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.Monday, 6 July 2009
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.Friday, 26 June 2009
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.
Sunday, 21 June 2009
People's Power
Again the ghastly, ridiculous leaders of the middle east blame everyone else but themselves for the unrest in their country!
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.Wednesday, 17 June 2009
Drag Me To Hell with a Libyan Flavour!

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)
Monday, 8 June 2009
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?)



This is the famous Rosetta Stone
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.
Wednesday, 3 June 2009
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!
Saturday, 30 May 2009
Susan & Coraline!
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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.
Sunday, 24 May 2009
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:
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:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmWCqIVQpEI
Thursday, 21 May 2009
Gruesome Gardening!

Monday, 18 May 2009
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.
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.Friday, 15 May 2009
Nakba Day
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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:
Monday, 11 May 2009
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.
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
Friday, 8 May 2009
The Lost Mummy!
Monday, 4 May 2009
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
Thursday, 30 April 2009
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.=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=

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
Sunday, 26 April 2009
Award, Talent & Pictures....
The award is:
- a dedication for those who love blogging and love to encourage friendships through blogging
- to seek the reasons why we all love blogging.
- Put the award in one post as soon as you receive it.
- Don't forget to mention the person who gives you the award.
- Answer the award's question by writing the reason why you love blogging.
- Tag and distribute the award to as many people as you like.
- Don't forget to notify the award receivers and put their links in your post.
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)
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!
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:







Monday, 20 April 2009
Customs & Gnomes!

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
Wednesday, 15 April 2009
Amr Diab vs Salam Kadri!
Salam Kadri - سلام قدريOf 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:
Sunday, 12 April 2009
A Star Is Born...
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:
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.
Thursday, 9 April 2009
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!
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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.



































