Under Siege VI: Life in the Loud Lane

Fell into bed around midnight last night and slept incredibly soundly. In fact, if the Israelis hadn't bombed the port at around 6.10am I doubt I would have made it into the Embassy in time. How considerate. I am clearly no longer to be woken up by my phone alarm, and instead must be assaulted by a missile. I am not that deep a sleeper!

Today was spent answering calls, and trying to reassure people that we are putting plans in place to evacuate. The calls are constant and some are ringing in, clearly in some distress, and it is quite hard to deal with on a continuous basis. However, some callers are really grateful for the advice, and I've had quite a few 'thank yous' - as have the other volunteers. I must admit that I nearly cried today when I got my first one!!!

Classic call of the day was to my friend, Caroline. A woman wants to know if she can take her Pekinese with her when we evacuate...

Anyway, we now have Chablis in the fridge (have run out of Lebanese white) a pizza in our laps and we are finally going to turn off the news (because it keeps cutting out) and put on an episode of 'The Office'. Before I pass the next blog entry to Dom, there are a couple of responses to comments on the blog I need to give:

The Sky versus BBC debate. On the whole, I have found that Sky is a bit quicker with the breaking news, but that the BBC is a little more balanced. What particularly galled us today (we have a TV in the room we are working in) is that Sky's reporting today centred on the crisis in Israel. I think that skews the story immensely in Israel's favour. The damage to Israel is minor compared to the destruction of infrastructure here in Lebanon, as well as in terms of human casualties and lives lost.

The Sydney species debate. I have so far identified her as a brown, small bird. Any advance on this based on the attached photos would be welcomed!