I don't know how to reach an Iran I'd like to visit, but it's not like this

Times

22-06-2025

I often think about a particular sketch in Limmy's Show. Limmy walks into a ticket office, hands a photograph of Millport to the clerk and asks if she knows how to get there. 'You get the train to Largs and from there you get the ferry,' she says. The comedian explains he already knows how to reach that destination. What he wants to know is how to get there: the specific period of time when the photograph was taken.
I experience that feeling, or an approximation of it, when I look through my dad's old photo albums. He grew up in pre-revolution Tehran, a cosmopolitan city that was happy for its own cultural heritage to co-exist with western art, music and ideas. When we visited Paris a few years ago my dad drew parallels between the French capital and his home city as he remembered it. Bob Colacello, the editor of Interview magazine, travelled to Tehran with Andy Warhol in 1976 — Warhol was creating pop-art portraits of the Iranian royals — and said the city reminded him of Beverly Hills, 'except that they had Persian carpets by their pools' (and more luxuriant moustaches, I'm sure).
My dad's family didn't have a private pool, nor would they have needed to for their lives back then to seem remarkable now. It's the ordinary stuff I find extraordinary. They could listen to any music they liked. Drink alcohol. Dance in nightclubs. Wear what they wanted. Everyday pleasures since driven underground by an oppressive regime.
When I see photos of my Mamanjoon, my dad's mum, smiling outside with her hair uncovered and her legs bare beneath a knee-length skirt, I catch a glimpse of the Iran I'd like to visit some day. One shaped by freedom, not fear. I don't know how we reach a version of that place, but what's happening right now is not the answer.
I'm leading a much more sheltered existence than the residents of Inverness, who have objected to plans for a new 26-seat community sauna on the grounds that it will become the site of 'mad late night sauna parties'. Have I been doing saunas all wrong this entire time (pretending to self that I'm 'going for a swim' then leaving the leisure centre with five laps under my belt and a wooden seat imprinted on my arse)? Apparently so. In New York, 6am sober sauna-raves are now a thing for wellness-seeking types, and a few early-evening equivalents have sprung up in London recently too. It's not the noise I'd be worrying about, Invernesians. It's the smell.
I bet Noel Edmonds would be into a sober sauna-rave. Haven't watched his new TV show yet but will be treating myself to it this week after seeing a clip of him reclining on his crystal bed. Everyone is ribbing his woo-woo health routine, but I'll be taking notes. The glowing skin, the lustrous mane — he's our answer to Kris Jenner, and he's done it without a scalpel.
Also on this week's agenda: a trip to Kelvingrove for a gander at nine previously unseen works by Alasdair Gray.
I wonder how many decent aspiring politicians are discouraged from pursuing careers in politics by the volume of online harassment they would have to deal with as part of the job. New figures show that abusive social media posts directed at MSPs have tripled in the past year. Parliamentarians must be scrutinised, obviously; criticism and open debate are essential to progress. But it is possible to hold politicians to account without attacking them. The anonymity offered by social platforms is part of the problem, but laziness plays a role too. Far easier to dash off a post calling an MSP an effing moron than take the time to articulate yourself thoughtfully.