An Evening At A Libyan Do.....

Last night I was invited to a Fat-ha or Islamic marriage ceremony, these events are usually attended by men only. I got ready on time, put on a suit and tie even though it was a hot day but looking smart in events like this is a must, I had to stand in front of a fan for a while to stop my self from sweating then ran to my car which luckily was serviced only few days ago and the air condition was working perfectly for a change! I left a bit early in case of heavy traffic even though it was a Sunday and I am glad I did, twice I got stuck in heavy traffic and instead of the journey taking me about 35 minutes, it took me one hour and 25 minutes to get to central London and to the hotel where the event was taking place. I found a parking space easily and walked to the hotel where I found younger members of the family that are celebrating the marriage, standing outside the front door of the luxury hotel, they were there to escort the guests to the hired hall, usually I am early at events like this but as soon as I walked in the hall I noticed that most guests were already there and seated, I found a chair at the front and sat down then used my eagle eyes to scan the place, almost everyone I know was there, I must say that us Libyan men are not usually the smartest dressed men in the world but it was nice last night to see that almost everyone made an effort to look their best.

Soon I saw some of my best friends that I have known since my days in Oxford over 25 years ago, they still live in Oxford and because of this we do not meet as much as we would like to, they really are some of the best men that you could have for friends, our eyes just light up when ever we meet and we always realise at these rare occasions that we do miss each others company so much, so it was hugs and kisses all round, so nice.

The grooms father then escorted the Muslim cleric into the hall with the bride's father and the 2 witnesses and after a short speech by the cleric on the advantages of getting married, the signing of the contract took place and within few minutes the marriage was official.

The event was a bit low key because of a recent death in the family, no dinner was served but instead a selection of beautiful cakes and deserts were served along side nicely presented sandwiches, juices, coffee and tea, it was a good change from big pieces of lamb fit for a lion and huge plates of rice and masareen (a type of Libyan sausage) there were waiters and waitresses serving everyone that needed it, the waitresses were young Portuguese girls that looked quite good in their smart uniforms, I had to laugh as suddenly I started to notice the flirting that was being poured on these girls, it was all harmless and fun, watching young and not so young Libyan men flirting but without being offensive and the waitresses seemed very happy with all the attention, they looked relaxed after looking quite tense at the beginning and were talking and laughing back, even some of the more strict men and more religious were doing some of the flirting, everyone was well behaved.

The groom and his younger brother were mingling with the guests and made sure that everyone was looked after, it was a good relaxed evening that was enjoyed I would say, by all that attended, first class event.

I wish the bride and groom a happy, healthy and prosperous marriage inshaAllah.

Haj. Rajab, Abdul-Salam, Sami and Yousef, it was a pleasure seeing you all last night and I hope we get to meet again soon :o)

Swine Flu Gets Closer!

Swine Flu makes an appearance close to home! my kids have been given a letter by their school today informing us that a case of swine flu has been found at school.

The letter did not give much information but few schools in the area have had similar cases and were closed to pupils, I have been trying to phone the school but they are not answering the phone, when kids were being picked up by their mum, she managed to talk to one of the school governors who said that there are no plans so far to close the school and that they will wait to see if there are more cases.

Today is Friday and I suspect that they will wait until Monday to take a decision on what to do, swine flu cases in the UK have mostly been mild with no serious illness so far, so inshaAllah khair and hope there will be no need for medications for all affected.

People's Power

Again the ghastly, ridiculous leaders of the middle east blame everyone else but themselves for the unrest in their country!

Leaders of Iran, instead of accepting that they are not wanted by their people, what do they do? they blame America and Britain for the unrest! do not blame yourselves and your dictatorships!

Things never change, I remember as a boy growing up in Libya in the 70s, we used to be forced to go on marches supporting the government, I can still remember the members of the secret service telling us at school that if we do not join the march or if we leave the march and go home that they have cameras and will know and that we would be punished severely, imaging that! boys and girls under the age of 16 threatened with all sorts of horrible acts if they do not support their government! unfortunately it is the same in many Arab and middle east countries and when the people dare to speak up they are branded traitors and terrorists.

