Birthday flight

For the third time this summer, I was back in Istanbul and its brand new airport. Stopping by the lounge for some birthday mint lemonade, it was easy to forget how Trump’s rhetoric is strengthening Iranian hardliners or how deep the fractures between Turkey and its NATO allies have become after it took delivery of the S-400 missile system from Russia. Maybe the same sense of geopolitical amnesia is why I feel so attracted to Beirut Marathon and its simple message of “bringing runners together for the greater purpose of peace and love”.

After trying some traditional Anatolian mantı ravioli with yoghurt and a warm paprika-butter dressing, it was time to board TK629 and fly out over the turquoise waters of the Mediterranean. And then, almost five hours across the most unforgiving of deserts in a 737-900ER, leaving me with plenty of time to fill out landing cards and reflect on what lies ahead on this our first journey to West Africa. Onboard, I also finally got around to watch the movie Red Joan. With many scenes set in Cambridge, it tells the story of how a woman (played by Judi Dench) was able to pass on atomic secrets to the Soviet Union in the 1940s, in the hope that war would be less likely if both sides had the bomb. With history at least partly vindicating that hope, the film offers an intelligent reminder of how hard it sometimes is to tell right from wrong, and how many layers of ambiguity there are to every story.