Ode to the wind and rain

Why do monsoons seem to generate great art and poetry? Jeremy Atiyah finds out in Bangladesh

Jeremy Atiyah 

Sunday, 4 July 1999

Unless you were a Bangladeshi, would you know anything about Bangladesh? When I was a child a terrible war was fought there. More to the point, George Harrison organised his legendary Concert for Bangladesh with Dylan and Clapton in New York in 1971. But when strange little faces started showing up in my primary school all those years ago I didn't make the connection.

Even as an adult, my knowledge of Bangladesh remained shamefully little, considering the number of take-away curries I ate. All I knew was that the polite gentleman in the suit and tie who ran my local "Indian" came from there. Wasn't Bangladesh the sad counterpart to Indian Bengal? The failed cousin of Pakistan? The hideously over-crowded flood-plain beyond Calcutta where 150 million trembled in fear of the next cyclone?

I hoped there was more to Bangladesh than that. But what? I flew into the capital, Dhaka, last week to find myself in a steaming, muddy city full of rickshaws and honking tuk-tuks. It was the height of the monsoon, and incessant rains were falling. Mouldering, half-built office space cluttered the skyline; traces of British India, in the form of orientalist fantasy buildings like Curzon Hall, lurked discreetly behind dripping rain trees.

The first thing to find out was that, yes, the population of Bangladesh was overwhelmingly Muslim. That bald demographic fact was, after all, what had set the British on to their ludicrous - some would say pernicious - project of launching a Muslim Pakistan cut into two by a thousand miles of India. No surprise then that Bangladesh was forced into a separatist war to escape from the shackles of (West) Pakistan in 1971. "We are Bengalis first and Muslims second," Bangladeshis kept telling me, before explaining to me that it was a Britisher, one Cyril Radcliffe, who had cut Bengal in half, and drawn the crazy winding borders of their country: if only he had had the sense to create a single Bengal for all Bengalis, rather than a divided Pakistan for all Muslims.

The cultural differences between Pakistanis and Bangladeshis seem so blatant that it is hard not to feel anger at the people who forced them into the same bed after 1947. As one friend put it to me: "The rain makes us Bengalis so poetic and romantic. Pakistan by comparison is almost a desert." With the monsoon literally in my ears and eyes I knew exactly what he meant. Deserts - stark and predictable - are ideal breeding grounds for purists. Untameable environments like that of Bangladesh, where grass grows a foot in a week and enormous rivers break banks and mingle their waters at a whim, require another spirituality.

The brown floodwaters of Bangladesh are, indeed, a fabulous thing. From the air, the country resembles an ocean dotted with islands. On ground level, warm rain caresses the pedestrians, roads run along raised embankments through fields that are flooded as far as the eye can see. Houses perch on rickety stilts; jack-fruit trees stand marooned in the centre of lakes; fishermen perch on half-submerged bamboo frames raising and lowering their nets.

No wonder, in an environment like this, that Islam has developed different traditions. In Bangladesh it was not been a simple matter of organising social behaviour. Here it has also been about individuals communing with God in their own way - most often through music and poetry. Ancient Hindu and Buddhist elements have not been repressed but absorbed. Few Muslim women in Bangladesh wear chuddar; plenty wear saris and paint red bindhis on their foreheads. The local mystics, known as bauls, have been singing their way across this green country for centuries, performing in villages right across Bengal. Some of these men and women have enormous popular followings: it is a tradition as far removed from Islamic orthodoxy as you could possibly imagine.

What astonished me just as much was the veneration in which Bangladeshis hold their poets. Hardly a minute goes past in Dhaka conversation without the two great poets of this century - the late Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore and Nasrul Islam - being invoked. Even contemporary poets are household names. I was lucky enough to meet some of them, including Shamsur Rahman, officially the national poet. A few months earlier this unassuming little man was the target of an assassination attempt at the hands of a youth with a fluffy beard and an axe. The motive behind the attack? "I am supposed to stand for secularism," he told me, with a sad, gentle smile. "Now I have an armed guard

from the government. But don't worry. I am not afraid for myself. Nobody is going to make me change my ways."

