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Ubukata Kyoko, 22 Great Western Road, Longham (2026)

19/04/2024

As sound issues and indifferent crowds dogged its first weekend, we ask what the future holds for the US's flagship music festival.

Like all major music festivals, but perhaps to an even greater extent, Coachella isn't solely about music. Held every year over consecutive April weekends in the vast grounds of the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California, it has become a global focal point for fashion, celebrity and brand activations: this year's "partners" are a roll call of household names including BMW, Coca-Cola, Heineken, Neutrogena and YouTube. "In terms of pushing the needle in pop culture and people's [desire] to attend, I believe Coachella is the most important music festival in the US and maybe the world," Hugh McIntyre, a music journalist with Forbes, tells the BBC.

However, the latest iteration of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival – to use the event's full title – doesn't seem like the sleek machine of previous years. Soon after the first weekend began on 12 April, reports of mishaps and misfires began trickling on to social media. On day one, performers including Sabrina Carpenter, The Japanese House and Lana Del Rey battled persistent sound issues including microphones cutting out. Then on day two, Grimes's DJ set was so glitchy that she apologised for "major technical difficulties" afterwards, and Blur were met with crushing indifference. At one point, the band's frontman Damon Albarn even tried to rouse the crowd by saying: "You're never seeing us again so you might as well sing it." Music journalist Rhian Daly, who was at Coachella last weekend, says that while Del Rey and fellow headliners Tyler, the Creator and Doja Cat "put in great sets at the top of the bill", the crowds "were largely underwhelming both in size and response".

There's a big feeling of needing to be 'seen' at Coachella, which I don't think is quite the same at any UK music festival – Rhian Daly
Sadly, this year's event began attracting negative publicity even before the doors opened last Friday. In January, SFGate reported that Coachella 2024 was beset by the festival's slowest ticket sales in a decade. Things picked up, but according to Billboard, only 80% of the 250,000 tickets available sold out before the festival began, which is "14%-17% down" on last year. However, Billboard noted that even with this shortfall, "Coachella remains the most attended and highest-grossing annual festival in North America".

Like other top festivals, Coachella is struggling to attract punters in part because of the cost. This year, the cheapest three-day general admission pass is priced at $499 plus fees – the same as in 2023, though $50 more than in 2022. "But it's important to remember that for most people, it's not necessarily the ticket price that is prohibitive," McIntyre says. "It's more the cost of getting to California and accommodation once you're there." Provided you have access to a vehicle, you can purchase one of Coachella's "car camping" spots for an additional $150: this flat fee covers as many people as you can fit in a tent. If not, you'll have to pay for a hotel or other accommodation in the Indio vicinity, then fork out for transport to the Empire Polo Club each day. Once you factor in the cost of food and drinks on site, McIntyre says a Coachella weekender can "easily run into thousands of dollars per person".

Getty Images This year's Coachella headliners are Lana Del Rey, Tyler, the Creator and Doja Cat (pictured) (Credit: Getty Images)Getty Images
This year's Coachella headliners are Lana Del Rey, Tyler, the Creator and Doja Cat (pictured) (Credit: Getty Images)
On top of this, Coachella's reputation as a haven for influencers has perhaps given it a bit of an image problem. "There's a big feeling of needing to be 'seen' at Coachella, which I don't think is quite the same at any UK music festival," says Daly. "You might want to show off the fact you managed to get a ticket to Glastonbury, but with Coachella, it feels more about status and likes." Though "festival fashion" becomes a big search term in the UK every summer, Daly believes there's more pressure to dress the part at Coachella. "People put a lot of time, energy and money into curating their looks for the weekend," she says.

Performers with truly universal appeal are increasingly few and far between
All major music festivals face the same uphill struggle at a time when punters are feeling the pinch. Billboard reports that rivals including New York's Governors Ball, which takes place in June, and Chicago's Lollapalooza, which follows in August, also have tickets left. However, it is arguable that as the market leader, Coachella should have something of a head start. Editor and writer Courtney E Smith, author of Record Collecting for Girls, believes the California mega-festival is being impeded by "the slow decentralisation" of music. Because fans have access to more artists than ever before in the streaming era, traditional industry gatekeepers like radio stations and record labels hold less sway. For this reason, performers with truly universal appeal – the kind Coachella needs to guarantee a sell-out – are increasingly few and far between.

