Leopoldskron Palace where the Von Trapp family lived in Sound of Music. In the background is Fortress Hohensalzburg. The city made famous by The Sound Of Music is now host to a new kind of refugees fleeing a dictator. Tourismus Salzburg
Leopoldskron Palace where the Von Trapp family lived in Sound of Music. In the background is Fortress Hohensalzburg. The city made famous by The Sound Of Music is now host to a new kind of refugees flShow more

This Austrian storyline is no lederhosen singalong



On my mother’s bucket list had long been a visit to Vienna and Salzburg, the home of many of her favourite composers. This past weekend, in a belated celebration of her 74th birthday, my brother – in keeping with his work in the movie business – made her wish come true: he bought her a ticket from Chicago to Vienna, where my sister and I joined them.

We roamed Vienna, marvelling at Hapsburg castles and listening to beautiful music in marbled palaces. In Salzburg, we visited Mozart’s house, where I discovered that Mozart had a sister, Nannerl, who was also a piano prodigy but did not become a world-renowned composer. Instead she was married, then widowed, and then became caretaker for her elderly parents. Her fate anticipates what Virginia Woolf wrote about, centuries later, when she imagined “Shakespeare’s sister”, whom she named Judith, and whose life followed the same arc of unfulfilled promise as Nannerl’s.

Beyond the real lives of Mozart and his sister, however, we also visited some imaginary places in our Salzburg tour: the various sites immortalised in The Sound of Music, perhaps Salzburg’s most famous export after Mozart. Everywhere you turn in Salzburg it’s “Maria this” or “Von Trapp” that. There are bus tours, walking tours and even Segway tours, all devoted to visiting the movie’s exterior locations.

But such is the power of Hollywood’s illusion that the Von Trapp family adventure has become a powerful engine for the Salzburg economy. That illusion crashed into reality, however, as I waited for the train back to Vienna: I had to move aside to make room for a long queue of refugees who were being escorted off a just-arrived train and taken to a car park where the Austrian Red Cross had erected large white tents. The refugees (who, in a subtle shift in nomenclature, were called “migrants” in the international newspaper I had read that morning) were flanked by small contingents of police who did not look overtly hostile but were definitely vigilant – and fully armed.

The refugees carried nothing but a few small bundles, and some of the children clutched stuffed toys. Everyone looked empty-eyed and exhausted.

My small luxuries – the apple in my bag for a snack, the warm shower I had taken that morning, the comfortable bed I would sleep in that night – suddenly loomed large, as did the irony. Here in a city made famous by one family’s flight across the mountains to escape a dictator were throngs of families attempting the same thing, but their trek was no lederhosen singalong.

And of course, in real life the Von Trapps didn’t elude the Anschluss by skipping over the Alps on foot: they took the train.

The next day, in Vienna, traffic was snarled beyond belief because the central roads were closed for an enormous rally in support of the refugees. There were concerts outside parliament, donation points for Médecins Sans Frontières and other charitable organisations, and people everywhere wearing buttons and T-shirts saying: “Refugees welcome here.”

We were stuck in a taxi and the driver had only complaints about the rally. “This is going to solve things?” he asked, leaning on the horn. “Because traffic comes to halt in Vienna, all of Europe is going to say ‘OK, we change things now?’”

He shrugged. “Eh, this won’t accomplish anything – there’s nothing really to be done.”

In Hollywood, it is possible to escape to a new life under the cover of darkness and a sad song, or for a rally to create social change. By the same token, in the Hollywood versions of their lives, Judith Shakespeare and Nannerl Mozart would achieve great things despite their circumstances. I wonder, in that crowd of refugees I saw at the Salzburg train station, if there was a Mozart (either Wolfgang or Nannerl), a Shakespeare (William or Judith), or a family whose life used to be full of songs.

Is the taxi driver right? Is there really nothing to be done?

Deborah Lindsay Williams is a professor of literature at NYU Abu Dhabi

Sinopharm vaccine explained

The Sinopharm vaccine was created using techniques that have been around for decades. 

