Monday/Tuesday

We had a mini-holiday on Monday and Tuesday, staying overnight at Shelley's in Lewes where we attended Die Entführung aus dem Serail. Tim Ashley , The Guardian June 14, 2015 said it was

‘Mesmerising, sensitive, at times troublingly erotic, the whole thing forces us to rethink a remarkable work. Outstanding.’

We also thought it was a uniformly superb performance. Had a very brief chat with our friend Chi-chi Nwanoku who plays the double bass in the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment at the end'

Then on Tuesday our Eritrean friend Mebrak who lives in Lewes picked us up and took us to Anne of Cleves' house - she didn't live there, it was let to much humbler mortals - and then on a tour of the Sussex Downs, the Seven Sisters and Beachy Head. 

The journey was enlivened by an animated conversation about the recent Amnesty International report on human rights in Eritrea. We all agreed that there were major grounds for criticism, but that Eritrea hadn't been given credit for its achievements in economic, social and cultural rights. Nor had the author of the report considered the huge burden placed on Eritrea by Ethiopia's refusal to accept the award of the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission, chaired by the British Judge Sir Eli Lauterpacht, though both parties had agreed in advance to accept it. That refusal, and Ethiopia's occupation of a huge swathe of Eritrean territory, had forced Eritrea counter the threat of aggression by conscripting school leavers and keeping them in the forces indefinitely.The government had now decided, however, to limit compulsory military service to two years, eliminating one source of legitimate criticism by the UN and international human rights agencies.