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Irish Times
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
The community oven built at an Irish festival, heading for Palestine
What's better than a great party? A great party with a purpose. The Great Oven Disco Cantina is a new event at this year's All Together Now festival from July 31st to August 3rd at the Curraghmore Estate, Co Waterford , bringing together big names in food, music and art with a brilliant objective – to send a community oven to Palestine . This new stage and tent will feature food from Tang restaurants, the sounds of Palestinian radio station Radio Alhara, sets from the global electronic music platform Mixmag and surprise Irish artists. Everyone is coming together to raise funds to support an initiative by the Great Oven to set up their first base in Palestine. Founded by chef and TV producer James Gomez Thompson, the Great Oven is an organisation that builds giant, decorated community ovens in refugee camps, conflict zones and informal settlements. He first heard stories of community ovens as a child from his Spanish mother and grandmother. While filming a BBC series in Lebanon with Nigel Slater, he discovered similar ovens being used there. Lebanese producer Nour Matraji shared stories of her grandmother baking bread in a community oven during the civil war, and the pair joined forces to create a community oven in Tripoli with peace-building in mind. It led to an epiphany, Gomez Thompson says, 'that it shouldn't just be a thing for television, it should be an organisation that really exists'. The Great Oven was born in 2019, starting in Lebanon. READ MORE 'It was the peak of the Syrian migrant crisis and then the Beirut port explosion. But we realised we could put ovens in refugee camps and use them for emergency disaster relief.' They wanted to offer an alternative to traditional food aid and handouts, which can be temporary and impersonal. 'People need a place to cook for themselves, there's a simple dignity in the ritual of preparing your own food or sharing food,' says Gomez Thompson. The ovens are built from steel and refractory bricks; they are generally made in the style of the country in which they are built; they have made a number of Lebanese-style Manakish ovens. They can weigh up to two tonnes, and run on gas. 'A lot of people look at them and think you can just do bread, but we do everything in there. We tend to do lots of big shared tray bakes, we work with the food available.' Local artists are invited to decorate them. 'The ovens become safe spaces around which culture starts flourishing too,' says Gomez Thompson. 'People care more if they feel ownership.' The ovens become hubs for cooking, teaching, sharing and bringing people together. The Great Oven team member Ehab Olbe cooking at the Beirut headquaters Cooking at Geitawi Beirut at Nation Station after the Beirut blast So far, Great Oven has set up nine ovens in Lebanon and South Africa and is now expanding to Palestine, which is where one of the ovens from the Great Oven Disco Cantina at All Together Now will end up. The festival event is acting as a springboard and fundraiser for the Palestinian project, which aims to build a cultural bridge between Palestine and Ireland. Gomez Thompson has been based in Ireland in recent years, where he says he has found a strong connection between his work and the country's outlook. He also has family connections here. 'I'm half Spanish, half Irish. I spent a considerable amount of my childhood here, so it's great that Ireland has become such a sanctuary for this project.' The two decorated ovens, which are central to the Great Oven Disco Cantina event at All Together Now, have been decorated at the Irish Museum of Modern Art by Irish artists Maser and Aches. The food cooked in them at All Together Now will be from Tang, who are closing their Dublin restaurants for the weekend and sending their team to Waterford to run daily five-course banquets and an all-day barbecue. The menu has been created by Gomez Thompson and Tang chef Keith Coleman, featuring recipes from Great Oven refugee cooks. And there will be plenty of dancing. Music has played a big role in the Great Oven's story – early on, they turned a damaged Beirut venue into a community kitchen with a dance floor, connecting with an online Palestinian station Radio Alhara. DJs from the station will play at Great Oven Disco Cantina across the weekend, and Mixmag (the UK online dance music magazine) will host Ireland's first Mixmag Lab set, which will be streamed globally. The Great Oven co-founder James Gomez Thompson Once the festival ends, the real journey begins and the ovens will be taken to their new homes. One will go to the Wonder Cabinet creative hub in the West Bank. The other will live at Bohemian Football Club in north Dublin where it will be central to a new programme of community events – a collaboration between Gomez Thompson and Seán McCabe, Bohs' head of climate justice and sustainability – including dinners, pop-ups and possibly match day food, and involving local migrants and economically vulnerable people. 'We want to bring everything we've learnt in some of the hardest places in the world, and see how they can be applied here,' says Gomez Thompson. 'We want to make it a safe space for people from different backgrounds to start cooking and dining together. We want to do community-building banquets, very much like what we are doing at the festival. Food is the great equaliser between people.'
