Bang Rak was once the gateway to Thailand, with foreign ships checking in at its main trading building, Customs House, on the eastern bank of the Chao Phraya River. Foreigners arrive elsewhere these days and many expats now live in modern high-rises along Sukhumvit Road. But a new generation of Thai makers is moving in and turning this district into a creative quarter. Join Monocle for a wander around the neighbourhood and a chat with some of Bang Rak’s recent arrivals.
Where to stay
While there are plenty of luxury hotels on the riverfront to choose from, we’re pointing you to Beanstalk Bangkok on Surawong Road. The building formerly housed the New Fuji Hotel, which catered to American soldiers on break from their posts in Vietnam. Make sure to check out the small brass plaque on the discrete façade. The property reopened a few years ago as a 57-room boutique accommodation that channels Bang Rak’s Thai-Chinese heritage.
A Chinese shrine to the goddess of the sea is nearby on Charoen Krung Soi 39 while faded red lanterns leftover from the last celebration still hang over side streets. The myriad silversmiths, jewellers and diamond shops that were historically run by Thai-Chinese traders add a faded sparkle. Graffitied metal shutters, in new and old styles, guard shophouses with names in three languages. In English: House of Gems, Heritage Gems and Gem Plaza. But my favourite is Gem Gems.
Breakfast
To beat the heat, we rise early for breakfast and start our day on foot by walking east to the Neilson Hays Library, one of the pillars of Bang Rak. Housed in a neoclassical building, the privately funded English-language library dates to the 19th century. Bangkok coffee chain FIX took over the pleasant courtyard café in April last year and offers eggs on sourdough and fruity yoghurt bowls under the shade of tropical palm trees.
Neilson Hays backs onto The British Club, another Victorian leftover, which has the best swimming pool in the area. But this is not a Lawrence Osbourne novel and we have a packed itinerary of interesting Thais to meet. Next stop: Si Phraya Road via Naret Road.
Galleries and shopping
The beginnings of Bang Rak’s latest reinvention can be traced to 2025. That’s when gallerist Sutima Sucharitakul relocated her well-regarded independent gallery, Nova Contemporary, to the district. Sucharitakul has built a reputation for representing Thailand’s rising stars, such as Latthapon Korkiatarkul, Vacharanont Sinvaravatn and Prae Pupityastaporn.
Sucharitakul is not the only entrepreneur elevating Si Phraya Road. Three doors down is Glamma Vintage where the owner collects haute couture; this shop-museum is an Aladdin’s cave for anyone working in fashion. Ring ahead of visiting to see if it’s open (by appointment is commonplace here and few places are open on Mondays).
Around the same time that Nova moved to the neighbourhood, Bangkok-based fashion brand Philip Huang relocated to the other end of Si Phraya Road. In a building called Prachoom Chang – which translates to “the meeting of makers” – Philip Huang took over the former office and printing press of Daily News, one of Thailand’s most popular news outlets. The label transformed the space into a flagship shop, office and natural dyeing workshop, which features vats created by the country’s biggest contemporary artist, Pinaree Sanpitak. Also in the building is the Thai creative Channatip Chanvipava and Ivan Pun’s Burmese furniture brand, Paribawga. Gathering like-minded friends together to take over a large space seems to be somewhat of a trend in Bang Rak.
Lunch
Now that we’ve explored Prachoom Chang, we’ll get a bite at Samlor (lunch is only served on weekends) on the corner of Charoen Krung, Bangkok’s first paved road. Samlor’s elevated take on Thai street food is hinted at by the metal three-wheeled rickshaw hanging above the entrance. Our dinner menu will have plenty of meat, so for lunch, try the catch of the day, which often comes from the warm waters off the country’s southern coast. If you’re visiting during the week, head along Charoen Krung to Kick! Chop! Slice!. This pizza joint adds a Thai flavour to its New York-style doughs by using local ingredients, such as Isan sausage.
With our stomachs full, we’ll take a short stroll around the corner to Kitt Ta Khon. The craft studio opened its first shop in 2024 to showcase its handwoven furniture pieces: armchairs, benches and other creations wrapped in colourful beads, rope and string. The Sukpha stools can be customised on the second floor and bubbled wrapped for the flight back home. Carry-on only? There are plenty of bamboo fans, reed table mats and small ceramics on the shelves too.
