Algeria prepares for the World Cup

This article - written by Culturissima's David Winter - was first published in When Saturday Comes May 6, 2010 

To walk the streets of Algiers in early May is to be surrounded by thousands of locals clad in the green and white of the Desert Foxes. No surprise there – 40,000 national jerseys have been sold in France alone since the Fennecs' qualification against Egypt last November. What is surprising, though, is to find oneself supping a mint tea in a cafe heaving with bearded regulars sporting the three lions of England on their chests. At a rough guess there are twice as many people wearing England tops on Rue Didouche Mourade as there are on Oxford Street. Yet no one seems to know why.

It'll end in tears

It is such a cliche (and, far worse than that, a cliche invented by their former colonial masters across the Mediterranean) but, for the majority of Algerians gearing up for the World Cup, it really is the taking part that counts. Most Algerians couldn't name a single player in their team, with the possible exception of Karim Ziani, and all that they know about their manager is that one, he cried on national television and two, someone elected him "Man of The Year".

No, every football conversation across Algeria, from the Mediterranean to the Sahara, goes like this: "Ha, ha, Egypt didn't qualify! We're going to get trounced. But who cares? Let's party!" This is followed by: "Is Beckham in the England team?" (news takes time to filter through to North Africa). Les Verts are rarely interviewed on television, some of them have only ever been to Algeria once or twice, and, let's face it, only one player has ever and will ever count for Algeria: Zinedine Zidane.

A couple of thousand very rich and very privileged Algerians are hoping to make it to South Africa to support the Fennecs. As ever, though, they will have to surmount numerous bureaucratic hurdles – the government has decided that, to obtain one of the new biometric passports, each citizen is obliged to list the names of the friends he went to primary school with as well as the name of his best friend during National Service. As with the England tops, no one seems to know why.

The Norwich school

Am just about to head off to Norwich, in East Anglia, to do a "recce" on the Norwich school of painters for a British client. The 19th century Norwich School, whose landscapes and seascapes recall the realism of Dutch 17th century painting, can justifiably claim to be the only regional art movement that England has ever known. If the father of the "Norwich Society of Artists" was John Crome, then its leading exponent was John Sell Cotman, widely regarded as one of the country’s most accomplished water-colourists.

Norwich Cathedral

I'm going to look at some of the finest œuvres of the Norwich School and examine how the Norfolk countryside, its broads and rivers, inspired Crome and his fellow artists.  

Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery, the beneficiary of a lavish £12 million refit, hosts the most comprehensive collection of the work of the Norwich School. Alongside paintings by John Crome they have an unrivalled anthology of oils and water-colours by John Sell Cotman as well as landscapes by Robert Ladbrooke, James Stark and Crome's two sons, John Berney Crome and William Henry Crome.  Other local painters represented in the museum include Sir Alfred Munnings and Edward Seago.  

Henry Moore at Sainsbury's

So much for my background research - all that was new to me. What I did know, from previous visits to the region, is that Norwich’s fascination stretches far beyond its eponymous art school: the Sainsbury Centre celebrates the genius of Henry Moore, Giacometti, Bacon, Picasso and Modigliani, whilst Jacobean Blickling Hall evokes an altogether different era.  Reputedly home to the headless ghost of Anne Boleyn, Blickling is hung with family portraits by Gainsborough and boasts a splendid “Peter the Great Room”, which commemorates the service of the Earl of Buckinghamshire as ambassador to Russia.