Open Skies | January 2016

THE STAR WARS BLUEPRINT

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To be on the shoulders of giants

Editor-in-ChiEf Managing PartnEr & grouP Editor EditoriaL dirECtor grouP Editor SEnior Editor digitaL / Print dESignEr digitaL aniMator Sub Editor EditoriaL aSSiStant

Obaid Humaid Al Tayer Ian Fairservice Gina Johnson gina@motivate.ae Mark Evans marke@motivate.ae Andrew Nagy andrew.nagy@motivate.ae Ralph Mancao ralph@motivate.ae Surajit Dutta surajit@motivate.ae Salil Kumar salil@motivate.ae Londresa Flores londresa@motivate.ae

ContributorS

Gemma Correll, Daniel Huffman, Ben Jacobs, Richard Luck, Jamie Knights, Joe Mortimer, Matt Mostyn, Adrian Mourby, Gareth Rees, Rebecca Rees, Sandra Tinari, Sean Williams. Cover: Jay Stanley ChiEf CoMMErCiaL offiCEr Anthony Milne anthony@motivate.ae gEnEraL ManagEr ProduCtion S Sunil Kumar ProduCtion ManagEr R Murali Krishnan

grouP SaLES dirECtor Craig L. W. Wagstaff craig.wagstaff @motivate.ae

grouP SaLES ManagEr Jaya Balakrishnan jaya@motivate.ae

PubLiShEr Martin Balmer martin.balmer @motivate.ae

SEnior SaLES ManagEr Shruti Srivastava shruti.srivastava@ motivate.ae

rEgionaL ManagEr abu dhabi Imane Eddinari Imane@motivate.ae

dEPuty SaLES ManagEr Amar Kamath EditoriaL ConSuLtantS for EMiratES Editor Manna Talib arabiC Editor Hatem Omar dEPuty Editor Catherine Freeman WEbSitE emirates.com InternatIonal MedIa representatIves auStraLia/nEW ZEaLand Okeeffe Media; Tel + 61 894 472 734, okeeffekev@bigpond.com.au bELgiuM and LuXEMbourg M.P.S. Benelux; Tel +322 720 9799, francesco.sutton@mps-adv.com China Publicitas Advertising; Tel +86 10 5879 5885 gErMany IMV Internationale Medien Vermarktung GmbH; Tel +49 8151 550 8959, w.jaeger@imv-media.com hong Kong/MaLaySia/thaiLand Sonney Media Networks; Tel +852 2151 2351, hemant@sonneymedia.com india Media Star; Tel +91 22 4220 2103, ravi@mediastar.co.in JaPan Tandem Inc.; Tel + 81 3 3541 4166, all@tandem-inc.com nEthErLandS giO media; Tel +31 (0)6 22238420, giovanni@giO-media.nl PaKiStan D&S International News Agency; Tel +92 3235345727, dnsnewsagency@gmail.com SWitZErLand, franCE/itaLy & SPain IMM International; Tel +331 40 1300 30, n.devos@imm-international.com turKEy Media Ltd.; Tel +90 212 275 51 52, mediamarketingtr@medialtd.com.tr uK Spafax Inflight Media; Tel +44 207 906 2001, nhopkins@spafax.com uSa Totem Brand Stories; Tel +1 4168475100, nicole.mullin@tc.tc Emirates takes care to ensure that all facts published herein are correct. In the event of any inaccuracy please contact the editor. Any opinion expressed is the honest belief of the author based on all available facts. Comments and facts should not be relied upon by the reader in taking commercial, legal, financial or other decisions. Articles are by their nature general and specialist advice should always be consulted before any actions are taken.

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114,087 copies January – June 2015 Printed by Emirates Printing Press, Dubai, UAE

E D I T O R ’ S

L E T T E R

ANDREW NAGY

ON THE COVER

SENIOR EDITOR

N

obody expected Star Wars to work; cer tainly not in the beginning. The press weren’t too bothered, and the actors working on it weren’t much more enthused either – most of them wandered the set trying to work out what they’d signed up for. Even George Lucas himself seemed pretty unsure about it all.

It’s hard to say, then, what happened from those first few shambolic months filming in 1976, to last month’s screening

right there. It can render an excitable child utterly speechless.

Maybe it’s a generational thing. Our parents took us to see the original movies. We took our own children to see the prequels. Now the cycle is set to repeat itself with the Disney installments that are seemingly preplanned from here until eternity.

Whatever the reason, Star Wars found a way to infiltrate our lives. Even as an adult, the fact that the first six

“THE PRESS CARED LITTLE FOR STAR WARS, AND THE ACTORS WEREN’T TOO ENTHUSED EITHER” of The Force Awakens that’s expecting to pull in around US$10 billion once you throw in the merchandising.

Perhaps it’s those toys that are key to its success. My greatest Christmas ever was the year I got the Millennium Falcon as a present. As I remember, I spent pretty much the whole day just looking at it. During dinner I kept my eye on it from across the dining room (my parents wouldn’t let me bring it to the table), and then, when I was forced to go to sleep, I placed it next to my bed, occasionally getting up in the dead of night just so I could look at it some more. That’s the real power of Star Wars

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movies are on-board Emirates all month excites me. Unfor tunately you’re going to need a flight of around 15 hours to get them all in – although a shor t flight should allow for a couple under your belt (A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, obviously).

This month’s cover stor y is an inside take on the shaky beginnings that would lead to what’s possibly the greatest movie franchise of all-time. Who knew that all it would take would be dodgy sets, disgruntled actors, and a rather bizarre plotline.

Enjoy the issue.

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THE STAR WARS PLAN From no hope to A New Hope, that’s how Star Wars came into our lives in 1976.

After last month’s seventh instalment, Emirates has the first six movies all onboard this month. We went to American designer Jay Stanley for his take on the most iconic spaceship of all-time. stanleyprinthouse.etsy.com

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C O N T R I B U T O R S

JANUARY Some of the people who helped create this issue of Open Skies RICHARD LUCK

JOE MORTIMER

ADRIAN MOURBY

GARETH REES

Richard is the editor of RightCasino.com, an awardwinning feature writer, and the author of books on Steve McQueen and Sam Peckinpah. This month he writes on Star Wars, which he first saw in 1978, aged seven.

Joe is a location-independent travel writer who contributes to his own blog as well as a collection of high-end publications stretching from Hong Kong to New York.

This month he meets Justin Lim, founder of creative photography hub, The Kandid.

Adrian Mourby is an awardwinning writer and producer who has toured the world for 18 years now, trying to find new ways of looking at our cities. This month he travelled to Switzerland to discover the hidden gems across the river from Geneva in Carouge.

Gareth is a UK-based freelance writer with a repertoire ranging from food to travel and celebrity profiles, including Tony Blair’s spin doctor Alastair Campbell, and football legend Pele. This month he lunched with legendary BBC Radio 1 legend, Annie Nightingale

“Revisiting the original Star Wars shoot, you’re struck by how close to disaster George Lucas came. Something that’s been part of our lives for all these years very nearly fell at the very first hurdle.”

“You have to wonder that anyone who gives up a successful law career to join the melee of Hong Kong start-ups must be either mad or a genius. Justin Lim might be a bit of both.”

“Being a new destination for me, I genuinely didn’t know what to expect from my trip to Carouge. But I have to admit that the discovery of Geneva’s bohemian neighbour was a very pleasant surprise.”

“Not many DJs can boast that they interviewed The Beatles, embraced punk, indie and acid jazz and are still searching for the next new sound at the age of 75. Quite a woman.”

REBECCA REES

JAY STANLEY

SANDRA TINARI

SEAN WILLIAMS

Rebecca is a UK-based photographer whose work has appeared in titles including the Financial Times and Brownbook. This month she shot Annie Nightingale The Engineer inLondon

Jay creates ar t using vintage patents from the past 100+ years. His online shop (stanleyprinthouse.etsy.com) features over 1,000 pieces of ar t ranging from prints, to canvas, to clocks. This month he illustrated the Millennium Falcon for our cover.

Sandra is an Australian freelance journalist and photographer, based in Dubai. This month she writes about innovative Creekside restaurant and the genuine buzz surrounding Kite Beach.

Sean is a British writer and photographer based in Berlin.

He has written for The New Yorker, the Economist, VICE, and Esquire. This month tells us what to expect from the Sundance Film Festival.

“Was I at Venice Beach or perhaps a Versilia Riviera promenade?

No. With the ongoing rejuvenation of its popular Kite Beach, Dubai pleasingly continues its renaissance as a city for living.”

“The Oscars usually take February’s film column inches like nothing else really matters. But Sundance – the birthing ground of Tarantino, Jarmusch, Soderbergh and many more – is where the buffs should be heading this winter.”

“Surprisingly, there aren’t that many photographs of Annie Nightingale to be found, so I didn’t know quite what to expect. She turned out to be stylish, down to earth, friendly and chatty. A really inspiring lady.”

“It was a very easy decision for me to illustrate the Millennium Flacon. As a child I adored the Star Wars movies and was particularly obsessed by Han Solo’s ship.”

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January 8 – 11

The emiraTes Fa Cup Third round United kingdom

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to celebrate our sponsorship of the emirates fa cup check out sport tv for specials like the story of the fa cup, the fa cup bloopers and gary lineker on the road to fa cup glory. channel 1200 on ice digital widescreen.

Never miNd the fiNal, this moNth’s third rouNd ties are always the most eagerly aNticipated weekeNd of cup football iN the uk. beiN sports’ football oracle Ben JacoBs ruNs the rule over the big games

Football’s oldest cup competition is sure to throw up more memorable giant killings, as the third round of the Emirates FA Cup takes centre-stage this month.

Holders Arsenal, who have won the tournament a record 12 times, have a tricky tie against Premier League strugglers Sunderland. The injury-hit Gunners beat the Black Cats 3-1 in December, but are so short on numbers that manager Arsene Wenger might have to take a leaf out of Lawrie Sanchez’s book and make a public plea for players. In 2001, the former Wycombe boss famously drafted in Roy Essandoh after advertising for a striker on Ceefax. He was rewarded as the unknown Northern Irish forward netted the winner in shock quarter-final victory over Leicester City before fading into obscurity.

A cup run may prove tough for Leicester this year – they’ve been drawn at eight-time cup winners Tottenham Hotspur.

Jurgen Klopp will get his first taste of England’s most famous tournament. The Liverpool boss faces a tricky trip to Exeter, who earned a goalless draw at Manchester United in 2005, so can’t be taken lightly.

Non-league Eastleigh have the biggest game in their history. The National League side will host 2011 semi-finalists Bolton and tickets have already sold out at their 5,200-capacity Ten Acres stadium.

