Tag: 1979

A Party Too Far — The Shah of Iran’s Ultimate Downfall.

Posted on by wind65

Review by Ashley Chapman

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Decadence and Downfall: The Shah of Iran’s Ultimate Party, Storyville, 2015-2016 now showing on the BBC iPlayer is about how Shah Pahlavi of Iran spent the entire state budget, over $600 million dollars, in 1970 on a lavish party in the fabled city of Persepolis, while his people, battered by the fearful exigences of his secret police, the feared SAVA, wallowed in deprivation.

“The guests, beneath yards and yards of suffocating pink satin sit in the banqueting marquis, served exquisite Gallic food prepared by  Maxim’s of Paris…while outside the locked-out millions watched on TV the noisy emptiness of it all.”

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It took a nurse to sit on my mother for me to birth…

Posted on by wind65

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‘On a sunny October day in 1965, my birth was announced to the three million readers of the Daily Express, where my father worked as a roving reporter and where notice of my arrival would serve as a column filler.’

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