I only hope and pray that the people of Iran do not suffer anymore and I wish them the best for what they are doing is heroic and lacking in many middle eastern countries. Allah with you.

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More Middle Eastern Democracy!!

Israeli soldiers humiliating a terrified innocent Palestinian while they laugh

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Today is Father's Day and I wish all dads all over the world a happy and peaceful Father's Day. My lovely kids got me a card and gifts which you can see in the above picture, Allah bless them for they did make me a happy and proud father.

Today is also the longest day of the year, from tomorrow days start to get shorter, that is a depressing thought since it sounds like summer is over!

Weather in London has been quite good recently, lets hope it continues to be nice and warm for a change.

Drag Me To Hell with a Libyan Flavour!

Today with a friend decided to take advantage of the Orange Wednesdays offer that you get if you are with the Orange network, basically the offer entitles you to 2 cinema tickets for the price of one on any Wednesday plus 2 meals at Pizza Express for the price of one if you want! even though I have been with Orange for some years now, I never tried this offer so when my friend suggested it I thought why not! we went to Angel at lunch time straight to Pizza Express, out of the many pizza chains here, I think pizza express is the most acceptable as their pizzas do resemble and taste as pizzas should, unlike other places that just serve you soggy chewy bread covered in tomato sauce and cheese and they call it pizza! of course if you want a real proper pizza then you should go to one of the many Italian Pizzerias all over London that serve pizzas cooked in wood oven as they should be.

After a quick pizza we headed to the cinema, we both wanted to watch the new horror film Drag Me To Hell as we are both horror film fans and the film had some good reviews, it is directed by Sam Raimi who made the Evil Dead films.

The film was one of those movies that make some people jump in their seats with fright while laughing at the same time, I enjoyed it a lot and laughed a lot too but as soon as they said the name of the evil force in the film or the demon, the name was Lamia, it struck a chord in the back of my head, I read sometime ago about a Libyan queen in Greek mythology called Lamia that became a demon or a Libyan Ghoul غولة ليبية , so as soon as I came home I searched the Internet and sure it was the same Lamia, even the film's page on Wikiperdia links to the same Lamia!
This made me wonder! what was a Libyan demon doing in the USA?? could it be the warming relationship between Libya & America that made Lamia travel over there? was Libya not good enough for Lamia? what a surprise! :o)

It was a good fun afternoon, it really cheered me up since most of us do have and suffer occasionally from daily life stresses and we need to relax occasionally.

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The other day while walking with my son, he asked me to buy him a drink so we went to a shop and I bought him a can of orange Tango, as we left the shop I noticed that the writing and logo on the can were upside down!! I thought maybe it was a one off, a production mistake that could be worth a lot of money, maybe I could sell it to some weirdo on EBay or something! so we walked back in the shop just to find that all cans of orange Tango were printed upside down, about 100 of them! so all dreams of becoming rich flew away. at least Amir enjoyed the drink and that was priceless :o)

A Day At The Museum....

I mentioned before that Amir, my son, is learning about the ancient Egyptians here, so when he had a day off school last week because of the local elections, I thought it would be good to take him to the British Museum, this museum is only British by name but definitely not by contents!, we did not have enough time to tour all of the museum and decided to only visit Ancient Egypt gallery and outside of Egypt you can not find a better collection of Egyptian antiquities than this museum, the amount of Egyptian artifacts here is so massive, some of the statues are so big it makes you wonder how the British brought them to this country, of course this museum has problems with some countries around the world as these countries are saying that their antiquities were stolen and must be returned to their original countries, these include Egyptian, Roman, Greek artifacts and others, including the famous Greek Elgin Marbles, on a visit to this museum many years ago, I saw a miniature statue of Septimus Severus in the Roman gallery, the information said that it was found in Leptis Magna in Libya.

Once an English gentleman told me while he was winking, that the Egyptian antiquities were not stolen but given to the British as a gift by the Egyptian government at the time, then he added that the British were ruling Egypt then and so they gave the gifts to themselves!