“This is an inactivated vaccine. Simply what it means is that the virus is taken, cultured and inactivated," said Dr Nawal Al Kaabi, chair of the UAE's National Covid-19 Clinical Management Committee.

"What is left is a skeleton of the virus so it looks like a virus, but it is not live."

This is then injected into the body.

"The body will recognise it and form antibodies but because it is inactive, we will need more than one dose. The body will not develop immunity with one dose," she said.

"You have to be exposed more than one time to what we call the antigen."

The vaccine should offer protection for at least months, but no one knows how long beyond that.

Dr Al Kaabi said early vaccine volunteers in China were given shots last spring and still have antibodies today.

“Since it is inactivated, it will not last forever," she said.

How much do leading UAE’s UK curriculum schools charge for Year 6?
  1. Nord Anglia International School (Dubai) – Dh85,032
  2. Kings School Al Barsha (Dubai) – Dh71,905
  3. Brighton College Abu Dhabi - Dh68,560
  4. Jumeirah English Speaking School (Dubai) – Dh59,728
  5. Gems Wellington International School – Dubai Branch – Dh58,488
  6. The British School Al Khubairat (Abu Dhabi) - Dh54,170
  7. Dubai English Speaking School – Dh51,269

*Annual tuition fees covering the 2024/2025 academic year

COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
 
Started: 2021
 
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
 
Based: Tunisia 
 
Sector: Water technology 
 
Number of staff: 22 
 
Investment raised: $4 million 
When is VAR used?

Goals

Penalty decisions

Direct red-card incidents

Mistaken identity

What are the GCSE grade equivalents?
 
  • Grade 9 = above an A*
  • Grade 8 = between grades A* and A
  • Grade 7 = grade A
  • Grade 6 = just above a grade B
  • Grade 5 = between grades B and C
  • Grade 4 = grade C
  • Grade 3 = between grades D and E
  • Grade 2 = between grades E and F
  • Grade 1 = between grades F and G
Best Foreign Language Film nominees

Capernaum (Lebanon)

Cold War (Poland)

Never Look Away (Germany)

Roma (Mexico)

Shoplifters (Japan)

Test

Director: S Sashikanth

Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan

Star rating: 2/5

The specs
 
Engine: 3.0-litre six-cylinder turbo
Power: 398hp from 5,250rpm
Torque: 580Nm at 1,900-4,800rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed auto
Fuel economy, combined: 6.5L/100km
On sale: December
Price: From Dh330,000 (estimate)
FIGHT CARD

Welterweight Mostafa Radi (PAL) v Tohir Zhuraev (TJK)

Catchweight 75kg Leandro Martins (BRA) v Anas Siraj Mounir (MAR)

Flyweight Corinne Laframboise (CAN) v Manon Fiorot (FRA)

Featherweight Ahmed Al Darmaki (UAE) v Bogdan Kirilenko (UZB)

Lightweight Izzedine Al Derabani (JOR) v Atabek Abdimitalipov (KYG)

Featherweight Yousef Al Housani (UAE) v Mohamed Arsharq Ali (SLA)

Catchweight 69kg Jung Han-gook (KOR) v Elias Boudegzdame (ALG)

Catchweight 71kg Usman Nurmagomedov (RUS) v Jerry Kvarnstrom (FIN)

Featherweight title Lee Do-gyeom (KOR) v Alexandru Chitoran (ROU)

Lightweight title Bruno Machado (BRA) v Mike Santiago (USA)

Skewed figures

In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458. 

What are the influencer academy modules?
  1. Mastery of audio-visual content creation. 
  2. Cinematography, shots and movement.
  3. All aspects of post-production.
  4. Emerging technologies and VFX with AI and CGI.
  5. Understanding of marketing objectives and audience engagement.
  6. Tourism industry knowledge.
  7. Professional ethics.
The White Lotus: Season three

Creator: Mike White

Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell

Rating: 4.5/5

Real estate tokenisation project

Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.

The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.

Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.