Photos

Attached are photos of the Ummayad Mosque in Damascus, the Baghdad Cafe on the way to Palmyra, Palmyra itself and the house shaped as a plane...

In Praise of European Directives - and Time Out of Beirut

The first half of this post is carefully calculated to annoy my recently-elected-Councillor-of-Tooting friend Alex as being - gasp - a Tory, he will naturally be against said Directives. However, I have come firmly out in favour of the 40 hour week Directive as Beirut employment law states that the normal working week can be up to 47 hours. In fact my working week is 47 hours. (Before anyone comments, I am not entirely sure if Alex is in favour or not of the Directive, I am merely commenting on its effect on moi. And Many Congratulations Alex!). Also, there are no paid holidays in Beirut until you have been there a year. Also no maternity leave until you have completed your 12 months, which makes me wonder if there is a tendency for women to give birth on office floors. I shall continue to observe. But enough of such musings. I am really enjoying my job, particularly as I appear to have become their stand in restaurant critic. I have also attended a healing session where my aura was fixed, and am also diligently visiting Beirut's bars until 4am to check what type of ambience they have. (Usually dark, loud and swaying!).

Liv and Charlotte visited me a couple of weeks ago and we had a great time in and out of Beirut. In fact, they walked round a lot of Beirut too! We went to Syria, stayed in a great hostel/hotel in Damascus and chilled out in the old city itself, and also went on a day trip (driven by a mad taxi driver at 100mph) to Palmyra, a ruined and deserted desert city. It must have been amazing in its heyday. Pictures follow, natch. We also ate our way round Lebanon and Syria (sadly including at the worst restaurant in the most awful hotel I have yet stayed in in the Qadisha valley - very like the Shining) and walked, talked and had a great time.

This weekend too, I visited the Qadisha valley. This time with my friend Rachel, who I used to work with at IOCC, and her husband Bernard, and Dom. We went to a beautiful old Monastery called Mar Antonius and saw the first printing press in the Arab world. It was Made in Edinburgh!!! We then went to a strange town where people have more money than sense, and build their houses in strange shapes. One is shaped like an aeroplane - ridiculously small windows for such a warm country, in my opinion!

My sister Jo and her husband James arrive on Saturday, and we will be joined by Rich the week after - as we head yet again into Syria. This time the itinerary is Crusader Castles and Dead Cities. Can't wait!! Think I will stop now as anyone reading this will wonder why on earth Beirut's Premier Listings Magazine has employed someone who can't really write as their restaurant critic and all round space filler and I also want to catch the rest of the Champions League final which is being commentated on by a gentleman who thinks that you can disguise an uninspiring commentary with lots of statistics!