I myself am a supporter of any country that is trying hard to get back what belongs to them and do feel uncomfortable when I visit the British museum, saying that, countries have the responsibilities to look after their heritage and need to make sure that they are displayed properly and protected, I visited the Egyptian museum in Cairo some years ago and I really thought it was a disaster waiting to happen, it was over flowing with antiquities, most displayed wrongly and packed next to each other, it was untidy and it seemed all they were interested in was getting as many tourists as possible inside without any thoughts about safety, my daughter was young then and in a pram, we had to leave after about one hour because the crowd was unbearable, we could hardly move inside yet as we left we saw hundreds of tourists standing at the front with more coaches bringing more tourists and at the door they just kept letting everyone in!

Britain has a responsibility to return what does not belong to them legally although this is not going to happen just yet although I must say that the British museum does display everything in a fantastic organised and very safe way.

I am not sure what the state of museums is like in Libya but do hope that they are at least well organised (is that wishful thinking?)

Here are some pictures:

Ramses II

This is the famous Rosetta Stone

The next section was Amir's favourite, actually it seems to be every one's favourite section, the life and death section that includes many mummies:

Amir is fascinated by skulls at the moment just like many boys of his age, you can even see skulls all over his T.shirt!

This is the newer section of the British museum, its a huge round court yard with glass roof, it contains gift shops and cafes, amazing architecture.

Smuggling Libya's Antiquities....

Music Lover sent me a link to an article about the looting of Libya's antiquities by gangs mainly operating from Egypt, the precious antiquities are smuggled to Egypt where they are then sold to the highest bidders in Europe and North America!

Here is a quote from the article:

"Libyan officials will admit off the record that looting has severely damaged the spectacular and extensive Roman ruins spread across their country’s 2,000km-long Mediterranean coastline. But they shy away from direct criticism for fear of incurring their government’s wrath or of offending Egypt, Libya’s neighbour and ally"

This again shows the importance of the Libyan authorities when protecting any Libyan wealth or heritage and allowing Egypt which has exhausted its resources to ruin anything precious that belongs to Libya, I have even mentioned before how Egyptian gangs are illegally collecting the rare Libyan tortoises and smuggling them to Egypt where they are sold as Egyptian tortoises to tourists because this tortoise has become extinct in Egypt.

What can I say except shame on Libya and Egypt for allowing these major crimes to take place while they turn a blind eye!

You can read the full article about the looting of Libya's antiquities Here.

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I was disappointed to read an article on Libya Alyoum about the opening of Chicken Cottage restaurant in Tripoli and the article praising the place and even saying how some Libyan people were sent to London to be trained to prepare the food for this place!

There really is nothing fancy about Chicken Cottage which is owned by some British Muslim, it is a fried chicken chain, one of many that you find all over the UK serving unhealthy greasy bad quality food!

Libya is a very rich country and if it must provide Western food chains then they can afford a much better quality than this, this is fried chicken at its worst and I can describe it in 2 words: Cheap & Nasty.

Here is the article.

Susan & Coraline!

Susan Boyle sang "I dreamed a dream" again at Britain's Got Talent final, another impressive performance but she lost to Diversity, I am not a big fan of dancing groups, it must be my age! but they were quite good and were supported by most young people.

Susan Boyle came second, it must be a relief for her that it is over, she did have a tough week with the gutter British press that had nothing but bad publicity for her all week, still she has captured the world attention and she will, I am sure, become a very successful singer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2xiAQCTy2E

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Today I took the kids to Stratford in east London, we saw some of the construction of the 2012 Olympics city which is in this area, the place is like a massive workshop!

After walking through the not so glamorous shopping centre, we went to watch Coraline in 3D, Aida liked it, Amir said it was OK...ish! I fell asleep at the beginning and woke up towards the end, I was still wearing my 3D glasses! so I cant really give any reviews about this film.

Britain, So Talented!

