “I have not retired. I will not retire in the near future. With everyone here, I think we should just continue to make great content and great games.”

LOS ANGELES — A NASA spacecraft flawlessly slipped into orbit around Ceres on Friday in the first visit to a dwarf planet after a nearly eight-year journey.

The Dawn craft will circle the dwarf planet for more than a year, exploring its surface and unraveling its mysteries.

“It went exactly the way we expected. Dawn gently, elegantly slid into Ceres’ gravitational embrace,” said mission chief engineer Marc Rayman at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages the $473 million mission.

Ceres is the second and final stop for Dawn, which launched in 2007 on a voyage to the main asteroid belt, a zone between Mars and Jupiter that’s littered with rocky leftovers from the formation of the sun and planets some 4½ billion years ago.

Dawn will spend 16 months photographing the icy surface. It previously spent a year at Vesta exploring the asteroid and sending back stunning close-ups of its lumpy surface before cruising onto the Texas-sized Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt.

The 4.8 billion kilometre trip was made possible by Dawn’s ion propulsion engines, which provide gentle yet constant acceleration and are more efficient than conventional thrusters.

As Dawn approached Ceres, it beamed back the best pictures ever taken of the dwarf planet. Some puzzling images revealed a pair of shiny patches inside a crater — signs of possible ice or salt.

Scientists hope to get a better glimpse of the spots when the spacecraft spirals closer to the surface. It’ll also study whether previously spotted plumes of water vapour continue to vent.

“There are a lot of secrets that will be revealed,” said mission scientist Lucy McFadden at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre.

The spacecraft glided into place at 4:39am Friday and flight controllers received confirmation about an hour later. The manoeuvre occurred without a tense moment, unlike other captures that require braking to slow down.

“The real drama is exploring this alien, exotic world,” Rayman said.

Dawn is currently in Ceres’ shadows and won’t take new pictures until it emerges in April, he said.

Discovered in 1801, Ceres — measuring 965 kilometres across — is named after the Roman goddess of agriculture and harvest. It was initially called a planet before it was demoted to an asteroid and later classified as a dwarf planet. Like planets, dwarf planets are spherical in shape, but they share the same celestial neighbourhood with other similar-sized bodies.

With its massive solar wings spread out, Dawn is about the size of a tractor-trailer, measuring 20 metres from tip to tip.

Dawn carries an infrared spectrometer and a gamma ray and neutron detector to study the surface of Ceres from orbit. In the coming months, it will spiral down to within 378 kilometres of Ceres’ surface where it will remain long after the mission is over.

“Every time we get closer, we see more things that make us scratch our heads,” said mission scientist Mark Sykes, who heads the Planetary Science Institute in Arizona.

Dawn almost never made it out to the inner solar system. The mission endured funding-related project cancellations and launch delays before it received the green light to fly.

Dwarf planets lately have become the focus of exploration.

This summer, another NASA spacecraft — New Horizons — is set to make the first visit to Pluto, which was demoted to dwarf planet.

You spent good money on a Dell, HP, Acer, Asus, Apple or Lenovo desktop computer, carefully checking the processor speed, the hard disk size and the number of USB3.0 ports. Did you give the screen the attention it deserves? Did you allocate enough money for it in the deal?

In an ideal world hardware, software and Internet would go hand in hand and would sport matching characteristics. In reality it is not always the case. This is particularly true for computer monitors that come with full-size desktop computers. Most of the time they don’t do justice to the photos or the videos you would watch. The fact is that smartphones, especially the high-end models, have screens that are superior to those that come with most full-size computers.

There is frequent imbalance between the three aforementioned aspects of computing: hardware, software and Internet. For instance you would have the fastest computer in the world but the Internet connection in the area where your house could be limited to a frustrating 4Mb ADSL, because of cable infrastructure you can’t help. Or you’d have the amazing “CC”, understand the latest version of Adobe Photoshop but your computer would be fitted with only a 32-bit Windows and a meagre 3GB of main memory, unable, therefore, to make good use of the stunning “CC”. 

