MOROCCO has become more popular as a holiday destination in recent years, especially as a winter sun destination.

But those looking to beat the crowds and for an even cheaper alternative to Marrakesh, might want to consider visiting Taroudant.

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The city, which is sometimes called ‘Little Marrakesh’, is known for its impressive red-mud walls and views of the High Atlas Mountains.

As its nickname suggests, it’s much smaller in size than Marrakesh, and also considered calmer and less crowded.

Many visitors say it offers one of the most authentic experiences of every day Moroccan life.

Taroudant and Marrakesh bear many similarities – both cities have rich cultures that are influenced by Berber tradition and Islamic civilisations, and they have medinas (old towns) and souks (open air marketplaces).

But Taroudant also has its own unique features, including its walls, landmarks and location.

For a short time in the 16th century, Taroudant was the capital of Morocco. Its location between two mountain ranges was why it was chosen.

To defend it, a huge wall was built around the city, which today are among the best preserved in Morocco.

Made of honeyed stone, the walls are seven kilometres long and encircle the entire medina.

The best time to visit the walls is at sunset to see the low light make the stone glow.

And the best way to see the walls is to walk, bike or take a horse-drawn carriage, known as a calèche.

Taroudant’s landmarks include Palais Caludio Bravo, famous for being the former home of Chilean painter Claudio Bravo.

The palace houses a large collection of his works, as well as other artists, including Francis Bacon and Pablo Picasso.

Its architecture is noteworthy as it’s made up of several wings and structures connected by courtyards and covered passages.

The palace’s beautiful garden is a mini-replica of the famous Menara garden in Marrakesh, with trails, sculptures and exotic plants dotted around.

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Taroudant has a good location because it’s close to many other attractions, making it a good base for exploring the surrounding area.

Marrakesh is about a three and a half our drive away, and Skoura, an oasis town on the way to the desert, is about a five hour journey east.

The coastal resort of Agadir, with an international airport, is about an hour’s drive west, and Essaouira, with a pretty beach and coastal medina, is about a four hour journey northwest.

Tarroudant is also located at the foot of the Atlas mountains, making it a good base for hiking

When it comes to places to stay, there are lots of luxurious 4* hotels for cheap prices.

Domaine Villa Talaa is a 4* hotel with an outdoor pool, spa and wellness centre, gardens with mountain views, and lots of activities, such as ping-pong, walking tours, bike tours and cooking classes.

Prices for two adults for one night start from £75.

Dar Zitoune is another 4* hotel built in the Berber style using local materials.

It’s set in four acres of landscaped grounds with olive, papaya, and citrus trees, has a large heated swimming pool and Jacuzzi, a spa, and a gourmet restaurant that serves a mix of Moroccan and Western specialities.

Prices for two adults for one night start from £99.

Flights from London Gatwick to Agadir, the nearest airport, are also good value.

At the beginning of November, a one way flight with easyJet starts from £22.99.

Marrakesh was recently named the best city for a budget friendly Autumn break.

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A runner who took on a prestigious global race series has broken the world record for the fastest marathon by an athlete with hemiplegia.

Andrew Tomlinson, who has paralysis on his left side, finished the London Marathon in April in a time of 3:58:53 – almost two hours faster than the previous best.

On the same day the financial assistant, from Glasgow, collected his Six Star Finisher medal for completing the World Marathon Majors.

Mr Tomlinson, who has hypertonic cerebral palsy, embarked on the epic challenge in 2021 when he ran the Berlin Marathon.

The Bellahouston Road Runner completed the New York City Marathon the following year before ticking off Boston and Chicago in 2023.

And after finishing Tokyo in March he earned his sixth star in London and joined a club of only 17,026 runners worldwide.

After a traumatic birth doctors feared Mr Tomlinson would never walk but he is now thought to be first runner with cerebral palsy to earn the coveted medal.

He told BBC Scotland News: “It’s actually just emotional thinking about it because every challenge I’ve had, every barrier that’s been put up, it proves that anything is possible.”

Filmed by Alan Ritchie and Paul O’Hare and edited by Georgina Davies.

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First, a confession. I have never watched Keeping Up with the Kardashians. Nor the Real Housewives series, nor any of the reality juggernauts that have dominated television schedules for the past decade. When Kim Kardashian first became a major presence in fashion, I was one of those alien people who remained totally ignorant of her cultural value. I would watch bemusedly as she wiggled into front-row seats at Tom Ford and Givenchy while editors would variously venerate her presence or tut loudly and clutch their pearls. 

Kardashian has always been a provocateur in fashion: her very existence seems to excite more heated argument – about relevance, privilege, changing attitudes and talent – than any other in the western world. And yet despite being the focus of a million weird projections, she’s always come across as intelligent, articulate, even-handed and – for someone so ridiculously famous – oddly down-to-earth.