Kitt Ta Khon is a few steps away from the mighty Chao Phraya River, which has been enjoying its own renaissance this century. The opening of Capella and Four Seasons in 2020 pulled visitors back to Bangkok’s main waterway, which has been helmed for 150 years by the peerless Mandarin Oriental. This momentum shows no sign of letting up with a handful of major openings coming soon. The former Customs House is set to reopen as a 75-key luxury hotel under The Langham’s banner; the result of an elaborate engineering project to elevate the subsided heritage building by one storey. Nearly all of the focus, from the rooms to the restaurants, is on the river view. The yet-unnamed bar with its own pier shows promise for future cocktails in 2027 but, for now, it’s time for an after lunch pick-me-up. We’re are eyeing a perch further inland.
Coffee
From the main Charoen Krung Road, follow the route of Charoen Krung Alley 43 in the direction of Surawong Road as it snakes through the backstreet garages, launderettes and shophouses of this residential neighbourhood. Cross over to Decho Road and order a coffee (anything from the menu with ice) at Monochrome.
Decho Road is another Bang Rak street on the rise. The end of last year saw two sets of friends from fashion and film take over the former House of Chao antique shop. Fashion brand Nong Rak has taken the ground floor for its first shop, selling limited-edition creations from Bangkok-made silk alongside vintage clothing. The upper floor of the building has been transformed into Sala Saneha, a cinema, wine bar and lounge. There are several screenings each night ranging from Thai films to US indies and European releases. Book a ticket for the late show and come back after dinner down the street.
Dinner
Aunglo by Yangrak is a casual restaurant serving Thai classics cooked on a grill. It moved to a larger spot on the corner of Si Lom Road last year and its barbecue pork ribs are a must try. Room for dessert? Order the Khanom Krok Brûle for a contemporary twist on the traditional coconut pudding.
This part of Bang Rak is set to get a major boost in a few years’ time when the new Hatai development removes its hoardings. The Thomas Heatherwick-designed mixed-use project is currently under construction on the site of the original Narai Hotel – a legendary 1960s institution with 500 rooms and a revolving restaurant that was once a celebrity hangout and the tallest building on Si Lom Road. Hatai, currently set to open in late 2027, will include Bangkok’s first Six Senses hotel and the redesigned Narai Hotel. Until then, order a glass of wine at Sala Saneha, find a snug seat and settle in for some well-curated cinema. We’ll end our day back at the Beanstalk.
The morning after the first round of the Brazilian elections, held on 4 October, much of the country awoke in a state of disbelief. At first dazed and then outraged, liberals and left-wingers digested the scale of the right and far-right parties’ success. Conservatives, meanwhile, were in awe, so unprecedented and unexpected was the magnitude of their achievement.
In congressional and gubernatorial races across the country, right-wing candidates chalked up resounding victories, paving the way for an utterly transformed political landscape when the winners take office early next year. But it was the presidential race that truly confounded observers. Despite trailing behind in most opinion polls for the entire campaign, Flávio Bolsonaro – the eldest son of former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro – took an almost two-point lead over the incumbent leader, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, setting up a run-off between the two men this Sunday
The impact was immediate. Markets rallied on the expectation of a return to right-wing governance; meanwhile, previously hedging politicians and some Supreme Court judges quickly moved to Bolsonaro’s camp. For Lula, now 80 years old and serving his third non-consecutive term, it looked as though the game was up.
Then the fightback began. In the weeks since the first-round results, the political left has been galvanised. With a sense of urgency not seen earlier in the campaign, hundreds of thousands of Lula supporters rallied at events in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and elsewhere. Volunteers, both young and old, have been campaigning on the streets. Lula stickers are suddenly everywhere. On social media – a key battlefield – Lula’s Partido dos Trabalhadores has belatedly begun to get its act together, pushing the octogenarian president to produce the kind of selfie videos that have long been an effective tool of the Brazilian right.
The new style of campaigning has been complemented by some hurried political manoeuvring. On 15 October – just in time for the run-off and following much persuasion by Lula – Congress abolished the six-day working week for millions of formal workers in sectors such as retail and services. They will soon be entitled to two days off per week with no reduction in wages. Lula has also promised new cash-handout programmes and free public transport at weekends.
The incumbent’s efforts are having an effect. Opinion polls show the gap between the contenders narrowing, with the two men now in a technical tie. Bolsonaro, meanwhile, seems to recognise that the race is not yet run and has stepped up his public appearances and media engagements in the final stretch. It’s likely, however, that the latter – who markets himself as a “vaccinated” version of his more radical father – is the more confident. After all, polling has consistently underestimated his support and, in the modern era, no Brazilian presidential candidate who has led the first round has gone on to lose the run-off.
