Saudi Arabia boasts about the annual Riyadh International Book Fair, where Saudis can explore a flourishing book market, meet authors and engage in intellectual discussion. Every year, however, the book fair is transformed from an intellectual market into something more resembling a battle for the hearts and minds of Saudis.

Imagine if you’d heard all your life that your relatives were musicians, then one day you find out your grandfather and his brother were, say, Simon and Garfunkel.

Saudi Arabia boasts about the annual Riyadh International Book Fair, where Saudis can explore a flourishing book market, meet authors and engage in intellectual discussion. Every year, however, the book fair is transformed from an intellectual market into something more resembling a battle for the hearts and minds of Saudis.

When you grow up in England, breakfast is an event. Not in the, “Let’s do breakfast!” way that I imagine West Coast movie types emptily holler at one another across busy studio lots, but as a deep-rooted part of our cultural makeup. Take, for example, the ‘Full English,’ a centuries-old national obsession with a symbolic breakfast table heaving with bacon, sausage, and smoked fish.

On February 23, two giant pandas arrived in Belgium on a 15-year loan, where they received a red-carpet welcome. Among those waiting on the tarmac were 2000 people, many of them excited kids, and also the Belgian Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo.

This brings to nine the number of artists who have pulled out of the Biennale because of its partnership with Transfield, which manages the offshore detention of asylum seekers. Agnieszka Polska, Sara van der Heide, Nicoline van Harskamp and Nathan Gray announced today they would not participate in the prestigious exhibition. They have asked the Biennale to leave their spaces blank so their protest will be obvious.