The same limitations today apply to average screens that equip the typical desktop machine. For JD120 to JD160, you can buy a good entry-level 22-inch screen. But how good is good? What kind of image will it show you?

With today’s high quality photography and video chances are that such entry-level monitors won’t show you all that has been captured in the original images. Even if the camera you used to take the photo or if you mainly watch YouTube online, entry-level screens just aren’t good enough. You may not notice how much you are missing until you compare to a friend’s screen or to a Mac’s retina display — let’s face it, Apple monitors usually fare better than the crop.

In Jordan 95 per cent of the displays sold with Windows-based (i.e. not Mac OS) desktop computers fall in the entry-level range. Only 5 per cent of buyers opt for high-end, true colour screens, costing JD200 and much more sometime.

It is not anymore in the resolution of the screen, the number of pixels it can display horizontally and vertically. They are all good at it! Anything higher than 1920 x 1080 pixels is great, and they all can do it, even the least expensive screens, at least those who are 20-inch and larger.

The trick is in the brilliance and in the colour gamut the monitor is able to reproduce, as well as in the accuracy of these colours. It is very hard to see or to make a comparison just on paper, but with today’s demanding image applications and video of all kinds it would be a shame to cut corners and make do with less-than-pristine monitors. Unless you can live with purples that look more like reds, yellows that are more on the brownish side, not to mention human skin tones that don’t really look… well, human.

Not all brands make true-colour monitors. HP DreamColor Z27 and NEC MultiSync PA322 are some of the best screens money can buy, but cost JD1,000 and JD2,000, respectively. On the more reasonably priced side you find, for example, the Asus Rog Swift at a humbler JD700 price tag.

True-colour monitors are to your eyes what a pair of high-definition music speakers are to your ears. You never know what you were missing until you see or hear them, and until you compare with lower quality equipment. Once you’re there, at the very top, nothing else would do anymore for you.

KISARAZU, Japan — David Mitchell remembers the day he read the memoir of a 13-year-old boy with autism — hailing it a “revelatory godsend” that offered a window on the life of his own autistic son.

The best-selling author of “Cloud Atlas” said Naoki Higashida was “one of the most helpful and practical writers on the subject of autism in the world”.

“Pre-Naoki, I’m ashamed to say that I used to regard and treat my son as a kind of defective robot,” Mitchell told AFP.

“Post-Naoki, I started to believe that it’s not my son that’s defective, but only his ability to communicate what’s happening in his rich, playful, ‘trapped’ mind.”

Higashida was just five years old when he was diagnosed with severe autism. Autism is a spectrum of neuro-developmental disorders that manifests itself in difficulties communicating

The exact causes are unknown, and research suggests it may be genetic, environmental, or both. There have also been unproven scares linking the condition to childhood vaccinations.

Like Dustin Hoffman’s autistic character in the Oscar-winning film “Rain Man”, Higashida, now 22 years old, gets stuck repeating certain movements, twitches erratically and sometimes recites numbers.

He has trouble expressing himself and gets flustered when there are too many people around him, but can communicate well — though sometimes clumsily — by spelling out his thoughts on a keyboard-like alphabet grid.

“I can’t explain my feelings well because I have autism, but I can communicate by doing this,” Higashida told AFP in an interview at his office in Kisarazu, southeast of Tokyo.

“Words are not just a means of communication, but my friends,” he said.

That friendship with words blossomed into an essay, titled “The Reason I Jump”, which was published as a book in 2007 featuring 58 often-asked questions about his autism and his frank — sometimes startling — answers to them.

“I very quickly forget what it is I’ve just heard,” he writes in response to a query about why autistic people repeat questions.

“A normal person’s memory is arranged continuously, like a line. My memory, however, is more like a pool of dots. I’m always ‘picking up’ these dots — by asking my questions.”

Addressing the book’s title, he writes: “When I’m jumping, it’s as if my feelings are going upward to the sky. By jumping up and down, it’s as if I’m shaking loose the ropes that are tying up my body.”

The book was a hit in Japan, but its discovery and subsequent translation by Mitchell — who previously lived in Japan and has a Japanese wife — brought it mainstream audiences all around the world.