Alas, that the worldwide war between fundamentalist Islam and the West should be spilling over into the gentle, rain-drenched world of song and poetry that is Bangladesh. You can see why it happens: fundamentalism, after all, triggers instant international recognition - as certain Arabs, Iranians, Afghans and Pakistanis have learnt over the last 20 years. But is there a nobler ideal at the end of the 20th century than secularism? Tareque Masud, a young film-maker I met one evening, thinks not. "We in Bangladesh face a choice between an intolerant, imported orthodoxy," he told me, "and the syncretic, artistic, creative world of our own villages. As artists we feel a huge responsibility to help keep alive the memory of what the 1971 war was all about. The fact that I was too young to take part in the struggle then gives me the feeling that now I need to do my bit."

The spirit of '71. People kept talking about it, even in a tiny wooden boat on the Buriganga River. "I took a one-week crash course in soldiering," ex-freedom-fighter Akku Chowdhury told me, as naked children hurled themselves from Sadar Ghat into the filthy waters around us. "That was all. I had never touched a gun before in my life." A delicate, aesthetic figure with a pony-tail, it was hard to imagine anyone less like a freedom- fighter. We passed small canoes, covered barges, rusty ferries and small container ships. On the ghats, pineapples, mangoes and durians by the ton were being unloaded. On top of 20m piles of firewood tiny stick figures stood profiled against the sky like pharaonic slaves; down below fully dressed women immersed themselves beneath the churning waters.

This was life on the waterways of Dhaka; the war for the freedom of Bangladesh had been no less individual. Unlike other Asian wars of the same era, the struggle was not driven by an inhuman ideology. It had been a war against oppressive ideology: in this case, Islam and Pakistani nationalism. "We, the Muslims, were numerically the dominant group," said Akku. "But we were fighting to save our Hindu communities from a holocaust. The war was a victory for secularism."

So determined has Akku Chowdhury been to preserve the memory of the war that he has established a museum in an old colonial mansion in the middle of Dhaka: the Liberation War Museum, dedicated, as he puts it, to victims of " ... destruction in the name of religion or sovereignty". Later that day I walked round it in a dazed silence, following the conflict from its early stages of linguistic and religious oppression, right through to a nine-month all-out war in which up to 3 million may have died. It was a searing experience.

Returning to London from Bangladesh last Sunday I felt that my eyes had been opened. I popped in for a take-away curry and told the gentleman in the suit and tie that I had met some of his poets. "Not Shamsur Rahman?" he burst out. "My favourite?" Another humbling moment, but in the context of Bangladesh - a land where even the emigre shop-keepers know their poets - it now made far better sense.

Bangladesh : GETTING THERE

Jeremy Atiyah flew as a guest of Bangladesh Biman Airways (tel: 0171- 629 0252) which flies between London and Dhaka most days of the week, though rarely non-stop. The current economy fare, valid to October, is pounds 483 including taxes. If you prefer to fly on a better known airline, you can pay pounds 479 return (fare valid to 15 July) with Emirates via Dubai. This fare is available through Trailfinders (tel: 0171-938 3939).

FURTHER INFORMATION

Visas can be obtained at the airport on arrival, but if you wish to apply in advance contact the Bangladesh High Commission at 28 Queen's Gate, London SW7 5JA (tel: 0171-584 0081). The visa section is open between 10am and 1.30pm Monday to Thursday, 10am and 1pm Friday.

WHERE TO STAY

For details of the multifarious accommodation possibilities in the country, consult Bangladesh, A Travel Survival Kit (Lonely Planet, pounds 9.99). Rooms in good guest houses with air conditioning and all comforts cost pounds 30 or less.

WHAT TO DO

The Liberation Museum (tel: 00 8802 9559091) is at 5 Segun Bagicha, Dhaka- 1000, Bangladesh.

The Arts Worldwide Bangladesh Festival 1999, featuring theatre, poetry, music, cuisine and film of Bangladesh will be taking place at various venues in London between 7 and 25 July. Many of the country's leading artists are travelling to London specially for the occasion. The big opening day, featuring many of the artists, will take place on 11 July in Bangla Town, centred on Brick Lane in east London, between 11am and 6pm. Entry will be free to all. Call for information and a free brochure (tel: 0171- 354 4141). Otherwise write to Freepost, LOND, 6656 London N5 2BR.

Jeremy Atiyah column

It's a great feeling, riding in one of Dhaka's colourful rickshaws. Shame it's such a dangerous way to get around

JEREMY ATIYAH 

Sunday, 27 June 1999

Welcome to Dhaka, Bangladesh, the rickshaw capital of the world! But what luck that I'm not planning to do any driving myself, of either rickshaws or other vehicles. Last night I took what was supposed to be a casual drive round town, in a real car, and the experience amounted to a two-hour dodgem car session in which the penalty for hitting anyone was permanent unemployment for them, their children and grandchildren.

