Tales of Ordinary Madness

Gatwick Airport 6am - Sunday May 10th

I pass through security with a three-weeks worth of post-banker facial hair growth on my face, heading to the heat of Dubai. I pass through the metal detector and a beep goes off.

- “Anything sharp on you, sir?”, asks Trevor the Security Man

- “What? Besides my wit?”, I inexplicably decide to answer.

- “At this time in the morning?” He inspects my watch, “the date’s wrong on here”.

- “Yeah, it takes a bit of time to get started everyday I’m afraid”.

- “A bit like you then”.

Smiles all around, and the facial hair passes security unchallenged.

Excellent Facebook note pulished by my friend Tony Rahme, commenting on the recent Tayyar campaign “Sois Belle et Vote”

Lorsque l’on s’indigne du message dégradant et insultant pour les femmes contenu dans « sois belle et vote » et que l’on préférerait voir « sois intelligente et vote », le partisan du Tayyar répond « Qui a dit que les femmes intelligentes n’étaient pas belles ? » (véridique). La pauvreté de la rhétorique de cet argument est affligeante. Les femmes qui ont lu cette publicité et qui se sont senties humiliées, au-delà de toute querelle partisane, se sont dit que, une fois de plus, les hommes les considéraient uniquement pour leur aspect physique, une fois de plus, ne les valorisaient que pour leur beauté. Pourtant voter, cet acte crucial qui fait que tous les citoyens ont la même voix et sont égaux, n’a rien à voir avec la beauté, mais plutôt avec l’intellect.

Ici, c’est un vieux réflexe machiste qui considère que pour capter l’attention de la femme, il faut lui parler de sa beauté. Alors pour lui demander son vote, pourquoi ne pas la flatter sur ce que les hommes du Tayyar doivent considérer comme la principale qualité d’une femme : le physique ? A ceux et celles qui sont blessés par cette publicité, en tant que femme, en tant que libanais, le Tayyar répond que les femmes libanaises sont les femmes les plus belles au monde, qu’elles se soignent énormément quelque soit le milieu dont elles sont issues, qu’elles sont un exemple pour toutes les femmes du monde. La femme libanaise est effectivement un modèle pour le monde, mais pour les valeurs qu’elle incarne, et non parce qu’elle prend soin d’elle. L’honnêteté, la force de caractère, la dignité, l’indépendance sont des valeurs et des qualités. Le maquillage et les soins esthétiques ne sont pas des valeurs.

Courrier International - hebdo n° 930 - 28 août 2008

Moyen-Orient

LIBAN • Rose et Othman : une histoire sans fin

Le journaliste libanais Samir Atallah a toujours voulu voir dans le couple solide formé par sa tante chrétienne et son mari musulman sunnite un exemple pour son pays.

Il y a soixante ans environ, Rose Nasr avait demandé à sa mère la permission d’épouser Othman Al-Zein. Elle avait obtenu son accord, mais à condition de quitter le quartier pendant un certain temps. Rose n’avait tenu qu’une semaine avant de céder à l’envie de revoir sa mère. Quand elle s’était présentée devant elle avec son mari, sa mère l’avait prise dans ses bras puis lui avait dit sur un ton de reproche : “Ne t’ai-je pas demandé de ne pas te montrer tout de suite dans le quartier ? Pour les voisins, il faut quand même qu’on ait l’air d’être brouillées pendant au moins deux semaines !” Car ce couple composé d’une chrétienne et d’un musulman sunnite était parmi les premiers couples mixtes de l’époque.

Rose était une belle Beyrouthine et Othman avait l’élégance d’un aristocrate ottoman, avec des moustaches stambouliotes comme on en portait alors à Saïda [ville sunnite du sud du Liban]. Rose était ma cousine. Son mariage a fait entrer dans ma famille des musulmans sunnites. Je pouvais même me vanter, pour rire, d’avoir à présent des “cousins” chiites, puisque Othman en avait de son côté.