These are the 40 semi finalist acts of Britain's Got Talent 2009, you can see Susan Boyle in the middle of the picture behind Ant & Dec!
8 finalists performed live tonight, 2 of my favourite acts were among them, the first one was Sue Son who plays the violin beautifully, here is her performance tonight which I thought was fantastic but unfortunately she did not make it as her act did not qualify for the next stage:

If the video does not play then please click on the following link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2-pCHW1ZPs

Of course the whole world has been waiting for Susan Boyle's next performance after the massive success worldwide of her first audition.
We all waited eagerly for her, many watched tonight's show just to see and hear Susan Boyle! She sang live tonight and what a choice for a song! she sang Memory from the Musical "Cats", she must have been very nervous knowing that the world is watching, she even had a makeover and looked a lot better but her nerves got her a bit at the beginning of the song, the start was a bit rough but being the strong person she is, she composed herself and gave a great performance, she really nailed it at the end, obviously she qualified to the next round, the final act that will win this year will be chosen on Saturday, Enjoy:

If the video does not play then please click on the following link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmWCqIVQpEI

Gruesome Gardening!

We all laugh when we see pictures in Libya, Egypt and other countries of spelling mistakes with English names but they do get it wrong here too, I mean Burger King is a massive company with a lot of money to spend on advertising, you would think they would hire some one to write the word YES correctly in Arabic! instead they just put the Arabic letters next to each other without connecting them, its like writing the word YES this way: Y.E.S, in Arabic this is wrong!

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Every year at this time you know it is time to tidy up the garden, after a long and cold winter without cutting the grass, the garden looks a right mess with long grass everywhere, I am still waiting for the weather to dry up few days before I attempt to maw the grass.

Few days ago the kids went out in the garden with their cousins to play, that evening after I came back home, Amir was very excited and could not wait to tell me, he said: Baba, we found a skeleton in the garden, I think its a dead fox!

I didn't take him that seriously but he insisted, he said it had sharp teeth and you can even see the ribs!

There is a family of foxes that is living at the end of the garden, we leave them alone as we hardly use the garden in winter and they usually leave after their cubs are old enough.

Any way, next morning I went out in the garden with kids, led by Amir while Aida was hiding behind me and ... well it was a long dead fox!! it looked quite gruesome, I am not sure if it was one of the fox family or an intruder that was attacked, killed and eaten!

(click to enlarge)

look at these sharp teeth

that's what is left of the body!

The Screaming Pepper!!

Even though I am a very bad cook and can hardly make any food, I do like watching reality cooking programs such as Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares and Come Dine With Me, last night I watched come dine with me which is a program where they bring 4 or 5 people that never met before and then each one has to prepare a dinner feast for the others, they all have to rate the food and how the evening went at the end of each evening, the person with the highest score wins the competition and a £1000 prize money.

Last night's episode had a Vegan lady, vegans do not eat or use any animal products including dairy and fish, mainly for animal rights reasons. I myself do believe in animal rights and do agree that food animals are kept in awful conditions all over the world including here in the UK but I do get a bit angry when vegans start to have a go at people that eat meat, calling them animal murderers and cruel and so on.... I myself am not a great red meat eater, I usually prefer white meat but eating meat and animal products is natural for human beings, we were created that way and as this annoying woman mentioned, she has to take supplements to compensate for the lack of eating meat and animal products, taking a lot of supplement tablets can not be that natural! of course all the contestants in this episode had to make her a vegan dinner while they enjoyed fish, roast lamb and venison.

When the vegan woman saw the roast lamb, she said it was like somebody chopping off their arm, roasting it and serving it to people! I always respect people's opinion even if I do not agree with it but expect the same in return and I thought she was a hypocrite, she even has a cat in her house that she feeds on cat food which is mostly meat! so if she believes that cats naturally have to eat meat, well then people have to eat meat too!

She didn't win the competition, her food was OK but not that good.

This brings me to a story that I read many years ago, I am sure it was meant to be as a joke as I remember laughing when reading it.

A vegetarian scientist invented a machine that discovered that vegetables produce some sort of chemical when they are being chopped off which he says is similar to what people and animals produce when they are in pain!

i.e. the vegetables screamed with pain when he chopped them off! he said that he started eating meat straight away after this discovery :o)

You never know, perhaps soon we will have societies for the welfare and anti-cruelty to vegetables! what would we eat then......

Nakba Day

Another year passes with no hope for Palestinians, today marks the 61st Anniversary of Nakba Day (day of the catastrophe) I think the less said the better!