'A transformational period'

This year's headliners – Lana Del Rey, Tyler, the Creator and Doja Cat – are all massive names, but Smith believes they may not have captured the collective imagination to the same extent as previous superstar bookings. "There is no Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, Bad Bunny or Harry Styles this year," she says. Programming an event of Coachella's scale is an incredibly tricky, ever-shifting balancing act. In the past, Coachella has faced similar criticisms to many other music festivals – namely, that its line-ups are too white and male-dominated. Though there is still room for improvement in this regard, bookers have taken steps to improve the festival's diversity in recent years. In 2018, Beyoncé became the first black female artist to headline; then the following year, Ariana Grande became only the fourth female headliner of any ethnicity since Coachella began in 1999. (At the time, the others were Lady Gaga and Björk, who did so twice.)

But because Coachella takes place early in the festival season, its bookers have always given themselves the extra challenge of "setting trends" on the live music scene. "The line-up always introduces the best of the year for the rest of the year," Katy Perry opined in 2015, a view Smith broadly agrees with. "The bookers are known for bumping interesting acts to top spots and reuniting bands," she says. But in this respect, their midas touch may be waning: last weekend's much-hyped comeback performance from No Doubt – the band's first in nine years – wasn't greeted quite as rapturously as organisers might have hoped.

22/03/2024

For the past 50 years, the co-founder of the world's largest independently owned guidebook publisher has been inspiring travellers to go off the beaten path.

In 1973, Hilary Bradt and her then-husband George were two young backpackers chasing a rumour they had heard near the border of Ecuador and Peru: that somewhere, deep in the Peruvian Andes, a hidden trail starting in the ancient Inca capital of Cusco led to Machu Picchu. After countless days getting lost and hacking their way through the thicket, the couple eventually trekked its entirety before hopping aboard a river barge in the Amazon to scribble a detailed account of the route.

These handwritten notes became the first-ever published description of travelling the full Inca Trail in English, and the start of Bradt Guides, the world's largest independently owned guidebook company, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2024.

When George abruptly left the company (and the marriage) in 1980, Bradt could have returned home to England to continue her previous career as an occupational therapist. Instead, she ploughed ahead without him, publishing guides to destinations where no guidebook previously existed, like Uganda, Yugoslavia, North Korea, Eritrea and Madagascar. Her work effectively introduced dozens of previously off-the-beaten-path destinations to the masses, and led Queen Elizabeth to honour her as a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 2008 for her commitment to tourism and charity.

From hitchhiking across the Middle East for three months to getting arrested in Tanzania after being suspected of spying, Bradt recounts many of her adventures on the road in her forthcoming book, Taking the Risk. The octogenarian recently spoke to the BBC from her home in Devon about why she's always been drawn to underrepresented destinations, the long-term effect of helping to popularise "bucket-list" destinations and how travel has changed in the past half century – especially for women.

Hilary Bradt For the past 50 years, Hilary Bradt and Bradt Guides have been taking readers to far-flung corners of the world (Credit: Hilary Bradt)Hilary Bradt
For the past 50 years, Hilary Bradt and Bradt Guides have been taking readers to far-flung corners of the world (Credit: Hilary Bradt)
What led you and George to launch Bradt Guides in 1974?

Launch was almost the wrong word. We wrote our first guide in 1973 on a river barge in Bolivia on a tributary of the Amazon. It was called Backpacking Along Ancient Ways in Peru and Bolivia and we had it printed by George's mother in Boston in 1974, but you honestly couldn't call it [a] "launch". It was sold in America and Britain, and we weren't there – we were still travelling [around South America].

When we arrived back in Britain, we had £680 in our bank account. A well-known British publisher – the only one of guidebooks at that time – said that he would publish a Peru mainstream guide [of ours] but we didn't have to go back [to Peru]; we could just get some brochures and do it based on that. We were so shocked and said, if this was publishing, we were going to do it ourselves. That was really the launch.