Lula, meanwhile, suffers from broad anti-incumbency sentiment, with voters clearly looking for something different amid widespread concerns about the cost of living and crime. The left-wing leader has been a fixture of Brazilian politics for almost half a century. On Sunday, voters will decide whether that is long enough.
Beirut certainly wasn’t built in a day but it has repeatedly come close to being undone in one. I first visited the Lebanese capital just before the October protests in 2019, which marked the beginning of a series of crises. The port blast of August 2020 delivered unprecedented devastation, leaving an open wound and a mark on the city’s collective memory. Today a war rages on its southern border. You can’t write about Lebanon without encountering politics and conflict but what is fascinating about Beirut is that it doesn’t hide its scars – they are folded into daily life and the city’s design scene. The city recently hosted the third edition of Interiors Lebanon and the 27th edition of Project Lebanon, a fair about construction.
While these fairs might offer a moment to come together, the resilience of the city’s architecture and design community is also baked into its built works. Take Lina Ghotmeh’s Stone Garden, a 13-storey residential and cultural tower in Beirut. Its deep, irregular openings deliberately echo bullet-pocked façades and serve as planted balconies, inviting nature in and giving the building a sense of life rising from memory. The Beit Beirut museum’s façade tells a similar story: it still bears the bullet holes and shell damage of the Civil War, preserved rather than renovated to keep memory alive. And then there are the grain silos at the port, which were gutted by the blast in 2020. Their fate is still uncertain but citizens are determined that they endure as landmarks to carry the memory forward.
Movement has always shaped the harbour city too, from its origins as a centre of trade to the waves of upheaval that followed the destruction. For those who were fortunate enough to escape, it was never about turning their backs on home. Instead they sought safe harbours abroad to support those who stayed behind. This has created a vast diaspora who carry an unwavering love for the cedar flag and a backpack full of hope for their country. Their return has made Beirut a vibrant melting pot of cultures, histories and ideas, leaving a lasting international imprint on its architectural landscape.
When I returned this summer with my Lebanese partner, I found a place that is far from frozen by grief, still alive with the very rhythm that first struck me. Shops, restaurants and hotels, such as the iconic Albergo, have weathered the storm and been meticulously restored. Around them, new spots have sprung up, buzzing with inventive energy and a refusal to stand still. The perseverance of the city’s recent design fairs is a reminder that in a world with too many fractured places and conflicts, scars are not endings but foundations for renewal, proof that a brighter future can emerge even from devastation. They create a reason to keep looking ahead.
Rebuilding Beirut: Read how Lebanon’s architects and designers followed the devastating port explosion by building better.
Reunions are frequently stressful affairs. What seemed like a good idea a month ago starts to fill you with dread as the date approaches. What is the right setting? Keep it open-ended so you can wrap things up swiftly should the conversation stall but also let things linger if you find that it’s just like old times? Or maybe a hard stop is better for both? And what if they look nothing like you remembered? Perhaps it’s worth rehearsing a few scenarios in case you’re completely shocked by their appearance.
All these thoughts and more were racing through my mind when I boarded TAP flight 89 on Monday. After a 10-year gap, how would it feel? Would it be a bit clunky? Or would we pick up exactly where we left off? In nine hours, I would start to find out. My reunion was with São Paulo itself – and all the people and places, scents and sounds I remembered. Here are a few impressions, both old and new:
1.
Terminal BTG Pactual
You can have a very soft landing if you arrive at GRU on the right airline or as a top customer of Brazilian financial services group BTG Pactual. Alongside the main terminal, the bank has built a sleek hub that allows you to make it from the aircraft door to your armoured wheels into town in less than 10 minutes. Outbound, you are dropped off, escorted to the dining room or private salon, then driven straight to the door of your aircraft. The reunion got off to a very good start.
2.
The Fasano Jardins
It’s alarming how warm memories can fade across a decade but thankfully everything can jolt back to life in an instant. The original Fasano has not changed, and is as cosy and sexy as I remembered. We’ll return here in a moment.
3.
Spot
São Paulo’s take on the brasserie (and there are a few) demands Unesco recognition. Spot mixes a little Portuguese, lots of Italian, a splash of Lebanese and some Japanese and German on the menu, creating the perfect formula for a late-night dinner on the eve of your arrival or for any other night of the week. Then there’s the crowd: chic oldies, young architects and a single or two.
4.