Daily Mirror
13-07-2025
- Daily Mirror
'My brother was murdered in The Amazon - he'd be so proud of what I did next'
Journalist Dom Phillips sent a heartbreaking final message to his sister before he was murdered in The Amazon - now she's found the perfect way to honour him and his friend Bruno Pereira The last picture sent by Dom Phillips to his family's WhatsApp group – of a rainbow seen from his plane – was never meant to be his final goodbye. And yet it would become one of his sister Sian's most precious memories. Journalist Dom was heading deep into the jungle, researching for his new book on saving the Amazon rainforest. 'You normally wouldn't hear from him until he was back,' says Sian. 'He must have wanted to connect with us – in that last moment he could.' That day, Dom, 57, landed on the edge of the Brazil's Javari Valley, as planned, posted a video to Instagram, captioned Amazônia, sua linda' (Amazonia, you beauty), and set about the first of many interviews, alongside his friend, guide and 'protector' of the forest Bruno Pereira, 41. On the morning of June 5, they spoke to a fisherman, took photos with his family, and headed off down river in Bruno's patrol boat. By lunchtime, they had vanished. It took 10 days, endless appeals to then president (and climate change-denier) Jair Bolsonaro, a global social media campaign and a large-scale search by boat and foot before they were found. It was not good news. Bruno had been shot three times, Dom once. Their only 'crime'? Trying to save the Amazon. Sian and her twin brother Gareth will never forget the call from Henrique Curry, Dom's friend on the ground in Brazil, breaking the news. 'It was horrendous. They had been cruelly murdered,' says the Lancashire musician. 'It was such a huge, huge waste.' Dom and Bruno were the latest victims in an escalating conflict in the Amazon - a little-talked-about war between those wanting to protect the under-threat rainforest and those preferring to plunder it for profit, climate change be damned. 'It's a huge tragedy. They were both such incredible guys,' adds Sian. 'Bruno was so skilled. And Dom was a wonderful brother. We were very close as a family. At least Gareth and I were together [when we heard]. But it was difficult being so far away. If someone close to you gets murdered here, police would come to your house. There would be someone to sit with you and explain what had happened. But because it happened in Brazil they weren't involved." Sian, Gareth and Sian's partner, Paul Sherwood, had been holed up at a family cottage in Snowdonia, where the three siblings often went as children and where they discovered their love of the great outdoors. As soon as they got the news they had been dreading, they immediately flew to Brazil for the funerals. Dom and Bruno were given heroes' send-offs - and rightly so. Born in Bebington in The Wirral, Cheshire, Dom had come a long way since his 1990s' days as editor of Mixmag. It was a side effect of falling in love: first with Brazil on a trip in 2012, then with his second wife, fashion designer Alessandra Sampaio in 2013, and finally with the rainforest. He began regularly reporting from the Amazon in 2015 and in 2018 joined an indigenous group for a 1,000km trek through the Javari Valley. 'He ate what the indigenous guides ate and slept in a hammock,' smiles Sian, 59. 'I don't think he had come across such engaging people. There is something so magical about people living so very close to nature. It changed him. And it gave him this commitment to protect the indigenous people in the Javari.' On that trip, Dom met Bruno, an 'indigenista', responsible for protecting the Javari Valley and its 26 ethnic groups. In January 2019, Bolsanaro took office – and brought with him Trumpian anti-environmental policies. Many took advantage of this national shift in attitudes to push their luck. The Javari Valley, which borders Peru and Colombia, soon faced increased attacks from illegal loggers and mining operations, suspected mass arson to make way for cattle pasture, fishing and poaching on protected lands and an onslaught of drug and gun-runners using the jungle as a highway for the cartels. Outraged, Bruno quit his Government job and set up an organisation with like-minded indigenous people, using traditional tracking, boats, drones and camera traps to look for criminal activity. They called themselves the Javari Valley Indigenous Association Patrol Team. Those they caught called them the enemy. Many received death threats, were shot at or beaten. It was three years into this conflict when Dom set out to expose what was happening in his new book, How To Save The Amazon: Ask The People Who Know. His aim was to speak to people on both sides: so for every conservationist, he spoke to a logger, miner or cattle rancher. That's how, on June 5, 2022, Dom came to be on that boat interviewing that fisherman, who was explaining why he poached from protected waters. 