Skims offers the kind of lingerie you should be able to pick up anywhere

This year marks the fifth birthday of her “solutionswear” line, Skims, the company she founded with Jens and Emma Grede in 2019 to rebrand support hosiery, girdles and other deeply unsexy undergarments as something desirable and new. And, boy, has she succeeded. As Maria Shollenbarger writes in this week’s issue: “Skims has since proliferated into a full-blown apparel company, with a market valuation of $4bn and pole position in the global pop-culture discourse.”

Maria met Kardashian at the Skims headquarters in Los Angeles last month. Chief among her observations was Kardashian’s laser focus, her determination and her personal investment. “I handle all the visuals, all the ideas, fabrics, fits,” she tells Maria. “I’m the face of this brand.” 

What’s so brilliant about Skims is that it offers the kind of lingerie you think you should be able to pick up anywhere, but actually find quite scarce. Kardashian couldn’t find shapewear that matched her skin tone. So she came up with a solution. And is now bouncing all the way to the bank.

Kardashian is a living legend, but she is not the only one in this issue. Bob Crowley, the theatre designer, director and costume designer, has worked on so many productions that his artistic signature is scrawled in almost every theatre on Broadway – and off it – and the West End. His little brother John is no slouch either: the director’s latest film, We Live in Time, will come out later this year. (Side note: his first movie, Intermission, starring a delightfully callow Cillian Murphy and Colin Farrell, remains one of my favourites.) As the brothers mark new career milestones, they reflect on their relationship, their shared love of drama and the things that have inspired their work. John has been too in awe of his older brother to work with him much in the past, but I hope he overcomes that notion soon.

At HTSI we love an obsessive and in Noritsugu Oda we have perhaps found the most endearing yet. Oda has worked for most of his career as an illustrator, but his pastime has been collecting chairs: he now has 1,400 designs of historical importance, of which he keeps more than 100 in his specially appointed home. Kanae Hasegawa goes to visit him on the island of Hokkaido to admire one of the greatest private archives in the world . Now 78, Oda is beginning to consider what he’ll do with his extraordinary legacy – but first he’s going to have a long sit down.

Lastly, how hot do you like your food? Do you love your plate to sizzle? Do you keep a plaque chauffante to hand? Ajesh Patalay investigates the politics of heat this week, and whether an optimum meal temperature exists. Turns out I may be a hypo-taster, as I rather like my food lukewarm. 

@jellison22

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NEIGHBOURS have gone to war over a row of 20ft trees which some locals want chopped down – but the owners are fighting to keep.

Charles Welsh has been locked in a row with neighbours Mohammed and Saima Faheem over the hedge between their properties in Crookston, Glasgow.

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Welsh claimed the trees made his life a misery and stopped him from using solar power to reduce his energy bills, and enjoying his veranda.

He went to Glasgow City Council under high hedge laws and officials told the Faheems to reduce the height to 10ft.

But they appealed to the Scottish Government, which amended the ruling and said the trees would only have to be reduced to 13ft.

The couple claimed chopping them down would impact their privacy and on wildlife in the area.

Now one neighbour, 84-year-old John Galbraith, said: “I follow him [Charles Welsh], he’s in charge, he wants rid of it.

“He [Mohammed Faheem] doesn’t speak to anyone… his wife’s a nice person I’m told, but I don’t bother with him.

“I think everybody is frustrated, the trees blocked my view when my son was going out, he’s disabled you see.

“I’ve got to keep an eye on him, sometimes he sneaks out on his own.”

Another neighbour, a 20-year-old who asked not to be named, said: “I don’t know about the complaints, not many people would complain about them.

“Since we’ve lived here the trees have been there.

“I personally don’t know Mr and Mrs Faheem, I honestly think it’s their privacy.

“They pay their council tax, it’s their house, they pay their mortgage, why would anybody have an issue?

“Mr Welsh is a very nice person, he’s a very nice neighbour, it’s a very nice neighbourhood to live in.”

Mr Welsh had previously told the government: “From 6am the hedge casts a shadow and this continues for the rest of the day.

“I cannot enjoy my veranda as it’s always in shade and I would just like to sit out and have a coffee in the sunshine.

“Due to the shade from the high hedge, the entire side of my house is always in shade and cold and this costs me more money to heat my home.

“I have been driving electric cars for more than seven years and was hoping to have solar panels fitted to my roof to charge my car and also help reduce my energy bill.

“Again due the the hedge height, I cannot fit solar panels as they would be in the shade.”