As any manufacturer of dodgy bicycle brakes will tell you, rickshaws are not easy beasts to steer - or stop - especially when your back-seat contains a small proportion of the population of downtown Dhaka. Frequent minor collisions are inevitable and local car drivers have (literally) bounced the problem back onto the rickshaws by fitting their vehicles out with special bumpers, along the lines of kangaroo-bars in Australia. Rather worrying for those whose rickshaws represent their entire livelihood.

A crash involving a car and a rickshaw is usually bad news for the rickshaw, which is about as solid and substantial as a mosquito. Essentially, it comprises a bicycle with a trailer attached. The trailer in turn comprises a seat on wibbly-wobbly wheels, backed by a raisable hood. It's the hood that gives the apparatus an unlikely suggestion of class, despite the slight danger of death through encrumplement. Yesterday I noticed grand ladies in saris stepping into rickshaws with the pride and dignity of Victorian duchesses. I wanted to jump out of my car and join them.

What is it about a rickshaw? Having a personal driver is important. And a driver who actually has to pull you using his own brawn - and getting rained on while you remain dry - is even better. But that isn't the end of it: a personal driver who has spent half of his life meticulously designing the artwork on his rickshaw is the best guarantor of his passengers' dignity that any citizen of Dhaka can possibly offer.

As far as I can see, every single rickshaw in town has been decorated with more detail than a maharajah's palace. Designs range from Bollywood- style film hoardings of dark handsome heroes and swooning maidens, to Koranic calligraphy to tin-foil representations of Hindu gods and goddesses. Some of these skinny men in head-wraps - to judge by slogans on the sides of their rickshaws - even seem to have signed contracts with advertising executives of the world's largest corporations.

In a hundred thousand rickshaws the detail varies, but the style - a kind of Bengali Sergeant Pepper - is essentially the same. I wonder what would happen if some inventive rickshaw owner got out of bed one morning and decided to paint his vehicle differently. Say, gleaming white all over? The White Album of rickshaws?

I very much doubt it would be good for business. Rickshaw drivers are expected to be artists but not radical individualists. Having a local version of John Lennon as the driver, I fear, would not impact well on the dignity of the passengers.

The Book That Inspired Me

`AS I WALKED OUT ONE MIDSUMMER MORNING' BY LAURIE LEE

Jeremy Atiyah 

Saturday, 26 June 1999

UNTIL I was 14 I thought of Spain as a hot, foreign place where the women gabbled, the men were unshaven and everyone consumed too much olive oil. Then I read this book for the first time.

It took me several more years actually to get to Spain, but in the intervening period - a couple of chilly holidays in Scotland later - an overwhelming desire had taken root in me to find myself on a dusty road beside orange and olive groves under an enormous white hot sun.

Laurie Lee's freedom was the key to my fantasy: to be 19, male, alone, self-supporting. Busking for a living, sleeping under stars, staring at Andalucian dancers in candle-lit barns. What greater freedom could there be? Freedom from school, freedom from the 1970s, freedom from rain, freedom from one's peers, freedom from the growing suspicion that yes, it really did matter where people went and what they said and did (I had always hoped that adulthood would mean the opposite).

Writing 30 years after the event, Laurie Lee managed to overlook trifling banalities such as the need to organise his life - or even to organise his trip. What about his career? Did he have a job to come back to? Did he indeed have a return ticket? Did he know about ferry crossings and the intricacies of time-tables? Did he check the rates of exchange? Was his mother worrying about him? Was anyone telexing him emergency sums of money? Or did he really wander open-mouthed across the plains of Old Castille, from village to village and town to town, without maps, without plans, without concepts or expectations? Probably not. But as a sheltered, small-town boy with an identity crisis I found the notion of stumbling into unknown walled cities at dusk quite appallingly seductive.

What was this great, hot exotic continent of a country that they called Spain? A country that took months to cross on foot? A country where 16- year-old girls with bosoms stomped their feet in fury and sang like women? A country where sunstroke, poverty, repression and even the tragedy of impending war were all hung about by a mysterious beauty? It seemed so unimaginably different from the country of petty rules, ugly suburbia, dreary skies and tormented human beings that I was accustomed to.