What inspired you both to write this guide to begin with?

Throughout my leadership of the company, it's always been [my goal] to publish guides that we thought travellers needed. We still are trying to do that, rather than, 'Oh, that's going to be really profitable.' We kept meeting other gringos (non-Hispanic or Latinx travellers in Latin America) and they were asking us where we'd been. We just really loved hiking and we were finding these new trails, including the Inca Trail, and people wanted to know about them. So, people started to say, 'You really should write about this', and that sort of evolved into a book. The first book really looked pretty terrible, full of misprints, but the information was good.

Ever since that first book 50 years ago, Bradt has been famous for covering these rather "remote" destinations. What guides are you most proud of?

The most significant one was Rwanda, because the author of the first edition book had a friend who had died in the genocide. She went to find his family, succeeded in finding them and just fell in love with the country. She wrote the guidebook [in 1998] only four years after the genocide. The country was just so horrified at what had happened and the people who ran the country didn't think that tourists would come back. But Janice [Booth], the author, really got things going [by getting] tour operators interested. It sounds arrogant, but this really did help set the country on its feet. The president of Rwanda asked to meet her. It was wonderful.

That was a significant one, but we wrote the first guide to Vietnam. We were the first guide to Mozambique. About 50% of the guides that we now publish, we were the first to cover that destination.

Albania, too, which was a fun one, too. For the first Albania [guide], it was still a communist country, so you could only go there with an organised tour – a bit like North Korea. (We were also the first to do North Korea, and Iraq and Iran.) But Albania has been a great success. Only a few hundred people bought the first edition, and then a few thousand the second and so on. It's a gradual increase with these "unusual" places.

07/03/2024

From the myth of Europeans' "healthy drinking culture" to the surprising harm of some common family traditions, science is overturning old beliefs around alcohol and young people.
I
I turned 18 the day before I left home for university, conveniently passing the UK's age threshold for buying alcohol just in time to explore student pubs and bars. When I signed up with a doctor near my new home, she asked how many units of alcohol I drank each week – a common way to measure alcohol intake here in the UK, with 1.5 units roughly equalling a small glass of wine. "Around seven," I said, quickly totting up the few covert vodkas-and-orange that I'd enjoyed on nights out with my friends from school. I thought this was low, but I'd never been much of a rule-breaker.

"That's going to rise now you're here," the doctor replied with a dry chuckle. She wasn't wrong. Within a few weeks, I was happily knocking back a bottle of wine before lining up shots in the student bar. I knew heavy drinking could wreak its toll across the lifespan, but I hadn't considered that my youth would bring additional dangers, compared to someone of 30, 40 or 50. Surely the risks were the same for all adults?

If I'd heard what I now know about the unique ways that alcohol can affect the young adult brain, I might have been a bit more cautious. At 18, my brain was still metamorphosing, and would not reach maturity for at least seven years. This alters the way we respond to alcohol – and drinking during this critical period can have long-term consequences for our cognitive development.

Speaking to researchers about the impact of alcohol on young people, I was surprised by many other findings besides these. Research from around the world is beginning to overturn a range of common assumptions around age and alcohol, such as the idea that continental Europeans have a healthier drinking culture than the UK or US, and that allowing young people to drink at home with meals teaches them responsible alcohol use. Whether or not this new science should change our current drinking laws is a complex political issue, but greater awareness of the facts may at least allow future generations to make a more informed choice about the ways that they choose to party – and might help parents decide how to handle alcohol in their own home.

When alcohol becomes legal, teenagers perceive it to be much less risky than before – Alexander Ahammer
Small bodies, big brains

Let's be clear: alcohol is a toxin. Its dangers span fatal accidents, liver disease, and many kinds of cancer. Even small quantities can be carcinogenic, leading the World Health Organization to declare that "when it comes to alcohol consumption, there is no safe amount that does not affect health".