Qu’une famille puisse cultiver la bonne intelligence et résister à la bêtise des crispations confessionnelles, c’était possible à l’âge d’or du Liban, à l’aube de son indépendance [en 1943], à l’époque des dirigeants Béchara El-Khoury [le président maronite] et Riyad Al-Solh [le Premier ministre musulman sunnite], deux patriotes opposés au sectarisme. Même si, dans l’entourage de nos familles, ils étaient encore nombreux à se demander à voix basse si ce mariage était une bonne idée et s’il allait durer.Lors des événements [la guerre civile] de 1958, Rose s’était rangée du côté de ma tante, sa mère, adepte de Camille Chamoun [président libanais proaméricain], tandis qu’Othman apporta un soutien enthousiaste et sans réserve à l’opposition et à la “révolution” [soutenue par le président égyptien Nasser] qui réclamait la tête de Chamoun.

Mais la “révolution” se passait dans la rue et ne franchissait pas le seuil de leur maison. Et, avec les années, les questions et les doutes sur la viabilité du couple s’estompèrent. On cessa de se demander comment Rose allait être traitée par un musulman et les “révolutionnaires” ne doutaient plus de la fidélité de la “chrétienne” à l’arabité du pays. Il ne restait qu’une image de bonheur, celle d’une famille radieuse et unie par la présence d’une femme à la beauté intacte et à la douceur inébranlable. Les années ont passé, j’ai dû partir à l’étranger et je n’ai plus eu de leurs nouvelles qu’occasionnellement. Je continuais à voir dans ce couple un modèle pour le Liban et, inconsciemment, je me rassurais sur sa pérennité en pensant à Rose et à Othman. Ce sont des “cousins” chiites installés à Londres qui m’ont appris qu’Othman avait été cloué au lit par la maladie. Rose était restée à son chevet pour l’accompagner jusqu’à la fin.

Les questions identitaires étaient en voie de disparition

Rose a grandi à Beyrouth, dans le quartier de Zkak El-Blat. Ce petit coin de la ville ressemblait dans les années 1940 à un bateau qui aurait embarqué des passagers de partout. Ici une famille française. A côté, un marchand beyrouthin avec ses trois femmes voilées de soie bleue mais néanmoins suffisamment transparente pour laisser apparaître leur beauté et leur maquillage généreux, puis la maison d’Abou Afif, le premier chiite du quartier, poussé vers Beyrouth par l’exode rural. Enfin, la maison des Haddad, dont la fille allait devenir une icône du Liban [la célèbre chanteuse Fayrouz]. Un jour, elle a fini par traverser la rue, frapper à la porte de la maison de la radio, et demander s’ils avaient besoin d’une choriste…

Etrange, cette partie du vieux Beyrouth où se côtoyaient ruraux, citadins et étrangers, et qui accueillait des sunnites et des chiites dans un quartier où la moitié de la population était chrétienne. Grâce à ces scènes de convivialité beyrouthine, grâce à ma tante, j’ai grandi dans l’idée que les questions religieuses et identitaires étaient en voie de disparition. Mais, au fur et à mesure que j’avançais en âge, je perdais mon optimisme et mes illusions.

La semaine dernière, à l’aéroport de Madrid, alors que j’attendais mon avion pour Tanger, mon téléphone sonne. C’est Bassel, le fils de Rose et d’Othman, qui m’annonce le décès de sa mère. Je présente mes condoléances, puis je raccroche. La tristesse m’envahit, mais, en même temps, je me sens à nouveau confronté à un embarras qui me poursuit depuis soixante ans. Car il y a une question que je n’ai jamais osé poser. Maintenant, je ne peux plus l’éluder. Il faut bien que je sache comment se dérouleront les obsèques. Je rappelle donc Bassel pour savoir où auront lieu les funérailles. Il en est presque vexé : “A l’église Saint-Elie, évidemment ! Tu t’attendais à quoi de la part de ma famille ?”