The Fasano Tennis Club
A new addition to the ever-expanding group and definitely a new global benchmark for urban country clubs. While much is completed, there are still a few more courts to go and the waiting list is long.
5.
Pulso
A new-ish part of the city’s streetscape and hotel scene, this homegrown beauty is worth a visit for its integration into the neighbourhood, its landscaping and its modernist art collection. A new one is also on the horizon.
6.
Iguatemi
The grande dame of Brazil’s malls is about to get even better with a rooftop extension that will include new restaurants and a retail surprise to shake up São Paulo’s already super-competitive luxury shopping-centre scene. The group does an excellent job of mixing the likes of Hermès with local Brazilian retailers and everyday services. Lunch at Rodeio was a culinary and social highlight.
7.
Luciana Brito Galeria
Wow! A modernist architectural gem (designed by Rino Levi) in a jungle setting with a collection of Brazilian and international artists. I left thinking about what life in such a compound might feel like.
8.
Le Freak
One of São Paulo’s newest downtown dining hotspots offers the best French 75 I’ve ever tasted, good Uruguayan wines and a very chic, privé dining nook on the mezzanine. No surprise, the menu is meaty.
9.
Galeria Metrópole
Across the street from Le Freak, this multi-level, open-air shopping centre offers up many cues about good urban planning, right-sized retail and building something solid and open to the elements. Packed with vintage shops, design firms, restaurants old and new and the odd travel agent, the galleria is part of downtown São Paulo’s tidy-up. That said, it’s still rather edgy in the park next door.
10.
Emporio Santa Luzia
Could this be the best grocery shop in the Americas? The world? The shop just turned 100 and is a social, cultural and commercial institution.
And finally: Ricardo, Isay – I missed you both! You were looking more handsome than ever and hopefully we’ll meet again within 10 weeks, not 10 years. Yes, dear reader, you’ll be hearing a bit more from São Paulo on page, on air and on screen.
Enjoying life in ‘The Faster Lane’? Click here to browse all of Tyler’s past columns.
I was invited to a party this week to mark 40 years of The Independent, the newspaper-turned-content powerhouse where I worked for close to a decade before joining Project Monocle. The event was held at the British Museum. During the soirée, guests were able to nip off to see the Bayeux Tapestry, the near-1,000-year-old, 70-metre-long embroidery that’s in the country on loan from France – and for which securing viewing tickets is almost impossible. So yes please.
The tapestry is displayed flat in a long glass cabinet. There’s a digital screen that also runs its entire length and picks out key moments from this stitched narrative that depicts the story of the Norman invasion of England in 1066. The room is dark. Beautifully lit.
Trouble is, if one person is determined to take in every damn detail, you can get stuck staring at the same panel for a long time. And believe me, there were some very swotty people ahead of me. My former colleague Ruth suggested that we should do a speed read by jumping in wherever we saw a gap. “You know what’s going to happen. Do you really need to see it all?” she asked. Ever the editor, she’s always able to see how to make something more concise. I forbade this move and made her join me in the queue; there would be no fast-forwarding.
One thing that soon stood out, as it were, was the large number of penises depicted. There were some proper whackers on horses but also several gentlemen displaying their knackers like medieval flashers. I imagined an 11th-century embroiderer returning home after a long day crafting the tapestry. “Good day at work, dear?” her husband might enquire. “You won’t believe it; they’ve got me back on horses’ willies. Today, I had to do a real big one and now my wrist hurts. But they’ve promised me arrows next month. I might even get to stick one in someone’s eye… Any gruel left for dinner?”
We’ll go back to the penises in a moment. But just to say that the tapestry is, as you would expect, amazing. It’s like a medieval version of a Netflix series – Stitchflix – in which you get to see the backstory of the invasion, have nice asides about daily life, witness battles, enjoy sufficient killing to keep you engaged.
And, of course, there are several scenes that have gone on to become famous. Yes, when Harold gets an arrow in his eye but also when Halley’s Comet shoots across the sky, though that comet looked more like a shuttlecock to me. But I won’t raise that as an academic challenge.
Back amid the hum of the party, champagne glass in hand, I introduced myself to Grayson Perry, whose famous narrative ceramics and tapestries share a creative lineage with the Bayeux masterpiece. I asked him about its bawdiness, that high penis count. He had wiser thoughts than me and we ended up discussing how it’s all a part of what makes people British and should be embraced. Geoffrey Chaucer, salacious 17th-century cartoons, bedroom-farce plays – there is a long thread that runs through British culture.