Few activities are completely risk-free, though, and the dangers tend to be weighed against the pleasures that alcohol can bring. Our health policies are therefore guided by the principle of damage limitation with moderate drinking. In the US this is defined as having no more than two drinks a day for men, and no more than one drink a day for women – with many other countries offering similar guidance. Although beer and wine are commonly seen as safer drinks, as the US guidance states, the type of drink is not the important factor – instead, it's the amount of alcohol consumed: "One 12-ounce beer has about the same amount of alcohol as one five-ounce glass of wine or 1.5-ounce shot of liquor." Legislation around the age of purchasing alcohol follows a similar logic of damage limitation: the laws protect children, while allowing young adults to make their own choices. In most European nations, the minimum age is 18 years – in the US it is 21.

There are, however, numerous reasons why alcohol may be more dangerous for younger people, even after they have passed the legal minimum drinking age. One is body size and shape: teenagers don't reach their adult height until 21, and even after they have stopped growing vertically, they may lack the bulk of someone in their 30s or 40s. "Drinking one glass of alcohol therefore results in a higher blood alcohol content for young people than for adults," says Ruud Roodbeen, a post-doctoral researcher at Maastricht University and the author of Beyond Legislation, which examines the impact of raising the minimum drinking age.

The adolescents' lean frame is also characterised by a higher head-to-body ratio. I certainly know that I looked a little like a "bobblehead" toy, and these relative proportions can also influence the intoxication that someone experiences. When you drink alcohol, it enters your bloodstream and spreads through your body. Within five minutes, it reaches your brain, easily crossing the blood-brain-barrier that generally protects your brain from harmful substances. "A relatively large part of the alcohol ends up in the brains of young people, and that is yet another reason why young people are more likely to get alcohol poisoning," Roodbeen says.

05/02/2024

The expected arrival of a Chinese research ship in the Maldives this week has escalated tensions between Beijing, Delhi and Male.

Officially, the vessel Xiang Yang Hong 3 is there to "make a port call, for rotation of personnel and replenishment". In short, an entirely innocuous stop.

But that is not how it is being seen in Delhi. Instead, the ship's presence is at the very least a diplomatic snub. At worst, some fear, it could be a mission to collect data which could - at a later date - be used by the Chinese military in submarine operations.

China experts, however, have shrugged off their concerns.

"The Chinese ships carry out scientific research work in the Indian ocean. Its activities on the high sea are entirely legitimate," Zhou Bo, a former People's Liberation Army Senior Colonel, told the BBC.

"Sometimes the ships need replenishment - like fuel, food and water. So, they berth in a third country port, which is normal. So, the Indian government shouldn't make any fuss about it. Indian Ocean is not India's Ocean," asserted Mr Zhou, who is now with the Tsinghua university in Beijing.

But this is not the first time that China - which competes for influence with Delhi in the Indian Ocean amid a long-standing dispute over their Himalayan border - has sent one of its ships sailing close to Indian waters.

Minister Narendra Modi, China's President Xi Jinping during the 10th BRICS summit on July 26, 2018
IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES
Image caption,
China and India compete for influence in the Indian Ocean amid a long-standing dispute over their Himalayan border
Two Chinese naval submarines made a port call to Colombo in 2014 and two Chinese research vessels visited Sri Lanka, close to the tip of southern India, in the past two years, much to the displeasure of India.

The arrivals came as China, which has loaned billions of dollars to Colombo, made significant inroads into Sri Lanka.

The research ship, Xiang Yang Hong 3, had in fact originally planned to visit Colombo for replenishment before proceeding to the Maldives. But that has been shelved for now, according to Tharaka Balasuriya, the junior foreign minister of Sri Lanka.

"During this one year we want to develop our technology and expertise so that we can join in these research activities on an equal basis," he told the BBC.

However, Colombo's decision to stop the research vessels is being seen as a response to India's strong objections to such visits by Chinese vessels.

Maldives ultimatum on troops deepens row with India
India's objections however, have made little difference in the Maldives.

The Maldives, which consists of about 1,200 coral islands and atolls in the middle of the Indian Ocean, has long been under India's sphere of influence. But Mohamed Muizzu, who took over as president in November and is regarded as pro-China, wants to change that.

He campaigned on an 'India Out' platform, asking Delhi to withdraw about 80 Indian military personnel based on the island. India says the troops are in the island nation to maintain and operate three reconnaissance and rescue aircraft, donated by Delhi years ago.