And at the other extreme, 2011 champions Manchester City must face Norwich, Southampton take on Crystal Palace and Watford host six-time winners Newcastle, who have lost in the third round in each of the last three seasons. thefa.com | 23 |

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January 11 – 15

Altitude FestivAl mayhrofen, austria

Combating the notion that the New Year is all about sobriety and hard work, this year’s Altitude Festival, held in the Austrian resort of Mayrhofen, will bring together dozens of the world’s best comedians for five days of skits and giggles.

Among the show’s many headliners will be Brits Sean Lock, John Bishop and Stephen K Amos, as well as Aussie Jim Jeffries, Canadian Katherine Ryan and Germany’s ‘Das Blackout’ standup Michael Mittermeier.

Those who enjoy their mirth with a side of music can enjoy world-renowned multi-

intrumentalist and beatboxer Beardyman, who’ll bring his unique mix of vocal gymnastics to the festival.

It’s the festival’s 10th birthday this year, and there’s a packed programme to boot, with Apres-Ski, Gala and Late shows welcoming the best in standup, in a spectacular setting that combines over 600km of slopes, Austria’s steepest piste, and an award-winning terrain park.

There’s no shortage of options for lodging as well, with a collection of traditional chalets and luxury hotels.The

Emirates began daily flights to Vienna in 2004.

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town itself, an hour from Innsbruck, is stunning and, nestled between the Penken and Ahorn mountains, it’s one of Austria’s top holiday spots.

“I can’t believe we’ve reached our 10th birthday,” says co-founder and comedian, Andrew Maxwell (above), who set up the event with fellow comic Marcus Brigstocke.

“It seems like just yesterday that Marcus and I came up with this hare-brained idea and now look at it, one of the best festivals on the planet.” altitudefestival.com

words: sEan williams imaGE: GEtty

start thE yEar as you mEan to Go on, with top-lEVEl standup comEdy (and a touch of skiinG) at this month’s altitudE fEstiVal

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January 21 – 31

Sundance Film FeStival utah, us

Tragedy and death – both real and imagined – appear to be the key genres at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

As usual the event, founded in 1978 by actor Robert Redford, will be America’s most-attended independent movie event.

Overall, the festival will screen 120 films from 37 countries. No fewer than 98 are world premieres, while 48 first-time filmmakers will be showcased. Despite those numbers, competition is fierce and less than one per cent of movies submitted actually make the cut – this year 12,793

were sent in – to a festival whose tagline this term is ‘Ten Days Of Different’.

Different can surely be said of Daniel Radcliffe’s latest screen role, in which he embodies mortality, quite literally, as a corpse alongside wanderer Paul Dano in oddball drama Swiss Army Man. Elsewhere there’s the much-anticipated The Birth Of A Nation, which pits Nate Parker as a literate slave-preacher, wreaking revenge on antebellum US abusers; while Goat, directed by Andrew Neel, depicts Nick Jonas as a 19-year-old boy who

witnesses a terrible college hazing.

The festival’s famous Midnight Film Section will include, among others, the progenies of Kevin Smith and Johnny Depp as yoga-obsessed shop assistants in Yoga Hosers and crowdfunded, Rob Zombiedirected clown-shocker 31.

Regardless of genre, of course, whether night owl or matinée idol, you can be sure that there’s no shortage of showstoppers at this year’s Sundance. The only question is, just what will you tip for success? sundance.org

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Science and Storytelling In December 1888, The naTIonal GeoGraphIc SocIeTy waS formeD. The worlD haS been a more faScInaTInG place ever SInce

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F L A S H B A C K

Getting into the Cosmos Club has never been easy. A private club founded in Washington in 1878, its member’s list includes three US presidents, two vice presidents, 32 Nobel Prize winners and 56 Pulitzer Prize winners.

Restricted to people who have done “original work in science, literature, or the ar ts”, it’s unsurprising then that it was here, in 1888, that 33 men founded the National Geographic Society.

Dedicated to “the increase and diffusion of geographical knowledge” this was a golden age of discover y and a time when Americans were becoming curious about the world. The 33 dedicated to this advancement were an assor ted collection of geographers, explorers, car tographers, militar y officers and financiers. However, despite having both feet firmly planted in the realms of elite society, the plan was to appeal to the ordinar y man, and to prove this aim, after drafting a constitution, they appointed Gardiner Greene Hubbard as their first president. Not a scientist or explorer, but a lawyer. Not that Hubbard was exactly ordinar y; his son-in-law was Alexander Graham Bell and, with him, he would become a founder of the Bell Telephone company, later to become the biggest telephone company in the world.

Nine months after the society launched came the first publication, but it failed to connect with the reader ; the ar ticles were just too shor t and technical. It wasn’t really until Gilber t H Grosvenor took over that things began to change. In one almighty push for the argument of nepotism, just as Bell was the son-in-law to Hubbard, Grosvenor was the son-in-law to Bell, and he was the National Geographic Society’s first full-time employee. As editor he revolutionised not just its own magazine, but the industr y itself, and would go on to become known as the father of photojournalism. Out went the shor t jargon-filled ar ticles and in came reader-friendly writing and stunning photography. Within two years Grosvenor took the readership from 1,000 to two million.

The revenue from such an upturn in for tunes – and its continual success – cer tainly wasn’t wasted. Each year the Society funds more than 300 research, conser vation and exploration projects around the world, with noticeable successes, including Rober t Pear y’s expedition to the Nor th Pole, Hiram Bingham’s excavation of the lost Inca City of Machu Pichu, mountain gorilla exper t Dian Fossey, and the underwater explorer and discoverer of the sunken Titanic, Rober t Ballard.

THE EXHIBITION IMMERSE YOURSELF IN THE NAT GEO EXPERIENCE Washington isn’t exactly going shor t when it comes to great museums. From the Smithsonian to the National Archives to the International Spy Museum, you could easily spend a couple of weeks taking them all in. The National Geographic Museum is a wor thy inclusion on any itinerar y, however. With a huge range of ever-changing exhibitions – we par ticularly love the current Indiana Jones and the Adventures of Archaeology – it fully emphasises the organisation’s mantra of “The power of science, exploration and stor ytelling”. nationalgeographic.com Enjoy top shows from the National Geographic Channel on ice Digital Widescreen channel 1283.

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E n t r E p r E n E u r

The Kandid Hong Kong

Words & Images: Joe morTImer | 30 |

E N T R E P R E N E U R

LOCAL KNOWLEDGE

P

hotographer Justin Lim is almost apologetic when we meet at The Kandid, his studio in the bustling Sheung Wan neighbourhood of Hong Kong. “I’m afraid as far as entrepreneurs go, I’m quite a small potato by Hong Kong standards,” he says as we sit down beneath its large windows.

But I’m inclined to disagree. The son of a lawyer, Lim spent 10 years following in his father’s footsteps, practising law in the UK and Hong Kong, before his passion for photography overruled his previous career plan. What began as a hobby – shooting landscapes in the Surrey countryside where he grew up – became much more than that when he returned to Hong Kong 10 years ago and started taking on weekend assignments in the fashion world.

Lim’s penchant for candid shots aroused both suspicion and admiration among clients and peers in Hong Kong’s conservative photography scene, where the style tended to be posed and rigid.

This made him stand out in the crowded fashion market, but the idea of doing something different was always on his mind. And then one day he decided to take the leap.

“There was someone very special in my life who told me, ‘You’re a decent lawyer but you’re a much better photographer.’ I think that gave me the kick up the backside I needed in terms of realising I could do more with photography.

“I wanted to do something with a space, but not a traditional studio space. I wanted to do something that had a bit more of a social edge, where people could come and relax and feel at home and where we would do things like workshops.”

And so, with the help of an interior designer friend and start-up capital from his own pocket, The Kandid was born.

The 550-square-foot space is a visual feast, with polished concrete walls, chipboard benches and bookshelves lined with vinyl sleeves, hardback books and arty magazines. An all-blue Stars And Stripes hangs from the back wall (“I just really like denim,” he explains) and every surface is covered with novelty items: vintage cameras, lamps, empty bottles, fake moustaches and Polaroid prints, all of which are used during photo-jamming sessions, Instagram workshops or brand collaborations.

And this is what makes the venture so innovative. The Kandid is a project built around a new world of social media and collaboration; a business catering to a generation of people that have cameras built into the phones in their pockets, who take and share photos of everything from their breakfast and their pets to the places they visit.

“I felt that there was an opportunity in Hong Kong to do something a bit different, and I was very keen to leverage new applications like Instagram and Snapchat and see what the younger people are

To eat like a local…

Go to Lin Heung for lunch or dinner.

It’s a traditional Cantonese teahouse that harks back to the ‘60s.

My top photography tip is…

When you visit a place that has been photographed many times, think about how you can present it in a different way.

The most photogenic part of Hong Kong is…

I grew up on the Southside so I’m very partial to the beaches. I like to go down to Stanley or Repulse Bay and shoot a few seascapes.

The best advice is…

Always take a step back to see where your life is. Don’t be afraid to travel; it’s such a big world out there. One thing I really enjoy about this job is being able to travel the world and meet people. doing with photography.” says Lim, fiddling with an old Praktica as he speaks.

Workshops at The Kandid include Instagram clinics for individuals, start-ups and small businesses; creative street portraiture classes; and courses in DSLR photography.

Moreover, groups can just hire out the space and spend time playing with the props and taking photos, or use it for creative product launches or social gatherings.

“I wanted The Kandid to be a very collaborative space for people to come in and throw a few ideas about or use the space for their own means. We’ve had people who’ve done little pop-ups, and we had one girl who rented it just to play Twister all day.”

Space is very much the final frontier in Hong Kong, where both residential and commercial real estate tends to be shoeboxsized, although Lim still manages to squeeze in groups of up to 20 in The Kandid. But his idea has been a hit, and both he and his space are in high demand in the city.Time for a bigger venue? “Watch this space,” he grins. thekandid.com; justlimphoto.com

Emirates flies four times daily to Hong Kong. Choose from three non-stop services from Dubai, and one service with a stop in Bangkok, Thailand.

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L u n c h

w i t h

ANNIE NIGHTINGALE Forty-five years after she convinced the BBC to hire her as the first female broadcaster on BBC Radio 1, Annie Nightingale MBE is the youth-oriented station’s longest serving presenter. We spoke to the DJ over lunch at The Engineer in London WORDS: GARETH REES imAGES: REBECCA REES

T

he Engineer is an attractive but unassuming gastropub situated on Gloucester Avenue, a leafy side street in the affluent Primrose Hill district in northwest London.

Shortly after 1pm on a bright autumn day, the sunlight shoots through the large windows, throwing streaks of light across the floorboards, exposed red brick walls and leather-clad booths.

Right on time, at 1.30pm, Annie Nightingale shuffles through the door. Her small body enveloped in a long, black winter coat, an orange scarf decorated with purple stars wrapped around her neck and her face, framed by shoulder length white-blonde hair, is half hidden by a huge pair of sunglasses with a cyan blue frame.