“We read a chapter and thought, ‘My God, that’s like our son talking to us’ or ‘Jesus, that’s what our son does’,” the author, who is based in Ireland, told AFP by e-mail.

“He’s not a guru, and not a saint — but he knows a hell of a lot about living with an autistically wired brain,” said Mitchell.

Mitchell’s English translation was published in 2013 and soon topped the bestseller list of Amazon’s British and US sites, according to Higashida’s agency.

His book subsequently hit the shelves in more than 20 other countries, including France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Norway, Romania, Sweden and the Netherlands, having been translated into more than a dozen languages.

Some specialists say Higashida is not typical of people with autism and caution that others with the condition should not be judged against him.

Toshiro Sugiyama, a Japanese psychiatrist, said Higashida’s talent for writing makes him stand out from others living with the condition.

“He is capable of speaking for other people with autism,” he said.

“His work offers a window into autism for wider society,” said Sugiyama of the Hamamatsu University School of Medicine.

Experts estimate that around one in a hundred people are somewhere on the autistic spectrum; however, the ratio varies enormously, with definitions and medical support dependent on the country.

“Levels of knowledge about autism in Japan are still lower than those in the United States or Britain,” said psychiatrist Kosuke Yamazaki, who is chairman of the Autism Society Japan.

Naoki’s mother, Miki Higashida, is only too aware of the battle that autistic children and their families face every day.

“When he was a child, I struggled a lot and tried to force him to be normal,” she said.

“But I have stopped comparing him with [others]. I’m happy to see him find his own world” in writing, she said.

“Now I can think Naoki is Naoki. There is no need to compare,” she added.

Her son is now an accomplished author, with 18 books to his name, ranging from fairy stories to non-fiction, and he regularly writes for the Japanese edition of the Big Issue.

For David Mitchell, this is heartening.

“I hope he will continue to write, and turn his experience of the world and his thoughts and his journey through life into words,” he said. “As long as he writes, I’ll read him.”

GENEVA — Volkswagen’s functional Passat family car may have taken top honours as car of the year at the annual Geneva Motor Show, but there is no doubt what the visitors come to see at this glitzy gathering: high-end supercars.

When doors open to the public on Thursday, there will be plenty for crowds to gawk at, with unveilings by Ferrari, Lamborghini and Mercedes sure to turn heads and get cameras flashing.

“There are an awful lot of fast cars and supercars on display this year,” said Jim Holder, editor in chief of Autocar magazine. “What you see now is an industry that has got its swagger back and wants to show off a bit rather than put its hair shirt on about high miles per gallon and these slightly more mundane things.”

Ferrari 488 GTB

The legendary sports car maker from Maranello, Italy, is sure to draw crowds with its 488 GTB, which CEO Amadeo Felisa says is “not an evolution — it’s a new car”. Drawing on the company’s long racing history, its newly designed turbo-charged V8 engine accelerates the two-seater from stop to 100kph in 3 seconds flat.

Felisa vaunted the engine’s characteristic Ferrari sound, the “deep, seductive soundtrack” in Ferrari’s words. “It’s the sound of a sports car,” Felisa said in answer to questions from reporters who noted that Ferrari’s turbo-charged California had lost that trademark scream.

Ferrari has even invented a new shade of its legendary red colour for the 488’s paintjob. Millions of tiny particles are suspended in the paint to give it extra glossiness.

Lamborghini Aventador LP 750-4 Superveloce

During a demo, the driver for the Superveloce (superfast, in Italian) made sure to gun the engine and show off the metallic music made by its mighty 750 horsepower engine.

It has the classical Lamborghini design — low-slung, angular and lethal looking with lots of expensive carbon fibre materials. It can hit a a top speed of 350kph and its powerful brakes can bring it to a stop in only 30 metres from 100kph.

It’s not environmentally friendly, however — it puts out 375 grammes of carbon dioxide per kilometre, compared with the fleet average limit of 130 grammes, and consumes an average 16 litres of fuel per 100 kilometres.