Back home, I searched online for “how many penises in the Bayeux Tapestry” (I have an eclectic search history) and discovered that there’s a bit of an academic to-do on the topic. Medieval scholar Christopher Monk set the bar at 94, with 88 equine examples and five gentlemen’s appendages. But now another academic has claimed that what had previously been considered a scabbard is actually one more to add to the willy tally. Monk is not to be budged. He told one media outlet, “If you are not careful, you might fall into the trap of seeing penises everywhere”. Sort of like stumbling into an academic Finnish sauna.
But beyond the headcount debacle, perhaps that’s why people – especially British people – have responded so enthusiastically to the tapestry. In its panels, we see echoes of ourselves: not just a history lesson but a reminder that some things about us haven’t changed much at all.
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Five days into her tenure, Zacharia – a 41-year-old former conservative news commentator and mother of four from California – was sent packing by Trump, who says that she will now transition into a new role in his administration. It was a record-brief run that lasted half as long as the tenure of Anthony Scaramucci, who served just 10 days as the administration’s communications director during Trump’s first term in 2017. Speaking to reporters on the White House’s South Lawn on Friday, the president said that he told Zacharia, “Honestly, if I were you, I’d reconsider.”
The problems for Zacharia mounted quickly. Her sole press conference made the evening headlines, but for all of the wrong reasons. At just over eight minutes in, she mostly recited from a script, newsreader-style. Zacharia was tasked with sharing the news on live TV that a sitting ambassador had been fired. “We have asked ambassador [Kimberly] Guilfoyle to resign,” she told reporters when asked about the status of Donald Trump Jr’s embattled one-time fiancée and America’s now former top diplomat in Athens. “She has been a wonderful asset to the team and we wish her well.”
Reporters from just three media outlets – all Trump-friendly and conservative – were allowed to ask questions and Zacharia didn’t always know the answers. “I’ll have to get back to you on that,” was all that she could muster when asked whether the US was still sharing intelligence with Ukraine.
Brief and biting, the words were as icy as the woman who delivered them – yet another Maga blonde handpicked by Trump, perhaps as much for her looks as her presumed loyalty. But Zacharia’s looks only got her so far, especially when the US media began to pick apart her credentials.
While Trump described her as an “attorney” when he announced her appointment, it is unclear whether she is actually qualified to practise law. Though she is a graduate of Pepperdine University’s law school in California and a current member of its Dean’s Council, she doesn’t appear to have passed the mandatory bar exam in that state (she says that her qualifications come from China, where she worked at a Beijing law firm).
Zacharia was an unlikely entrant into the White House’s inner orbit, only because few thought that her predecessor – the equally blonde 29-year-old Karoline Leavitt – would ever quit the job that she had moulded in Trump’s chaotic, confrontational and often comical image. But Leavitt left in early August, resulting in a guessing game over who might replace her. CNN contributor and longtime Republican political strategist Scott Jennings led the list of potential appointees but it was Zacharia who snagged the role. Her qualifications – at least in the president’s world – are stellar. Not only has she held roles for both Truth Social and the Trump Media & Technology Group, but she has also made promoting Maga’s America First agenda a core element of her media persona.
Then there’s Zacharia’s family life, which aligns with current Republican values. With a quartet of children – perhaps the most valuable currency for women in an administration that valorises reproduction as a near-sacred duty – she is in the company of the highest-profile Maga pronatalists. Both the US vice-president, JD Vance, and Stephen Miller, the deputy chief of staff and homeland-security adviser, also have four kids.
It might seem sexist and anachronistic to focus on Zacharia’s looks and family life but leveraging appearances and connections is how business gets done in the Trump White House. But even with the looks and contacts, she quickly emerged as the one thing that Trump hates the most: a liability.
Unlike during the president’s first administration, when there was a rapid churn of senior communications staffers, Trump 2.0 has so far been more stable. Leavitt was the only press secretary since he returned to the Oval Office, which means that the pressure was on for Zacharia to succeed.
Zacharia blamed her poor press briefing on a lack of prep time and fatigue from having had to “wake up at 03.00”. But surely she knew that the job – had she stayed in it – would have involved plenty more late nights and early mornings. As the president reportedly told the media on Friday, “Katie, do you need this? I don’t think you need this.”
It might have been Trump who didn’t need the drama and, at a moment when much of the media has never been more out for blood, the president now finds himself in search of a new press secretary.