To describe Nightingale as a well preserved but normal 75-year| 32 |

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old lady would be disingenuous, but her understated outfit, low-key demeanour and apparent apprehension about having her photograph taken (she nevertheless consents without complaint) are not what I expected.

Photographs done, we take our seats at a table in a cloistered nook, chosen, after some deliberation, because Nightingale is concerned about the background noise affecting the recording of our interview. BBC Radio 1’s longest serving DJ removes her trademark shades and picks up a menu. “I’m quite nervous about this, because I hardly eat anything and I can’t talk and eat at the same time.”

After some very careful consideration and clarification of what she calls her culinary “idiosyncrasies”, Nightingale settles on the quinoa salad and I choose the kale, cauliflower and cheddar tart.

“If only they would do a portion of mashed potatoes, but I don’t think they will,” she says as I get up to place our order at the bar.

“It’s got mustard or beer or something. It’s too complicated. I’m a nightmare in that way. They want it to look pretty, and I want it absolutely plain. No bits, no nothing.”

I successfully order the salad, the tart, two mineral waters and the mashed potato, and return to the table to relay the good news: the kitchen can do the mash, unembellished. “They can?

Fantastic. That might save me.”

The recorder goes on, the conversation begins, and Annie Nightingale is in her comfort zone: talking about music, as she has done on BBC radio for 45 years. Her voice is husky but warm, its rougher edges softened by many, many hours of speaking into a microphone, as well as her fair share of late nights and early mornings spent on the dance floor. On air, her

w i t h

calm late night tone is the antithesis of the “bass bangers” she plays between 1am and 4am every Wednesday morning. It’s almost conspiratorial, like she’s sharing a secret with a friend.

“I’m speaking into the microphone directly to the listener. It’s a connection with the listener, singular,” she explains.

“RADIO WAS ALWAYS VERY ROMANTIC. fOR US TO LISTEN TO RADIO LUXEMBOURG OR THE AMERICAN fORCES NETWORK, IT WAS LIKE fINDING THIS NEW SECRET MUSIC... IT WAS A VERY EXCITING TIME TO LIVE THROUGH” Anne Nightingale was born in Twickenham, in southwest London, in 1940, part of the same post-war generation as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Who, bands she would later interview as a print journalist in the 1960s. “Radio was always very romantic,” she says. “For us to listen to Radio Luxemburg or the American Forces Network, to find this new secret music. We didn’t realise there was an entire generation of us growing up and this was going to become a huge musical explosion. I loved that feeling, but we didn’t know it at the time. It was R&B, rock ‘n’ roll and Elvis. It was all very exciting.”

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L u n c h

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“AT THE MOMENT MY THING IS TRAP AND GRIME” – IT’S NOT A SENTENCE SPOKEN BY MANY 75-YEAR-OLDS, BUT THAT’S EXACTLY WHY ANNIE NIGHTINGALE IS STILL ON BBC RADIO 1 But, despite being “obsessed” with music, the young Nightingale couldn’t see how she could be “in it”. “I had a job in a record shop when I was still at school. It was my passion,” she says. “But I couldn’t sing. We had a piano at home, and I had piano lessons, but I wasn’t really good at coordinating left and right.”

Straight out of school, she enrolled in a journalism course at the Regent Street Polytechnic, now the University Of Westminster. “It was not a good course at the time. People would say, ‘Don’t tell anyone you went there, you’ll never get a job.’

“So I spent most of my time in Soho. I did a lot of growing up. I was the youngest on my course, and my parents were very worried about me running round that particular area, but I needed to grow up, I’d had a pretty sheltered background.”

This was the period just before The Beatles redefined pop music and changed youth culture forever. “I think we were fearless – that whole thing about being a teenager, that you weren’t just small versions of your parents. We did feel special.”

While The Beatles went to Hamburg, Annie Nightingale went to Brighton, where, having passed her initiation – a pub-crawl with her sports-mad male colleagues – she started work on the local newspaper, The Brighton Argus. “I was the only woman but there was no sexism, no ‘you can’t do this’ or ‘you can’t do that’,” she recalls. She participated wholeheartedly into the Monday morning conversations about the previous weekend’s sporting results and became one of the team. She was given her own music column – called, much to the aspiring music journalist’s embarrassment, Spin With Me – and was soon interviewing and befriending just about every seminal 1960s band you could name, including The Beatles.

It was also during this early period of her career that Nightingale had her first taste of radio broadcasting, a snippet for the BBC (“probably Woman’s Hour or something”) recorded down a telephone line from Brighton’s Royal Pavilion. “As soon as I put these headphones on and spoke into the mic, I felt, ‘This feels right,’” she recalls.

Our food arrives. The tart, accompanied by a simple salad and half a dozen boiled potatoes, looks promising, while the quinoa salad is a vivid heap of moist green leaves, crunchy vegetables and generous handfuls of healthy grains lovingly combined and beautifully presented on a large white platter. From the second it’s placed on the table, I know it’s not for Annie. “I’ll probably love this,” she says, picking up her fork and pricking a fist-sized dollop of mash. “But that…” she nods at the salad “…It’s too complicated for me.” And sure enough, during the next hour or more of conversation, the salad remains intact, like a work of art, to be looked at but never touched.

I tuck in to my tart, which is delightfully cheesy, with as much restraint as I can muster, while Nightingale nibbles light helpings of mash and recollects the fortuitous meeting with Vicky Wickham, producer of pop music show Ready Steady Go!, backstage at a Dusty Springfield gig in Brighton, which led to her next foray into

broadcasting as the presenter of That’s For Me, a new sister show to Ready Steady Go! “That show was not the success that its sibling programme was, but I’d got the bug,” she says. “The music was just unbelievable in ’65, ’66 and ’67. If you look at the charts now, whatever age you are, you would know it all. I was very, very lucky to have been allowed in to that.”

So far, so good. But when Nightingale tried to secure an audition for BBC radio, things didn’t go so smoothly. “That’s when I started experiencing this horrible sexism. They were quite open about it. They said a female DJ wouldn’t have authority.”

But, in 1970, after three years of attacking the BBC’s stance in “feminist” magazines such as Cosmopolitan, and a little bit of help from a friend, The Beatles’ press officer Derek Taylor, Nightingale was finally given her own slot on BBC Radio 1, becoming the station’s first ever female presenter.

“Day one I was playing the records I wanted to play,” says Nightingale, raking her mashed potato with her fork. “That was the point for me. I didn’t go into radio because I wanted to be

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a household name, a famous person, I did it because I loved the music and I thought playing it on the radio would be much better than writing about it. I loved the fact that it was live and whatever you said it couldn’t be edited.”

But the sexism continued. “I felt like they were waiting for me to make mistakes. John Peel was allowed to make mistakes. He was allowed to play things at the wrong speed or play a tape backwards, and none of it mattered. But for me, it did matter.”

Nightingale says she was never convinced it was a secure job, but she survived several sweeping culls and accepted the responsibilities of a 1970s radio DJ, a role that will sound laughable to anybody who didn’t have to live through it. “You were expected to start doing personal appearances. In the ’70s and ’80s it was horrible, because you were a celebrity.” Nightingale emits the word with disgust. “I’d turn up with a box of records thinking I would play what I played on the radio, and they didn’t want that, they wanted to give you a microphone and have you entertain people.”

“I was terrified. Nobody taught me how to deal with any of that,” she adds. “You were expected to tell jokes. It was horrific.”

Then what happened? I ask.

“Punk happened,” says Nightingale.

Bob Harris, presenter of popular TV music show The Old Grey Whistle Test, was not a punk fan, and so Nightingale, who certainly was, got the gig and was right on the frontline as pop music experienced another paradigm shift.

Then, in 1982, Nightingale took over The Sunday Request Show, which aired in a prime slot, immediately after the Top 40. “The music in the early ’80s was awful. The mainstream pop music was really bad, and I thought, ‘What am I doing on Radio 1?’ But then

w i t h

indie started taking over: Factory Records, 4AD and The Smiths, Cocteau Twins, Aztec Camera – all groups I loved. They were becoming very popular on our show. I thought they would take us off air because it was too weird.”

They didn’t, and Nightingale presented The Sunday Request Show show until 1994, by which time her musical taste had evolved once again. In the late-1980s, despite being in her late forties, Nightingale embraced the burgeoning acid jazz scene, which for her was “as important as punk”. “The days of John Travolta, all that fancy footwork, this wasn’t anything like that. You would just plant your feet and wave your arms about, no airs or graces. I totally loved all that. I got a residency at a place called Zap Club in Brighton and had to learn to DJ with vinyl and proper decks. I was playing all that stuff on the radio.”

“The first time I heard Kraftwerk, I thought, ‘That, electronic music, is the future,’ ” she adds. “I want to hear something I haven’t heard before.”

It’s that desire to discover what’s next, to “know where it goes” that keeps Nightingale motivated. She sees herself as a curator, downloading and sifting through hundreds of tracks every week in the hope that she can introduce her loyal listeners to something they haven’t heard before.

“At the moment my thing is Trap and Grime,” she says. Not a sentence spoken by many 75-year-olds. But that’s why Annie Nightingale is still on Radio 1 and, like John Peel before her, hates to be called an “institution” or a “national treasure”.

“It doesn’t really fit if what you’re doing is always forwardlooking,” she says. “As the people at Radio 1 once said to me, ‘Why are you here? Because you’re relevant.’ ”

The Bill 1 x Quinoa salad (US$15.80) 1 x Kale, cauliflower and cheddar tart (US$18.80) 1 x Mashed potato (US$4.90) 2 x Mineral water (US$7.20)

Total: US$46.70

There’s more than 100 hours of presented radio programming on ice, with dozens of music podcasts and talk podcasts such as Freakonomics and Here’s The Thing. In Emirates World you’ll find radio programmes about Emirates and Dubai.

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South Beach C a m p s B ay, s o u t h a f r i C a

Words: AndreW nAgy ImAges: Blue vIeWs Located metres from the pristine white beaches of Camps Bay, South Beach – as its name suggests – would look equally at home alongside the Art Deco properties of Miami’s Ocean Drive as it does peeking out over this stunning coastal suburb of Cape Town.

A truly delightful property, your stay here is half hotel-half apartment, and with

full kitchen amenities, the classic suites are a rather lovely, relaxed alternative to a traditional hotel stay. The fridge gets restocked daily and little extras like a Nespresso machine help you up and out early each morning – but then Cape Town isn’t a place you want to miss with a lie-in, there’s too much to do.

Emirates flies twice daily to Cape Town with the Boeing 777-300ER.