I finally got to Spain about the age of 20. It was mid-summer and the streets of Toledo were every bit as white and hot and empty as I had hoped that they would be. I perspired alone at the railway station bar and shouted pretentiously for glasses of brandy (or was it sherry?). Outside, the landscape of El Greco shimmered under the brutal Castillian sun. I clung to the walls of churches, sticking to the shade along with the lizards and the sleeping mangey dogs. Eyes peered out at me through closed shutters. The only thing that moved was a drunken soldier shuffling towards me asking for cigarettes.

As far as I could see then, and as far as I can see now, Laurie Lee had got Spain exactly right.

Jeremy Atiyah

Published by Penguin at pounds 5.99

When cruises are bargains

When cruises are bargains and luxury villas look like good deals, what does it take to blow real money on a holiday?

JEREMY ATIYAH

SUNDAY 13 JUNE 1999

It is a God-given truth: not everyone wants a year's supply of beer or even a family car. But everyone wants "a luxury holiday for two". Or do they? The winner of the luxury holiday in Australia described on the front page of this section seems to have had a moderately good time, though not as good as you might have hoped. Was his holiday not expensive enough?

I've been wondering what I would do if I was forced to take the most expensive holiday in the world. A cruise perhaps? How about a ride on a ship called the Crystal Symphony, due to set off on a 104-day journey next January from Los Angeles to Southampton via Asia and Africa? The brochure price is given as "from" pounds 25,000. Plenty of money - but still only pounds 240 a day. The amazing thing about cruises is how disappointingly cheap they can be. A 127-day cruise on the Ocean Explorer I, travelling over the millennium, starts from a mere pounds 7,455, which (at less than pounds 60 a day full-board) sounds little better than a poor-house.

A rather quicker way to get through the same amount of money would be to rent a luxury villa on an island like Mustique in the Caribbean. Glancing through brochures, I have found a nice looking place called Frangipani with an 18-metre swimming pool, four acres of landscaped gardens, "unparalleled" views over the Caribbean Sea, four cars and a staff of six. The rental price in high season is around pounds 15,000 a week which is slightly less than the purchase price of a small cottage in Wales.

But even this strikes me as surprisingly modest - after all, the villa has seven bedrooms and can house up to 14 people. If you have a large family, this brings the price down to only just over pounds 1,000 per person per week. I've probably been on holidays as expensive as that.

To move into the super-league of really expensive holidays, do you then have to move away from luxury and get more into the expeditionary line of holiday? I've just received an extraordinary brochure from a company called Adventure Network (tel:             01494 671808      ) which offers holidays to the South and North Poles.

It may sound like a bad joke at the expense of Captain Scott, but it is even possible to book a holiday which involves travelling on skis all the way to the South Pole from a base camp known as Patriot Hills. The trip lasts about nine weeks, takes place under the midnight sun, and is apparently quite safe given the availability of instant relief from light aircraft which can land anywhere on the ice.

According to the brochure, smoked salmon, chocolate mousse, Mexican tacos and Roquefort spinach ravioli are all on the menu, as well as fresh fruit, vegetables and "excellent local wines" flown in from Chile. The price? Well blow me down with a 60-knot wind. Even this extravaganza will only cost about pounds 28,000 (starting and finishing your journey in Chile). Barely more than a cruise.

To spend more than this it looks as though you would have to risk your neck climbing Mount Everest or being blasted into space. I think I would rather take a luxury holiday for two.

Africa's top game show

Jeremy Atiyah sips gin and tonic at sundown in Botswana's swish wildlife parks but misses out on the big adventure

Jeremy Atiyah 

Sunday, 16 May 1999

Botswana, a country twice the size of Britain with fewer than a million citizens, reminds me of a very exclusive club. The Monaco of Africa perhaps. Half of the country is untamed wilderness. Flying above it you see tiny elephants and buffalo ambling through the Mopane trees. It is the ultimate game-viewing paradise.

As you would expect, tourism in Botswana means tiny, ultra-luxury camps in the middle of the Okavango Delta, where wealthy customers are flown in and out on chartered light aircraft. It means, say, eight tourists being catered for by a couple of dozen staff in a 1,000 square-mile park. It is where a semblance of adventure comes face-to-face with gin-and-tonics at sundown and a choice of wines for dinner. Unlike parts of East Africa, where the savannah resembles an off-piste driver training centre, Botswana, and to a lesser extent Zimbabwe, are determined to keep their safari holidays exclusive. And expensive.