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Here is a video in High Definition (HD) of Libyan Air Cargo Antonov 124, 5A-DKN landing at Manchester Airport on Monday 4th of May 2009, very impressive. If you have HD on your PC/Laptop you will be able to appreciate the video quality:

Libyan Tourism...

I received an email from a Libyan Travel Agency called Temehu asking me politely if I could put a link to their website on my blog, naturally I clicked on their link and.... wow! I was presented with an almost encyclopedia about Libya, not just tourism. almost all museums have their own pages and the pictures are just amazing, there are even videos about Libya, all information needed by anyone visiting Libya is listed, there was even a page about Libyan food but it was lacking in pictures, I hope these will be added soon. I spent at least an hour going through their massive website and was really impressed with what they have done, it is mainly in English but they have a French section too, best of luck to them.

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According to this website, a man was caught at Cairo's airport by Egyptian customs, he was trying to smuggle an illegal item to Libya, no it wasn't drugs or alcohol, it was a .... LION CUB!

Yes a lion cub and apparently he told customs that it was a pussy cat! the lion cub was confiscated and returned to Cairo's zoo where it was probably illegally bought in the first place! rumours say that the lion cub was on its way to a VIP grandson in Libya! imagine, Libya could have had its own Lion Man!

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Britain's Got Talent continues to find talented people every week, of course what I didn't write about is the vast amount of talentless people as well, some of them are so embarrassing that I wouldn't dream of showing their videos here!

Here is another great talent, Shaun Smith, a 17 year old young man singing "
'Aint No Sunshine", this year the competition is going to be difficult as there are so far many talents taking place, Enjoy:

Here is the link in case video does not work:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLxT5k-sN-Y

The Lost Mummy!

Amir came home very upset and very stressed today, I feel bad for him, I feel bad that Amir at the age of only 8 years old had lost trust in his school mates. it all started this term at school when they began to learn about the ancient Egyptian civilisation, recently they were shown pictures of Tutankhamun, Amir was excited and told the class that he has a replica Tutankhamun casket with a little mummy inside it, the class and teacher asked him if he can bring it and show it at class time, I got him this beautiful little item from Egypt sometime ago and he absolutely loved it, it was always standing proudly on his desk in his bedroom. This morning he took it to school and showed it proudly to his teacher and class mates, by this afternoon it was stolen from his school bag while he was having his lunch, his teacher found him in a stressed state looking all over the room for his mummy, she gathered all the kids and asked them to empty their bags and pockets but it was no where to be seen.

He is angry with the school, angry with everyone in his class, he can not trust any of them any more, he learnt today that 8 year olds can be thieves too!

I have made a fuss, I phoned the school, I sent an email and sent a letter by post to the head teacher, they promised to do a full search on Monday and if the item is not found then they will send letter to all parents asking them if their children brought this item to their home. I myself do not expect it to be found.

This is the state of most schools in London, full of kids from dysfunctional backgrounds that have no manners what so ever, have no respect for their teachers or any adults, most of them can get away with anything as no one has any control over them and here I am not talking about just white kids! London school kids come from all over the world and unfortunately while this might sound bad but the reality is that most bad kids are not white but Arab, Asian and Black, most of these kids come from families that turn a blind eye to their kids bad behaviour and end up accusing the good people of being nasty and abusive to their precious little angels.

The mummy was not an expensive item but Amir loved it and was proud of it and wanted to share it with his class mates, he will not be doing that anymore!

Organ Donation

I have had a request to post about Organ Donations to support a campaign that is happening right now in Libya, I am not a medical person and do not have much back ground about this issue, some years ago an uncle of mine needed a heart transplant when he was in his early 50s, he had eventually the transplant which came from a person a world apart, a heart that belonged to a Swedish woman, the operation was carried out by the world famous Egyptian surgeon Magdi Yacoub, my uncle was very ill at the time, he survived many years after the operation, it gave him a new lease of life, he died about 6 years after the transplant, Allah bless his soul.
This is a very difficult subject and not many including myself like to talk or even think about but the reality is that it does save lives and I do hope inshaAllah that many people would take this issue seriously.

