Latest news with #TouchingtheVoid
Irish Examiner
14-06-2025
- Irish Examiner
Departure Lounge: Zambia's key to the wild frontier reopens
On the wild side The reopening of Wilderness Shumba and Busanga Bush Camp, Wilderness's enchanting camps in Zambia's remote Busanga Plains in Kafue National Park, is exciting news for travellers seeking access to one of Africa's last wild frontiers. From June through to October, guests once again have the chance to explore this 28,000-hectare private wilderness, staying in luxury camps encircled by expansive grasslands that are home to over 55 species of large mammals, including six cat species, and more than 500 bird species. The 2025 season promises exceptional wildlife viewing, thanks to abundant rainfall earlier in the year transforming the landscape into a lush haven for wildlife. Sajama National Park is a national park in Bolivia. Bolivian expedition Step outside your comfort zone and join a thrilling South American expedition to the High Andes of Bolivia, taking in three 6000m peaks over 20 days. Led by Simon Yates, the accomplished mountaineer best known for his expedition to the Andes as documented in Touching the Void, the itinerary offers a challenge for intermediate climbers. Departing July, the trip will see you climb Acotango (6,052m), close to the Chilean border; the perfectly cone-shaped Parinacota (6,330m); and Bolivia's highest peak, the snow-covered Sajama (6,542m), €4,450, flights extra. Great news for dog, cat, even ferret owners hoping to take their furry friend on holidays. Irish Ferries has just launched new Pet Den lounges. Pet Den lounges Great news for dog, cat, even ferret owners hoping to take their furry friend on holidays. Irish Ferries has just launched new Pet Den lounges. While pets have always been welcome onboard Irish Ferries, they can now travel free of charge in dedicated new lounges alongside their owner. The only ferry company offering a pet lounge on both Ireland-UK and UK-France crossings, the spaces are bright and airy, with seating and tables equipped with leash hooks, water dispensers, ocean views, and access to outdoor areas with artificial grass and posts. Owners can enjoy a snack and drinks lounge service but must remain with their pet in the Pet Den and outside walking area at all times. Sorrento, Italy Sights of Sorrento With its colourful villages, sparkling ocean, vertiginous cliffs, sunshine on tap, and glorious food culture, Italy's Amalfi Coast is a thrilling setting to holiday in. This August, head to the vibrant town of Sorrento for a seven-night stay in a seaview room at the famous Hotel Bristol. August 17-24 with flights from Dublin, €1,670, with breakfast and dinner included. Golf at The Heritage, Laois Deal of the week If your dad is a golfer, then The Heritage's Stay and Play package could make the perfect gift for Father's Day this year. Included is an overnight B&B stay with dinner and a round of golf on the 18-hole championship golf course designed by former world number 1 Seve Ballesteros. The leafy resort, in the pretty Laois village of Killenard, also offers an award-winning spa with thermal suite, salt cave and cabin sauna, ideal for chilling out after a few hours on the course. Prices from €190 per person.
Telegraph
10-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
One to One: John & Yoko –A casually dazzling, offbeat portrait of Lennon and Ono
'If you want to know what 20 million Americans are talking about on Saturday night,' we hear John Lennon observe in Kevin Macdonald's new feature, 'it's what they saw on Friday night on TV.' This casually dazzling concert film about Lennon and Yoko Ono's 1972 'One to One' benefit gigs is less a documentary than a virtuoso channel surfing session – positioning the couple's early 1970s activities as mere sploshes in a tidal wave of media noise. Macdonald, the director of Touching the Void and High & Low: John Galliano, has a rare knack for matching subjects to formats – and his offbeat approach here feels ideally suited to the profoundly offbeat string of events, and stretch of American history, that One to One spans. Songs from the concert itself are interspersed with previously unheard interviews and telephone conversations, which largely (though not always) concern the planning of some sort of musical protest event. Meanwhile, between all of those swirl eddies of grim news reports and garish light entertainment clips, of the sort with which Lennon and Ono were presumably bombarded following their move to New York in 1971. Vietnam, Nixon, civil rights, surveillance state paranoia, valium-bright advertisements and game shows: everything froths up against everything else, plunging viewers right up to their nostrils into the cultural moment. The main thread of the film has Lennon and Ono trying to figure out how to respond artistically and politically to this rush of controversies and craziness, all of which is piped into their Greenwich Village apartment via the enormous television at the foot of their bed. (Macdonald recreates a Mary Celeste version of this space, through which a ghostlike camera drifts in the downtime between flurried montages.) Something has to be done, but it takes a while for Lennon and Ono to work out exactly what. On a call with his then-manager Allen Klein, we hear Lennon suggesting a 'Free the People' concert tour in which cash is raised at every gig to post bail for local arrestees: 'All we're doing is helping the Constitution,' Lennon argues, as Klein responds with extremely non-committal enthusiasm. Meanwhile, Ono plans an art exhibition involving 1,000 houseflies, and her assistant May Pang is heard optimistically ringing round pet shops. In 1973, Pang would go on to become Lennon's lover during the singer's self-confessed 'lost weekend': one of a few unsavoury episodes with which Macdonald's film does not concern itself. The result is in every sense a partial portrait, but doesn't remotely suffer from being so – in fact, its exhortation to viewers to fill in the gaps where possible is one of its central pleasures. (Is there a subliminal connection between the Attica Prison riot and the Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour? Macdonald essentially makes one by virtue of their juxtaposition, but honestly, you tell me.) For all the frenzy, it's also an optimistic film – galvanising even away from the exhilarating remastered concert footage, with its bass lines you can feel thrumming across your diaphragm. 'Flower Power didn't work,' Lennon offers bluntly form the stage at one point. 'So what? We try again.' In UK cinemas from April 11