There have been many verses written about the changing of the seasons – but try finding an ode to autumn that was composed under a palm tree. Tropical climates don’t have four distinct seasons, which can make transition months such as September and October a little odd for those of us sipping coconuts all year round (I know, bring out the violins).
I realised autumn has begun in Europe because the new quarterly issue of Konfekt, Monocle’s sister publication, has just arrived in Bangkok. Unpacking these care packages from HQ and flicking through the beautiful pages helps me stay connected. Sophie Grove’s editor’s letter is essential reading. I must say, though, her poetic musings on the season’s transient splendour feel even more otherworldly when the air-conditioner is on full blast and the sunny scene out of my window is one of jet planes cutting across blue skies.
This is not a sob story, as you can tell. Still, as an expat, losing autumn and all of the seasonal rituals that come with it can take some getting used to. Many of the signals I grew up with in the UK – both man-made and from Mother Nature – no longer function like they used to. Thai clocks don’t change and evenings get dark at roughly the same time every day, give or take an hour. Temperatures peak in April while flu jabs are administered in May, ahead of the rainy season. Our household is even more out of sync because we are home schooling our children. No uniforms to buy, new-term butterflies to deal with or huge parental sighs of relief that the long summer holidays are finally over.
A French friend of mine in Hong Kong, which has a similar wet-and-dry cycle to the Thai capital, missed the autumn hues and spring scents of his childhood so much that he moved to Japan. Do I miss the four seasons? Absolutely not. I grew up in the drizzle and grey of south Wales. Thirty years later I wake up every morning thinking that I’ve won the Welsh lottery. But we as humans all need milestones – birthdays, Mother’s Day, Children’s Day (a particularly big celebration in Bangkok) – to mark the passing of time.
It’s no different in Thailand and I would argue that people here are particularly connected with the actual comings and goings of the Earth, rather than the commercial requirements of a fixed calendar. Royal Ploughing Ceremony or Farmer’s Day is a public holiday that’s astrologically determined and announced each year. The Buddhist holidays are useful tools for new arrivals looking to find a new rhythm – but please don’t test me on them just yet. It took me years to figure out the ancestor worship festivals and Ghost Days in HK.
To fill in the gaps left by the four seasons, I have come to rely on some alternative seasonal tells. I call these tropical-flavoured rituals the five Fs.
1.
Fruit
Fruit sellers drive around Bangkok neighbourhoods, parking next to the pavement to sell whatever produce is in season. While I can’t understand the Thai being shouted out of the loudhailer, I pay close attention to the goods piled up on the back of the pick-up truck, which is by far the best way to tell what season we are in: mango season (yay), durian season (yuck). Our bowl is currently transitioning from mangosteens to pomegranates. Marian plums, known locally as mayongchid, are the golden ticket. Harvest time in March lasts a matter of weeks and the arrival of these hard-to-get fruits – an egg-sized mango-meets-plum – signals the start of “Thai summer” and Songkran, the country’s traditional New Year.
2.
Festivals
Water fights for Songkran in April beat Easter egg hunts every day of the week, but Loy Krathong in November is my favourite festival. It’s kind of like Guy Fawkes night in the UK but instead of the ritual burning of an effigy, we light candles and float banana-tree vessels on a lake. The comforting thing about Christmas in Thailand is that the holiday is celebrated as a big shopping event and the city is dressed up in decorations. The confusing bit is that many workplaces, government buildings and hospitals leave the tinsel and Santa Clauses up all year round.
3.
Footwear
Winter might be around the corner in many parts of the northern hemisphere but the only wardrobe change in Thailand involves footwear. Bangkok is now in the middle of the rainy season and that means a torrential downpour could suddenly appear, flooding the road and ruining a favourite pair of trainers. Smart Thais pack emergency flip-flops in the car while the hospitality industry prefers a local brand of rubber Converse-style shoes punched full of holes for efficient drainage. I have a nifty pair of jellies but fastening them can be a faff. The benefit of entering the dry season is the freedom to put the rubber away and wear leather and suede.
4.
Flags
The benefit of living near two powerful neighbours – the revenue department and finance department – are the flags and bunting that hang outside government buildings. The colours are changed ahead of major royal birthdays and the bank headquarters down the road erects an elaborate structure. Each member of the family has a colour determined by the day of their birth. The king was born on a Monday so his colour is yellow, which is why civil servants often wear yellow polo shirts at the start of the working week.
5.
