"News has a kind of mystery."

MFP goes totally Athens

1 December 2011

The first part of the My Favourite Planet illustrated guide to Athens goes online today. There are already 36 pages of photos and information about the Acropolis online, and we will be continually adding to the guide over the next months.

The MFP guide to Athens is being organized as a series of galleries, one for each of the city's districts, sights and sites, with original photos as well as historical and cultural articles on every page. The Greek capital is most famous for its ancient monuments and museums, but we also hope to bring our readers something of the flavour of contemporary Athens too.

We hope you enjoy it. As ever, we invite to join in by sending us your photos, videos and words. If you have a favourite hotel, restaurant, bar, street or area in Athens (or anywhere else in the world), feel free to get in contact.

People's planet

30 November 2011

My Favourite Planet is pretty place-oriented, but people do sometimes get a look in. While compiling articles for our new guide to Athens, it became clear that certain names and faces were cropping up regularly during the city's history. Some of the personalities are well known, while others remain more obscure and difficult to find out about, even in our wonderful wiki-world. So we decided to devote some space to the people on this planet, which also saves us having to keep explaining who they are on every page where their name appears; cuts down on the footnotes too.

The first person in our brand new people section is the 19th century French archaeologist Charles Ernest Beulé, who achieved the unusual distinction of being the only archaeologist to have an ancient Athenian monument named after him. Hardly earth-shattering stuff, but we had to start somewhere, didn't we?

Hopefully, Monsieur Beulé won't have to remain alone long, and will be soon joined by more scintillating society.

9 / 11 – 10 years after

6 September 2011

Over the coming week the world's media will be incessantly revisiting the horrific terrorist attacks on the USA on 11th September 2001, a series of events which led to seemingly never-ending wars and which continue to affect the lives of millions of people across the planet.

Like the assassination of President Kennedy, the attacks were televised globally and have left a psychological imprint on a generation. Doubtless, journalists will be asking people the question: "Do you remember where you were when those planes hit the Twin Towers?" Edwin Drood remembers exactly where he was, and in his latest blog, Ambivalent anniversaries part 1, he asks, among other things, where are we at now, and how will this era look to future historians? "History", he reminds us, "has a way of dulling the edges of horror".

What happened to summer?

August / September 2011

My Favourite Planet's first video

1 June 2011

The latest The Cheshire Cat Blog, Istanbul essentials - Part 3: Istanbul wedding dance, features My Favourite Planet's first ever video with rare footage and photos of köçek dancers - men in skirts - dancing at a street wedding celebration. Not to be missed.

Be sure to turn down the volume of your computer's speakers or headphones before you start the video: the traditional Turkish music gets pretty loud and raucous.

Lucky old island

April 2011

When The Cheshire Cat received an unexpected e-mail in Spanish, announcing that a statue of him was about to be unveiled, he was delighted, baffled and bemused. Who was the mysterious Mayor of Afortunada? And where on Earth was this place anyway?

With the help of an academic author in Madrid, a Swedish geologist and a 15 year-old computer wiz, we discover an unknown island far out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

Drood turns 50 - pages

29 March 2011

The Mysterious Edwin Drood has just posted his fiftieth blog "The marriage of the Arnolfinis", as Edwin Drood's Column goes into its twelfth month of publication and Drood continues pole-vaulting jauntily from one international topic to another.

Mersey beats

February-March 2011

The Cheshire Cat walks the streets of Liverpool and finds a city proud of its past, looking to the future and moving to the beat of a different drum.

Mersey beats, Part 1: She gives me religion takes a look at faith in the city. Liverpool has two main religions: one is the worship of great gods who do battle on holy turf amid a mass of true believers, and is known as football; the other one happens in churches ...

This mega-blog is so big that we decided to present two months-worth of blog on one page, rather than splitting it up.

Winter wonderlands

January 2011

Following on from December's Snowstorm Blues, The Cheshire Cat continues the wintery theme into the new year with Winter wonderlands, a photo essay on the snowbound northern hemisphere from USA, Wales, Belgium and Germany, by:

Lesley A. Smith, David Elis-Williams, Gordon Mcleod,
Mark Mallett, Martine Passagez, Konstanze Gundudis,
Peter Hinze and David John.

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