To this end, Botswana has divided its wilderness up into gigantic concession areas. If you are a safari company and you hope to win a concession, you have to show commitment to Botswana's prized exclusivity. You want to build a high-rise hotel with a guitar-shaped swimming pool and an open- air night-club? Sorry. You need to demonstrate that you can make a living from erecting a tented camp in an area the size of Luxembourg.

I am not sure whether "tent" has a definition in Bostwanan law. The accommodations during my recent trip to Kings Pool and Little Vumbura were fondly referred to as tents, though they had more in common with luxury villas. Yes, they had canvas walls and net windows. But they also had floors of varnished wood, verandahs, electric ceiling fans, lights and fully functioning en- suite bathrooms. Meanwhile at Matusadona Lodge in Zimbabwe I stayed on a floating lodge on Lake Kariba, access to which was by private canoe. Fair enough of course. If people are paying pounds 200 a night they will expect more than a ground sheet to sleep on.

They will also expect to get their money's worth of wild animals. And this is where conservation comes in. The government of Botswana has learnt that game-viewing goes hand- in-hand with game management. No animals would mean no tourists.

Chris Greathead, who manages the Kings Pool concession by the Linyanti River on the border with Namibia, told me about battles with poachers. "Until 1993 this was a bad area for commercial poaching," he said. "There used to be a lot of black and white rhino here; now they have all been wiped out. The gangs had tricks for evading detection. One group of ivory poachers used to cover their tracks by wearing elephant-feet sandals. But now we have about 30 guys from the Botswana Defence Force patrolling our concession, and there is very little poaching."

Some of the concessions have small populations of people as well as wild animals living on them. In these community concessions, the local villagers form a trust and put the animal-viewing or -hunting rights out to tender themselves (hunting rights are very exclusive and very, very expensive. People like retired generals from the US military will come to Botswana to "Shoot An Elephant"). Preferred bids come from safari companies that provide money for building schools and clinics in the villages, and jobs for local people.

The upshot of the community concession system is that animals - formerly regarded as a danger and a nuisance - are seen by the villagers as their most valuable asset. It would be hard to expect people to care about animal conservation otherwise.

Rumours occasionally spread out of Botswana that the government wants to abandon wildlife and turn the wilderness of the Okavango Delta into a giant cattle ranch instead. The long-term, on-going project of controlling the tsetse fly is feared to be a step in this direction, as are the fences which have been erected to separate cattle from the wild buffalo.

But Chris Greathead told me that these fears were fading. "The authorities in Botswana now are genuinely passionate about wildlife conservation. Controlling the tsetse fly is not necessarily about preparing the ground for cattle. It is something we need to do anyway, to make this environment bearable for tourists. The beef-selling agreement with the EU has been a problem, but that is about to end and I think the fences are going to come down."

From what I could see, the local people would hope so too. The Okavango Delta is the ecological pride and joy of this blessed and exclusive country. Climatically, it should be a desert. But in fact it is kept miraculously watered by the annual flooding of the Okavango River, which is in turn dependent on rains in distant Angola.

The traditional means of getting around the delta has been in a makoro, or dug-out canoe. Today in camps like Little Vumbura, tourists are poled about in fibre-glass versions of the same (which do not require the cutting down of trees). When I arrived I was soon being taken through avenues of tall papyrus, looking for kingfishers, baby crocodiles, technicolour frogs and water snakes. Hacking channels through the reeds and papyrus, once the work of local fishermen, is now done by safari camp owners to provide access for tourists.

My local guide, named Pray, turned out to be involved in running the community concession in which Little Vumbura was located. He spoke near- perfect English; listening to him I felt like I was looking through a window to another age of mankind. Today he discusses putting safari-rights out to tender but until he was 10 years old he had never encountered an industrially manufactured product. For clothes he wore an animal-skin loin-cloth. When he was ill he chewed the leaves of the fever tree. His house was made from common reeds, his baskets and mats of papyrus fibres were dyed purple and orange and brown using the roots and bark of the magic gaari tree. All he knew, he told me, were things he could pick up around him.