The Maldivian government has set an ultimatum to Delhi to withdraw its troops by 15 March, two days before the country's parliamentary polls.

Following talks in Delhi last week, the Maldivian foreign ministry said India had agreed "to replace the military personnel" and that the first batch will leave by 10 March and the rest by the second week of May.

Chinese research vessel's route
IMAGE SOURCE,SHADAB NAZMI/BBC
Presentational white space
In December, Mr Muizzu's administration also announced that it would not renew a hydrographic survey agreement with India that was signed by the previous government to map the seabed in the Maldivian territorial waters.

Relations have in fact deteriorated so much that none of the senior leaders of the Maldivian government attended a recent event organised by the Indian High Commission in Male to mark India's 75th Republic Day.

China, meanwhile, rolled out the red carpet to Mr Muizzu when he went on a five-day state visit to Beijing last month. Since that trip, high-level Chinese officials have visited the Maldives. Mr Muizzu has also announced several Chinese-funded infrastructure projects.

The sudden shift in Male's position towards China has raised concerns in Delhi, which attaches strategic significance to the island nation.

China, with its rapidly expanding naval forces, would likely also want access to such a strategically important location - something India wants to prevent.

"Of course, the Maldives is very important; it is the southern Oceanic flank of India," Shyam Saran, a former Indian foreign secretary, told the BBC.

"Just like we had serious reservations about what was happening in Sri Lanka, we will have serious reservations about that may happen in the Maldives," Mr Saran said.

Chinese research ship Shi Yan 6 proceeds to deck at a port in Colombo on October 25, 2023
IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES
Image caption,
India had earlier raised strong objections to visits by Chinese research vessels to Sri Lanka
But it is not just Delhi worried about the relationship with Male.

The opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) and others have been urging Mr Muizzu's government for a course correction, saying it's not in the country's interests to antagonise a giant neighbour like India. Last week the MDP said it was even contemplating moving impeachment proceedings against Mr Muizzu.

As a small island nation, the Maldives depends on India for most of its food, infrastructure building, and technological advancement. Many Maldivians go to India for medical treatment.

Maldivians debate India's 'boycott' of their nation
"Most people here think that government has taken the hostility against India a bit too far and that it is totally unnecessary," Aik Ahmed Easa, a lawyer in Male affiliated with the opposition MDP, told the BBC.

"The Maldives is a small country. But this is going into a dangerous phase where we are getting into the middle of the Asian superpower rivalry," he said.

The Maldivian President's office and the foreign minister did not respond to requests for comment.

China has greater strategic ambitions and it's likely to send more ships to the Indian Ocean region for oceanographic research or to protect its commercial interests, experts say. For India, the challenge will be how to counter Beijing's growing assertive influence in an area that Delhi perceives as its backyard.

Mr Zhou says Chinese aircraft carriers and their support vessels will eventually reach the Indian Ocean. If India disrupts restocking supplies for these ships in a third country - like Sri Lanka - then Beijing will be "furious", he says.

30/01/2024

With its impenetrable canyons, Utah's Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument defies human perspective and remains a mystery even to those who know it best.
S
Somewhere in the backcountry outside Escalante, a small Utah town of drive-by diners and dust devils, and down a cramped slot canyon, adventure guide Rick Green is exploring a strange frontier so wild and unknown that it remains one of the most mysterious places on Earth.

The ravine drops 30m from an apron of mountainous land to a desert floor, shrinking in width from around 100ft to barely 1ft, twisting and turning before entering a labyrinth of uncharted canyons where the rock is a streaky orange, the colour of a perfect sunset. All around, it is heavy with quiet.

With the temperature pushing an extreme 40C and the canyon providing relief from the stifling heat, Green presses on, aided by a helmet, harness, climbing rope, rappel rings and carabiners that help him descend further into the concealed valley. Beyond, there are few exits.

It was the last place in America to be explored in the 1870s. Everyone kept passing it by because it was so darn dangerous
"No one was interested in this place for a very long time," said Green, co-owner of Excursions of Escalante. "This is where the last range of mountains in America, the Henrys, were named. It's home to the last-named rivers. It was the last place in America to be explored in the 1870s. Everyone kept passing it by because it was so darn dangerous."