Samir Atallah - An Nahar

For various deeply uninteresting reasons, I have found myself bestowed with the misfortune of being stuck in London for the entirety of the summer. This unfortunate turn of events means that I get to revel in that most curious of beasts, the British Summer.

Now there’s an oxymoron if I ever saw one. Days start with the vastly unpleasant task of sharing public transport in 30 degree heat with a few dozen Londoners and tourists. Some, well groomed and reminiscent of a field of lavender swaying in a mild mid-summer breeze, are welcome companions. However a disquieting majority seem to avoid the concept of personal hygiene like a Slovak model avoids double chocolate cake. And so, in the nascent hours of the day, you find yourself in what is essentially a large red metal box on wheels, with a maniacal comic-book villain at the wheel hell-bent on ripping up tarmac whilst careering down the high street. Even though the majority of this metal box is covered in windows, you’d be hard pressed to get any sort of fresh air through them, as the hapless designers thought it best to minimize any manoeuvrable window-area, probably to avoid happy slappers and low-lives of various ilk escaping through them at red lights. You half expect to get to work as a pile of ash in this mobile crematorium. 

Once you reach you destination, having endured your early morning sauna minus the Norwegian lake to cool down in, you get to your next box: the office.  Office air conditioning, in its evil quest for the illogical, is never cold enough in summer but manages to provide near Arctic conditions in winter. If memory serves, I’m pretty sure I saw a penguin waddle away with my Mars bar in February. At 30-minute intervals, crowds huddle around outside for cigarette breaks in the intermittent sunshine, and lunch hours get gradually longer as the week reaches its end. A hasty sandwich at the desk is replaced by a slightly less hasty sandwich in an over-crowded park populated by disgruntled office workers loosening their ties for a few glorious minutes and shirtless hippies mocking them while they attempt to play a blasphemously screeching acoustic version of Stairway to Heaven on a borrowed guitar.   If you survive the scorching heat and get home in one unmelted piece, you have the pleasure of struggling with apartments essentially designed for the British winter, and quite rightly oblivious to the possibility of any form of decent weather descending on the capital at any point during the year. This is a welcome engineering/architectural thought for 11 months of the year. However, come August, it’s excruciating. Even with 7 windows wide open, there’s still no sign of that elusive breeze. The B&Q fan you struggled to assemble for 4 hours sits in the corner of the room, providing an intermittent and taunting coolness, until it inevitably breaks down. Sitting there in a wifebeater vest, a single bead of sweat slowly but surely inching down your temple, this feels more like an Ecuadorian jail than south west London.  

You may have noticed I complain about the weather a lot. This is an intrinsic feature of having lived in London for 20 years. Forget football or cricket, complaining about the weather is undoubtedly the national sport. In winter it is done over a cup of PG Tips, whilst in summer it is done over a jug of Pimms. Frantic park-goers fight over the single ray of ever-mobile sunshine that always seems insufficient to cover all the sun-worshippers. Instead it selectively covers specific patches of grass, leaving some satisfied and others envious. The weak complain and the brave move around in an endless game of musical chairs until the sun eventually retreats for the night, overcome by an engrossing smugness that it has managed to torment us for one more day. 

The experience of the British summer is in no way helped by my friends vacationing abroad. A perusal of selected messages from the past weeks reads something like this: “Mykonos is amazing, you should have come!”, “I’m in St Tropez with a glass of rose, you loser”, “Beirut’s insane. Woohoo”. Sometimes these so-called friends think that adding a picture to their messages will help me join in the fun from the comfort of my London-based couch. “Check it out, Nikki Beach, yaaaay”. So, in an act of heroic defiance, I have resolved to don my Villebrequins, splash around in my bathtub, playing chillout music in the background and spraying champagne on the walls. It’ll have to do till next summer.

