The ghostly shore of Namibia’s Skeleton Coast

Venture to Namibia’s Skeleton Coast and you get the sense that nature is warding you off right from the start. A slim no-man’s land between life and death, it is known to the Khoisan Bushmen of the interior as ‘the land God created in anger’. Everywhere there are huge bleached whalebones, the crumbling hulks of shipwrecks, dead plants, and the footprints of infrequent desert creatures, all on a desperate search for sustenance.

It’s a place where a few drops of water have at times been far more precious than the diamonds that famously litter its coastal sands. In an environment far too dry to sustain much life, the flora and fauna have adapted, enabling them to glean just enough moisture from the ocean fog that spills inland at dawn.
The fog has cleared as I move clumsily across a towering sand dune that rolls down into the foaming white breakers. There are no plants, no animals, no hint of anything alive. As I take a swig of water from my flask, a male oryx appears out of nowhere. Alone and weak from thirst, he stumbles down to the shore, tastes the salt water, and collapses on the beach. It is a stark reminder of the struggle to survive in this, one of Africa’s great wildernesses.Tearing up from Antarctica, the trade winds of the Benguela system batter the shoreline night and day. No-one knows quite how many ships they’ve swept onto the barren rocks, but wreckage is visible every few miles. There are the remnants of ocean liners and trawlers, galleons, clippers and gunboats – testament to the perfidious current and unrelenting winds.
The most infamous of the wrecks is the Dunedin Star. A Blue Star liner, it was washed ashore in 1942. The ship was laden with munitions, crew and a few paying passengers, and its rescue has gone down in history as a catalogue of errors. A Ventura bomber and a tugboat, both sent to help, foundered as well. Their wreckage can still be seen. A slew of other vessels unable to get close were forced to leave the survivors stranded on the desert. Yet, amazingly, most were rescued in the end.
Not so lucky were the shipwrecked crew of an unknown vessel washed up in 1860. The 12 headless skeletons were found 70 years ago, along with a slate buried in the sand. It read: ‘I am proceeding to a river 60 miles north, and should anyone find this and follow me, God will help him.’ The writer’s remains have never been found.My guide, Gotfod, drives us towards another wreck down the coast. A quiet man with a wry smile, he’s made sacrifices to be here. His family lives so far away that he sees them only a few times a year. The Skeleton Coast is no place for family life. Slowing the Land Rover, he cocks his head towards a twisted heap of rust and iron chains. ‘That’s the Suiderkus,’ hedarkly, ‘a trawler wrecked on her maiden voyage 40 years ago. Every time I pass it, there’s a little less left.’ Gotfod glances out towards the rocks. ‘Sometimes I wonder how many ships have met their end here. The wreckage disappears over time, but the ghosts are left.It’s not hard to imagine the elation of a shipwrecked survivor clawing his way to shore, only to be confronted by a new terror: yet another ocean, stretching north, south and east – an endless barrier of dunes. Shifting constantly, the mighty mountains of sand are born when a few grains collect around a nest of grass. Gradually, the mound gets larger, kills the plant, develops into a dune, and roams the desert for eternityNot far from the mortal remains of the Suiderkus, at Möwe Bay, is surely the world’s most remote police station. It’s so cut off, the handful of officers rush out at the sound of an engine. They man a tiny museum, filled with remnants of wreckage, bones, and more bones. Inside are human skulls, life vests from Japanese whalers, the proud figurehead of a galleon, brass cannons, rigging and sea-worn chains. Walking along the lines of skulls, I am reminded once again that the Skeleton Coast is a place where death looms large.

London's art attack

Forget the Tate Modern or White Cube. To get a real taste of the bleeding edge in British art, you need to head south of the river, to the backroom of a pub, or the roof of a multi-storey carpark.For years, when the name of Peckham, a district of southeast London, was mentioned, people thought of two things. First, Del Boy Trotter, the fictional dodgy dealer who was the area's most famous resident thanks to the hugely successful1980sSecond, gang culture and teenage knife crime.
Foreboding council estates and concrete tower blocks overlook rundown high streets full of fried chicken shops and stalls offering knock-off mobile phones. It is  a ghettoised place, ridden with poverty and violence. This was the London that tourists never saw, with good reason
But while Peckham had – and still has – its problems, the stereotypes never quite rang true. Nearbyhave long brought a steady stream of art students, lending a bohemian edge to the area. And in just the past three years, the artistic revival has really stepped up the pace of change . Increasing rents in Hackney, the east London borough that has been home to the capital's creative community for the past 15 years, have begun pushing artists south of the river, and the epicentre of London's art scene has started to shift with them.
Peckham's definitely become the name to drop,the local Asylum Arts gallery. “A lot of my artist friends used to pretend they didn't even know where southeast London was – now they're all planning to move here.” To celebrate the burgeoning sceneindependent website and magazine, has set up a Peckham art tour that introduces the area's teeming creative riches to a wider audience.The tour startsa community-run gallery that aims to engage local young people with artists. The most recent exhibition was a film project by David Cotterrell, titled Slipstream. He attached a camera to a remote control helicopter and flew across the new build apartment blocks of North Peckham estate, filming the journeys once taken by residents along the now-demolished elevated walkways that linked tower block to tower block.
Across the street from Peckham Spaceroom is full of grizzled men supping pints of bitter, playing pool and watching a TV blaring out horse racing. It is the kind of place where you would suspect a dismissive reaction to Modern art. But step through to the back room, and an exhibition by Austrian artist Ulli Knall appears – a sculpture made of napkins and bottle tops, shards of broken tiles on the walls. Outside, a quick clamber up a wall ladder to the roof reveals a sculpture made of duvet covers and pillow cases, twisted on a stool. On a recent visit two men were having a pint next to it. “No, we're not the artists,” one laughed. “We're just having a drink.”It is this juxtaposition of the quotidian with the bleeding edge that makes the Peckham scene so refreshing. This is an art scene actively engaging with its surroundingsa minimalistic white room in an industrial warehouse, the evangelical exertions of a preacher at a nearby Pentecostal church might be heard as artist Joschi Herczeg talks about his work.  Panels of black glass hang from the ceiling and blowing hot breath on them, he explained, reveals engraved hidden messages. Around the corner, the Methodist church agreed to allow artists to use its aisles for a new exhibition.The final stop on the toura literal totemic symbol of Peckham's art-driven resurgence. The top two floors of a miserable grey carbuncle of a multi-storey car park have been transformed into a sculpture gallery. The space is made cooler with the additioncafebar that is fast becoming the one of the most popular new hangouts in the capital. The views across the city are worth the visit alone. Works from 14 international artists are scattered across the concrete. Huge metallic claws resting on uplit pedestals compete for attention against giant inflatable rats singing love songs to each other and a boardwalk twisted into rollercoaster-like hoops by a pallet truck.