Very exciting to be here. But im trying to understand what has happened to this land of yours, because when you arrived here, this was an intensively farmed land, wasnt it . It was. My husband, charlie, inherited it from his grandparents when he was in his early 20s, and this was back in the 1980s. And every inch of the land was ploughed, it was producing arable crops and dairy. And we fully expected to be farmers for the rest of our lives. Mm. 17 years on, we were £1. 5 million in debt, tearing our hair out and realised that, you know, this is very marginal land. Were walking on 320 metres of clay, over a bedrock of limestone, and its an absolute pig to farm. So you were literally close to going out of business . Yeah, the farm was a failing business. And we did everything we could. We diversified, we tried different crops, we tried different cows. We sold ice cream. We did everything we could. But always it was this clay that was against us. So lets just stop for a second and look a
get to spend time in museums. during my working life and i have witnessed something astonishing, how radically they have changed. the days of museums as grand, intimidating treasuries for dusty objects, they are long gone. they are becoming much more dynamic and inclusive, less solemn, less elitist, museums, i believe, are having a moment and that s what i want to explore. it is art of that s what i want to explore. it is part of the that s what i want to explore. it is part of the story. that s what i want to explore. it 3 part of the story, what is that s what i want to explore. it 1 part of the story, what is the museum about, what story do you want to tell? i museum about, what story do you want to tell? , ., ., , , ., to tell? i feel proud to be standing here looking to tell? i feel proud to be standing here looking at to tell? i feel proud to be standing here looking at these to tell? i feel proud to be standing here looking at these beautiful - here looking a
about in a boat on this exact spot in the arabian gulf half a century ago, what would you have seen? not the futuristic cityscape before me today, that s for sure because in recent decades, doha has witnessed unbelievably rapid change. i can t help thinking that the same is true of art history. this excitingly dynamic discipline that s always evolving. that s certainly the case with our ever expanding understanding of islamic art the speciality of an extraordinary and recently revamped museum that s filled with masterpieces fashioned everywhere from the mediterranean to southeast asia, all housed in a stunning limestone building which i ve travelled to qatar to explore. i m hoping here not only to experience for myself some horizon broadening work from the islamic world, but also to gain insight into what we mean by islamic art. so, this is quite exciting. i wasn t sure if it was going to happen, but it s now been confirmed that i m being whisked by golf buggy to meet the
for 300 years, on and off, estonia was part of russia. ..ruled first by the tsarist empire, then the soviet union. links between the two are many and deep. in fact, around a third of the people here have russian as theirfirst language. but since the invasion of ukraine, the government has steered a course very firmly away from its powerful neighbour. there have been travel bans for russian tourists and something even more dramatic. historic russian and soviet monuments are being removed from public view, and notjust here. the other baltic states, latvia and lithuania, are making similar symbolic gestures. this was among the first a replica tank commemorating soviet soldiers killed during world war ii. it s been moved to estonia s war museum from the town of narva, which sits right on the russian border. the government says it s to avert what it calls increasing social tension . oh, wow. look at this. you re very welcome. the t 34 was produced from maybe aos to 60s, more