Quotes from Michael Asher

They glided out of the heat-haze on their camels like specters. There were twenty of them, and they were Tuareg. Their faces were hidden by black veils that left only slits for the eyes, and they wore purple robes that fluttered in the desert wind. They carried swords, muskets and seven-foot iron spears, and wore stilettos in sheaths on their left forearms. They were an impressive, sinister sight.

patterns. They'd only been in its shade a few minutes when

At last, in those far-off deserts, I finally knew that the observer is part of his subject: and I understood that there could be no definitive Lawrence, but only an infinite number of Lawrentian images, like crystals in the eyes of his beholders. What I discovered was my Lawrence and my truth, for 'truth' is of more than one kind: the kind which remains static, and the kind which bends and shifts according to the individual and the time.

One private from the Parachute Regiment had passed Nobby every morning on his way from the married quarters. 'Morning, sir!' he would say. One day Nobby stopped him. 'No need to keep calling me "sir" when we see each other every day,' he told him. 'My name's Nobby.' The following day the soldier passed the RSM as usual. 'Morning, Nobby,' he said. 'You're under arrest for insubordination!' said Mr Arnold.