Fay Young

Category: Global gossip 2006

  • Time to get our skates on

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    Why are Edinburgh NIMBYs so afraid of skate parks? Ray Perman reports from an inspiring enterprise in Dundee where the energy and enthusiasm of young people benefit the whole community. I like skateparks. That’s not a very popular thing to say in North Edinburgh just now when a disgraceful NIMBY campaign has defeated plans for…

  • Lisbon: elevated

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    While Edinburgh is inching towards a decision to install one tram route Kate MacInnes sends her views of a city where trams have been running since 1873. Getting around Lisbon is a joy with the trams, funiculars and elevadors – all a perfect way of climbing up the hills of this great city. Although modern…

  • Brussels: lights, action, mussels

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    It’s around 8pm and the place is going like a fair. I am squeezed between an East European couple on one side and a Spanish pair on the other. The waiter delivering many forms of cooked mussels is French but he is speaking to us all in flawless English. So why does this place feel…

  • Brussels: following yonder (Euro) star

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    I would rather be back in Brussels where the air smells of chocolate and vanilla and they haven’t even finished putting up the Christmas lights in the centre of town.

  • Global gossip

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    Today my blog is one year old. I am gradually getting to grips with the site (thank you again to Tommy and to Rob) so now I want to invite my family and friends – and anyone who may have dropped in from cyberspace (well, you never know) – to help it grow. The idea…

  • Beijing’s Early Birds

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    “If you don’t come out in the morning to wake up, how will you be alive? What kind of life is that?” Caroline Cooper’s postcard from Beijing Overgrown with towering skyscrapers and wide-lane boulevards, Beijing’s quiet street life and old hutong homes are under threat. Preparations for the 2008 Olympics are at the forefront of…

  • Dubrovnik street theatre

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    “Sex and drugs and sausage rolls,” there’s a guy behind me in the queue for the concert in St Salvation  with a mission to entertain. “You don’t get lager louts in this town, you get Saga louts.”  His wife is not amused: “Oh Sid, give over.” With or without Saga louts, at night you can…

  • Goodbye Lenin hello Tesco

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    This is an extract from a Postcard case study written last year – this year’s riots in Budapest give a new twist to the tale. Old Soviet heroes rust in peace in a statue park on the green edge of Budapest but in the heart of this city, capitalist business is booming. Hungarian trade is…

  • Postcard from Helsinki

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    Autumn tree tops, brown reeds reflected in the water, trams running over the bridge: my view of Helsinki from the hotel room. I am warming to a place where you can buy birch twigs in the market to thrash yourself to a healthy pink in the sauna. “Be sure to jump in the sea afterwards”…