Today, southern Utah's Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument is among the most treacherous and inaccessible swathes of land in the US. It is a concertina, rippling with complicated plateaus, ridges, cliffs and escarpments that have never been fully conquered nor understood by any American, Indigenous or otherwise. It is bigger than some US states – Delaware and Rhode Island, for instance.

And, crucially, for cartographiles, it was the last place to be mapped in the continental US.

This corner of southern Utah is filled with rough and rugged terrain (Credit: lightphoto/Getty Images)
This corner of southern Utah is filled with rough and rugged terrain (Credit: lightphoto/Getty Images)

These days, Green figures there are hundreds of slot and slickrock canyons here that have never been seen by human eyes, let alone explored. Even so, he's made a living out of surveying around 30 of the most accessible to better understand this wild corner of southern Utah. "Grand Staircase-Escalante gets canyoners like me up in the mornings," he said. "We have the most. The most densely concentrated. And, better still, the most beautiful too."

Seen from space, the national monument is a colossal giant's stairway, leading from the Colorado Plateau to the Grand Canyon. Up close, it is an ancient maze of jagged walls and looming mesas. On paper, another revelation awaits. It covers a 1.87-million-acre footprint of American public lands and spans five bio-zones – from low-lying desert to coniferous forest – and absorbs the historical territories of the Anasazi and Fremont peoples.

First designated by Bill Clinton in 1996, the national monument is also an ongoing political concern. Former US President Trump decided to open up the area for development, reducing its area by half, but President Biden backtracked in October 2021, issuing a presidential proclamation modifying the boundaries and restoring its preservation order.

The original decree sets out the motive for this designation: "This high, rugged, and remote region, where bold plateaus and multi-hued cliffs run for distances that defy human perspective, was the last place in the continental United States to be mapped," it states. "The monument has a long and dignified human history: it is a place where one can see how nature shapes human endeavours in the American West, where distance and aridity have been pitted against our dreams and courage."

Cottonwood Canyon Road takes travellers past narrow slot canyons, natural stone arches and endless rocky scenery (Credit: Diana Robinson Photography/Getty Images)
Cottonwood Canyon Road takes travellers past narrow slot canyons, natural stone arches and endless rocky scenery (Credit: Diana Robinson Photography/Getty Images)

Giving credence to the declaration, historical accounts from the late 1880s explain that pioneers first forged a route from Escalante to what is now Fortymile Spring in an effort to map a shortcut to the San Juan River but were held up by excessively rough terrain. Proof, argues the proclamation, that nowhere in America was harder to overcome.

The most compelling chronicle appears in the book A History of Southern Utah and Its National Parks by Angus M Woodbury. A hardy band of scouts were sent to investigate and secure the most rugged areas of the Kaiparowits Plateau in what is now part of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, but returned in disappointment having failed.

"Envoys were sent to Salt Lake City to appeal for assistance, which was given in the form of a legislative appropriation for blasting a way through," the account reads.

For Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument Manager Adé Nelson, the land remains both an enigma and a geographical puzzle likely never to be fully resolved. "Due to the rough and rugged terrain, there are portions of the monument that are totally unreachable and will probably never be fully mapped," she explained.

Due to the rough and rugged terrain, there are portions of the monument that are totally unreachable and will probably never be fully mapped
Nowadays, these canyonlands are a frontier in an altogether different sense of the word. Researchers call it the "Science Monument" because the area has become an enormous outdoor laboratory that scientists utilise every corner of to better understand our environment, our history and our planet's past. Cretaceous-era oyster and clam shells far from any ocean are littered on the tops of inland mountain ridges. Petrified crocodiles and three-toed Tyrannosaurus Rex footprints lie waiting to be uncovered. Like a landscape-scale natural history museum, it is filled with bones and relics.

The toadstool hoodoos in the national monument were formed by the erosion of softer rock, leaving a column sheltered from wind and water (Credit: Posnov/Getty Images)

Ubukata Kyoko

19/04/2024

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