One week from today, the French national railway SCNF is scheduled to launch a new low fare, high-speed passenger service between the Paris region and southeastern France. With fares starting as low as €10 ( €5 for children ), the Ouigo no-frills service will reach such popular destinations as Avignon, Marseille, Nîmes, Lyon, Montpellier and Aix-en-Provence. You can book ahead at a special Ouigo website.
VeryFirstTo is a British upscale product and experience website whose motto is “Be the very first to know about and have newly launching luxury products and experiences”. Now they are offering the world’s most expensive vacation package: a £990,000, two-year round the world trip featuring visits to 962 UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 157 countries. So start saving your pennies if you’d like to join the 1%ers on this once in a lifetime tour. You’ll be traveling in Business Class and staying at top hotels for your visits to the Taj Mahal, Angkor Wat, Machu Picchu and 959 other unique sites chosen by the World Heritage Committee.
Okay, I admit it, I’m just a big old train geek. I love to ride them, to watch films of iconic train jouneys and to read about them too. But you don’t have to be a diehard trainspotter to enjoy this neat tilt-shift, timelapse video taken at the terrific Spoorweg Museum in Utrecht, Netherlands earlier this month. The videographer, Bas Stoffelsen of Time:Writers, a professional timelapse photography firm, captured the odd juxtaposition of the annual OntraXS! model railway show and the full-sized exhibits at the museum. Take a ride.
I first discovered Neil Gaiman‘s work through his collaboration with the great Terry Pratchett on the novel Good Omens. Then I found a copy of his novelization of his TV series Neverwhere on a trip to the UK. I’ve been a proselytizing fan ever since. So, I was dead chuffed when a TBTP reader sent me a link to this newly adapted BBC4 radio play of Neverwhere. Even if you haven’t read the book, if you’re a fantasy fan you’ll enjoy this adaptation. Listen here.
Here’s the BBC teaser about the production:
“An act of kindness sees Richard Mayhew catapulted from his ordinary life into a subterranean world under the streets of London. Stopping to help an injured girl on a London street, Richard is thrust from his workaday existence into the strange world of London Below.
So begins a curious and mysterious adventure deep beneath the streets of London, a London of shadows where the tube cry of ‘Mind the Gap’ takes on new meaning; for the inhabitants of this murky domain are those who have fallen through the gaps in society, the dispossessed, the homeless. Here Richard meets the Earl of Earl’s Court, Old Bailey and Hammersmith, faces a life-threatening ordeal at the hands of the Black Friars, comes face to face with Great Beast of London, and encounters an Angel. Called Islington.
Joining the mysterious girl named Door and her companions, the Marquis de Carabas and the bodyguard, Hunter, Richard embarks on an extraordinary quest to escape from the clutches of the fiendish assassins Croup and Vandemar and to discover who ordered them to murder her family. All the while trying to work out how to get back to his old life in London Above.
A six part adaption of Neil Gaiman’s novel adapted by Dirk Maggs for Radio 4 and Radio 4 Extra, sees James McAvoy as Richard lead a stellar cast which includes Natalie Dormer, David Harewood, Sophie Okonedo, Benedict Cumberbatch, Christopher Lee, Anthony Head, David Schofield, Bernard Cribbens, Romola Garai, George Harris, Andrew Sachs, Lucy Cohu, Johnny Vegas, Paul Chequer, Don Gilet and Abdul Salis”.
London-based architect and freelance graphic designer Sharm Murugiah created this droll set of Penguin-style book covers as imagined for Quentin Tarantino films. Echoing the classic Penguin paperback design configuration, he has inserted the movie titles where book titles are usually set. Check out Murugiah’s website for plenty of other clever pieces of book and poster art.
Spring may have officially sprung here in North America, but Winter is about to make a dramatic comeback nonetheless. On March 31st, the new season of George R.R. Martin‘s addictive television spectacle Game of Thrones returns; and not a moment too soon for millions of diehard fans.
As a devotee of both Martin’s absorbing novels and the sprawling TV version, I eagerly await the next installments. But as a traveler, I also look forward to the exotic settings and locations chosen by the producers to stand in for Westeros. I’m sure we can expect to see some more of the magnificent Icelandic scenery that provides the stunning backdrop for the land beyond the Wall. Hopefully, the production will provide some more glimpses of the magical city of Dubrovnik, which has been an exceptional proxy for King’s Landing. And I’m certain that we can anticipate more of the dramatic landscape of Northern Ireland that has been evident in so many sweeping vistas.
Meanwhile, fans are getting restless in anticipation of Martin’s long-anticipated sixth book in the series. To assuage the masses, Martin has been sharing information on his website Not A Blog, as well as some terrific suggestions for readers who would like to expand their literary horizons. So while we wait for The Winds of Winter, he encourages fans to delve into Mervyn Peake‘s Gormenghast, Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea trilogy, Jack Vance‘s almost forgotten gem The Dying Earth, and much more.
On March 11th sci-fi fans around the world celebrated the life and work of author Douglas Adams. Two years ago, British graphic designer and typographer Andrew Lee designed an entirely new set of book covers for five of Adams’ most popular works.
The minimalist, duotone covers were clearly influenced by early astronaut mission patches and 50s sci-fi inspired art work.
In celebration of its 125th anniversary, the venerable National Geographic has created a wonderful new blog designed to solely showcase never before published photographs from its extensive archive.
The Found blog is being built by National Geographic photographic archive curator William Bonner. Check in at Found daily for newly added photos.
Ross Ashmore is on a mission; he plans to finish a painting of every London tube station before the end of 2013. The former graphic designer hope to contribute to the 150th anniversary celebration of the London underground with his expressionist paintings. To date, he has completed 215 heavy impasto paintings of Zones 1 through 4 stations, with 52 more to go.
If you’re in London, there’s an exhibition —Ross Ashmore: Going Underground—at the Space Gallery Southgate until April 5th.
Stop Telling Women to Smile is a very clever street art project created by Philly artist and illustrator Tatyana Fazlalizadeh that boldly confronts the pervasive, unsolicited harrassment that women the world over endure.
The project challenges the intrusive and blatantly misogynistic behavior that objectifies women and girls, and makes streets unsafe.
Fazlalizadeh hopes that “some women will pass these wheat pastes and feel empowered. That men will at least take notice and consider what the posters are saying.”
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