Ghost town Cairo
When I went to my Arabic class early on Thursday morning, the taxi skimmed through empty streets so fast, the driver HAD to give me change (normally they will shamelessly […]
NOTEBOOK
Canter past Patagonian icefields. Sail the tranquil waters of Lake Como in Italy. Sip coffee in a Palestinian village. Listen to the ancient voices of Australia’s Arnhem Land. Climb the mountain paths of northern Albania. Let’s go!
Peter Pan of the Arab world
It’s been just three weeks since Amr Diab’s latest album, Wayah, was released, and I’m convinced that all Egypt knows every song, every word. For those playing catch-up (I was […]
Egypt morphs into the Gold Coast
For those of us on the other side of the world, it’s easy to forget Egypt is on the Mediterranean. Countries such as Italy and France have already cashed in […]
The price of Paradise
This weekend, I went to Paradise. Entrance costs 50 Egyptian pounds ($12). But if you know a guy who knows a guy, you can do it for maybe 20 ($5)… […]
Arabic 102
My word for the day is sorsarrrr – which uses the letter ‘sohd’, not to be confused with the normal ‘s’ sound, or ‘seen’, as the letters are called. TECHNICAL: […]
Learning Arabic 101
A friend who lives in another non-English speaking country made a wise observation recently. “You can ask for a drink and say ‘no’ and ‘thank you’, and you think you’re […]
Sweating it out on the sauna express
The temp in Cairo is ramping, up with 40 degrees and sunny blue skies the norm. It’s the time when the city fills up with gulf Arabs coming to the […]
McArabia: would you like dogma with that?
Far be it from me to plug a multinational food chain, but … rules were made to be broken. Let me phrase it this way: if there was no other […]
Kartell does Cairo
Last night, I went to the opening of the new Kartell store (www.kartell.it) Yes, Kartell, the Italian home of Phillipe Starck – he of the occasional tables made from plastic […]
Little black number
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how differently black is perceived in the West and here in the East. In the west, fashion has been dominated by the LBD […]