revolt, regret...

Some years ago I started taking my bike on my occasional London visits. Daunted at first I'd print careful maps and fret the big junctions, but it was quickly transformative both of my city experience and my riding confidence. I've cycled in loads of capitals now, sometimes scared, often lost, usually pretty happy. It's ace that you can just bowl into heavy traffic and take a lane making only gestures and eye contact. Tired and hesitant kerbside, that little crunch a day out of Tehran was a timely reminder of the need not so much for caution but confidence; cower an inch and they'll run you over. I was glad to stop a night at Abbas' house out of town so I could tackle the city approach rested and recaffeinated. I've never ridden in such a traffic. An eight-lane anarchy. Contagion of carhorns and gas carbon, torrid sea of steel somehow parting for my flimsy wheels to carry me tide-like into the city. I slipped out to the park beneath Azadi tower for another espresso, my stove quick enough to finish just as the whistling guard clocked me. After all the traditional and fairly exhausting homestays last week I have a refreshingly modern arrangement to stay, a young professional living alone. Perfect English, restaurants, microwave-meals and tv shows; no extended family photo-ops!

So, the Capital of Iran. There's a lot to say but I don't want to be denied my visa extension… So let me be vague; my own ironic obscurantism. The city is huge. To the North snowy peaks loom through smog. I like the parks and the street art, there's a surprising amount of both. Much of the wall canvas is given to huge and sentimental daubings of Iraq war martyrs or supreme leaders past and present. The themes often allude to freedom and independance (celebrated, or craved?). Here and there you'll see a perfectly impolite East/West piece. Almost all of it I think is municipality approved. I enjoyed the murals along the walls of the former US Embassy, now officially rebranded The US Den of Spies (nothing vague about that!). In the last Shah's palace I sat a couple of hours beneath pillars taking advantage of unfiltered 3G to read everything I could find about the revolution. The palace museums are opulent to the extreme; there's a $2.5bn vault of modern art collected by the old queen (I liked the Dali sketches). Today sanctions make me three times a millionaire with a hundred dollars. There is no banking exchange so in Armenia I withdrew what I thought was two months' worth of currency. Iranians struggle against runaway inflation but I can hardly spend my cash for generosity; I have to barter backwards, insist on payment. Despite my government having quite directly plunged an awful lot of people here into poverty I've not yet met a hostile comment. Perhaps they necessarily understand that distinction between government and governed better than most. But I've no real balance on the people because I can only speak meaningfully with minority English speakers who, almost by default, have Western aspirations (invariably expressed). As I said people are struggling, physically deprived by foreign sanctions. Less tangible deprivations seem to be administered more locally; there's an awful lot verboten.

But not café cake or visa madness! I respite the latter with the former. In the absence of a British embassy I can get the letter I need for the visa I need to leave the country only by leaving the country… It is perfect. So I'm indefinitely detained here on the whim of various Consuls. There are worse places to be stuck; did I mention the food?

Low-fi photos 'til I find a faster proxy:

young princess' lounge, Shah's palace

den of spies