Salut!

Acquiring New York ways: how to face down Texans and ignore corpses

Even scarier when young

This is the third in Bill Taylor's series of New York reminiscences - see the last one, New to NYC: lost in Manhattan, cursed by Lauren Bacall, at http://www.francesalut.com/2014/12/taylor.html and you can link from there (or here) to the first, New to NYC: waking up in a city that never sleeps. Another treat from the keyboard of the lad from Land of the Prince Bishops who chose a life in the New World ...

Adaptation plays a major role in the art of survival. I was a green-as-grass 25-year-old from a northeastern English coalmining town of about 20,000 people. I had an urgent need to find my feet in a raw, almost impossibly demanding city of eight million.

The Bethnal Green Three: what would any modern teenage girl see in ISIL?

The phenomenon of young western Muslims being drawn to Syria by the slick propaganda of ISIL is a source of deep concern. Recruitment still represents a trickle more than a flow but, week after week, new cases come to light. The disappearance of three London teenagers has captured huge media attention (the photo, showing them at Gatwick, is from the Metropolitan Police appeal for information). Here*, I discuss some of the questions that arise ...

The photographs are depressingly familiar. Relatives of three London girls glumly face the cameras, one father clutching a Teddy bear wearing a Chelsea football top. It was his missing daughter’s Mother’s Day present to his wife.

Whether or not 15-year-old Amira Abase realises it, there is a strong possibility she and her mother will never meet again.

John Cantlie: the unimaginable ordeal of a decent man

Is there yet a chance ISIL will spare the life of John Cantlie? The last known western hostage has made a series of videos in which the production skills and reporting techniques are comparable to those of network film crews, while the message is different. But he is a prisoner all the same, and the tone of his reports reflects the accommodations he has had to make ...

In the dark history of the hostages seized by ISIL, who are often treated abominably and in many instances murdered, the case of John Cantlie stands out as particularly troubling.

The British photographer from a distinguished family, with a background in health, science and engineering, is the group’s last known western hostage. He has appeared in a series of ISIL videos, talking about it in terms that range from neutral to positive.

Peter Oborne and The Daily Telegraph: an ex-insider's reflections

It seems an age, but is only a few years, since I read or was told - in all honesty I no longer remember which - that it was wrong to suppose the influx of humourless, unnerving characters in key positions at The Daily Telegraph was not truly a conspiracy. For as well as conspiring against and intimidating the staff they had inherited, they were conspiring against one another.

Cuba: towards an uneasy rapprochement with the USA

This is my Letter from Cuba, a piece for The National, Abu Dhabi* that aims to encompass all my impressions of an island that has stood up to more than half a century of US belligerence without offering a remotely compelling case for communism ...

Flying London to Saint-Tropez (via Toulon)? Forget Ryanair. It's over

I hate to break hearts on the eve of St Valentine's Day.

The good news is that not too many hearts will be broken.

The bad news affects only those belonging to people who have come to value the Ryanair service between London Stansted and Toulon, handy for Saint-Tropez. It usually flies from about March until October or November and is, on my experience as a regular user, well used.

The magnificent old cars of Cuba, and the less magnificent ones of my youth

The trip to Cuba inevitably meant renewed acquaintance with the vintage American cars that still abound on the island's roads. Some fear that as US-Cuban relations are normalised, these cars will be snapped up by collectors in their country of origins. So hurry while jalopies last.

While I enjoy looking at these Cadillacs, Chevrolets, Fords and the rest, I would be hard-pressed to say much about them (I can safely leave that to Bill Taylor in any case; he may even spot a Soviet rogue or two but will have to wait for photos of our Chinese tour bus). I am also aware that, as a function of the ingenuity and compromise needed to keep these cars on the road, the original identity may sometimes become blurred.

So I will offer a few photographs, arranged around an item I wrote seven years ago at Salut! North about my own car-owning history ...

French Connexion: down with the guillotine

One further piece of unfinished business remains before I bring you some words and pictures from Cuba. My most recent column for The Connexion, a monthly newspaper for English speakers in France, dealt with capital punishment and the inevitable clamour for its return after the despicable events in Paris last month. Erik, our tour guide in Cuba, would quarrel with my conclusions ...

Minding our language: Charlie Hebdo, Voltaire and the right to take offence

This column is now a little out of date, published* as it was in late January (just after I began my holiday in Cuba). I reproduce it for the sake of consistency. Have your say by all means ...

François-Marie Arouet, an 18th century French writer and philosopher better known by his nom de plume Voltaire, has been mentioned a good deal in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo murders in Paris.

No trace can be found of Voltaire actually speaking or writing the words so often attributed to him: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”