This morning is glorious: the sky is blue, the chill is barely frigid and I have discovered two things that are utterly fabulous: Inside Out and Abdullah Ibrahim‘s Ishmael:

I stumbled across Ishmael on the Swedish world music programme Kalejdoskop and it is utterly evocative of balmy early mornings and a strong cuplet of cardamom coffee.

Elsewhere, Facebook has yielded an excellent fusion of creativity and politics in Tunisia: Inside Out التونسي brought a number of photographers, including Hichem Driss, Sophia Baraket, Aziz Tnani and Rania Dourai together to capture the portraits of Tunisians and quizz them on their aspirations for the post-revolution future.

Of the 100 subjects, the objective is to portray the “mosaic of Tunisian society” by drawing on children, the elderly, soldiers, farmers, women (veiled/unveiled), students, shopkeepers, workers, entrepreneurs, the unemployed, servants, the religious and the secular.

Their images are delightful and inspiring by turns: they are the future of the nation and what a heartening sight it is!

Buoyed by the maxim “democracy is the representation of all, and respect for that representation,” here’s hoping the new Tunisia will be as open, fresh and expressive as the d’Artocratie collective suggests.