Monthly Archives: July 2007

Cairo’s summers offer few attractions to those without the financial means to escape its relentless mixture of pollution and heat. It does however compensate for the daytime agony in the appearance of a whole new world at night, when pavements … Continue reading →

I was born in winter, in the UK. My mother claims that I cried for two straight months until she took me to Egypt – where I defrosted surrounded by numerous aunties and cousins – while she recovered. It might … Continue reading →

It is hard to deny the existence of a deity when one enters a film and unexpectedly finds that is has both Ladies Love Ahmed Ezz AND Bassem Samra on the same bill. Such was my good fortune tonight when … Continue reading →

MSN conversation this evening Mother: Tried very much to get you married only to fall at the last hurdlebandMother: 8LAST HURDLEAmnesiac: With who insha2allahMother: Last hurdle!!*Amnesiac: Yes I had understoodMother: Met hassan holding court outside a Knightsbridge restaurant . His … Continue reading →

Tonight saw a particularly action-packed episode of the excellent soap opera ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction,’ in which Dolly, who is going out with Ramy who she met in rehab, died of an overdose. The scene in which she corks it … Continue reading →

MSN conversation tonight: Mother: Daddy is back!Amnesiac: Why the exclamation mark?Mother: Rejoice! Rejoice!Amnesiac: …Amnesiac: someone called tonightAmnesiac: international call he sounded BritishAmnesiac: but he couldn`t hear meMother: Perhaps something to do with Essex University or your articles. [Bless her, she … Continue reading →

I The radio kept playing. As I hung there, suspended upside down in the darkness, dripping blood into the stillness with that bastard running towards me, the radio kept playing. And why shouldn’t it, in the midst of that twisted … Continue reading →

IX That year was the happiest of my life, for the first time I felt like my existence had a semblance of some meaning and that terrible silence disappeared altogether – even if it was filled with the sound of … Continue reading →

The uneasy Arab-African dichotomy in Egyptian identity is nowhere more evident than in Egyptian popular attitudes towards their black African “brothers”. Egypt’s pride in its African identity on the international and diplomatic level – as demonstrated in its 2006 African … Continue reading →

Best typo encountered so far in 2007Those days she and I were both spending a lot of time with Ibrahim. I didn’t see her with him the day he left. At the airport Ibrahim and I embraced affectionately and our … Continue reading →