Standing in the back of my makoro, he gestured at the vegetation around us. Anyone for lunch? Blue water lilies on the water surface hid edible pods like artichokes underneath. On dry land, the African ebony tree produced edible berries. Then there was the marula - an extremely sour citrus fruit, used to ferment into the local hooch. Even the sap of the papyrus, which contains glucose, could be eaten like an ice-cream lolly (I tried it, peeling away the green skin like a banana and chewing on the soft, bland insides which had a texture like an extremely floury apple). Afterwards Pray gave me a twig of the toothbrush tree to chew on.

With such abundance who needed anything else? Pray explained that one day a shopkeeper had come to his village and started selling items

like toothpaste and plastic sandals

and bottled oil, taking for payment not money (there was none) but woven baskets. It had been his first glimpse of the outside world. Twelve years later, he went to school in the city to learn the skills of a professional guide. His tuition fees - inevitably - were paid for by profits made from poaching.

What a fascinating story. So fascinating that I decided I would like to visit Pray's village. Forget game-drives, forget elephants, forget even gin-and-tonics at sunset. I just needed a jeep to get me to the village, three hours' drive away. Was that not possible? Sorry, said the camp manager, but no car was available. He might just as well have reminded me that Botswana was like all exclusive clubs. Tourism has its rules. Visiting the local villages is not what one does.

AFRICA

GETTING THERE

Jeremy Atiyah travelled as a guest of Wildlife Worldwide (tel: 0181-667 9158). A six-night package staying for two nights in each of the luxury safari camps of Matusadona, Kings Pool and Little Vumbura costs from pounds 2,295 per person, including return flights, full board and all alcoholic drinks.

The jumping off points for safari holidays in either Botswana and Zimbabwe are usually Maun or Victoria Falls, generally via Johannesburg. Return flights to Victoria Falls via Madrid on Iberia cost pounds 568 including tax. Call Trailfinders (tel: 0171-938 3939).

JAMES GALWAY

The world-renowned flautist hates queueing, performing in South America and French bureaucracy. On the other hand, there are always New York delis and Manchester United...

INTERVIEW BY JEREMY ATIYAH

SUNDAY 09 MAY 1999

When it comes to travel, I've got one important piece of advice for everyone. Just make sure you've got a book in your pocket at all times. Then you needn't waste a single minute in all those queues. You read a couple more pages while you're kicking you bag along.

I tour for about eight months of the year then have the rest of the year free to water my garden in Switzerland. When I'm touring, I just fly from one place to the next - arrive, practise, perform. That's not as boring as it sounds though, because I have a lot of old friends everywhere. Travelling with the orchestra is more fun because you get to stay a bit longer in each place.

When I get to Ireland, of course, it's like the prodigal son coming home. Everybody knows me. But in New York it's almost the same. Last time I was there I went into one of those great Jewish delis and asked for a coffee. "I'll have a kiss, Mr Galway, for that," said the woman.

There are plenty of places round the world where people recognise me but New York is the place where I've got the most mothers. Boston, by the way, has a totally different feel. There, it's much more of a university crowd.

I've never had any travel nightmares, but occasionally I've had to travel without my passport. Once I was flying to Holland from Switzerland and the Swiss police wanted to know how I planned to get through Dutch immigration without any ID. So I took out a couple of my own CDs from my suitcase to show him. "But wait a minute," the policeman objected, "anybody could get these made up." "Maybe," I replied, "but not anybody could play them." And I was all ready to get my flute out for a demonstration. They decided to let me through.

Once I got to Holland the Dutch gave me a piece of paper as a substitute passport, which I was told I would have to surrender when leaving the country. This I eventually did, in some customs shed on the border with Germany at 6am one morning. There were these four Dutch border-police playing cards in the shed. I walked in and showed them my piece of paper. They were fascinated. "Where d'you get this?" they asked. "We've never seen one of these before." I had to resort to my trick with the CDs again.

Places that I enjoy travelling to? Japan is always a good place to visit. My wife and I went to have tea with the Empress on our last trip. She speaks English extremely well. 

"Do you mind if I call you Jeannie?" she asked my wife. They were having a whale of time together. Later we played together, the empress on the piano and me on the flute.

Believe it or not, Manchester is the other place I like, and that's not just because my brother lives there. I recently did a charity concert there with my old friend, the composer Phil Coulter. I've sometimes done work for a few badly run Irish charities but this was great: we raised pounds 35,000 in a single night, to build an annex for a home dedicated to caring for terminally ill children. Phil has never got paid for any concert he's done with me, though I did take him to a Manchester United match afterwards.

