Autumn Thunder

Last week I got a personal invitation from Mr. Mohamed Al-Hassan Al-Ridha Al-Sinussi to attend the screening of the new Libyan documentary " Autumn Thunder ".
Prince Mohamed Al-Sinussi is the son of Libya's late Crown Pince Al-Hassan Al-Ridha Al-Sinussi.

The event took place last night at the Paddington Hilton, I arrived at 6pm and was warmly welcomed by Prince Mohamed, there were many Libyan people chatting, many of whom I know and I was pleased to see them.

with Mr. Mohamed Al-Sinnussi

While I was talking to a friend of mine, this guy came over and said hello to us, he had a big smile and looked familiar, he asked me if I was Nasser, I said yes but told him that I didn't recognise him, to my surprise he turned out to be the one and only Brave Heart, we instantly connected, he is the sort of person that you warm up to straight away, very friendly and down to earth.

with the Prince of Libyan blogs, Suliman Brave Heart

After a short introduction followed by a short speech by Prince Mohamed, the documentary was shown on a large screen, the 30 minutes film started with Libyan independence showing how the country was going through change which didn't last long as the 1969 revolution put an end to that and started a whole new era for Libya which took the country many steps backward.

I very much enjoyed the documentary, there was a lot of footage that many of us have not seen before including footage of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip visiting Libya on their honey moon.

After the screening of the documentary, we had lots of time to socialise, coffee and a selection of fruits and biscuits were served, I enjoyed the event and seeing people I know but the highlight for me was meeting Brave Heart.

You can read more about this event and see more pictures Here

Some of the pictures are by my friend Mr. Omar El-Houni

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Today in the UK we celebrate Mother's Day which was celebrated in Libya yesterday, I would like to wish all mothers every where the best, may Allah bless them all.
Here is a beautiful song by Il Divo called "Mama" I hope you enjoy it:

The English Gentleman

We are having a good weather spell at the moment, it really does feel like spring after one of the coldest winters in many years, the kids have been enjoying using the skateboard and their scooters in the park, as for me I hardly got the energy to run around with them, just about sit on the bench and watch them play, it must be my age!

Yesterday I took Amir to his first Taekwondo lesson, he wasn't sure about it but after the lesson he said he enjoyed it so much and will inshaAllah continue with lessons every Tuesday, the training is given by a very friendly Afghani guy at a local community centre and is completely free, paid by the local council and you only pay a small amount of money for the uniform, most of the kids were Arab boys and girls between the ages of 8 and 16, I wonder how many of their parents slag off the British system while at the same time enjoy all the free benefits this country offers them, including teaching their children self defence? unfortunately many people in this country and in this case I am mainly talking about Muslims who do nothing but criticise Britain and its system! while they sit on their big bottoms all day long doing nothing but watching crap TV and eating, no wonder so many are so unhealthy and over weight, yet they have no shame in getting every penny the benefit system allows them to have, even vouchers to get free milk for their kids, many cheat the system to make sure they get the maximum amount of money while at the same time they think of themselves as devout good Muslims and keep lecturing the rest of us about what is Haram and what is Halal, this has gone too far with almost all every day things are becoming Haram, I wonder where it will stop! perhaps soon we will be told that breathing English air is Haram, God help us.

While I was sitting inside the community centre waiting for Amir to finish his lesson, this old English gentleman came over and said hello, he asked why I was there and I told him about Amir, then he told me that he trains young boys to play football in this centre, he has been doing it for over 40 years, he is 79 years old, still very fit and was a delight to talk to, he chatted to me for the next hour, told me about his life since he was born in Paddington in London and how he fought the Germans during world war 2, he even told me about the members of his family that died during the war, his story was very fascinating, a living history, during all of this he never sat down once or was out of breath, I felt ashamed of my self for being so unfit compared to this nice man, he only stopped talking when Amir finished his lesson, I thanked him and told him that I wish to have the opportunity to listen to his interesting stories again and soon, I look forward to that.

Blocked Drain!!

Some things in life remind us how time flies so quick, Amir my 8 year old son has asked for his own bedroom, he has had enough of sharing with sister Aida and all her teddy bears, glittery posters, girlie drapes and so on, of course we knew this was coming but he did not complain so much before as they were keeping each other company plus the room he will be moving into is quite small but now it seems its time for him to move, he is exited and cant wait to get it ready. Aida is of course very happy too, at last she gets her own bedroom so all is well for now.

Nothing much exiting has been happening unless trying to unblock a horrible stinky drain is your cup of tea, I tried for hours to unblock the damn thing, I even used the strongest Acid that you can buy but nothing! all I ended up with was stinky arms and clothes, in fact I was so smelly that I nearly threw up many times, yuk, luckily today someone is coming to do the job, poor guy :o)

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Today is the funeral of British actress Wendy Richards who was well known as Pauline Fowler in the long running TV soap opera, EastEnders, she died last week of cancer at the age of 65.

While a death is always sad, what I found so false are all the news reports portraying her as a kind nice sweet lady! some years ago when I was working in central London near where Wendy Richards lived, I used to see her walking with her little dog, one day as I was driving to work, I stopped at the zebra crossing to let Wendy Richards cross the road with her dog, as she crossed the road she looked at me so I gave her a huge smile a wave and said hello, this actress is famous for portraying the hard face character she played in EastEnders yet in real life she was no different I think, she actually looked at me with a nasty hard look as if I was something left behind by her precious little dog then she stuck her nose up in the air and walked off completely ignoring me, I thought what a trash! in fact I am sure she has affection for what her little dog left on the pavements of London :o)

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Wish InshaAllah that everyone had a Happy Miloud

Chicken & Chips!!

It has been a while since I updated my blog, there is no reason for that, perhaps as MusicLover said, I was just having a break!

The family are back now from Libya, Aida enjoyed the attention from her mum's family in Benghazi and my family in Tripoli although she didn't really have much time to visit any places since she was there for a funeral not a holiday, still she liked Libya a lot and came back with lots of presents for herself and her brother Amir. I got some Libyan Magrood (sweets) from Tripoli which tasted and looked great, very nice.

On Sunday the kids had a lovely treat, a friend of mine who got a cute kitten recently let me borrow it for the day, I took it home and we all had a great time just playing and being silly with the little kitten named Chips! my freind has another cat called Chicken, Chicken & Chips!

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Last night as I was watching TV, I was surprised when I was channel hopping that BBC4 was showing the much talked about Egyptian film " The Yacoubian Building عمارة يعقوبيان‎", I had seen some of it before but it was a bad copy, last night I watched it even though I missed the first half hour, now as I said before, I am not a fan of Arabic films, especially Egyptian films as they tend to be of very poor quality with repeated unbelievable story lines, this film I thought was well made, the quality of picture and sound was very good, the story was quite gripping although it was a very long film at 2 hours 40 minutes and was a bit boring at times, what I found amazing for an Arab film is some of the story line, I think many people thought it went too far while others described it as very courageous, one thing for sure, it was not a film for children or the easily offended!

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This picture is for Shahrazad who keeps posting pictures of food and recipes, it was taken in one of the best (in my opinion) Turkish restaurants in London, The Char grill in Wood Green, its a simple cheap and very busy place, Amir had his favourites, Lahmacun and chicken wings and rice, Yum :o)