F**king birds
Thailand is blessed with an abundance of wildlife. Its birds and reptiles are accustomed to living in built-up areas, don’t hibernate and are mostly harmless – and that includes the water monitor lizards often seen roaming around the parks looking for fish to eat. The real danger in the Thai capital is sound, or I should rather say, noise. Peak mating season for geckos is nearing an end. I am rather fond of this tropical nighttime symphony but yearend ushers in a new rabble rouser. Mornings belong to the Asian Koel, a particularly noisy member of the cuckoo family. The mating calls of these early birds, a cacophony of squawks that become increasingly louder, work better than any alarm clock and outscreech Bangkok traffic.
The week in which Monocle arrived in New Delhi was an eventful one. The downtown streets were swarmed by the Cockroaches (officially the Cockroach Janta Party), the self-deprecatingly named protest movement spearheaded by a restless cohort of Indian youth – and authorities went to considerable lengths to deter them.
On the weekend before Monocle set up shop at members club D’Monde in association with our sponsors, Hitachi Energy, much of the city’s metro was closed, mobile internet access was suspended, and roads were blocked by police and paramilitary checkpoints. Nevertheless, Delhiites found their way to our coffee mornings, our cocktail evening and to our panel discussions.
The set-piece conversations included contributions from Nobel physics laureate Didier Queloz, Hitachi Energy CEO Andreas Schierenbeck, American aerospace engineer Aisha Bowe, and Indian aerospace engineers and entrepreneurs Srimathy Kesan and Susmita Mohanty. They were hearteningly bullish on India, in particular, and the future generally.
It might seem counterintuitive to think of India as a laboratory for new ideas. At 3.3 million sq km and with an estimated population of 1.4 billion people, the country is unfathomably enormous. It is infernally complicated and obdurately maintains a tradition of barely penetrable bureaucracy (the greatest murmur of approval elicited by our guests was via Queloz’s suggestion that India ruthlessly streamline its visa procedures). But this country is nevertheless ahead of some curves.
Not far from us, Bloomberg hosted its annual New Economy Forum, where I spoke to the editorial director of Bloomberg New Economy, Erik Schatzker, who noted that the time for India’s long-standing policy of strategic non-alignment might have come. “Other countries,” said Schatzker, “are coming to the same conclusions that India came to long ago about the reliability of the superpowers.” Benefits that Canada, the UK and Europe have long enjoyed “are fast disappearing because the US has unilaterally decided to stop underwriting that system,” Schatzker continued. “India is affected but not to anywhere near the same degree as a country such as Canada, for example.”
Even those dissenting from India’s current direction are confident in its ability to go its own way. For this weekend’s episode of The Foreign Desk, I visited the office of Shashi Tharoor, the veteran politician, diplomat and author, who is currently a member of parliament for the opposition Congress party. “We tend not to be terribly impressed by foreign examples,” Tharoor said. “And everything we’ve seen in India in these last 79 years has very much been of an Indian model. And we’ve been through everything: one-party dominance, coalition governments, the rise and fall of governments in matters of months. India has found its own way of adjusting to new realities each time, and this will be no exception.”
The bright blue sky of a perfect autumn day hung over the white tents at Frieze this week. On Wednesday, the opening of the UK’s most important art fair was so packed with invite-onlys that it made you wonder where so many very important people had been hiding for the rest of the year. The art market, we are told time and again, is not what it once was – but is there hope for it to be found in Regent’s Park? Or just the opportunity for some excellent people watching?
At one end of Regent’s Park, Frieze Masters – the section of the fair dedicated to works created before 2000 – tells a fascinating story of craft and creation. There are some wonderful things to see: meteorite fragments, dinosaur skulls and historic weaponry among them. “You could say that we’re telling the story of our universe – not just of mankind and of human creativity,” Emanuela Tarizzo, the director of Frieze Masters, tells Monocle. “We see more people collecting art alongside natural history and it reflects a way of collecting that was already in existence at least 500 years ago – the so-called Kunstkammer [cabinet of curiosities]. It’s fun to see it come back today with different generations.”
What makes Frieze Masters such a unique proposal – and what has been masterfully realised this year – is the savvy curatorial approach that underpins it. At the booth of rare books dealer Daniel Crouch is a set of 10,000 satirical prints from the collection of the late British restaurateur Andrew Edmunds. The single lot is esoteric, yes, but extraordinary and shown alongside a 17th-century French printing press. It’s a steal at £45,000 (€53,000). Elsewhere, a 17th-century still life by Jan Brueghel the Elder (which led early sales at about £5m, or €5.9m) hangs alongside an artwork by star British artist Flora Yukhnovich, creating the chance to see both in a new light.
