We Do Adventure

Today the Telegraph introduced me to the work of Yanko Tsvetkov. Yanko is a London-based Bulgarian who describes himself on his website as a 'graphic designer slash visual artist'. He has produced a series of maps of Europe that label countries by the perceived stereotypes of one of the member states. Being English I was naturally interested in 'Europe According to Britain'. I think the concept is great but either my stereotypes are not representative or he's a little off. For example, I've never been to Iceland, although I have long wanted to, but I have been to Vegas; I don't think I've ever confused the two. I also recently argued, during a trip to neighbouring Finland, for the strength of Sweden's pop output. (They are one of only three countries that exports more pop music than they import, the US and the UK being the other two.) What really surprised me, though, was to see the Western Balkans clumped together under 'uncharted'. Perh...

A copy of this week’s Economist is sitting on the sofa next to me. On the cover the headline declares: ‘ Afghanistan ’, adding, underneath the picture of an American coffin being loaded into a waiting vehicle, ‘The growing threat of failure’. I’ve not read the accompanying article yet but I can hazard a guess at the point it’s making. American, along with its allies, has invested heavily in Afghanistan. Time, money and human life have been poured into trying to create a stable democracy. Yet, years down the road, it could all go horribly to waste. Such are the perils of interventionism. All too often I find myself reading articles about the Balkans in general, or Bosnia and Herzegovina more specifically, that suggest the same threat still hangs over this region. So imagine my surprise to discover this week’s lead article in the Europe section of the same magazine was title ‘ Entering the Yugosphere: former Yugoslavia patches itself together ’. What followed was probably the most positi...