Skip to main content

Bad Lands

Tony Wheeler, founder of Lonely Planet, has featured before on this blog. Two articles of his are listed in my Albania in the Media post and offer a positive view of the country:
What country has Roman and Greek ruins, a stretch of Mediterranean coast yet to be discovered by international tourism, a beautiful old mountain town with UNESCO World Heritage status, good food, wine and beer, a buzzing entertainment district in the capital city?

It seems that his reflections on Albania and a group of other countries are about to appear in book form, but if I were an Albanian I'm not sure I would be entirely happy at the prospect.

The book, due for publication in April 2007, is not mentioned on the Lonely Planet website but it is available for pre-order on amazon.com where I found the details and the cover image.

It's called Bad Lands: A Tourist on the Axis of Evil. Yet as well as North Korea, Iran and Iraq - the original axis of evil according to George Bush - he also includes Afghanistan, Burma, Cuba, Libya, Saudi Arabia and, yes, Albania!

Recognising that this is stretching the concept of the axis of evil a bit, he stretches his subtitle to try to cover this very diverse group. He is a tourist on the axis of evil 'with additional excursions to places that are slightly misguided, mildly malevolent, seriously off course, extraordinarily reclusive and much misunderstood.'

Where does Albania fit in? Presumably 'much misunderstood'. Yet while Wheeler's writing on Albania has portrayed the country more sympathetically than is often the case, those who only glance at the title of this book will understand Albania even less.

Comments

The PC said…
I'm confused.
6:23 pm
Ll.T. said…
We very evill, verry, verry evill :D :D :D
8:04 pm
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dy Rame Per Tirane

I was watching Top Channel last night, first the news, then Fiks Fare. According to them Tirana's citizens now have a choice not only between Rama and Olldashi, but also between Rama and Rama. A minor right-wing faction, Parti 'Balli Kombetar' , submitted papers to the election authorities registering their candidate, Akile Rama. The people on Fiks Fare got hold of the papers and sent a reporter and camera team to the address listed for Mr A Rama. After much ringing of the bell the gate was reluctantly opened by a middle-aged woman who refused to speak to the reporter and tried to close the gate on her. Back in the studio Saimiri and Doctori - the two presenters of Fiks Fare - revealed that Mr Akile Rama was 73 years old, in hospital, and did not know he was now a candidate for mayor. They also compared two documents - the papers submitted on his behalf, and a genuine document he had signed. The signatures were not even remotely similar. There was an interview with the lea...
4 comments
Read more

Albania and the Perils of the 21st Century

Another article on religion in Albania appeared yesterday. Patrick Poole, writing in the American Thinker , argues that Saudi funding for the construction of mosques and the training of imams is a threat to Albania, since these mosques and imams reflect the fundamentalist interpretation of Islam dominant in Saudi Arabia.
34 comments
Read more

Only Way is Up

Chatting with a taxi driver while back in Belfast a few months ago, he was intrigued when I told him that I was living in Albania. Did I think it was worth investing in property there, he enquired. Not unless you're prepared to risk losing your money, I replied. By the end of the journey he was considering Bulgaria instead. Despite the risks, some people are starting to invest in Albanian property. The Daily Telegraph reports on Ian Warburton who recently spent 29,000 GBP (around 40,000 EUR) on a one-bedroom apartment in a new development in Tirana. "Given its location, I don't see how it can fail to work," he said. The development is called Terra Nova and the apartments are being actively marketed as an investment opportunity by Barrasford and Bird , a UK property company. Here is their sales pitch for Albania: Albania shares the same stunning coastline as Croatia and Montenegro. However, Albania has better weather and prices are about a quarter of those compa...
15 comments
Read more