'Dom had been to see a sustainable fishing project the day before,' explains Sian. 'And so he wanted to get the other side.' Exactly what the man said to Dom, we'll never know. For, Dom and Bruno bid goodbye – and sailed to their deaths. Police later suspected the fisherman had betrayed them, radioing ahead to the next village to report they were on the way. According to the investigation reports, two men, later named as Jefferson da Silva Lima and Amarildo da Costa de Oliveira, were lying in wait downriver. Police say the pair – alleged poachers subsequently charged with the murders – later gave them their account of the high-speed attack. They claimed Bruno was shot three times, fired back and collapsed. The boat then crashed into the riverbank and Dom, trapped, was shot in the chest. Dom's family hope the two men will stand trial this year. But that will be just the beginning of Sian's quest for justice. Last Autumn, police concluded a two-year investigation, which alleged up to nine people played a role in Dom and Bruno's murder and the disposal of their bodies. The police report concluded the mastermind of the attack was likely an alleged crime boss, believed to be running an illegal fishing racket, which Bruno had targeted. The suspect was not named by police but was named by local press and denied involvement. Two local politicians and the fisherman have also been probed. All cases are ongoing. 'The wait has been horrendous,' explains musician Sian, who plans to go over for Oliveira and Lima's trial. 'I want justice for Dom and Bruno. And I don't just want the two men who were in prison to face justice. I want everyone to be held to account – to help indigenous people exist in the rainforest, with the fear of this happening again.' All she can do for now is focus on Dom and Bruno's legacies. Two wooden crosses stand at the remote area of jungle where they were found, erected by grateful local indigenous people. But it is another tribute which has brought Sian the most comfort. Dom had written four chapters of his book, plus an outline and copious notes. So his family, and colleague Jonathan Watts, decided there was only one way to honour him: They gathered environmental journalists from the US, the UK and South America alongside indigenous writer Beto Marubo and retraced Dom's steps, speaking to every person he'd spoken to and every one he yet hadn't been able to. Meanwhile Sian and another of Dom's friends John Mitchell spent months deciphering Dom's notes. Now, three years on, they've finished his book. Today, as she holds a copy in her hands, Sian is visibly moved. 'What would have happened if we hadn't completed it?,' she says. '[His work] would have been lost to the mud, like his NUJ card nearly was. 'Now his killers can't silence the story, because the story is here,' Sian says, clutching a copy. 'It gives my brother's death meaning.' With many experts claiming the Amazon reaches the point of no return in 15 years, Sian is asking Prime Minister Keir Starmer to help fulfil her brother's desire to educate people about the region – by putting the book in all secondary schools, colleges, universities and libraries. Sian is especially proud that Dom went to such lengths to speak to people on all sides. He believed that was the only way to find real solutions to the problems facing The Amazon - solutions which would actually work. 'They knew how dangerous it would be to go and do that last interview,' Sian says. 'But they went, because they believed in telling all sides of a story. Some say Dom was caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. But Dom may have argued, he was in the right place, at the right time. He was where he felt he needed to be, talking to the people he needed to talk to.' There may not have been a pot of gold or a happy ever after at the end of that rainbow Dom snapped from the plane. But Sian did find one precious gem among his notes: a line of poetry about the place that had stolen Dom's heart, 5,400 miles from his first home in The Wirral. It read: 'Red, gold, turquoise, dark green, silver, white gold: The colours of the breathtaking Amazon sunset as a boat roars across water. Nature's closing number, when she chooses to perform, is just for herself. Unlike humans, she does not need an audience, Nor can I Instagram to people her beauty.' Amazônia, sua linda, indeed. No wonder he risked everything to save her.