Audi R8

The German luxury carmaker from Ingolstadt in Bavaria unveiled its second-generation R8 supercar on its stand in Geneva.

With a V10 engine capable of zero to 100 kph in 3.2 seconds, and an aluminium and carbon fibre chassis shared with the Lamborghini Huracan, the new R8 weighs 50kg less than its predecessor while being 40 per cent more stiff, Audi says. Style cues from Audi’s TT roadster are present, but the muscular angles and scooped out sides scream supercar.

European versions of the car will have optional laser-powered high beam headlights with cameras to help drivers see further. Audi is also introducing an electric version of the R8, with a battery pack capable of reaching a range of 444km and matching Tesla’s Model S in performance.

Mercedes-Maybach S-600 Pullman

The new Mercedes-Maybach S-600 Pullman is a limousine of nearly unheard of luxury. With armour cladding as an option, the new Pullman is more than a metre longer than the next biggest Mercedes S-class and significantly taller, too.

After noting that John Lennon owned an original Pullman which he modified by adding a state-of-the-art Hi-Fi system, Mercedes unveiled the massive limo beneath a video recording of the Fab Four performing “Can’t Buy Me Love” — and at over $500,000, few in the crowd could contemplate buying the car either.

Four quilted leather reclinable seats face each other in the limo’s rear, with a champagne cooler in easy reach. A retractable glass partition can transform from transparent to opaque at the push of a button for more privacy.

BMW 2-Series Gran Tourer

What’s a minivan doing on this list? The new 2-Series Gran Tourer might not be a supercar, but it is a blinged-out people mover for “young active families,” the Munich-based carmaker says.

BMW says its the first premium compact able to carry up to seven people, including up to five child seats for those carpool runs to football games or birthday parties.

Based on BMW’s Active Tourer, the “Gran” version adds more space as well as seating configurations. With rear seats folded into the floor and the middle row seats collapsed, storage space can be added or removed as needed — up to 1.9 cubic metres according to BMW.

The $30,000 van aims to help BMW take on rivals such as Renault’s Grand Scenic in a market category that BMW hasn’t traditionally competed in.

BANGKOK — They sell everything from noodle soup to sex toys, but Bangkok’s famed street hawkers are now facing a crackdown as authorities in the fast growing metropolis struggle to make space for pedestrians on the crowded pavements.

The move to relocate thousands of sellers from main roads to side streets or restrict touting to the night is part of a campaign to “reclaim the sidewalks” that comes as the ruling junta vows to “clean up” Thailand’s image.

Bangkok residents have long shared their streets with merchants, relying on them for cheap meals and household goods, while tourists are readily found haggling over knock-off handbags, T-shirts or cut-price DVDs.

The stalls that festoon many streets have come to define one of Southeast Asia’s most vibrant cities, but are also prompting complaints from some Thais who decry them as hazards — raising questions over how the bustling capital uses its public space.

“We must return most sidewalks to the people,” said Police Major General Vichai Sangparpai, claiming vendors had colonised around a dozen of the city’s main roads, obstructing people and traffic as well as damaging the environment.

Action to tackle the congestion has gained momentum since Thailand’s generals seized power last May, cracking down on activities including gambling and drug-use in a mission to “restore order” to the nation.

Operations are already under way to evict hawkers from cluttered beaches in tourist hot spots such as Phuket.

But, for the most part, Bangkok’s vendors “will be allowed to sell” if they shift to designated zones or stop selling at peak hours, according to Vichai.

Dividing the city

Pouring cups of instant coffee from his cart, Mongkol Moradokpermpun said he is one of 3,000 vendors at Khlong Thom market, in Bangkok’s historic heart, who have been given until March 1 to relocate several kilometres away.

The 59-year-old, who has sold drinks at the same spot for three decades, is worried about the cost of commuting to the new site.

“If they don’t change their mind, thousands of people will suffer. It will affect our business. Every family will have problems,” he said.

It is a common view at the areas being targeted.

In downtown Silom, noodle-seller Juttigan Jitcham told AFP the new ban on daytime sales has halved her income.