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Here we go again with another talent from Britain's Got Talent this week, here is Sue Son:

Here is the link in case the video embedding is suspended by ITV

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMKw-A0hKjc

Today was May Bank Holiday in the UK and it did not disappoint, it was a typical good old fashioned cold and miserable bank holiday, no change here :o)

Here is an old joke: Today is Star Wars day, May the 4th be with you! :oS

Dudu No More!

Dudu the tame budgie has moved on! he was found at the bottom of his cage with his legs facing the sky, he was the kid's pet and they loved the fact that he flew around the room and landed on their shoulders and fingers, he was a bit annoying at times as he liked picking on our ears but he was cute and fun, the kids cried their eyes out, I was not there when it happened but got a phone call telling me that Dudu is no more! with lots of crying and tears, later on when I was home, Dudu was not there anymore, I asked Aida what did you do with him? she said they wrapped him in a plastic bag and put him in the rubbish bin!! I burst out laughing, I told the kids that after all those tears I expected a dignified burial in the garden, they looked embarrassed but at least they laughed a lot and cheered up after this sad event.

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Few days ago I decided it was time to upgrade my video copy of the film Lion Of The Desert which tells the story of the struggle of Libyan people headed by Omar Al-Mokhtar against the Italian occupiers, I thought it was about time to get the DVD so I checked Amazon and they had a double disk version containing Lion of the Desert and The Message together and at only £5.28p what a bargain! today I received the pack, I cant wait to watch both movies again, it has been many years since I have seen any of them.

Music Lover sent me the link to the following video recently, its called London 10 Quirky Places, I thought it was really good as it was full of little secrets that many of us living in London had no idea about, my favourite secret is the tiny replica of St. Paul's cathedral attached to the side of Vauxhall Bridge:

if you know London, you will like this

Award, Talent & Pictures....

Dear Mrs. on the edge has given me a blog award, I am honoured and very pleased, this is her reason for my award: "The next person would be Anglo-Libyan who always has something interesting and new to share about Libya ", Thank you so much on the edge and Field of Dreams for giving me the award.

The award is:

1. a dedication for those who love blogging and love to encourage friendships through blogging
2. to seek the reasons why we all love blogging.

The aims of this award:

1. Put the award in one post as soon as you receive it.
2. Don't forget to mention the person who gives you the award.
3. Answer the award's question by writing the reason why you love blogging.
4. Tag and distribute the award to as many people as you like.
5. Don't forget to notify the award receivers and put their links in your post.

The reason why I love blogging? that's a bit difficult to answer, I just enjoy writing about my life, the good and the bad, blogging relaxes me and cheers me up, it can be stressful at times but nothing in life is stress free.

Through blogging I got to know many good people, some are Libyan, some are of different nationalities and religion, this made my world wider and a lot more interesting.

About distributing the award, I find this part very difficult as I do like everyone and therefore I would like to give it to everyone on my blog list as I do enjoy reading all of them :o)

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OK now for my weekly Britain's got Talent newest talent worthy of mentioning, Holly Steel is a 10 years old sweet girl, she came on stage dressed as a little ballerina and started doing a ballet dance, nothing special so far but as soon as she opened her mouth and started singing and .......... wow!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmmbH7iGzTw

Some pictures that I thought look very artistic, I am not sure if they are trick photos or the real thing but they are amazing to look at:

Customs & Gnomes!

Two days ago I was watching a documentary series on TV called Customs UK, this program follows the work of customs men and women working at British airports and sea ports, mainly trying to catch people smuggling illegal goods such as drugs and so on, I was sort of watching but without much attention when the program moved to Portsmouth sea port where they were unloading cars coming from Europe, suddenly it grabbed my attention, this car was coming from Libya, the driver drove over 2000 miles to come to the UK, when they stopped the well spoken Libyan man they found out that although he is a resident in Britain but he has been away for 2 months, he said he was in Libya for the month of Ramadan and stayed longer for holiday then bought this car secondhand and now he has brought it with him, the customs people became suspicious of him, one of them said that the car looked too clean and in immaculate condition, they suspected that he might be trying to smuggle drugs or even tortoises as one of them said!