CNN
07-06-2025
- Entertainment
- CNN
'What on Earth is going on here?' A nostalgic look inside Ibiza's club scene
Dean Chalkley didn't know exactly what to expect when he visited Ibiza for the first time. It was 1998. The British photographer knew the Spanish island was considered by many to be the 'capital of the clubbing world,' renowned for its nightlife, but he had heard mixed reviews. 'When you're about to go there, there'll be people saying well, it's not as good as it was one year ago, 10 years ago, 15 years whatever. There's always that kind of thing,' he said. But as soon as Chalkley visited his first club, he was hooked. 'The moment I got there, I was like, this is absolutely amazing!' he recalled. 'Literally off the scale, the kind of theater of it, the energy. People were so friendly. A level of expression and living in the moment and the kind of notion that day turns into night turns into day turns into night and it can go on. Technically, you could have gone out and not stopped, because one club would follow another, which would follow another.' Chalkley was on assignment for Mixmag magazine, one of the biggest dance music magazines in the world. They wanted to pair him with a writer to approach Ibiza 'in sort of a different way' to the way it had been covered before, he said. That first night, he and the writer were quickly separated. But Chalkley carried on with his medium-format Fuji camera, which had a fast focus and fixed focal length that made it perfect for the party scene. 'It forced me to get close to people and to work with people,' he said. 'Mixmag actually had a saying: It was a magazine by clubbers, for clubbers. I was with people. I'm engaging with people and I'm dancing as well the whole time. I'm a person who really, really loves clubs and music, and it carries me along. I'm in the moment.' That first night was where Chalkley began to build his large collection of Ibiza images, many of which have just been published in his new book, 'Back in Ibiza 1998-2003.' The book offers an unfiltered, nostalgic look at Ibiza's legendary club scene near the turn of the century. 'To some people, it's absolutely the golden era, and it was a moment where the clubs had reached a certain level,' Chalkley said. He said his book is 'meant to bring the viewer into this wonderful kind of chaos, in a way, and try to translate some of the energy that I was certainly experiencing and I felt that others, everyone who was there, was experiencing.' Chalkley remembers the wild and wacky performances he would see in the crowds. He recalled how one famous Ibiza party, Manumission, would actually employ clubbers. 'Those clubbers would dress up, and they might just have a vacuum cleaner and be kind of going around the club with a vacuum cleaner. People would be like, what is going on?' he said. 'It's not just confined to the stage. It's all over the place all at the same time — people in character just going around. 'And then what happened is, that inspired the people who would go there. They would then dress up themselves. It was very inspirational and liberating.' The definition of the word 'manumission' is to release someone from slavery. The idea behind the party was to free people from their everyday lives and responsibilities. 'With Ibiza, you can see that it's almost like, the moment people get off the plane, they lose all of the heaviness that is on their shoulders,' Chalkley said. 'That sort of falls off, and they feel liberated in some sort of way.' Mixmag had reserved four pages in the magazine for Chalkley's Ibiza feature in 1998. But when he returned with his contact sheets, editors scrapped their plan entirely and restructured the issue for a 30-page spread. 'As we looked at the pictures, we realized that he had produced something we'd never seen before,' Neil Stevenson, Mixmag's former editor-in-chief, writes in the book's foreword. 'Instead of the dark blurry smears or flash-lit sweaty ravers, these photographs captured the joy and excitement of the dance floor. And more than that, they showed the inventiveness and sheer weirdness of the Ibiza scene.' Chalkley remembers how people from all walks of life would come together for the same hedonistic experience. 'You would rub shoulders with lots of different people. … Everyone was on the same dance floor. It was this kind of cross-pollination, and that goes for age as well as wealth,' he said. 'You would get someone who probably works in a factory dancing right next to someone who is probably a multimillionaire or something.' Times, of course, have changed. The business side of Ibiza has grown over the years, and superstar DJs are maybe more of the focus than ever before. But perhaps the biggest difference has been the rise of smartphones and social media. 'I think people are probably more conscious of their own sort of brand, self-image,' Chalkley said. He wonders whether people are letting go as much as they once did. 