The Frontline is a busy place - and though some might slow down during the summer months it's as exciting as ever at Norfolk Place and we've got some great events and plans for the coming months. Here's what's going on:

The finest food and wine

We pride ourselves on serving the best  food made from the finest homegrown ingredients from the Frontline's own Norfolk farm - check out the latest menu here to see what's cooking. As always, food can be ordered in our members' club room.

And for a special treat, why not join us for a food and wine tasting evening with wine expert Malcom Gluck on thursday 15 July - all the details and the mouthwatering five-course menu can be seen here.

Weekend openings

To make the most of the long nights, the club room is now open and serving food on Saturdays, so get in touch to book your table now

Great debates

Our unique series of talks and panel discussions continues throughout summer: coming up are fascinating talks on Iran, US politics and the Israel/Palestine conflict, with many more to be announced soon. Keep checking Frontlineclub.com/events and subscribe to our weekly email newsletter (sign up here) to stay up to date.

And our series of fantastic film screenings continues apace too, including Sergio, which tells the story of a Brazilian United Nations diplomat killed by an explosion in Iraq.

You can catch up on any events you miss at our Forum blog and our podcast on iTunes.

Coming soon: the Liberation season

In the coming weeks the club will kick off a season of talks and film screenings centred around the themes of human rights, civil liberties and protest. Watch this space...

Frontline Club founding member Tira Shubart sees her new BBC TV comedy series, Taking the flak, start next week. The series takes a wry look at the world of foreign correspondents reporting a fictitious African war and was originally entitled "The Calais Rules"... read on if these rules are new to you. In what might be a bit of a club-in, fellow club regular Kim Sengupta chimes in with a preview in The Independent today. Taking the flak is a comedy but, we are promised, will also hint at some of the realities of foreign newsgathering,

What does not ring true is just how few people the BBC supposedly had in Karibu. In most conflict situations the Beebs's contingent, visas permitting, is vast. It's amusing to see the fun and games when the "big beasts" arrive. In the brief Georgian war last summer, hacks discussing details of the day's fighting would inevitably end with "Oh, and four others flew in from the BBC". Recently, to cover an event in Iraq the Beeb had a team of 17, while the other TV stations had three or four. It is common, in situations like that, to hear cash-strapped rival broadcasters mutter under their breath as yet another BBC reporter interviews a BBC reporter. The BBC does, of course, as they tend to point out to you, have a lot of outlets to service. link

The Frontline Club is now broadcasting events from the forum in Paddington live on the Internet with Livestation.com. We've been testing the service quietly for the past few weeks and have found the video and audio quality are excellent. You'll need to download some software to your PC/Mac and once you have you can tune into to Frontline events whenever we broadcast live. Try it tonight as we discuss events in Iran with the foreign correspondents who reported it.

The Frontline Club starts the Narco Wars season on the War on Drugs on June 23rd. The season is packed with films, discussions and events focussed on the topic of drugs from Colombia to Afghanistan and into South East Asia. Here's what's coming up,

- June 23 - Photojournalist Jason P. Howe talks drugs in Colombia

- June 24 - Panel discussion about the impact of the Narco Wars in Mexico and around the world

- June 25 - Screening - Dancing with the Devil by Jon Blair in Rio de Janeiro

- June 30 - Colombia's parapolitica

- July 3 - Screening - Mexico - Seven days in hell - Alex Nott and Siobhan Sinnerton

- July 8 - Narco Wars: Afghanistan

- July 15 - Narco Wars: Can the war be won?

If the Narco Wars season is anything as good as the short promo film above, put together by Leona Chaliha at the Frontline Club, this looks like a great month of drug discussion and films. Book your tickes early.

Finally we have relaunched our old Club newsletter to a proper broadsheet which is available to all. Subscription is only £15/year (4 issues).

FRONTLINE: A BROADSHEET aims to be a high-quality, quarterly publication, in some ways radical; in others resurrecting traditions lost from the British market.

FRONTLINE will address major events and themes in international and domestic British politics, culture, conflict and lifestyle.

FRONTLINE will be political, but party-politically-allergic, irreverent and iconoclastic in equal measure.

FRONTLINE will offer international coverage in the best traditions of the Frontline Club and its membership, which includes some of the most esteemed reporters in the world.

FRONTLINE has been put together by a team of Frontline Club members whose work is entirely voluntary.

Summer 2009 issue contents:

Peter Stanford on Tony Blair’s Catholicism.
Muzamil Jaleel on Pakistan’s fight against Jihad.
The future for peacekeeping in Kosovo.
Julian Cardona, photo essay, on fear and death in Mexico.
Martin Bell on the return of British sleaze.
Clive Stafford Smith on Anglo-American torture.
David Hoffman on the police and databases.
Baroness Susan Greenfield issues a warning on 'Life Screen'.
George Sotiropoulos behind the Greek protests.
Ed Vulliamy on Italian artists fighting the Mafia.
John Carlin and his Hollywood coincidence.
Robert Fox questions Gergiev’s political allies.
Simon Freeman: the demise of football managers.
Comic strip GOBAMA: Frontline’s resident president by Stephen Daly.