“I can no longer pay school fees for my children,” the 30-year-old said as she dished up steaming bowls of noodles to evening customers.

Apart from congestion, the crackdown is also taking aim at the criminal networks — and graft-prone officials — that have flourished in-step with the mushrooming number of vendors.

A Thai army officer was charged last July with extorting money from salesmen in the seedy Patpong area, a wedge of go-go bars and stalls popular with tourists.

According to Bangkok’s town hall, there are 20,000 registered vendors, but thousands more operate without a permit in a nation where a sprawling informal sector accounts for Thailand’s remarkably low unemployment rate.

A government survey in 2000 found up to 400,000 people touted goods on the capital’s streets, a number thought to have risen with growing numbers of middle-class vendors joining the ranks of lower-income sellers, many of whom have migrated from Thailand’s poorer northeast.

Public backlash

Narumol Nirathron, an academic from the social administration department of Thammasat University, says while curbs are needed to control overcrowding authorities need a broader plan to address vendors’ needs.

“I am worried about the effect on the poor who depend on street vending for their livelihood,” she said. “The pavement is not only for the pedestrian but it’s for the people to earn their living also.”

Roadside sellers bind different elements of Bangkok, a capital with a large and widening wealth gap, by bringing together street food patrons from all parts of society and injecting energy and colour into the city.

But they are also facing a growing public backlash.

A Facebook page campaigning for the rights of pedestrians in Bangkok has more than 8,000 “likes” and is full of angry posts blaming vendors for monopolising sidewalks.

Some instead laud Singapore’s model for retaining budget food with efficiency by relocating traders during the 1980s to dedicated hawker centres.

Yet Narumol thinks Bangkok could never go as far to de-clutter its streets. “It’s too integral a part of Thai life,” she said.

In recent weeks, authorities have wrestled back control of sidewalks in parts of the city by demarcating pitches with freshly painted yellow lines.

But long-time hawkers say it will not be long before the stalls are once again unfettered.

Observing police officers speaking to vendors opposite his patch in Khlong Thom, a merchant, who asked to stay unnamed, predicted the crackdown will soon ease.

“Authorities will come and we will hide. When they leave, we will come out to sell again,” he said.

When I was a smoker, I blew smoke rings in the air. Actually that is not strictly true. Let me start again. When I was a smoker, which was a period that lasted for a good 20 years, I tried to blow smoke rings in the air. It was one of those tricks that all smokers tried to perfect. Most of the time I did not succeed, I am sad to report. But occasionally I did and when that happened, I was suffused with joy. Yes, there is nothing to beat the simple pleasures of life.

It was not easy to learn and many cigarettes got wasted while struggling to master it. One needed patience, persistence and learning to pucker the mouth in a particular perfect pout. While exhaling, that is. My older brother and my spouse were the instructors and we would sit in one line and try to outshine each other.

I was also assigned the thankless task of watching out for elders, especially my Mom. In our culture it was disrespectful to smoke in front of parents. In fact it was impolite to even acknowledge that we were smokers. And so whenever our mother came into my room and sniffed the air suspiciously for nicotine smells, we denied it. Or in a worst-case scenario, pointed to one another while trying to confuse her. She was far too smart to be thus deceived and we would get an earful from her. “Smoking thrills but kills,” she would announce, misquoting the road warning signs for speeding. “That caveat is for reckless drivers,” I tried to correct her once. “And foolish smokers too,” she asserted. 

But in those days, some 30 years ago, smokers were not treated as social pariah. One generally was careful not to smoke in front of small children but that was about it. There were no designated smoking areas at the airports, malls or hotels. Public places were a free for all. Actually, even in airplanes people could light up as and when they felt like. No smoke alarm would go off and there was no question of even being asked to pay a penalty for smoking. 

Visitors to Jordan might feel that time has stood still, at least where the smoking laws apply. Unlike the rest of the world, here one can smoke as frequently as one wants, and pretty much wherever one wants to. None of the restaurants shoo the smokers away. On the contrary, ashtrays are very thoughtfully provided along with the dinner plates in case someone feels like smoking during a meal. People are happily tolerant towards smokers and no one feels the need to ostracise them. 