'Perhaps it's all a bit more kind of studied or restricted because things can be quite Instagrammable,' he said. 'So it's more like, 'I'm going to go there and I'm actually going to perhaps photograph myself having a good time rather than having a good time.' 'That's not to say it will be like that forever, because I don't think it will. I think that will change. And I think certain clubs are restricting the use of camera phones, for example, and trying to encourage people to not just stand there looking at big screens with their phone up all night, pointing at the DJ.' Chalkley has been to Ibiza about 15 times now in his life, and he hopes his book can give people a chance to experience just a taste of what the scene was once like. The photos come fast and furious, without captions, encouraging the readers to figure it out for themselves — just as they would have to in real life if this all was happening in front of them. 'It's much more like, you've been deposited in this world, and what on Earth is going on here?' he said. 'It's meant to give you a flavor of the experience of it.' He said every time he goes through the book he discovers new things in his photos. 'I think it reminds you of living in the moment and just casting fate to the wind and being totally immersed in music,' he said. 'And that feeling when you're in a room and the music is loud — it's not just loud on your ears, but it's actually bouncing off your body. You're feeling the rhythm, and that can do some incredible things. It is pretty amazing.' Dean Chalkley's book ' Back in Ibiza 1998-2003 ,' published by ACC Art Books, is now available.
The Irish Sun
13-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Irish Sun
Brits are being offered a chance to test their spontaneity with a FREE Ibiza holiday – but they must leave straight away
STUCK-in-their-ways Brits are being offered a chance to test their spontaneity by accepting a free holiday to Ibiza – but there's a catch. Partygoers picked at random from an event that starts in London on Thursday May 15 and finishes in Ibiza will be asked if they'd be willing to jump on a plane leaving the next day. 2 More Brits would love to live like the Spanish, a survey has found Credit: Getty If they say yes It comes after a survey of 2,000 adults found 61% admit they struggle to be spontaneous. Yet 41% believe saying "yes" more leads to breaking free from routine and monotony while 64% think the best memories come from impromptu decisions. A spokesperson for San Miguel, which collaborated with Mixmag to create the event, trip and research, said: 'The adult population would love to live more like the Spanish, embracing spontaneity, sun and connection. 'This is our invitation to dare to do that: to break free from the everyday, say 'sí' to new adventures, and prove that a Spanish summer feeling can be found anywhere – even on a Thursday night in Hackney Wick.' Top 10 spontaneous activities Brits would try Booking a last-minute trip. Spending a day exploring a new area with no set plan. Saying yes to a social event with little notice. Going on an unplanned road trip. Changing my usual routine for a day. Making an impulse purchase for fun. Going out for a meal with no idea where I'll end up. Taking a day off just to do something spontaneous. Spontaneously visiting a friend or family member. Saying yes to an adventure even if it scares me. The study also found 62% wish they were freer and easier in their daily lives. But 47% tend to overthink decisions, while financial concerns (44%) and fear of the unknown (42%) also prevent them from being more spontaneous. For 49%, an encouraging friend or partner would help motivate them to be more impulsive, while 42% think the idea of making life more exciting would prompt them to step out their comfort zone. Most read in The Sun Booking a last-minute trip (34%), spending a day exploring a new area with no set plan (33%) and saying yes to a social event with little notice are among the spontaneous activities adults would try. But 24% of those who took part in the study by admit to feeling nervous when someone suggests doing something out of the ordinary. 2 More than half of those surveyed said their happiness would increase if they approached summer in a 'more Spanish way' Spending more time outdoors, especially in the evenings (41%), and taking long, leisurely lunches and siestas, are the things they would like to incorporate into their summer to make it feel more Spanish. Meanwhile, 54% claim their happiness would increase "a lot" if they approached summer in a more Spanish way. For those not going to A spokesperson for the beer brand added: 'Fly San Miguel isn't just a party – it's a mindset, a gateway to possibility. 'It's about saying yes to adventure, no matter where you are. 'This summer, we're bringing that Spanish feeling to every corner of the UK.'