Illustrators and photographers include Julian Cardona, Shirley Hughes, David Hoffman, Chris Riddell, Tom Stoddart and Clara Vulliamy. The broadsheet is designed by Sarah Douglas and Lee Belcher.

To subscribe send an email to broadsheet@frontlineclub.com for more information and a subscription form. In due course you'll be able to subscribe from the website.

Pleas support our broadsheet.

Founding member Robert Adams, family and friends have been busy trekking across Africa these past few months. Robert, one of the original Frontline TV agency cameramen, has been blogging the whole journey along with a little help from the rest of the entourage. Team Jangano 2009, as they've called themselves, recently reached Rwanda, where Robert reminisced on some filming he'd done there in the late 90's after the genocide,

When I came to Rwanda for the first time in 1998, I arrived in a country completely defined by its recent bloody past: the signs of the genocide of 1994 were everywhere, from the bullet holes riddling lampposts and the parliament building to often blank and traumatised expressions on the faces of those I saw walking the streets of Kigali. Not to mention the legions of NGOs busy setting up shop to support the rebuilding and rehabilitation process. I was working with a newly assembled team of young Rwandans to develop a radio soap opera that would deal with reproductive health issues and would be broadcast on the BBC. The workshop participants included men and women, Tutsis and Hutus, English-speakers and French-speakers, former exiles and those who had been in Rwanda throughout the genocide. It was my first assignment as a freelance consultant after leaving my cosy research position at Reading University. link

The video above is from the beginning of their journey leaving Harare. The team have uploaded a whole raft of videos to their own Jangano 2009 YouTube channel.

John D. McHugh, club regular and Frontline Club award for journalism winner, sees his latest multimedia production from Afghanistan about the U.S. soldiers view of their Afghan counterparts, on the Guardian website. You can feel the frustration dripping from the U.S. soldiers as they find Afghan colleagues without helmets on, smoking dope and otherwise in something approaching, if not quite arriving at, complete disarray. John will be talking about his experience working as a multimedia journalist at the Club this coming Friday, April 3. Should be a good talk,

I have heard it described as ‘convergence journalism’ by some, and others have called me a ‘multimedia practitioner,’ but really, the label is unimportant. The simple fact is that by learning and adopting these new skills, I have been able to produce a much stronger body of work, and have brought the reality of the situation in Afghanistan to far more people than through purely still photography, and as a journalist, that is my job," says John. link

Here is a pic of JJ last night. He was very happy.

"Kania Lodge near the Hanseatic Port of Gdansk in Poland turns out to be the perfect place to write, and I've been looking for years. Also good for holidays. The staff provides all services, the food is impeccable and the wine selection one of the best outside Berry Brothers' cellars. Proprietor John Borrell is a veteran war correspondent, who did his time in Africa, the Mideast and Central America for TIME. He's offering a ten per cent discount to all Frontline members on rooms, food, wine and services. It's a great time." link

Incidentally Charles will be at the Club on March 24 to discuss his new book, Americans in Paris Life and Death under Nazi Occupation 1940-44.

Blood Trail, the documentary film produced by club member Richard Parry along with club founder Vaughan Smith, is showing at the True/False film festival in Columbia, Missouri until March 1. The film documents 15 years in the life of war photographer Robert King - from naive beginner to accomplished professional. Robert and Richard are in Missouri promoting the film and talked about it to an audience at the festival recently. Robert had some advice for one wannabe reporter,

“Everybody wants to rewrite history,” King said. “If we have proof, they’re not going to get away with it. … We’re not anti-government. We just want to hold people accountable.”

One audience member asked the panelists for advice. Dan Parris, a 24-year-old from St. Louis, is heading to hostile areas in Africa this summer to work on his own documentary project.

“Don’t go,” King joked, but only half-heartedly. He’s had friends die covering combat in Africa.

Parris said the warning didn’t faze him. “I see the footage and hear what they have to say, but it’s not real to me yet,” he said. “He mentioned being young and idealistic. That’s me. I want to make a difference in the world.” link

In a brothel in Fernando Po, which is part of Equatorial Guinea. I was reporting on the Nigerian civil war and there were no hotel rooms left. It was the day that television had arrived in this Spanish colony and all the Africans were sitting there watching bullfights; it was pretty extraordinary. link

Not sure I can cap that however, I have unwittingly stayed in two brothels in my time - accompanied by my wife I might add. Once in Cambodia and once in South Korea. There's a very fine line between hotel and whorehouse in some places. Although the wierdest was probably a hammock in a mosquito ridden guardhouse next a lake filled with crocodiles in the south of Vietnam.