I was on a flight from London to Amman recently and was seated next to a charming gentleman who insisted on sharing his bag of goodies with me. I could not understand why he was carrying so much junk food till he sheepishly confessed that he was a chain smoker. Being locked up in a plane for five hours without being allowed to smoke was his worst nightmare. So he munched constantly on popcorn, chocolates, crisps, jellybeans and so on. Being the generous sorts, he kept passing the packets to me also.

“Did you ever blow smoke rings,” he asked me suddenly.

“Perfect concentric circles,” I boasted.

“Really? Why did you give it up,” he was curious.

“Smoking thrills but kills,” I said solemnly.

“Speeding does that,” he corrected.

“Same difference,” I smiled.

MILAN — He may be a Swinging Sixties icon, but British photographer David Bailey up close is a wise-cracking crank who shrugs off his immense success as one of the world’s most famous celebrity photographers.

“I’m not proud, I don’t do proud,” he told AFP at the press opening of his Stardust exhibition, which is coming to Milan from March to June after a run at the National Portrait Gallery in London.

Intimate portraits of stars such as Kate Moss, Jack Nicholson and Mick Jagger gaze down from the walls of the Padiglione D’arte Contemporanea, alongside photographs of his fourth wife, model Catherine Dyer and children.

A section dedicated to naked unknowns who posed for his “Democracy” project between 2001 and 2005 follows a series capturing the 1960s in the East End of London, where he was raised by his father, a tailor’s cutter, and machinist mother.

“...What a lot of work”, Bailey says of the exhibition, but he won’t be drawn further, however, fobbing off questions with his characteristic bluntness: “it’s just my job, it’s what I do.”

The 77-year old famously suffered from dyslexia at school and truanted regularly before dropping out entirely, practically illiterate, aged 15.

“I didn’t know I was dyslexic until I was 30, I thought I was an idiot until then,” he says.

Bailey ended up selling suits and credits his interest in photography to a 1948 image by Henri Cartier-Bresson of Muslim women wearing long cloaks in front of the Himalayas, a shot which he said made the women appear to be mountains themselves.

He crossed paths with the East End underworld including the notorious Kray brothers, who ran a protection racket and carried out a series of murders and robberies in the 1950s and 60s — and whose photographs he took in 1965.

‘No regrets’

He says he was beaten up several times during his life and found out a few years ago that the Krays, who he spent a couple of weeks with during the shoot, had knifed his father.

But he does not regret the time spent with the gangsters, or anything at all for that matter — not even his three divorces.

“I have no regrets, and there’s no nostalgia in my life,” he said.

“That was the time I was living through. I live in the moment and always see the ridiculous side of life,” he adds, quipping: “you’ve got to seize the moment. See that moment? It’s just gone!”

Bailey has been known to take portrait photographs on smartphones but is somewhat dismissive about the digital medium compared with old-fashioned film.

“Yeah I’ve used phones, the phone is just another machine, a tool. It’s not the camera that takes photos, the person does.

“I prefer film though, there’s no magic with digital, you cannot make mistakes — and if you do you delete them immediately. There’s no mystery.”

Despite signing the odd autograph, he doesn’t appear comfortable with fans, turning his back on his photographs and insisting his life “is a lot bigger than this. I make bronzes, movies, paintings too”.

But what was it like living through the Swinging Sixties as someone as famous as the stars he was photographing, working with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and becoming a sex symbol of sorts in his own right?

He shrugs, saying: “It wasn’t very swinging if you were a coal miner or a steel worker,” and no, on the sidelines of Milan fashion week, he won’t be drawn on models he would like to photograph today either. “I don’t know any models and don’t like actresses,” he said.

Wrapped up in a red coat with sheepskin ruff and with bags under his eyes, Bailey, whose career inspired Michelangelo Antonioni’s film “Blow-Up, has a simple answer when asked how he went from dyslexic drop-out to Vogue collaborator, the start of his stellar rise to fame.

“I worked hard. The harder you work, the luckier you get,” he said.