In a letter to the government, the Faheems said the trees not only afford them privacy in their home, but were are home to a host of wildlife “which if reduced to three metres (10ft) will leave bare tree stumps without foliage”.

They added: “There are six trees with trunks of approx three metres in height.

“If reduced to the three metre height as specified in the high hedge notice issued all that will be left will be stumps with no foliage.

“The reason provided for the high hedge notice is that it has an overbearing and dominant impact on the property.

“This is disputed on the ground that the trees do not form a barrier to light to the occupants and do not cause any obstruction to their views or to the enjoyment of their property.”

Issuing their high hedge notice, the council said the hedge was considered to have an “overbearing and dominant” impact on the property and garden grounds.

But, amending the council decision, government reporter Alison Kirkwood said: “Based on my assessment of impact on the reasonable enjoyment of the veranda, I do not consider the requirement to reduce the height of the trees to three metres would be justified.

“Instead, I consider that a maximum height of four metres (13ft) from ground level would be appropriate to address the adverse impact on the veranda, whilst also taking account of the privacy concerns raised by the appellant.

“I am also satisfied that, subject to the required tree works taking place outwith nesting season, there would be no harm to birds or biodiversity.”

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Evacuation charge a ‘low blow’

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Israel continued to bombard Beirut’s suburbs overnight and struck a mosque in southern Lebanon as its forces battled Hizbollah fighters on the ground in the border region.

Israeli warplanes also launched a strike on the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli for the first time, killing a Hamas commander, the Palestinian militant group said.

The Israeli military said it had targeted a mosque adjacent to the hospital, adding it was being used by Hizbollah fighters as a command centre.

But a Hizbollah-affiliated hospital in southern Lebanon, The Martyr Salah Ghandour, said it was hit by a strike shortly after the Israeli military issued orders that it be evacuated, according to a statement on Lebanon’s state news agency on Saturday. It said nine staff were injured in the attack in the town of Bint Jbeil.

The World Health Organization said on Thursday that at least 28 on-duty medics had been killed in Lebanon in the previous 24-hours.

Israel has issued multiple evacuation orders in recent days, warning people in dozens of towns and villages across the south to move north. It has given similar orders during its war against Hamas in Gaza ahead of major offensives.

Iranian-backed Hizbollah said there were clashes around the Lebanese border town of Odeisseh with Israeli soldiers.

Israel has intensified its assault against Hizbollah over the past two weeks as it has shifted it focus from Gaza to the northern front. It has killed its leader Hassan Nasrallah, launched air strikes across Lebanon and sent troops into the country’s south for the first time in almost two decades.

The escalation has heightened fears about all-out war in the Middle East. The region is bracing for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s response to an Iranian missile barrage fired at Israel on Tuesday.

Tehran said the missile attack was in response to the assassination of Nasrallah last week and the killing of Hamas’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July.

Hizbollah said Israel bombed a convention centre in the southern Beirut neighbourhood of Dahiyeh overnight. The group, which dominates the suburb, used the complex to host events, including rallies to broadcast speeches by Nasrallah.

Almost 2,000 people have been killed in Israel’s bombardment of Lebanon in the past year, according Lebanese authorities, after Hizbollah started firing missiles at Israel in support of Hamas in Gaza.

The majority were killed in the past two weeks, Lebanon’s health minister said. More than 1.2mn people have been displaced, triggering one of the worst crises for the country in decades.

This week there have been indications that Israel has expanded its offensive to include Hizbollah’s civil infrastructure, while also continuing to target the group’s remaining leaders.

The movement is Lebanon’s dominant political force and has a huge network of social programmes and business interests. On Thursday, Israel struck a Hizbollah-linked medical facility in the heart of Beirut, killing at least nine people, including health workers, as well as a building used by the group’s media relations team in the southern suburbs.

The strike on a Palestinian refugee camp in the northern city of Tripoli killed Saeed Atallah Ali, a commander of its Qassam Brigades and his family in the early hours of Saturday, Hamas said.

In northern Israel, air raid sirens were triggered several times as Hizbollah launched barrages of rockets. The Israel Defense Forces said the militant group shot 222 projectiles at Israel on Friday.

It claimed on Friday it had killed 250 Hizbollah fighters, including four battalion commanders, since the start of the ground offensive in Lebanon this week.

Nine Israeli soldiers have been killed in clashes with Hizbollah in southern Lebanon this week as the fighting intensified.

Joe Biden has urged Israel to make a “proportional” response to Iran’s missile strikes, and to avoid targeting Iranian nuclear sites or oil infrastructure. But the president has also made it clear that the US supports Israel’s military riposte.

“The Israelis have every right to respond to the vicious attacks on them, not just on the Iranians but on everyone from Hizbollah to the Houthis,” Biden said on Friday.