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The key to a really great property is often found in the details, and South Beach doesn’t disappoint here either, with a ground floor gym, bikes to ride around Camps Bay, and an onsite team that will not only recommend restaurants and daytrips, but book them for you too. blueviews.com

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Pousada de Lisboa Lisbon, PortugaL

Words: Ivan Carvalho Images: Pousada de lIsboa Set on the riverfront of the Por tuguese capital, the Pousada de Lisboa is infused with histor y. Built in the aftermath of the Lisbon ear thquake of 1755 by famed statesman Pombal, it later ser ved as the Ministr y Of Internal Affairs under Salazar’s Estado Novo dictatorship.

Conver ted into a luxur y hotel this year, the 90-room proper ty is the

countr y’s newest pousada, a collection of high-end lodgings that occupy castles, convents and historic buildings.

On the ground floor, guests are welcomed by a grand staircase with velvet carpeting and a sophisticated restaurant and bar under stone arches that look out on to Praça do Comércio square. The décor pays homage to the past and present, with statues

and decorative panels of muses, saints and navigators honouring the Age Of Discover y sharing space with contemporar y ar twork, including pieces by abstractionist painter Nadir Afonso.

Rooms are contemporar y in feel with sleek parquet and bathrooms lined in white Estremoz marble from Por tugal’s Alentejo region. pousadas.pt

Emirates flies twice daily to Lisbon and since 2014 has been the official airline of the football club Benfica. It has been the club’s main sponsor since 2015 and Fly Emirates will appear on the famous red jerseys until the end of the 2017/18 season.

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Charlotte Street hotel London, UK

Words: danae Mercer IMages: charlotte street hotel Stepping into Charlotte Street Hotel is like walking into the house of a very chic friend – one who collects ar t, rarely wakes before 11am, and knows all the best places to dine.

Located in a quiet yet central location, the boutique five-star hotel features quirky interiors toying with the idea of modern English. A cosy librar y offers an ‘honesty bar’, where guests can

mix their own drinks at any hour, while a downstairs cinema room screens ar thouse flicks.

Each of the proper ty’s 52 rooms come with the luxurious offerings you might expect (strong Wi-Fi, flat-screen TV) alongside additions such as ar t and coffee-table books.

The hotel’s breakfast at The Oscar Restaurant And Bar is par ticularly

notewor thy, with the breakfast buffet offering handmade granola, buttery muffins stuffed with fruits or cheese, yoghur ts with carmelised pears, and a range of made-to-order hot dishes.

With such a relaxed and understated trendy vibe, it’s no wonder the place has become so popular with London’s in-the-know crowd. firmdalehotels.com

Emirates’ eight daily flights to London are operated by the Airbus A380, making Emirates the largest international A380 operator into the British capital.

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Carouge, geneva Words: AdrIAN MoUrBY IMAges: KAte tAdMAN-MoUrBY

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Emirates launched its daily service to Geneva in 2011.

Carouge today is a suburb of Geneva, but it was once a rival to its wealthy Swiss neighbour. In 1786 the Sardinian king Victor Amadeus III finally gave up his attempts to seize Geneva and make it the capital of his dukedom of Savoy. Instead he started a new city immediately across the River Arve

in Savoy. Carouge was born and designed to rival the city in wealth and, by rejecting Calvinism, be a lot more fun too. The new city appealed to Genevans for its eating and dancing establishments, but ultimately, less than half of it was ever built.

Today it has acquired a rather trendy

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reputation, and with ar tisan shops, delicatessens, small restaurants, jazz clubs and a retro cinema, comparisons are readily drawn to New York’s Greenwich Village. But life is quieter, slower and friendlier here, offering a welcome break for those across the water in the big city.

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Club Chat Noir

Nathaniel Gilliand’s parents star ted Chat Noir as a jazz club in 1985. Now over 30 years later he books the ar tists and opens up this bar every evening at 6pm. It’s a dark room with a smaller bar where 3,000 ar tists have performed over the last 30 years including Keziah Jones (soul funk) The Silencers (pop rock) Guru (hip-hop) and Erik Truffaz (jazz). The range of music nowadays is very wide, from jazz to reggae, electro-funk to chanson. Club Chat Noir is open Tuesdays to Saturdays, until 4 or 5am, and the best time to arrive and catch the main act is around 10pm, but many people arrive early for dinner. On Wednesdays at 7pm it’s a free, open mic session on a small stage upstairs, and here, anything can happen.

Rue Vautier 13 | +41 22 307 10 40 | chatnoir.ch

CiNema bio

The one ‘modern’ building in the centre of Carouge is an old midwest style cinema on the corner of Rue Saint-Joseph and Place Marché. It was built in 1928 and was known as Cinema Vox until 1972, when the owners decided they wanted their programme to appear first on the alphabetical listings page. Cinema Bio became something of a cause celebre in 2004 when purists wanted to tear it down and build something more appropriate to Carouge’s 18th centur y original plan. But conser vative voices prevailed and the cinema was saved. Today it offers a busy programme that mixes mainstream French cinema with ar t cinema from around the world and even the latest Woody Allen film (with subtitles). There are also live transmissions from l’Opéra national in Paris and a 1950s US-style cafe, which is ver y popular on market days.

Rue Saint-Joseph 47 | +41 22 301 54 43 | cinema-bio.ch | 47 |

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N e i g h b o u r h o o d

Atelier Arts plAstiques JeAn KAZes

Now aged 84, Jean Kazes trained as a mechanic and only took up clock making as a hobby. Operating out of a very small studio in Carouge, he affects a modest demeanour to the point that it might come something of a surprise to discover him a man who designed timepieces for the likes of Patek Philippe, Car tier and Chopard. He’s also in the book of Guinness World Records for making a wall clock with the longest pendulum in the world – it’s 30 metres long and can be found in the open lift shaft of Hotel Cornavin near Geneva’s main station. Kazes welcomes visitors to his studio and if your French is up to it, you can discuss the design for a bespoke clock, although beware: his star ting price is around the US$8,000 mark.

Rue St Joseph | + 41 22 343 30 91 | jean-kazes.ch

Atelier ZAbo ChApeAux

Operating behind a single arched shop front, like so many ar tisans in Carouge, Isabelle Hoffmann makes her hats from piles of material stacked in a riot of colours from floor to ceiling. Called “Zabo” after her own nickname, many Zabo hats are designed specifically for clients but some – costing from US$80- US$150 – can be bought off the peg. Not content with her work as a milliner, in front of Zabo she often displays vegetables for sale from her boyfriend’s garden. She also plasters the window with photos that people have sent in of themselves in her hats and updates on her own travels. All of which makes Zabo much more than a place to buy headgear. It’s an oppor tunity to check out the relaxed and creative Caregeois lifestyle.

Rue Saint-Joseph 31 | +41 22 301 75 76 | zabo.ch | 49 |

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Auberge CommunALe de CArouge

There is only one hotel in Carouge and it stands on Rue Ancienne, the only road to break up the grid pattern on which Carouge was built in 1786. It has barely expanded since it was constructed at the end of the 18th century but the interior has been remodelled to create a very large dining area where once horses were stabled. Luca Alloro, the young Sicilian patron, is always in enthusiastic evidence. Be sure to try his personal favourite dish: Galician octopus with mashed potato. Upstairs there are 20 plain bedrooms on the first and attic floors which, Luca says, are about to be transformed by some arresting designs. Very often, the rooms are taken by actors working at the French-speaking theatre – Théâtre Carouge – next door, so if you’re thinking of staying book early.

Rue Ancienne 39 | +41 22 338 07 10

L’Antre-PeAux

“For women, a bag is like the house she always carries with her,” says Christiane Mürner, who runs this leather workshop on Carouge’s Rue Ancien. Mürner says her range of bags, belts and wallets have taken their inspiration from the work of Cubists such as Mondrian and the Bauhaus guru Wassily Kandinsky. Her success lies in designs that are both innovative and timeless. Mürner is the only person teaching leather work in Switzerland’s French cantons, and behind the shop in one of Carouge’s typical cour tyards her team of young women work by hand assembling her designs. “Each bag is unique,” says Mürner. “You are attracted to it by its form, its material and its movement. Once it becomes worn it’s not only functional but a way of living every day.”

Rue Ancienne 43 | +41 22 342 72 25 | chrismurner.ch | 51 |

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mizziCa de giuseppe Cusumano

Founded in 2011 by Giuseppe Cusumano from Sicily, Mizzica began as a small Italian delicatessen behind a restaurant on Rue PontNeuf. While Pierangela, Cusumano’s wife, worked in a bank her husband expanded the business, which grew in size and popularity until it took over the whole building. Now Mizzica is a quiet, upmarket cafe selling Sicilian patés, pestos and salsas as well as artisanal panettone and olive oils. In the mornings you’ll find middle-aged ladies sitting here, juggling a novel and glass of Sicilian wine, while bearded young men siphon off the Wi-Fi. The walls are lined with old Milanese newspapers and jazz gently plays in the background.

The most contemplative of Carouge’s cafes, Mizzica benefits from being the first you reach on crossing the Arve from Geneva.

Rue du Pont-Neuf 5 | +41 22 321 24 78

La Fromagerie de Carouge

This new cheese shop in Carouge occupies par t of Maison Perrier, one the most beautiful houses in Carouge and one of the few to be built with steps up to its main entrance. It stands in what would have been the main square of the city had it been completed. In 2014 Valérie Piot, who had fallen in love with a Swiss cheese-maker, decided that she wanted to sell cheeses. She and her boyfriend had travelled all around the world and realised how special and rare cheese was outside Europe. It is very difficult to find cheese, especially good cheese. You can’t miss the shop because it has a model of a very contented looking cow in the window. Here you can buy fondue and Raclette cheese plus Swiss cheeses like Mont d’Or, Gruyeres, Emmental, Fribuurg, Belper Knolle. Valerie also sells French classics like Morbier, Rochebar, Comte and St Nectaire as well as Tomme, the one cheese that Geneva produces. The Tomme with truffles is a highlight.

Rue du Marché 2 | +41 22 301 84 00 | 52 |

A life of luxury is growing at Atakoy, Istanbul’s last remaining seafront plot.

SeaPearl has been recognised by Forbes Turkey as “The Istanbul project with the highest return on Investment potential” The shoreline stretches over 1,200 meters and provides beautiful landscaped gardens larger than four football pitches.

SeaPearl creates an exclusive setting and is designed in baroque style.

Developed by the respected Kuzu Group who are listed by ENR (Engineering News-Record) as a top international contractor.

SeaPearl welcome you to a dream home on Istanbul’s fabulous seafront.

TERRACES OFFER STUNNING PANORAMIC VIEWS OF THE MARMARA SEA.

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Kite Beach The completion of Dubai’s 14km long beachside corniche has brought hip cafes and food trucks to the city’s laidback Kite Beach words & Images: sandra TInarI

B

are foot and sandy-haired; it’s a decidedly relaxed affair for the sun and surf crowd at Dubai’s Kite Beach.

Once a quiet enclave for fisherman, kite surfers and paddle boarders, this stretch of golden sands in Umm Suqeim 1 has been revitalised with a bustling and landscaped café promenade, while still staying true to its laidback roots.

