Duncan Harley

I had almost forgotten the 60 th a nniversary of the overthrow of Tibet by the Chinese Liberation Army. A Times newspaper report today recalls the shelling of Lhasa during the final stages of the take-over. Truckloads of Red Guards were quick on the heels of the professional soldiers and, alongside the desecration of the monasteries, a centralist agricultural policy ensured  widespread famine. Millions suffered and tens of thousands died of starvation. After all, you can’t easily grow wheat at 15,000 feet and at sub-zero temperatures. The palaces have of course been done up and re-painted and the monasteries annually draw in a few thousand Western tourists eager to breath in the blessings. Below the Potala lies a vast concrete square. When Palin, Michael not Sarah, visited in the 1980’s it was occupied by symbols of military power. A fighter jet sat incongruously below the high walls alongside groups of excited Chinese tourists. The Chinese of course love big flat squares. Lo...

A friend posted a splendid video onto FB this week. Titled ‘a murder of crows’ it set me thinking about collective nouns.   A bank of monitors, a range of mountains, a troop of mushrooms, a rope of onions and a coterie of orchids immediately sprang to mind. Then came a ream of paper, a budget of papers, a string of pearls and of course a pod of peas. A phantasmagoria of phantoms and that collective-term an anthology of poems followed close behind – and why wouldn’t they after all. It set me thinking about a visit to the high-land of Tibet a few eons ago. After a good few frustrating days in Nepal awaiting a visa – my partner of the time had somehow alerted the Chinese authorities to the possibility that the trip had a hidden political agenda, which it did not – and despite the best possible planning, the prospect of entry to the land of the Yeti seemed already to be in jeopardy. This was a shame since I had simply thought that we were off to experience a holiday in a magical ...