“Tous les hommes sont menteurs, inconstants, faux, bavards, hypocrites, orgueilleux et lâches, méprisables et sensuels ; toutes les femmes sont perfides, artificieuses, vaniteuses, curieuses et dépravées ; le monde n’est qu’un égout sans fond où les phoques les plus informes rampent et se tordent sur des montagnes de fange ; mais s’il y a au monde une chose sainte et sublime, c’est l’union de deux de ces êtres si imparfaits et si affreux.” - Alfred De Musset

The Sunday Times 

From the Swiss pistes to St Tropez’s poolside parties, Oscar Humphries tracks the migration pattern of these Cavalli-clad playboys, and tells you how to avoid them  

Along with sprouting daffodils and longer spring days, the appearance of the Eurotrash male is a true sign that summer is nearly here. After a winter spent in a Philippe Starck-designed chalet, sheltering like a Bond villain in the Alps, he emerges after Easter in search of parties, shopping and champagne. The Eurotrash summer has begun. Unfortunately for the rest of us, London lies on the annual migration path of the Eurotrash, and — like wild ducks carrying bird flu — they are difficult to avoid. Eurotrash is a stereotype that, like the Hooray Henry, the chav or the Catholic schoolgirl, fulfils its own prophecy. Few people believe they exist until they actually meet one. So do yourself a favour: learn to spot the signs before it’s too late.  

THEY WEAR

Their own uniquely lurid and louche brand of bad taste. When the Euro shops (at boutiques in St Tropez or the clothes shop at the ParkLane

THEY DATE

Models, mostly. Euros always have a gay friend who is a booker at a model agency, and who will tell the new girl, Sandi from Nebraska, that she simply must meet Guido because he’s a hoot. A dinner is arranged. The Euro is charming, and always gets a bear hug from the sushi chef at Nobu. And he always pays for everything. He sends flowers and jets and boat tenders. He aims high — and it works. When it comes to romance, the Euro’s inspiration and patron saint is the Italian billionaire Flavio Briatore. He is the man baby Eurotrash want to be when they grow up. He is not classically beautiful, yet women are drawn to him like Eurotrash to the Etro sale. His life looks fun: full of boats, cars, open shirts and Clarins sunscreen. Hell, even I’d date him.  

THEY LISTEN TO

Fifty, Puffy and Jay-Z (all of whom they “met at an Ibiza after-party”), and anything produced by their “great friend” Nellee Hooper. They are never happier than when they are dancing, and when they’re drunk they have a tendency to scream: “I love boogie, man!” They have their own table at nightclubs, and dance badly but with supreme confidence. Occasionally, confidence falters, so instead of dancing, they’ll grab a bottle of Belvedere, shake it around a bit and say something like “Yeah, baby, yeah”.  

THEY WORK AS

Work? Like the second button on the collar of their Interno 8 shirt, most Euros are a bit useless. Instead, they rely for their income on an estate in Perugia or a dubious business relationship with a sheik — and because they’re always domiciled somewhere like Monaco, they rarely pay tax. They pretend to be in property, oil or music. They work over lunch via BlackBerry until five, when they start receiving calls from nightclub promoters. But mostly they’re just sitting about in marina bars. This is fun for a week — but try doing it for years. After a while, doing nothing starts to feel like, well, doing nothing.

Of course, you may think all this sounds rather fun, in which case you’re in luck, because being Eurotrash is easy. Just quit your job and go on holiday. For ever. Find a large, shady source of income, throw away anything you own that could be described as subdued or tasteful, give a lunch party at the Eagle Club, in Gstaad, and invite lots of models. Then empty a bottle of Cristal over your head while saying “Yeah, baby, yeah”. Finish up by saying “ciao” a lot, and you’re there. You will be fabulous and tanned, and will look beautiful in your gold watch and emu-skin bomber jacket. You will also be an ass — but for the Euro, that’s a small price to pay.

I thought I’d just quickly share a couple of works by a good friend of mine, Laudi Abilama, who’s an up and coming artist in the Middle East. She examines celebrity in the Arab world through the medium of pop art, and has drawn comparaisons to some of the masters of the genre. You can check out her website at http://www.laudiinc.com/.