The rejuvenation of the beachside strip is a result of the completion of the Jumeirah Corniche; more than 14km of walking and running tracks that stretch the length of the deser t

shoreline from Dubai Marine Beach Resor t in Jumeirah, to the Burj Al Arab in Um Suqeim.

Quirky food concepts, snack trucks and health-conscious outlets now sit side-by-side with cool cafes at Kite Beach, elevating a day-out at the beach with its cosmopolitan atmosphere and eclectic mix of outdoorsy families and young couples.

Park House is one such cafe, which draws a busy crowd daily. The relaxed open-plan space exudes just a hint of the

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The sTrip’s whiTe sands are also a popular locaTion for public evenTs and acTiviTies, The mosT recenT of which was The emiraTes’ second annual Flag garden

Hamptons in summer with its whitewash wood clad walls and ocean-influenced décor.

A homegrown food brand, Park House star ted with a stall at the popular outdoor Ripe Market prior to launching its first café at Kite Beach. Park House’ menu includes the popular beachside favourites of grilled sandwiches and burgers, all-day breakfast, sweet treats, as well as a range of healthy options from its salad bar.

Other foodie options include the healthy frozen treats from Wanna Banana, a food truck from the popular Bob’s Fish and Chips, Taqado Mexican Kitchen and the Jam Bar deser t parlour with its elevated terrace.

The strip’s white sands are also a popular location for public events and activities, the most recent of which was the Emirates’ second annual ‘Flag Garden’ – hundreds of national flags that marked UAE Flag Day, all of which collectively spelt UAE when viewed from the skies.

Meanwhile, the traditional fishing boats and neatly stacked Arabic fishing nets perched nearby, waiting for repair, remind visitors of Dubai’s sea-faring histor y, while from the sand, others leisurely soak up the rays from sun loungers.

In the spirit of Kite Beach’s most recent incarnation as an outdoor playground, the more adventurous still par take in stand-up paddle boarding, kite boarding and kayaking.

Football, beach tennis and beach volleyball sand cour ts are also found beachside. But, the most recent addition – one of the city’s first purpose-built outdoor skate parks – comes from the fast-growing XDubai, the team behind Dubai’s action spor ts scene.

XDubai athlete manager, Morgan Carlson, said, “As an initiative to build the action spor ts scene in Dubai, it makes total sense to star t with a fully fledged skate park at a lively location, such as the Kite Beach.

“With a wide range of spor ts activities and facilities, Kite Beach is quickly becoming an action zone and now with the addition of the XDubai skate park, riders of all ages and levels will have a fully dedicated park to learn and practice their skills.”

Long a popular family weekend spot with clear views of the city’s striking Downtown skyline, Dubai’s white-sand Kite Beach has had a cosmopolitan makeover but one which still retains its carefree spirit.

a convenient way to visit dubai’s top attractions is with city sightseeing’s hop-on hop-off bus. learn more at citysightseeing-dubai.com

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Creekside Art, culture and heritage combine with locally inspired food at Creekside, an ambitious cafe concept alongside the historic Dubai Creek words and images: sandra Tinari

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reekside, a contemporary cultural space and café located by the Dubai Creek in Bur Dubai, combines Emirati influenced cuisine and an extensive ar ts programme in the busy hear t of old Dubai.

With a focus on architecture, ar t, culture, design and heritage, Creekside’s programme manager, Rania Jishi, says the cafe aims to be a place for not only good food but one of artistic expression, debate and knowledge exchange.

“Creekside aims to make what’s foreign, familiar. Whether by embarking on an abra for a vivid tour of the creek, or

journeying through the entwined alleys of the old city to find its hidden gems or simply picking up a new skill such as Arabic typography, our programming will be sure to carr y you outside the walls of this establishment into a world of cultural discover y,” says Jishi.

“Whether someone is to attend a workshop or simply indulge in our contemporary local cuisine, Creekside will always leave its visitors with food for thought.”

Bur Dubai is the city’s historic trading centre. The winding cobbled stone streets, or sikkas, and the colourful souk of its | 59 |

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old town bear witness to centuries of sea-faring traders and visitors. At the same time, the nearby modernist and brutalist concrete structures of Bur Dubai’s more modern, frenetic streets highlight the trading successes of the United Arab Emirates’ oilboom period. Flowing gracefully in contrast is the Dubai Creek, alongside of which Creekside benefits from a prime waterside position, a calm oasis amongst the hustle-and-bustle.

Rania adds: “Bur Dubai is known as a trading hub. You’ll find yourself crossing many food stops as you walk through the souq, from small cafeterias to some nice low budget restaurants. Tucked away you’ll also find some hidden gems with restaurants that serve local dishes in an innovative way.

Creekside for example is only seen once you reach the waterfront, which is located right behind Dubai museum.”

Inspired by the locale and the team’s own nostalgic need for soul food, Creekside introduces Emirati cuisine with a modern twist and has developed a menu that aims to “water your mouth and lead you into a palatable cultural experience.”

Popular dishes include, The Ouzi Burrito and the Lamb Burger.

An all-day breakfast menu, including fruit topped French toast is also regularly ordered. For desser t, sweet treats on offer include a red velvet luiqumat and milkshakes.

On the ar ts and culture front, Creekside’s weekly workshops include potter y, painting and jeweller y design, open mic nights, not to mention markets and film screenings by the water on its terrace.

Due to the surrounding busy, winding streets, many of Creekside’s visitors find it easer to arrive by one of Dubai’s historic abras, paying a one dirham fee to experience a crossing of the Creek from the city’s spice souk to Bur Dubai souk’s abra station, just metres from the café and culture hub.

Of Creekside and its neighbourhood, Jishi says, “Visiting this side of Dubai is a must. It will surprise you in every way; you will travel back in time and disconnect from all of the daily clutter in your life. Everything is moving around you but all you’ll want to do is sit and stare at the waves as they carry the busy abra from one side of the creek to the other.”

Weekly Workshops include pottery, painting, jeWellery design and open mic nights. you also Find markets and Film screenings by the Water on the creekside terrace

download the emirates app – available for iphone, ipad and android. your personal journey planner makes it easy to view and arrange your trips when you’re on the go. designed to complement the iphone app, there’s also an emirates app for apple Watch.

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A collection of stories from around the world

A Force To Be Reckoned With

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MAIN

WORDS: RICHARD LUCK IMAGES: EVERETT COLLECTION

I Itt’ ’ss nnooww I ImmppoossssI Ibbllee ttoo I ImmaaggI Innee aa wwoorrlldd wwI Itthhoouutt I Itt bbuutt tthheerree wa as s a a pp ee r r II o od d –– a a w lloonngg ttI Immee aaggoo –– wwhheenn tthhee qquueessttI Ioonn o on n eevveerryyoonnee’ ’ss llI Ippss II n n hhoollllyywwoooodd wwaass ,, ““ w w hh y y wwoouulldd aannyyoonnee w wa an n tt ttoo mmaakkee ssttaarr wwaarrss ?? ” ”

A

screening room, Hollywood, California, and George Lucas, the writer-director of the cult sci-fi drama THX 1138 and the massively successful Happy Days forerunner American Graffiti, is desperate to show his latest movie to his closest friends. Since these men include Brian De Palma, John Milius and Steven Spielberg, it’s natural that he should be a little on the nervous side. His concerns are more understandable still when you consider that the movie he’s showing them is one few people have any faith in whatsoever.

Intended as a swashbuckling celebration of the science-fiction movie serials of the 1940s and ’50s, Lucas’ Star Wars has Fox, the studio that financed it, completely baffled. And judging from his friends’ guffaws, the hottest film directors of the day don’t care too much for it either. The problem is, in part, Lucas’ own. With the special effects sequences still to be completed, he has used dogfight footage from old war movies to fill in the gaps. But even random shots from 633 Squadron aren’t the real problem.

No, it’s the talk about Jedi Knights and ‘The Force’ that has De Palma in particular howling with laughter.

Now as the movie reaches its climax, and Luke Skywalker and Han Solo receive their medals, Lucas prepares himself for something far less welcome. De Palma, whose Stephen King adaptation Carrie is already doing great box-office, just smiles and shakes his head while screenwriting whiz Milius upbraids his friend for wasting his talent on such a folly when | 66 |

the two of them could have gone to Vietnam and shot something that we’ll later come to know as Apocalypse Now. The sole positive response comes from Spielberg.

“I think it’s great,” says the man who – just a year earlier – introduced the world to the summer blockbuster, courtesy of Jaws. “I think it’ll make a whole bunch of money.”

YOU MY KILL FAT ED HER !

I Am r , e k Lu Fathe your

Although touched by his friend’s enthusiasm, Lucas remains less than convinced.

It wasn’t until the summer of 1977 with moviegoers queuing around the block to see some kid from Tatooine stick it to the Galactic Empire that George Lucas would acknowledge that he’d created something pretty special with Star Wars. Although a downbeat chap at the best of times – this is the man who skipped the THX wrap party to attend a therapy session – Lucas’ fears were the furthest thing from self-indulgent melodrama. On the contrary, the man from the fittingly named Modesto had been secondguessing himself long before De Palma and Milius raised their concerns. And the proof of this? Well, for that we’ll have to revisit the set of the film itself.

Now regarded as one of the world’s top film and entertainment writers, Gar th Pearce was a 23-year-old freelancer looking for a break when he was asked whether he fancied a day at Elstree film studios watching some movie that a young, quiet American director was making.

“The good news,” as Pearce wrote at the time, “is that I’ve been invited onto my first ever film set.

The bad news is that Sir Alec Guinness and Peter Cushing, the true stars of this ‘space adventure

fantasy’ [then] called The Star Wars, are not prepared to be inter viewed.

Instead, I’m sold a tragic line-up by the desperate PR on the end of the phone. Let’s see, we’ve got Mark Hamill, “the hero and a nice guy”, Dave Prowse, “the villain and a huge guy”, and Carrie Fisher : “You can have lunch with her but she’s kind of odd.”

“It doesn’t sound at all promising,” wrote Pearce at the end of this first paragraph. The next day at Elstree, his fears came to fruition. “It’s already horribly apparent,” he continued, “that this movie is going nowhere. It’s hard to explain, but nothing looks quite right. Everyone’s looking distinctly uncomfortable. The set seems messy and not even remotely high-tech. This could be an episode of Dr Who. What am I doing here?

“And just when I’m thinking things can’t get any worse, I hear Dave Prowse speak. He’s dressed from head to foot in black to play ‘Darth Vader’ and, at 6ft 6in, looks like a giant. But he’s speaking in this light, rolling Somerset accent which makes him sound more like the proprietor of an isolated West Country village shop!”

