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Details: Written by: Richard_McKie; Parent Category: Travel; Category: Middle East; Published: 08 March 2026; Hits: 1718

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Wandering about in Dubai's Souks is what Wendy comes here to experience, and she loves to bargain. So, we also engaged with the bag and watch sellers, going up up in dodgy little lifts, in shabby buildings, to hidden sales rooms. Returning, in most cases, empty handed, after some extended but unresolved bargaining.

And wander we did. I had no trouble meeting my step-count target, several times over. We repeatedly caught the Metro to and from the mega-malls and walked, from several different stations, in the balmy weather.

Wandering in the Souks

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Travel

Southern France

Touring in the South of France

September 2014

Lyon

Off the plane we are welcomed by a warm Autumn day in the south of France. Fragrant and green.

Lyon is the first step on our short stay in Southern France, touring in leisurely hops by car, down the Rhône valley from Lyon to Avignon and then to Aix and Nice with various stops along the way.

Months earlier I’d booked a car from Lyon Airport to be dropped off at Nice Airport. I’d tried booking town centre to town centre but there was nothing available.

This meant I got to drive an unfamiliar car, with no gearstick or ignition switch and various other novel idiosyncrasies, ‘straight off the plane’. But I managed to work it out and we got to see the countryside between the airport and the city and quite a bit of the outer suburbs at our own pace. Fortunately we had ‘Madam Butterfly’ with us (more of her later) else we could never have reached our hotel through the maze of one way streets.

Fiction, Recollections & News

Les Misérables - The Musical

The musical Les Misérables has returned to Sydney. By now we have both seen several versions.

But we agreed that this new version is exceptional, with several quite spectacular staging innovations and an excellent cast of singers with perhaps one exception who was nevertheless very good.

Despite an audience that was obviously very familiar with the material (if I'm to judge by the not so sotto voce anticipatory comments from the woman next to us) the production managed to evoke the required tears and laughter in the appropriate places. The packed theatre was clearly delighted and, opera style, the audience shouted approval at and applauded several of the vocal performances, some were moved to a standing ovation at the end.

Read more: Les Misérables - The Musical

Opinions and Philosophy

The demise of books and newspapers

Most commentators expect that traditional print media will be replaced in the very near future by electronic devices similar to the Kindle, pads and phones. Some believe, as a consequence, that the very utility of traditional books and media will change irrevocably as our ability to appreciate them changes. At least one of them is profoundly unsettled by this prospect; that he argues is already under way.

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