Lichtenstein, Roy

In the Car / 1963

Magna on canvas / 172 x 203.5 cm

Ego

“Don’t be so humble - you are not that great.”
- Golda Meir (1898-1978), to a visiting diplomat

“I can write better than anybody who can write faster, and I can write faster than anybody who can write better.”
- A. J. Liebling (1904-1963)

“It is time I stepped aside for a less experienced and less able man.”
- Scott Elledge, on his retirement as a Professor at Cornell

“The average person thinks he isn’t.”
- Father Larry Lorenzoni

“One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important.”
- Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)

“To sit alone with my conscience will be judgment enough for me.”
- Charles William Stubbs

“Give me a museum and I’ll fill it.”
- Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)

“Plato was a bore.”
- Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

“The longer I live the more I see that I am never wrong about anything, and that all the pains that I have so humbly taken to verify my notions have only wasted my time.”
- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

“You proceed from a false assumption: I have no ego to bruise.”
- Spock, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

“How can I lose to such an idiot?”
- Aaron Nimzovich (1886-1935), Chessmaster

Foresight

“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.”
- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corporation, 1977

“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”
- Thomas Watson (1874-1956), Chairman of IBM, in 1943

“The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a ‘C’, the idea must be feasible.”
- A Yale University management professor, in response to student Fred Smith’s paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service (Smith went on to found Federal Express)

“640K ought to be enough for anybody.”
- Bill Gates (1955-), in 1981

“This antitrust thing will blow over.”
- Bill Gates (1955-), on July 11, 1995

“We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.”
- Decca Recording Company, rejecting the Beatles, in 1962

“Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?”
- Harry Morris Warner (1881-1958), co-founder of Warner Brothers, in 1927

Motivation

“Do, or do not. There is no ‘try’.”
- Yoda, The Empire Strikes Back

“It’s easier to seek forgiveness than ask for permission.”
- Proverb

“Be lions roaring through the forests of knowledge.”
- Bahá’í Scriptures

“Become who you are.”
- Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

“Ideas are like stars; you will not succeed in touching them with your hands. But like the seafaring man on the desert of waters, you choose them as your guides, and following them you will reach your destiny.”
- Carl Schurz (1829-1906)

“Destiny is not a matter of change, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.”
- William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925)

“They say time is the fire in which we burn.”
- Dr. Tolian Soran, Star Trek: Generations

“If everything is under control, you are going too slow.”
- Mario Andretti (1940-)

“If you want to build a ship, don’t herd people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”
- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900-1944)

“Never forget that it is the spirit with which you endow your work that makes it useful or futile.”
- Adelaide Hasse (1868-1953)

Stupidity

“Never ascribe to malice that which can adequately be explained by incompetence.”
- Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)

“NEW YORK, NY. A man was knocked down by a car and got up uninjured, but lay back down in front of the car when a bystander told him to feign injury in order to collect insurance money. The car rolled forward and crushed him to death.”
- Associated Press, 1977

“If Stupidity got us into this mess, then why can’t it get us out?”
- Will Rogers (1879-1935)

“Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.”
- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

“What do you take me for, an idiot?;”
General Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970), when a journalist asked him if he was happy

“Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung.”
- Voltaire (1694-1778)

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”
- Jane Austen (1775-1817), Pride and Prejudice

“You can pretend to be serious; you can’t pretend to be witty.”
- Sacha Guitry (1885-1957)

“A word to the wise ain’t necessary, it is the stupid ones who need all the advice.”
- Bill Cosby (1937-)

“It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid.”
- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

“I don’t know anything about music. In my line you don’t have to.”
- Elvis Presley (1935-1977)

“It depends upon what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.”
- William Jefferson Clinton (1946-), August 17, 1998

“The only stupid question is the question you don’t ask.”
- Unknown

Hey, at least we’re number one at something.