The Sun
13-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Sun
Brits are being offered a chance to test their spontaneity with a FREE Ibiza holiday – but they must leave straight away
STUCK-in-their-ways Brits are being offered a chance to test their spontaneity by accepting a free holiday to Ibiza – but there's a catch. Partygoers picked at random from an event that starts in London on Thursday May 15 and finishes in Ibiza will be asked if they'd be willing to jump on a plane leaving the next day. 2 If they say yes on the night, they'll be booked on to a flight to The White Isle the day after for a trip to remember. It comes after a survey of 2,000 adults found 61% admit they struggle to be spontaneous. Yet 41% believe saying "yes" more leads to breaking free from routine and monotony while 64% think the best memories come from impromptu decisions. A spokesperson for San Miguel, which collaborated with Mixmag to create the event, trip and research, said: 'The adult population would love to live more like the Spanish, embracing spontaneity, sun and connection. 'This is our invitation to dare to do that: to break free from the everyday, say 'sí' to new adventures, and prove that a Spanish summer feeling can be found anywhere – even on a Thursday night in Hackney Wick.' Top 10 spontaneous activities Brits would try Booking a last-minute trip. Spending a day exploring a new area with no set plan. Saying yes to a social event with little notice. Going on an unplanned road trip. Changing my usual routine for a day. Making an impulse purchase for fun. Going out for a meal with no idea where I'll end up. Taking a day off just to do something spontaneous. Spontaneously visiting a friend or family member. Saying yes to an adventure even if it scares me. The study also found 62% wish they were freer and easier in their daily lives. But 47% tend to overthink decisions, while financial concerns (44%) and fear of the unknown (42%) also prevent them from being more spontaneous. For 49%, an encouraging friend or partner would help motivate them to be more impulsive, while 42% think the idea of making life more exciting would prompt them to step out their comfort zone. Booking a last-minute trip (34%), spending a day exploring a new area with no set plan (33%) and saying yes to a social event with little notice are among the spontaneous activities adults would try. But 24% of those who took part in the study by admit to feeling nervous when someone suggests doing something out of the ordinary. 2 Spending more time outdoors, especially in the evenings (41%), and taking long, leisurely lunches and siestas, are the things they would like to incorporate into their summer to make it feel more Spanish. Meanwhile, 54% claim their happiness would increase "a lot" if they approached summer in a more Spanish way. For those not going to Ibiza, the night in London will still deliver Balearic summer vibes with world-class sets from Eats Everything, Tibasko, Storm Mollison and Paige Tomlinson. A spokesperson for the beer brand added: 'Fly San Miguel isn't just a party – it's a mindset, a gateway to possibility. 'It's about saying yes to adventure, no matter where you are. 'This summer, we're bringing that Spanish feeling to every corner of the UK.'