There are some places I don't like going to. I don't go to South America anymore for example, where they have a nasty habit of cancelling concerts at the last minute which you had agreed to take part in two years before. When that happens it ruins your schedule. Basically, I won't tour south of the Suez Canal unless I get paid fully in advance!

I don't like travelling to France either. This is the country that murdered two Greenpeace activists and got away with it. And anyway you can't plan a holiday in France without having to take the possibility of strikes into account. I was once flying out of Paris and found a mile-long queue at customs. There was a single guy on duty reading every page of every person's passport.

I finally got through to find that the late Lord Menuhin was down there, too. He had switched flights because his first flight was delayed, but then ended up watching the original flight leave earlier anyway. Another time, I had a fully paid-up ticket for a Concorde flight out of Paris and still missed the flight because the airport computer systems weren't working. You may think that these things are all part of the charm of France, but I don't.

I've been living in a little village outside Lucerne in Switzerland for the past 23 years. We live in Switzerland because my wife is Swiss, but wherever you live, you pay for what you get. In Switzerland everything works and nobody goes on strike.

Ours is a lovely village. I've got three professional fishermen and one professional farmer living in my street, and then there's the Russian pianist and conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy just round the corner. It takes me two hours to water my garden. What more could I ask for?

James Galway is starting a 60th-birthday nationwide tour of the UK on 12 May. He is also performing on 30 June at the City of London Festival with the London Mozart Players at the Guildhall (tel: 0171-638 8891).

Calling all tomb-sweepers

Calling all tomb-sweepers, Maronites and subjects of King Taufa'ahau Tupou IV: go on, spoil yourselves, take the day off

JEREMY ATIYAH 

Sunday, 2 May 1999

You are working tomorrow on the May Day bank holiday? Oh sorry. You must be an ambulance driver. So you will have to take another day in lieu to remember the toils of the working man.

Well why not. I know someone who makes Christmas lunches and sets up a tree with presents under it every August. It fits in better with her schedules. And we all know how inconvenient it is to arrive in, say, Tonga only to find out that it is the birthday of King Taufa'ahau Tupou IV and that all the shops are closed and there's nobody to fix your washing-machine. Why not let individuals choose their own holidays?

Once freed from collective holidays, the only remaining question will be how many each country should allow us. The UK currently has eight, which seemed reasonable to me until I once had the pleasure of working for a few months in Beirut. There the rule was to take as many holidays as possible in order to avoid the risk of giving affront to any rival sect, which, as the Lebanese know, can sometimes be a dangerous business.

During my brief stay I enjoyed two Easters (Roman and Orthodox), two major Islamic holidays (Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, both lasting several days) and the Shi'ite holiday of Ashura. Then there were holidays for the Druze, the Maronites,the Jacobites, the Syrian Orthodox, the Protestants, the Armenian Catholics, not to mention the really minor minorities. On the very few days where there was no holiday the country used to close down for a general strike instead. All in all I found it an excellent place to work on a short-term contract.

China is another place where a lack of consensus leads to a healthy double helping of holidays. The government in 1949 decided to replace traditional Chinese holidays with new secular ones like the Birthday of the People's Liberation Army or The Birthday of the Chinese Communist Party. Any excuse for a holiday I suppose. But in recent years the Chinese people have unilaterally reverted to celebrating all their ancient holidays as well. Woe betide you if you expect to get a plumber round in Peking on Tomb-Sweeping Day. As for Chinese New Year - never do so many couplets on so many red posters avert so many malevolent spirits. In other words, steer well clear of the Chinese world when a billion people are taking the entire week off work (next February for example).

The rest of the Far East, on paper, is equally well-endowed with holidays. The Japanese for example have fifteen official holidays per year, and the South Koreans have no fewer than seventeen. The only snag is that people in that part of the world prefer to carry on working during their holidays.

Another difficulty about collective holidays arises in those countries where everybody knows a holiday is coming, but nobody can tell you exactly when. In places like Bhutan astrologers have the power to shove in extra holidays at the last minute (these remarkable people can also authorise things like the skipping of inauspicious months).

By the way, the other end of the scale is that country not best known for holiday fun, Saudi Arabia, where there are only two official holidays per year and where you certainly don't worry about everything closing down if you happen to be visiting over Christmas.