If the “villain with a Wurzels accent” was the nadir of the visit, there were still other disappointments Pearce had to endure. He met Mark Hammil – “he looks about 12” – he lunched with Carrie Fisher who had to keep going to the bathroom – “perhaps she has a summer cold coming on…” – and he spent a fruitless few minutes trying to get anything more welcoming than a scowl out of Harrison Ford.

“A softly-spoken yokel, a choirboy, a spoilt little rich girl and a nobody actor, all toiling in the heat at a washed-up studio. Who’s kidding who? Sir Alec must have lost his marbles.”

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Painting a picture so depressing it makes Munch’s The Scream look like C M Coolidge’s Dogs Playing Poker, and Pearce must have thought that his candid study of a sinking ship would have been sure to sell. As it was, it wouldn’t appear in print until 1997 when Neon magazine sought to celebrate the release of the Star Wars Special Editions. And that says a whole bunch about the state of Lucas’s picture – it wasn’t just that shooting was going badly but no one, not even the British tabloid press, gave two hoots.

“George doesn’t really like directing,” says Rick McCallum, a producer who enjoyed working relationships with the likes of Nicolas Roeg and Dennis Potter before becoming Lucas’ full-time collaborator in the early 1990s. “He hates writing – just gets no satisfaction from it at all – but he doesn’t like directing either. George is a lovely guy but he’s quite shy and reserved. He’s not someone to rally the troops when all hope seems lost. When I hear those stories about the original Star Wars shoot going down the toilet, I find it hard to believe that my friend had it within him to get the movie in the can. That’s the other thing about George – he might not want to say boo to a goose but he’s very strong, albeit in an almost completely silent way.”

A SOFTLY-SPOKEN YOKEL, A CHOIRBOY, A SPOLIT RICH GIRL AND A NOBODY ACTOR, ALL TOILING IN THE HEAT AT A WASHED-UP STUDIO – WHO’S KIDDING WHO? After initially working together on the Young Indiana Jones series of – frankly underwhelming – TV movies, McCallum’s first business with Lucas on the Star Wars front was with regard to the aforementioned Special Editions.

Created to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of A New Hope’s US release, the pictures gave the writer-director a chance to restore footage, clean-up special effects, add CGI elements and right things that been wrong for the better part of two decades.

If you think George was happy about having the chance to rid himself of such bugbears, you’d only be half right. As McCallum recalls, “George was far less excited than I think people assumed he would be. The fact of the matter was, each time he set about touching something up, it would remind him of something terrible that happened during the shoot. So every new FX shot represented the reopening of a deep wound that had taken a very long while to heal. And not only that, but you’d had these people who’d been on at him since the ’70s about restoring the Jabba The Hutt scene, and then George goes and does it the best he can with the limited technology we had at the time, and then everyone goes and abuses it! In short, the Special Edition of A New Hope was like a time machine that transported George | 68 |

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back to a time that he never, ever wanted to revisit.”

Though the chance to restore balance to the Force might have granted George Lucas very limited satisfaction, the Special Editions both relit his creative fire and refreshed the audience’s desire for Star Wars-flavoured action. Something that started out resembling a vanity project instead provided the inspiration for a new trio of prequels, not to mention a bucket-load of cash with which to make said films.

But then again, making money is something George Lucas had always known a bit about.

Rick McCallum shakes his head and smiles. “You know, it’s funny to talk about George at Elstree in 1976 because, on the one hand, he was the proverbial rabbit in the headlights. He was second-guessing himself right up to the wire – ‘Luke Skywalker’ was still called ‘Luke Starkiller’ the first day on set. But while you have him making snap, potentially rash, choices like that, you also have him making perhaps the shrewdest decision in the history of film.”

The decision McCallum is referring to wasn’t seen as that sharp at the time Lucas made it. As his producer continues, “George was a hot director at the time he made Star Wars.

American Graffiti had been a huge hit – it went over $100 million at the US box office back when that didn’t happen so often – so he could have demanded a big fee. But because George knew that this was just the first part of a three-part story he wanted to tell, he knew he had to find a way to finance two further movies. So, to the consternation of pretty much everybody, he goes to the board at Fox and asks for a very modest salary. All he wanted in return were the merchandising rights.”

Film merchandising didn’t begin with Star Wars – the Planet Of The Apes movies ‘inspired’ plenty of kid-friendly toys – but it was Lucas who realised the phenomenon’s potential. “The smart move George made was to allow children to fully immerse themselves in the Star Wars universe,” explains McCallum. “It wasn’t just a case of making Luke, Han and Leia toys – you could buy figures of even the most minor characters like the aliens in the cantina bar who are only in the film for a few minutes at most. And you couldn’t just buy the Millennium Falcon, you could buy all the ships depicted – even the Death Star. I think now when someone creates a range like that you’d accuse them of being mercenary.

With George, though, I think he was motivated by two things – a desire to allow kids to create

You Have Not BeeN WatcHiNg Actors that came within a whisker of appearing in A New Hope

WiLLiam katt *iSn’t* Luke SkyWaLker Lucas and Brian De Palma held joint auditions for Star Wars and Carrie. With his blonde mop and innocent face, Katt had a lot in common with Mark Hammil, just not enough to land him the role. Compensation came in the key role of Sissy Spacek’s prom date in De Palma’s excellent Stephen King adaptation.

SiSSy Spacek *iSn’t* princeSS Leia The Carrie/Star Wars cast reading also meant that the woman who wound up playing the girl with the awesome telepathic powers was in the running to play Alderan’s most famous daughter. As for rumours that Carrie Fisher turned down said part because of the nude scenes: untrue.

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Jodie foster *isn’t* Princess leia, eitHer A huge star on the back of Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver for which she’d receive an Academy Award nomination, it’s only natural that Lucas would have considered casting the former Disney starlet. It says much for the modest scale of Star Wars, that our man simply didn’t have the money to afford her.

Kurt russell *isn’t* Han solo Keen to cast actors he’d never worked with before, George Lucas was reluctant to give the role of Solo to Ford who’d starred in American Graffiti. Russell was one of many performers George had read for the role before realising that there was really only one man capable of piloting the Millennium Falcon.

tosHiro Mifune *isn’t* obi-Wan Kenobi With the original Star Wars being – rather loosely – based on Akira Kurosawa’s samurai drama The Hidden Fortress, Lucas briefly toyed with casting the Japanese legend’s actor-of-choice as the last of the Jedi Knights. In the end, the name value and reputation of Oscar-winner Sir Alec Guinness won the day.

their own Star Wars universe combined with a willingness to repay their investment by creating The Empire Strikes Back and Return Of The Jedi. I like to see it as more a victory for imagination and art than for cold, hard commerce, but then, hey, I am his friend.”

Whether the decision was cunning or heart-felt, its success isn’t open to question. For when Star Wars blew up big at the international box office, the cash tills started ringing in toy shops the world over. And as parents were left to ask whether their six-year old really needed a third Stormtrooper, George Lucas started dreaming of an ice planet called Hoth.

Extraordinary revenue streams and smash-hit sequels weren’t the only rewards George Lucas received for his perseverance. Sure, the critics might not have quite known what to make of Star Wars, but the Motion Picture Academy showered the film with six Oscars from 11 nominations. And with one series of films based on old-school serials now a going concern, Lucas also had the impetus to get something similar up and running with his old friend Steven Spielberg – something about a gun-totin’, whip’crackin’ archaeologist called Indiana.

Steven Spielberg – the man who had been right all the time. For yes, Star Wars was a great film and it did make a Want to refresH Your MeMorY on whole bunch of money. But now, as a property of Walt Disney tHe Plotlines for Studios, the saga will be raking in cash for someone other than tHe first siX star George Lucas. And for all the highs he experienced on the Wars MoVies? road to Endor, you can’t help thinking that the man with the TURN OVER FOR OUR INFOGRAPHIC quiet manner and the immaculate beard is actually quite happy to leave behind the movie that transformed motion pictures.

Star Wars Episodes I to VI are all showing on ice this month.

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Essential news and information from Emirates Emirates Airline Dubai Jazz Festival

Inside Emirates

Route Map

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EmiratEs airlinE Dubai Jazz FEstival

The stars are once again aligning for the award-winning Emirates Airline Dubai Jazz Festival.

Kicking off on Februar y 24, the three-day festival has an incredible opening act in Postmodern Jukebox, an ever-evolving band that covers recent pop songs in a jazz style – check out their version of Miley Cyrus’ We Can’t Stop. The band has amassed more than 315 million YouTube views and has 1.5 million subscribers.

Headlining the opening evening is the legendary ’80s band TOTO, who, you’ll be pleased to hear, will be going through a collection of their classics (Africa, obviously) as well as some new material.

If you think the first day sounds good, the second heralds not one but two headliners – the first of which, boasting master trumpeter Chris Botti and the world-renowned ar tist Sting, could well be one of the music events of the year.

British singer/songwriter and fan favourite David Gray co-headlines on the 25th, performing songs from his new album as well as classics such as Babylon.

The festival closes on Februar y 26 with multiple Grammy winner and global guitar music icon Santana returning to Dubai as par t of his worldwide Luminosity Tour 2016.

Fans can expect his creative and

fier y fusion of Latin rock with blues, jazz and world music. Warming up the crowd for his arrival, Argentinian group La Bomba De Tiempo, a set of 17 percussionists, will interact with the audience to create a musical moment nobody will forget.

Winning the prestigious What’s On Dubai Award for Favourite Festival in 2015, it’s expected tickets for the 2016 edition will sell out quickly.

Tickets for the 14th Emirates Airline Dubai Jazz Festival are on sale exclusively from Ticketmaster on ticketmaster.ae, or 800-TM-UAE (in the UAE). For more visit dubaijazzfest.com

TAKE OUR SURVEY Par ticularly enjoyed your lunch? Loved the latest movie selection on ice Digital Widescreen or have you got a few ideas that you feel might just help us improve our ser vice?

Tell us what you really think and fill in our on-screen sur vey – the results are automatically sent back to our headquar ters in Dubai ever y day.

Available through ice Digital Widescreen on your seatback. Press ‘c’ for communications and then select ‘Passenger Sur veys’ to begin.

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enhanCeD serViCe to germany Emirates has increased its commitment to Germany, with a second daily A380 service to Frankfurt and a third daily service to Munich.

The Frankfurt increase, which came into effect on January 1, has added 1,155 seats a week on the route, with 280 in First Class and Business Class. Flights EK 47 and 48 have been upgraded from a Boeing 777-300ER to an A380.

“Our daily A380 service to Frankfur t proved to be extremely popular and we’re happy that demand has been so strong that we needed to increase capacity on the route,” said Huber t Frach, Emirates’ Divisional Senior Vice President, Commercial Operations West.

“In fact, our four gateways in Germany are doing extremely well with three of them boasting a daily or double-daily A380 ser vice.”

Frach added that should the opportunity arise, “Emirates would be keen

get to your gate on time

to fly to additional cities that are currently underserved, offering more choices and better connections to travellers.”