Across the park at Frieze London, which is focused on contemporary work made after 2000, many of the booths belong to familiar names. For those debuting, the fair has been a North Star. “Frieze London has been my favourite fair internationally for as long as I’ve been in this industry,” says Jennifer Carvalho of New York-based Carvalho gallery, which joins the fair for the first time this year. Carvalho is presenting new works by Corinna Gosmaro, Guillaume Linard Osorio and Rachel Mica Weiss, with sculptures, paintings and installations that make use of unusual materials – marble, thread and polycarbonate among them. Carvalho seems content with her sales so far, including of two works by Mica Weiss (who has a waitlist in the US), which sold in the fair’s first hour for £22,000 (€26,000) each. “I wasn’t necessarily expecting that,” says Carvalho. “I have always found the US market to be the most resilient but I see now that the strongest works will find their collectors wherever they are.”
Carvalho’s peppy sentiment is echoed by the energy across Frieze this year – and in the healthy sales sheets. Highlights include the sale of three paintings by Alice Neel for a combined $5m (€4.5m), a new painting by Michaël Borremans for $1.5m (€1.3m) and a second-century mottled red sandstone sculpture going for just over $1m (€890,000).
It seems that great works, as Carvalho contends, will find their buyers and, at both Frieze London and Frieze Masters, galleries have brought their best. In turn, collectors are putting their hands in their pockets – whether for a bronze William Turnbull sculpture or a prehistoric sabre-cat skull. Those blue skies might have been something of a portent and Frieze is painting London in a good light.
Carles Puigdemont has spent almost nine years away from Spain. With a warrant out for his arrest, he risked prison if he set foot inside the country. Holed up in Brussels after a failed Catalan independence bid in 2017, he couldn’t go home when his parents died and missed both of their funerals. Last week, however, the Supreme Court gave the president of the Together for Catalonia (Junts) party a path back when it decided to provisionally lift the warrant against him. But the Catalonia that he left behind is a far cry from the one to which he might soon return.
A stroll through downtown Barcelona offers a glimpse of the region’s changes. The Estelada – Catalonia’s starred flag, which became a fixture on balconies in the run up to the 2017 referendum – is not as prominent as it once was. The mix of languages heard on the streets reflects a population with increasingly diverse backgrounds. Today more than a third of the city’s residents were born abroad, up from about a fifth in 2016.
The demographic changes put pressure on Catalan, a language that has long served as a cornerstone of the region’s national identity. Children are still compelled to learn it at school but it can feel increasingly disconnected from everyday life. Of course, Catalonia extends far beyond its capital and, in many of its smaller towns, symbols of national identity remain prominent. But even here, the fervour for independence appears to have cooled and Madrid is no longer cast as the demon that it once was.
The focus of conversations has changed too. Only a few years ago, a night out often led to a discussion with a stranger about the merits of Catalan independence. Later the conversations turned to Brexit and the parallels – and differences – between the two movements. These days, such comparisons rarely arise. Independence hasn’t disappeared from the political landscape but it seems to have lost its place as a subject of everyday conversation.
It’s not that grievances have disappeared: Rodalies de Catalunya commuter trains still run late and the argument about Madrid’s investment in Catalonia remains unresolved. What has changed is the political response. While these failures once helped to draw hundreds of thousands to the streets under the banner of Catalan self-determination, discontent today is focused elsewhere.
A key reason for this is the dominance of concerns other than abstract questions of identity or constitutional status: the cost of living and rising rent prices. Puigdemont’s party chose not to back the recent housing bill put forward by the embattled socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez – a decision that hardly suggests attunement with the concerns of ordinary Catalans. Meanwhile, the cause for independence has become more fragmented. Puigdemont might still command the loyalty of committed supporters but he can no longer rely on the movement to unite behind a shared vision.
The former Catalan government leader is yet to announce a date for his return. It will likely be less dramatic than his sneaky 2024 appearance in Barcelona, which was followed by a swift departure before the police caught up with him. Coming back before the snap election on 29 November would give Junts supporters a rallying point, while waiting until afterwards would help him to reach beyond the party’s traditional base and reconnect with a Catalan society whose priorities have changed.
There is little to suggest that Puigdemont’s political views have shifted. He faces the challenge of not only reviving the independence movement but finding a place for it in a Catalonia that has changed since 2017. If he is to lead a new chapter for the cause, he will have to show how it speaks to Catalans today – not just to the ambitions that defined their identity almost a decade ago.
