Sorry chaps, Abercrombie & Fitch simply doesn’t fit Savile Row
‘The Row has been the heartland of English bespoke tailoring for 200 years. This is not the place for T-shirts and cargo pants.’
Resident chap, Mr Gustav Temple, argues that the US brand shouldn’t get a store on the famous London street (and do check his really classy byline picture. What a guy!).
• A Tibetan exile has today set himself on fire during a protest against the upcoming visit of Chinese president Hu Jintao to New Delhi. Dozens of similar acts of self-immolations have been taking place in the last few months.
From a recent piece written by Pankaj Mishra:
Self-immolation is a radical form of protest for Tibetan monks, a violation of Buddhism’s basic tenets of respect for all sentient lives. “Desperation” was the response from Kyabje Kirti Rinpoche, the 70-year-old exiled abbot of Kirti monastery, when I asked him last month to explain the recent spate of self-immolations. He described the repressive measures of local Chinese authorities: indiscriminate arrests; checkpoints on the roads; police camps inside monasteries; and the ideological re-education campaign in which the 2,500 monks at Kirti, confined to their cells, are forced to repeat such statements as “I oppose the Dalai clique” and “I love the Communist party”.
• Also read our piece by Ed Douglas: How China is fuelling the fires of Tibetan resistance
• More on today’s protest on India Ink, the New York Times’ blog about India
Photograph: Reuters
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