Dr Stefan Schulte, Chairman of the Executive Board of Frapor t AG, said they were pleased at the increases in ser vices made by Emirates.

“It shows a clear commitment of Emirates and underlines the attractiveness of Frankfur t Airpor t,” he added.

Emirates’ flight EK 47 depar ts Dubai International Airpor t at 2.35pm and arrives in Frankfur t at 6.40pm. The outbound flight EK 48 depar ts from Frankfur t at 8.30pm and arrives in Dubai at 6.10am the following day.

The third daily flight to Munich, flight EK 054, begins on Februar y 1 and will depar t Munich daily at 10.10am, landing in Dubai at 7.10pm the same day. On the return flight, EK 053 will depar t Dubai at 3.20am arriving in Munich at 7.10am the same day.

The flight will be operated by a Boeing 777-300ER. Emirates has ser ved passengers on this route since 1999 and is looking forward to continuing to facilitate ongoing trade and connectivity with the city and wider region.

Don't miss your flight Please 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.

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the plight of the tiger Although the international trade in tigers, their parts and products is essentially banned by CITES, they still face a serious risk in the wild, with three species already extinct. Emirates is supporting United For Wildlife, an organisation working to fight against poaching. Learn more about United For Wildlife on channel 1501 on ice Digital Widescreen

95%

3,200

The wild tiger population lost during the last century

The number of tigers left in the wild. They are officially classified as endangered

70%

The deaths of Amur tigers attributed to humans, mainly through poaching

1940s The Bali tiger becomes extinct

early 1970s The Caspian tiger becomes extinct and the last official sighting of the South China tiger

Mid 1970s The Javan tiger becomes extinct

60%+

The increase in tiger numbers in Nepal since 2009

200

The approximate number of tigers in Nepal

540

The current number of Amur tigers. It has made a spectacular comeback since the 1930s, when the population fell as low as 20 to 30, but is still on the endangered list

3

The subspecies of tiger that are already extinct

why are they hunted?

exotic luxuries In traditional Asian medicine, tiger parts are used for tonics, folk medicines, and as curios. The meat is eaten

Tiger products and derivatives are also being used in exotic items such as tiger bone wine

how you can help Consumers can contribute in a big way, by boycotting products made from the parts of these endangered animals and discouraging others from doing so. You can also get updates by liking United For Wildlife on Facebook

For more on wildlife and conservation, visit Wildlife TV channels 1240 to 1250 on ice Digital Widescreen.

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INFOGRApHIC: kAREN EVANS SOURCE: WWF

traditional medicine

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American Hospital Dubai accepts most major health insurance plans, please call 800 - 5500

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SKY-HIGH FUNTIME FOR KIDS For young flyers on Emirates, the fun lasts from check-in to landing Words: MATT MosTYN

With over four million children travelling with emirates each year, they’re among the airline’s most important guests. Yet keeping them entertained in the air can be a formidable task.

Emirates’ Executive Vice President and Chief Operations Officer Adel Al Redha says, “We know how challenging it can be for parents to keep their children occupied and entertained on flights.” For that reason, Emirates has been busily working to polish every aspect of a young traveller’s journey – from toys and children’s entertainment, to special meals and thoughtful extras designed to make flying a whole lot more enjoyable.

Emirates is proud to offer families and kids a smoother travel experience. From check-in to landing, the entire process – as well as the products – has been refreshed, to make it an adventure that young flyers will remember for years to come.

Here’s a rundown of what children and teens can experience when they take to the skies with emirates...

Departures Families are guaranteed a comfortable start to their journey, with dedicated family check-in areas and complimentary strollers at Dubai International airport. In the airport lounges there are also mother and baby rooms for changing and feeding. Once

you’re checked in pre-flight boredom cer tainly won’t be an option. That’s because Dubai’s First Class and Business Class depar ture lounges come with dedicated play areas packed with a special range of toys and arcade-quality games.

Emirates has also just launched a brand new range of toys for infants and children up to the age of 12. While in the airpor t lounges, toddlers can explore Fly With Me Animals tin cases, featuring cut-out character magnets and activity sheets.

Infants get their very own special Lewis the lion Cuddle Buddy soft comfor t blanket. Plus for the older kids, there’s a unique Fly With Me and Lonely Planet Kids case, featuring a fold-out board game, spinner, ID holder, lanyard, gadget stand and pen.

BoarDing Getting kids on board and settled can sometimes prove tricky, which is why we offer priority boarding for families at all airports.

And if you’re sending off your little adventurer to friends or relatives unaccompanied, you don’t have to worry, there’s even a separate check-in and lounge facilities for five to 12-year-olds on departure (as well as extra care and attention from our crew to ensure that they remain happy and comfortable during their epic voyage).

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Toys Emirates flights now have wild animals on board – and early feedback has told us that they’re loved by our young travellers.

The new Fly With Me toy range includes four loveable animals designed to teach children about the animal and its habitat.

First in line to charm the kids are Lewis the lion from Africa, Peek U the panda from China, Enrico the monkey from South America, and Leila the camel from the Middle East. Each animal has a unique story that promotes their region, culture, language and environment.

All four furry friends can be hugged tightly as either a Travel Buddy (with a plastic toggle, so you can hang them from a pram or inside a car) or a Carry Buddy (a dual-purpose toy and blanket) – and for those budding Picassos, there’s also a Magnetic Sketch Pad version.

Learning Lonely Planet Kids knows a thing or two about travel – so we’ve harnessed their expertise to create exclusive packs to inspire older children. They’ll be able to dive into retro, travel-themed messenger bags or lunch coolers to find games, postcards, a fold-out world map, origami sets and four exclusive educational books from the Lonely Planet Kids Amazing World Series. Created exclusively for Emirates, you won’t find these books anywhere else, and they’re a fascinating way to learn about the world, from famous landmarks and languages to currencies, maps and more.

Young travellers will be able to record whatever inspires them inside a special travel journal – and the entire pack is theirs to take with them when they land.

We’re sure that kids will love Fly With Me Animals magazine, which is crammed with puzzles, jokes and activities, as well as colouring pencils – it’s been also given a makeover, with some brand new characters to bring a little extra delight to their journey with our new fun animal friends.

enTerTainmenT Our award-winning entertainment system, ice, is a treasure trove for young ones. Their eyes will light up when they slip on their

smaller, more comfortable, brightly-coloured headphones and choose from 50 Disney favourites, a children’s movies section, over 25 dedicated kids’ channels, loads of music channels and on some aircraft, more than 100 in-flight games.

Also on ice is a dedicated YouTube channel featuring some of the latest YouTube sensations like Mother Goose Club.

It’s perfect for children and already has millions of young followers around the world.

meaLTimes From children’s menus to special snack boxes, meals are designed to be both nutritious and delicious, ensuring, when mealtime is done, there’s nothing left but an empty tray.

Even the tray itself has been recently redesigned and now depicts our crew and pilots on their exciting adventures around the world. For infants, there’s also baby food, milk formula and bottles on board, should you require it.

inTroducing The crew Our brand new Celebration Boxes contain a range of colourful greeting cards featuring characters based on our pilots and crew, and they’re a fantastic way for us to help you celebrate a special event while on board.

Crew are also on hand to take Polaroid photos to record your travelling memories for posterity – and with their cool new photocard frame designs, youngsters will be proud to display them in their scrapbooks and photo albums for years to come.

Babies will be able drift off to sleep more easily, in the comfort of a bassinet. And when they wake, there’s a handy care kit, filled with useful essentials like nappies, bibs and wipes.

skywards skysurFers The intrepid young adventurers in your family can even be personally rewarded for flying with Emirates, when you sign them up as a Skywards Skysurfer. Not only will they be able to redeem miles for future flights, but they’ll also be able to enjoy special treatment, such as their favourite window seat when they fly. It’s easy and free to join at skysurfers.com

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PANAMA CITY Starting February 1, Emirates will launch its first gateway destination in Central America, with services to Panama City.

Enjoy our guide to this new tourism hot-spot Panama City is naturally the best place to launch any trek into Panama, a country that boasts some of the most exhilarating biodiversity on the planet with stunning coastlines on the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean.

But Panama City is more than a gateway and is more than justifying its place as a tourism destination in its own right. It’s an urban powerhouse of high rises, banking and leisure, made all the better for its mix of cultures.

Great restaurants, superb shopping and a vibrant nightlife

make its comparisons to Miami in the US understandable, and no visit would be complete without exploring the Panama Canal, the lifeline that fuels this intriguing city.

There is also a rich histor y that can be explored in the ruins of Panama Viejo or as you stroll past the beautiful buildings of the historic Casco Viejo district.

Despite the histor y, Panama is a relatively young countr y, having seceded from Colombia in 1903, and it’s seeking its own identity amidst a blend of cultures and influences.

EAT

STAY

DO

THE FISH MARKET Sat atop an actual fish market, this is the spot to indulge in the finest and freshest seafood. The bonus? It’s all reasonably priced.

Fish tacos, tuna burgers and key lime pie are dishes you’ll find on the daily menu. +507 6151 1697

HOTEL CASA DEL HORNO This boutique hotel sits in a converted communal bakery. The original walls are great feature pieces, but the modern facilities and light rooms make it a superb choice in the historic Casco Viejo district. The penthouse suites have private balconies. +507 212 0052

EXPLORE THE ORIGINAL PANAMA CITY Panama Viejo dates back to 1519, when it was set up as the gateway city for the Spanish into Latin America. The vibrant city was sacked in 1671 and the ruins are now a popular attraction. A museum details the history of the fascinating site.

MAGNOLIA INN A bright and well-situated hostel, Magnolia Inn is a great base to explore Panama City on a budget. Packed with character, the French colonial building now boasts air-conditioning and Wi-Fi. Very much a peaceful hostel, it is ideal for those looking to avoid noisy travellers. magnoliapanama.com

GET AN AERIAL VIEW OF THE CANAL Head to the Miraflores Visitors Center at the Miraflores Locks for an insight into the history and scale of the Panama Canal. But for a truly memorable experience take to the skies for a plane or helicopter tour. The scope of the canal is mind-blowing.

EL TRAPICHE This popular establishment gives an overview of real Panamanian cuisine in a relaxed and friendly setting. Can’t decide what you want to order? Try the Panamanian Fiesta, which through eight dishes provides a fantastic insight into the region’s typical fare. +507 269 4353 DONDE JOSÉ Looking to promote a distinct identity for Panamanian cuisine, the team at Donde José create an exceptional dining experience.

With seating for 14, the taster menu combines storytelling with culinary talent. The service is also first rate. Don’t miss it. dondejose.com

PANAMA MARRIOTT HOTEL The hotel that has maintained its position as one of the best in the city, thanks to its great location and superb service. All the things you would expect from a luxury hotel, but delivered, naturally, with an extra touch of class. marriott.com

HEAD TO THE HILL Providing a great view of Panama City, as well as the chance to see all sorts of wildlife, the protected Ancon Hill is a 200-metre peak. This option is naturally great for walkers or more energetic runners. It is also the spot to take some great photographs.

