The single outstanding exception was the broad yet precise mandate communicated by the General Assembly in 1946 to prepare as soon as possible the Charter of Human Rights which the San Francisco Conference had not had the time or the courage to draw up.

The cool parts - the parts that have won Dubai its reputation as 'the Vegas of the Middle East' or 'the Venice of the Middle East' or 'the Disney World of the Middle East if Disney World were the size of San Francisco and out in a desert' - have been built in the last ten years.

Well I started conducting kind of by accident. I wanted to give myself a special birthday present for my fortieth birthday and I was living in San Francisco at the time and I started attending some of the concerts and then simply dropping hints.

I've been all over the world. I love New York I love Paris San Francisco so many places. But there's no place like New Orleans. It's got the best food. It's got the best music. It's got the best people. It's got the most fun stuff to do.

So we just kind of created our own thing and that's part of the beauty of Athens: is that it's so off the map and there's no way you could ever be the East Village or an L.A. scene or a San Francisco scene that it just became its own thing.

San Francisco is a mad city - inhabited for the most part by perfectly insane people whose women are of a remarkable beauty.

Damien Hirst is the Elvis of the English art world its ayatollah deliverer and big-thinking entrepreneurial potty-mouthed prophet and front man. Hirst synthesizes punk Pop Art Jeff Koons Marcel Duchamp Francis Bacon and Catholicism.