They searched his bags but everything was in order, they then decided to call a car specialist to give the car a thorough search in case of any illegal drugs contained within the metal frame, the Libyan guy became a bit agitated and said he was worried that they might damage his car, they told him to wait in the waiting room while they wait for the inspection to finish, by then the customs men were even more suspicious of him because he became agitated, they thought he was either smuggling drugs or just nervous because he was very attached to his car! by then I was getting a bit worked up, I really liked the Libyan guy, with all that he was still composed and very polite and I was hoping that they were wrong about him, the suspense was becoming too much, is he a drug smuggler? maybe his car is stuffed full of tortoises! what is the result of the search? the program then left us in suspense and moved to Gatwick airport where a woman suspected of swallowing packages containing cocaine was being arrested, it turned out to be a false alarm then we moved somewhere else where a middle age man from the Caribbean was caught with 2KG of cocaine in his suit case, he was eventually set to jail for a long sentence, serve him right.

But what about our Libyan friend? well eventually the program went back to Portsmouth, the car specialist looked and inspected the car but luckily found nothing, as it turned out to be, the Libyan guy was so proud of his precious car, he did not want anyone damaging it and that is what made him agitated, typical Libyan I would say! the customs men apologised to him and told him that he can leave, he was very funny and joked with them about non existent scratches on his car then he drove his precious car away, I was so relieved, he did from the beginning seem to me to be a decent good guy, best of luck to him.

After that I watched a gardening program, they had a report about this middle aged English man who runs a sanctuary for stressed and abused and homeless......guess what? GNOMES! yes stupid gnomes, I mean how dumb is that?? the guy was talking about gnomes as if they were real people, I think he should get a proper job or even a life! what a waste of space, I think he just was trying to expand his gnome collection which filled up his garden and made it look ghastly, he was only in my opinion trying to get people to give him their unwanted gnomes, the world is full of weirdos!

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After last week's amazing performance of Susan Boyle on Britain's got Talent which I posted about Here, we got another amazing performance by a 12 years old boy from Wales called Shaheen, his voice is quite amazing but probably will not last for long as soon the voice will break, the performance was stopped by Simon Cowell who asked the boy to sing another song as the first song did not work, this seemed a bit suspicious and made the whole thing look like if it was fixed, still the boy did will and apparently his father is Iranian.

Unfortunately as with Susan Boyle's videos on YouTube, ITV has suspended the embedding of videos on websites and blogs but you can click on the following link to watch Shaheen sing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVU4IkzMNIo

Amr Diab vs Salam Kadri!

Salam Kadri - سلام قدري

While I am not a fan of Amr Diab or any of the many singers these days that depend more on sound effects and dancers with hardly any clothes on to promote their music than their own talent, I read online about the new war raging since the release of Amr Diab's new album " Kuluh elah Habibi كله الا حبيبي" apparently some Libyan people noticed that the tune to the main song also called كله الا حبيبي comes from an old Libyan song performed in the 60s by the much respected Libyan singer Salam Kadri سلام قدري by the name of "Al-Maktoub المكتوب", an article here has been written about how Amr Diab actually stole the music from the old Libyan song, modernised it and gave it a lot of catchy beat to turn it into a hit while at the same time not mentioning anything about its origin, in fact apparently he claimed that he composed the music, I checked some of the Libyan websites that have Libyan music links on them but Salam Kadri's music wasn't working on any of them, then I searched YouTube and surprisingly I found a video posted by a Libyan calling himself "SalamKadri" after the Libyan singer, in this video both the old Libyan version and the new Amr Diab version were posted to compare both songs, when I heard Salam Kadri singing, it instantly came back to my mind, I remember this song from my childhood, while the music and singing is much slower than the new version but I am sure it is the same song, in fact the more I listen to Amr Diab's song the more I am convinced that it is a Libyan tune that may have been used in many Libyan songs since old Libyan music used to use a lot of folkloric Libyan tunes and it is possible that Salam Kadri made this song (some say it was composed by the Libyan composer Ali Maher) using an old traditional Libyan music which as I mentioned was common then.
Of course on YouTube nothing goes quietly, it seems many Libyans and Egyptians are at each others throats making accusations and insulting each other, it was actually quite sad to read some Egyptian comments insulting the Libyan singer Salam Kadri when he did nothing wrong, he is as far as I know ill and in hospital انشاء الله بالشفاء , Salam Kadri is well known for being a respectable classy classic Libyan singer that never depended on a parade of semi naked women to popularise his songs, something that can not be said about Amr Diab but all to his or her own, in fact the insults have even reached the whole Libyanpopulation now by some of these ignorant people and I am sure some ignorant Libyans will eventually do the same, the fact that many people forget whether Amr Diab did steal this music or not is that Amr Diab only became popular after singing the music of Hamid Al-Shaari and Nasser Mezdawi, both of whom are Libyan and well known in their own rights.
In the mean time, if this accusation is true, what is going to happen about it? the answer as in many other similar cases is Nothing!
Salam Kadri is probably not in a state to fight this case, the Libyan authorities will as usual do nothing, Libyan music has been used without permission by other Arab artists before yet no one did anything, if this music was stolen, then it will be added to the very long list of stolen Libyan treasures that includes wealth, artifacts, identity and now even culture, most of us can not do anything but write about such cases without much hope on anything to be done about them, what a shame!
Here is the YouTube video comparing the 2 songs followed by Amr Diab's full version, listen to them and decide:

