[ JEDDAH ] Red Lining
The Kingdom’s kings of the road; art attacks in Moscow; Danes get on their bikes to look for work.
![[ JEDDAH ] Red Lining](http://www.bmivoyager.com/images/2009/may/008_Voyager_May_2009-1.jpg)
Street racing grips the Red Sea port of Jeddah
THE REST OF us might be taking our feet off the gas, but in Jeddah, where Lamborghini Gallardos and Ford GTs are almost as common a sight as Volkswagens and Fiats are on the streets of Europe, young drivers still very much feel the need for speed.
“It’s implanted in you when you’re a kid, and it stays with you,” Sulayman al-Shulukhi, a 29- year-old local street racing enthusiast said in the New York Times recently.
Oil wealth abounds, a litre of petrol costs about half a riyal (£0.10), and while strict morality laws mean many adolescent pursuits are off the menu, the local ‘shabab’ or youths find street racing one of the few permissible ways to cut loose. Tahlia Street in midtown Jeddah was once a popular spot for weekend cruising. Yet increased attention from traffic police have pushed the city’s boy racers towards the less crowded roads towards the north of the city. Truly dangerous driving remains outlawed; police have treated some road-racing deaths as criminally negligent homicides. Yet the opening of a drag strip in the town’s northern reaches suggests a certain ambivalence towards the city’s speed demons. As Jeddah’s tourism season approaches, The Kingdom’s kids remain kings of the road. Alex Rayner
[RIYADH]Stella comes to Saudi Karl Lagerfeld explains the reasoning behind his new range of glitter-covered helmets 
WORLD-RENOWNED BRITISH fashion designer Stella McCartney opens two stores in The Kingdom later this spring. Retail spaces in the Saudi Arabian cities of Jeddah and Riyadh will carry McCartney’s ready-to-wear lines as well as a selection of accessories, lingerie, perfume and skincare. The Riyadh shop opens in the Centria Mall – the Saudi home from home for Cartier, Balenciaga and Marc Jacobs – while the Jeddah emporium will trade from the equally exclusive Stars Avenue Mall.
[ADDIS ABABA] Try hard Rugby gains a foothold in the horn of Africa IN ETHIOPIA, FOOTBALL remains the sport; often you can begin talking to a local by asking which team theysupport in the English league. Rugby, on the other hand, has never quite caught on – until now. Thanks to the efforts of British expats, you’re increasingly likely to see Ethiopians throwing oval balls at each other on Jan Meda, the ‘Field of the King’, Addis Ababa’s one great open space.
David Thomas, a Welshman who works in microfinance, is one of the forces behind Ethiopia’s first seven-a-side rugby team. “It’s great being out here: we have spectators all the time and some have ended up playing with us regularly,” he says.
Demesse Mamo, an avid recruit of David Thomas says,“My friends all mock me and ask me why I play this funny sport, but I just love it.”
Indeed, Addis Ababa team the Ethiopian Nyalas – named after a local breed of antelope – hope to soon take part in competitions in countries where seven-a-side is strong – Kenya or Zimbabwe for example. Perhaps sometime soon, the Field of the King will witness a truly Ethiopian rugby tournament.Yves Stranger
[VENICE]Showthe World 
AS VENICE PREPARES for its 53rd art biennale next month, it looks as if 2009 will prove to be a very good year. A record 77 countries will be represented at the show, across a peerless selection of exhibition spaces. The old Padiglione Italia, once little more than a shell for the Italian works, becomes the permanent Palazzo delle Esposizioni, with a new gallery, library, shop and bar and educational area. The city’s Arsenale now hosts an expanded Italian Pavilion, while the Ca’ Giustinian Palace headquarters the biennale for the duration of the exposition, having reopened towards the end of last year.
Experimental cellist and former member of the Velvet Underground, John Cale, represents Wales, Turner Prize-winning Londoner Steve McQueen’s work appears in the British Pavilion, while sculptor Martin Boyce flies the flag for Scotland.
Yet this year’s curator, the Daniel Birnbaum, is keen to stress the irrelevance of national delineations with his show Making Worlds, which features over 90 artists (including Alessandro Pessoli, pictured). So look out for pieces by such trans-national art stars as Yoko Ono and Wolfgang Tillmans. AR 7 June – 22 November, www.labiennale.org
[MOSCOW]House Party With their beloved gallery under threat, Moscow’s artists treat the authorities to a playful protest 
RUSSIANS ADORE THEIR art so when news came, earlier this year, that the Central House of Artists which contains the New Tretyakov Gallery, home to an unsurpassed collection of modern Russian art, was to be knocked down, artists came to the building in an furious flash mob.
The protestors built a horde of angry snowmen, holding up placards outside the long grey building. Meanwhile, a young woman kissed the building, smudging her lipstick on a wall to show her affection.
The Moscow authorities want to knock down the building and replace it with a 17-storey hotel. The museum would be moved to a new building that would sit on a busy ring road.
Supporters of the building fear that moving next to one of the most polluted streets in Moscow would have a deleterious effect on the Tretyakov’s collection.
“It is very bad ecologically and the vibrations will not be good for the art,” says Diana Mochulina, an art critic and organiser of the campaign to save the building.
To the first-time visitor, the gallery may not look like much, a drab building covered in large advertising boards but behind the dirt there are glories. Its exterior is made of white marble – it has not been cleaned for years – and when the chandeliers are turned on inside it warms the heart.
“It is like a palace,” says Mochulina. Kevin O’Flynn
[COPENHAGEN]Reinventing their wheels A change in Danish legislation has opened up opportunities for two-wheeled entrepreneurs 
IN COPENHAGEN, WHERE one in three people cycle to work, bicycle culture is getting entrepreneurial. This is thanks to the relaxation of licensing laws, designed to enhance the city’s street life.
Self-confessed “coffee nerd” Ole Skram (pictured, bottom right) – aka ‘Espressomanden’ – has taken to the road with his customised three-wheel bike turned coffee machine. He has worked up a froth at weddings, receptions and events for companies such as Danish Broadcasting Corp. “Having your bike as a workplace is a fantastic way to connect with Copenhagen and to work flexible hours,” says Skram. “Next summer I’m hoping to have a second bike on the streets,” he adds.
With cargo bikes costing from €1,000 and no shortage of local firms producing them, competition for prime spots is becoming fierce. There are bikes selling newspapers, flowers, pastries, ice-creams and seafood. One person even cycles from restaurant torestaurant sharpening kitchen knives at the kerbside. Now there’s someone you wouldn’t want to collide with.
One of Copenhagen’s slickest bike vending operations is Fruitbikes (pictured above), run by two twenty-something graduates, Mads Iiseerg and Stefan Grørnn.
“I was looking to do something where I could be my own boss,” says Iiseerg. “And this seemed like the perfect idea when we realised how easy it had become to set up a business.” As easy as riding a bike. Boyd Farrow