EMIRATES STAFF TIPS EAT WELL

“Try traditional patacones (fried green plantains), fried fish or arroz con pollo (rice with chicken).”

Victor Gonzalez Villa-Real Cabin Supervisor

GO ANIMAL SPOTTING

“Ride a bike to Punta Culebra Nature Center to spot turtles, sharks and sloths.”

Yilma Yimara Rojas Sune Cabin Crew

Operated by a Boeing 777-200LR, flight EK 251 departs Dubai at 08:05 and arrives in Panama City at 16:40. EK 252 leaves Panama City at 22:10, and arrives in Dubai at 22:55 the next day.

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WELLNESS IN THE AIR 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 enjoy your journey and time on board with Emirates today.

SMART TRAVELLER

DRINK PLENTY OF WATER Rehydrate with water or juices frequently. Drink tea and coffee in moderation.

TRAVEL LIGHTLY

WEAR GLASSES

Carry only the essential items that you will need during your flight.

Cabin air is drier than normal, therefore swap your contact lenses for glasses.

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

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.

DURING THE FLIGHT

Allow yourself plenty of time for 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.

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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.

MAKE YOURSELF COMFORTABLE Loosen clothing, remove jacket and avoid anything pressing against your body.

WHEN YOU ARRIVE Try some light exercise, or read if you can’t sleep after arrival.

Your home in Dubai

• • • • • • • •

Located in the heart of Dubai Opposite Metro Station Walking distance to Burj Khalifa, world’s tallest skyscraper Dubai Airport - 15 min Abu Dhabi Airport - 45 min Walking distance to shopping malls Close to Business Hubs (DIFC and DWTC) Spa and Outdoor Swimming Pool

Sheikh Zayed Road, P.O Box 116957 Dubai, UAE Tel: +971 4 323 0000 | Fax: +971 4 323 0003 www.emiratesgrandhotel.com

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Guide to us customs & immiGration Whether you’re travelling to, or through, the United States today, this simple guide to completing the US customs form will help to ensure that your journey is as hassle free as possible.

CUSToMS DECLARATIoN 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.

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. The 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 the United Kingdom** * SubjEct to changE ** only britiSh citizEnS qualify undEr thE viSa waivEr programmE. | 88 |

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i n f o r m a t i o n

Cut the queue at JFK with quiCK ConneCt If you’re connecting through New York JFK, you can avoid long waiting times in US immigration and queues for connecting flights with the Quick Connect service. US Customs and Border Protection Agency created the special service for passengers who have a connecting flight within three hours of arrival at New York JFK.

Follow theSe StePS:

1

2

3

4

have your boarding card or ticket for your connecting flight ready for the ground staff as you exit.

You’ll be given a Quick Connect card. Continue to the Quick Connect queue in the Arrivals hall.

After passport clearance, claim your baggage and clear US customs, regardless of your final destination.

If your bag is tagged to your final destination, hand it to emirates staff at the transfer counter for your onward flight.

quarantine in australia Australia has strict biosecurity laws, so when you arrive you’ll need to declare certain food, plant or animal items on your Incoming Passenger Card.

You also need to declare equipment or shoes used in rivers and lakes or with soil attached. All aircraft food must be left on board. Please take particular care when you complete your Incoming Passenger Card – it's a legal document and false declarations may result in a penalty.

quarantine in Japan Japan has strict rules around exposure to livestock and bringing in livestock items.

You will need to go to the Animal Quarantine Counter if: • you have recently been to a livestock farm • are bringing livestock products into Japan • your visit to Japan will involve contact with livestock the counter is in the baggage claim area. If you’re bringing meat and livestock products into Japan without an import certificate, you must see the animal quarantine officer. | 89 |

U A E

S M A R T

G A T E

BE SMART! USE UAE SMART GATE AT DUBAI INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

NATIONALITIES THAT CAN USE UAE SMART GATES

UAE

Andorra

Australia

Austria

Bahrain

Belgium

Brunei

Canada

Denmark

Finland

France

Germany

Greece

Iceland

Ireland

Italy

Japan

Kuwait

Liechtenstein

Luxembourg

Malaysia

Monaco

Netherlands

New Zealand

Norway

Oman

Portugal

Qatar

San Marino

Saudi Arabia

Singapore

South Korea

Spain

Sweden

Switzerland

*UK

USA

GO THROUGH IMMIGRATION IN SECONDS AND GET YOUR VISIT TO DUBAI OFF TO A FLYING START Citizens of the countries listed on the right and UAE residents can speed through Dubai International airport by using UAE Smart Gate.

If you hold a machine-readable passport or E-Gate card you can check in and out of the airport within seconds.

Just look out for signs that will direct you to the many UAE Smart Gates found on either side of the Immigration Hall at Dubai International airport.

USING UAE SMART GATE IS EASY

1

Have your E-Gate card or machinereadable passport ready to be scanned

2

Place your passport photo page on the scanner. If you are a UAE resident, place your E-Gate card into the E-Gate slot

OK!

3

Go through the open gate, stand in the blue footprint guide on the floor, face the camera straight-on and stand still for your iris scan.

When finished, the next set of gates will open and you can continue to baggage claim

*UK citizens only (UK overseas citizens still require a visa)

REGISTERING FOR UAE SMART GATE IS EASY To register, just follow the above process and then spend a few moments having your details validated by an immigration officer. That’s it! Every time you fly to Dubai in future, you will be out of the airport and on your way just minutes after you landed. | 90 |

UAE SMART GATE CAN BE USED BY:

• Machine-readable passports from the above countries • E-Gate cards

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R O U T E

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M A P

R O U T E

M A P

NEW ROUTES: Panama City: daily service starts February 1 Yinchuan and Zhengzhou: four times weekly service starts May 3

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THE FLEET Our fleet contains 250 aircraft made up of 235 passenger aircraft and 15 cargo aircraft BOEING 777-300ER

Emirates is the world’s largest operator of this aircraft, which joined the fleet in 2005.

Number of Aircraft: 113 Capacity: 354-442 Range: 14,594km Length: 73.9m Wingspan: 64.8m

BOEING 777-300

Since 1999, Emirates operates two and three-class versions of the 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

BOEING 777-200ER

In 2005, the Boeing 777-200LR set a new world record for distance travelled non-stop when it landed at Heathrow airport, London, after a journey of 21,601km (11,664 nautical miles) from Hong Kong - the long way round. Emirates received its first 777-200LR in August 2007.

Emirates’ first Boeing 777-200ER joined the fleet in 1997.

Number of Aircraft: 6 Capacity: 274 Range: 14,310km Length: 63.7m Wingspan: 60.9m

BOEING 777F

Number of Aircraft: 13 Range: 9,260km Length: 63.7m Wingspan: 64.8m For more information: emirates.com/ourfleet | 96 |

The most environmentally-friendly freighter operated today, with the lowest fuel burn of any comparablysized cargo aircraft. Along with its wide main-deck cargo door which can accommodate oversized consignments, it is also capable of carrying up to 103 tonnes of cargo non-stop on 10-hour sector lengths.

AIRBUS A380-800

Emirates has operated the A380 since 2008, and is the world’s largest operator of this aircraft.

Number of Aircraft: 74 Capacity: 489-615 Range: 15,000km Length: 72.7m Wingspan: 79.8m

AIRBUS A340-500

This ultra-long range passenger airliner was introduced to the Emirates fleet in 2003. This saw the launch of the First Class Suite which has since been rolled out on the Boeing 777 and Airbus A380.

Number of Aircraft: 1 Capacity: 258 Range: 16,050km Length: 67.9m Wingspan: 63.4m

AIRBUS A340-300

Similar in many respects to Emirates A330-200s, the A340-300 is equipped with four engines giving it an enhanced range.

Number of Aircraft: 4 Capacity: 267 Range: 13,350km Length: 63.6m Wingspan: 60.3m

AIRBUS A330-200

First added to the fleet in 1999, this aircraft operates predominately on shorter-haul routes.

Number of Aircraft: 16 Capacity: 237-278 Range: 12,200km Length: 58.8m Wingspan: 60.3m

BOEING 747-400ERF

Number of Aircraft: 2 Range:9,204km Length: 70.6m Wingspan: 64.4m Aircraft numbers through end January 2016 | 97 |

This aircraft is capable of carrying up to 117 tonnes. The deck-side cargo door, with a height of approximately three metres, allows the uplift of oversized shipments that cannot be accommodated in the belly-hold of passenger aircraft. The nose door allows the carriage of long pieces.

K N O W L E D G E

DESTINATION How a city works. This month: New York WHERE ARE ALL THE MEN!

The Federal Reserve Bank holds about 25 per cent of the world’s gold bullion.

Source: US Federal Reserve

New York City is home to more women than men. Approximately 52 per cent of the city’s 8,491,079 residents are female.

47 per cent of New York residents over the age of five speak a second language.

Source: US Census

Source: US Census

CENTRAL PARK FACTS

THAT’S TOO MUCH FOR HOTDOG HABIBI!

It costs US$58.3million to maintain Central Park, only 25 per cent of which is government funded. The remaining US$43,725,000 is raised by the not-for-profit Central Park Conservancy.

Source: Central Park Conservancy

Cleopatra’s Needle is a 3,000-year-old Egyptian ruin.

It was given to the city as a gift by the Khedive of Egypt in 1879, taking a decade to be fully transported.

Mohammad Mastafa pays $289,000 a year for his hotdog stand permit in Central Park, the most in the city.

Source: NY Times

Source: Central Park Conservancy

Source: Central Park Conservancy

If New York’s boroughs were made into cities, Brooklyn and Queens would be America’s fourth and fifth largest cities.

CURIOUS DATES

Central Park takes up roughly 843 acres of land, enough room for 16 million apartments.

1 New York City; New York 2 Los Angeles; California 3 Chicago; Illinois 4 Brooklyn, New York 5 Queens, New York

8,175 3,792 2,695 2,592 2.296

Manhattan’s daytime population swells to 3.94 million, with commuters adding a net 1.34 million people.

Source: US Census

Source: US Census

The city of New York will pay for a one-way plane ticket for any homeless person if they have a guaranteed place to stay.

Source: NY Mayor’s Office

1780

1896

1942

1988

New York City becomes temporary capital of the US.

Jeweller William Barthman embeds a gilded clock into the sidewalk on Maiden Lane to attract people to his store. It’s still there and still keeping time.

Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia bans pinball machines, believing they corrupt the young, even authorising prohibition-style busts on businesses operating the machines.

The ban wasn’t lifted until 1972.

Phantom of the Opera opens on broadways, and is now the longest running show in Broadway history with over 9,100 performances.

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