Apparently I read somewhere that Amr Diab's new album has not been officially released and that he would probably put on the album that this song is based on Libyan folkloric music, we shall see!

A Star Is Born...

Last night a new series of Britain's got Talent started on TV, I sometimes like watching it for a laugh as many freaks try to convince the judges of their non existent talents although occasionally you get the odd talented person that really wows everyone.
Last night there was one audition that everyone including the judges thought it was going to be a joke and a big laugh, Susan Boyle is a lets just say very average 47 years old woman who's ambition is to become a singer, we all laughed at her at first, I mean how can she be a singer with those looks and funny sense of humour, the judges were prepared for yet another awful performance and a laugh, when asked what she was going to sing, Susan replied: I am going to sing " I dreamed a dream" from Les Miserables. this is one hell of a beautiful song, surely she was going to make a mess of it!!
Well, please listen to her singing:

The judges and audience could not believe their ears, she wowed everyone with her beautiful voice, I think here is a lesson for everyone, it is true that we should not judge a book by its cover, looks like a Star was Born in Britain yesterday.

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Today is Easter Sunday, I would like to wish all of our Christian brothers and sisters in Palestine and all over the a world a Happy & Peaceful Easter.

Baba, I am Bored!!

Its that time of year again, the Easter school holidays started few days ago and all you keep hearing from the kids is " Baba I am bored!" as usual the problem is where to take them or what to do, actually the mistake is to do many things in one day because the next day you will again hear " Baba I am bored!".
We had a nice day at the weekend, we went to see Monsters vs Aliens 3D , it was fun, the kids enjoyed it a lot, the 3D effects were the best I have seen so far, no wonder they make you pay an arm and a leg to watch it!

After the film we enjoyed a Turkish meal suitable only for carnivores as the monster plate we shared contained every imaginable piece of grilled meat, it was lovely.

Tomorrow Amir is invited to a Dr.Who kids party which should keep him happy, Aida was invited too but she chose not to go since its Amir's friend' party (Bilal) plus she has to study as she has a test at the Arabic school on Saturday.

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I got this email from Music Lover (thank you) I thought it was funny and I hope he doesn't mind me sharing it :o)

BLACK IS IN

The most powerful politician in the world is Black.








The head of the Republican National Committee is Black.






The best known media mogul on earth is Black.









The greatest golfer in the world is Black.







The top female tennis players in the world are Black.






The highest grossing actor worldwide is Black.








The fastest racing driver in the world is Black.






The brightest Astrophysicist under the sun is Black.







The Superbowl-winning Head Coach is Black.






The most successful brain surgeon in the world is Black.







The fastest human on the planet is Black









... Michael Jackson must be kicking himself in the ass.