Anglo-Libyan

The Crown on Libya's Head

2011-09-24T10:23:00.000+01:00

I am still carrying on with my volunteer duty towards Libya my country, I have been in Tunisia since the beginning of August, one of my main duties has been visiting and supporting our injured brave heroes that liberated our country and made Libya free, what I find hurtfull is the talk of rebuilding Libya and increasing wages and so on.... this is all good but that should not be a priority at the moment.

Many of our injured heroes are suffering in Tunisian clinics, they have been waiting a long time for the proper care they need, many of them need specialised treatment which can only be provided in western countries, help for them has been chaotic and slow at the best of time, many of them suffer from depression and understandably are feeling forgotten and neglected, I can not return back to my normal life while our people are still in need, they need all the support they can get and Libya has a duty to offer them the best medical treatmen in the world, we can afford it and it has to be done and done NOW.

I have made a slideshow of all the pictures I took in Tunis clinics, please share and make this important issue a priority, this is the least we could do
Special thanks here to the representatives of the State of Qatar who continously supported our people

My Visit To Misrata, Libya

2011-08-01T14:02:00.000+01:00

Gaddafi the Doormat of Misrata

It has been sometime since I posted, I have been busy taking part in the voluntary aid to Libya operation from Malta, mainly to the city of Misrata.

On the 8, 9 & 10th of July I travelled by boat to Misrata to see what has happened there for myself, this was my first visit there since I was a young child no matter how many pictures and videos you see of the damage done to this brave defiant city, it does not prepare you for the real thing, I was shocked and could not believe the revenge Gaddafi took on this city, the damage is far too much, buildings have been hit severely, apartment blocks with each apartment hit by a missile, shopping centres, hospitals, schools, food outlets all completely destroyed but what Gaddafi could not destroy was the spirit of the people of Misrata. as one British mine specialist told me there: the best thing about Misrata is its people and their determination to keep their city Free.

Here are some pictures I took while I was there

on the boat just leaving Malta

the raising of the Libyan & Qatari flags as we enter Libyan waters

the port of Misrata

one of the freedom fighters Head Quarters

at the IMC Field Hospital at the front line in Dafniya, while I was there I could hear very clearly the fighting that was a very short distance ahead but people at the hospital were not bothered and just got on with their jobs even though missiles were falling on them occasionally

a Gaddafi tank destroyed by NATO while hiding in a vegetable market

more destroyed tanks by NATO

These are residential buildings in Tripoli street Misrata, seeing pictures and videos is not like seeing the real thing, the devastation is way too much, the stories of the people are heartbreaking but people are strong

the museum in Tripoli Street that tells the story of what happened to Misrata and shows the weapons that were used against its people

the endless rows of the martyrs and missing in Misrata, a heartbreaking sight

Misrata thanks the State of Qatar for the great help they provided

a sign thanking Qatar, France, UK, USA and other countries for their help

a sample of the bullets used against our people

shopping centre

the Insurance Building where many Gaddafi snipers were situated and committed many crimes

the entrance to the customs & excise building in Misrata port

Defiance Square in Misrata where many children come in the evening to be entertained with music, plays and where they can express their feelings with art

one of the many anti-Gaddafi graffiti you see all over Misrata

most mosques were either destroyed or hit by bullets and no that was not done by NATO but by Gaddafi's gangs

one of the oldest Cafes in Misrata

at Al-Baraka Hotel with some of the journalists staying there

boarding the boat back to Malta

Standing next to a Libyan hero, this brave man is travelling with us to Malta. I really wanted to stay longer in Misrata, i hope i get back soon, i loved being there

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I have many more pictures which you can see by clicking on the following link

My Visit To Misrata

Malta to Misurata Relief Effort

2011-05-04T14:31:00.002+01:00

I have joined Malta to Misurata Relief Effort which is helping to deliver desperately needed Aid in the besieged city of Misrata, the third largest city in Libya, aid includes food, medicine, medical equipment and we have been transporting the majority of volunteer medical teams and international journalists into Misrata.

The organisation depends on the generous donations of people worldwide, please contact us for further details and for donations, our facebook page includes all the information needed.

Benghazi Rising

2011-04-09T09:43:00.001+01:00

A documentary about the start of the Libyan revolution in the city of Benghazi - in English -

Here is a link to the video, Click Here

A Message From Libya....

2011-04-03T20:03:00.000+01:00

Today I got the following Email from a friend who is a Doctor in Benghazi, their wish was that their Email is published so that people might take action:

We are all fine here, things are getting better. The shootings are less and we feel safer to go out and people are trying to resume at least the vital aspects of life. The fight goes on in Braiga, and we get many injured and some dead fighters here. Our concern is Misrata, and the west mountain areas of Amazigh people. A genocide is planned there and is happening on daily bases. They have orders to kill all men and rape all women. One man who escaped Misrata via a fishing boat and came to Benghazi told us of the horrors that are happening there. He said the outskirts of Misrata have been wiped out of people. We need to alert the world and I need your help asap please. Shout it out to all and let everyone all over the globe go out on daily bases to demo in front of the Turkish embassy . We received evidence today that Erdogan has made big deals with Saif and has taken bribes. If this goes out he will be jailed. That is why he is supporting him and he has the second biggest army in NATO thus he is influencing NATO not to bombard the western parts. We need this to stop please talk to your Turkish friends. They need to lobby against him, he says he is pro Islam while he is supporting a man who is killing muslims and burning mosques and the Quran. He has to go and this is what we need to do give him no rest please. Same goes for Algeria who is shipping mercenaries till now through the southern Libyan border. Please guys help and spread the message and make this your aim to get the NATO to help stop killing our people in the western cities.

Kimberley Murray new song Libya

2011-04-02T22:04:00.002+01:00

We Will Win or We Will Die

*Omar Al-Mukhtar*

Musa Ibrahim, His German Wife & Their Lies...

2011-03-30T12:43:00.000+01:00

On the 25th March 2011, I found a blog by a German woman living in Libya, her blog was spreading lies sounding exactly as the crap you get from Libyan state TV and the Libyan dreadful fat poodle spokesman Musa Ibrahim, I commented there telling her to stop being a mouth piece for Gaddafi and to be real, surprisingly she answered meaning she has Internet access in Tripoli while the whole population there can not access the Internet since it was cut off about 3 weeks ago!

Now the news emerged that she is the wife of the FAT POODLE Libyan spokesman Ibrahim Musa and her previously unknown blog is getting a lot of hate comments.

My advise to her is to take her child and leave the country, tell the world about what is happening in Libya and about her nasty husband, she should save herself before she is faced with reality and as for her husband, he is a wanted man internationally and has no place to escape to.

The Blog is called: HADERZA

Here is an article about this woman and her husband:

Musa Ibrahim’s wife is German…and she has a blog

Help Save Eman Al-Obeidi

2011-03-28T22:33:00.022+01:00

Eman Al-Obeidi is a name that became headline news, this brave lady told her harrowing story to the international media in Tripoli, Libya knowing that she will be punished severely for telling the truth about Gaddafi and his thugs and what they have done to her.
Rixos Hotel in Tripoli which is owned by a Turkish company is employing Gaddafi agents, some of them took part in trying to gag Eman, they even attacked some of the journalists, you can contact Rixos Hotel by Email or phone and complain about their staff here: RIXOS

Please show your support by signing this petition calling for Eman to be released and saved from the criminal Libyan Gaddafi regime:

Be With Us or Shut Up....

2011-03-24T15:58:00.002Z

I find it very irresponsible of some people, countries and organisations criticising the coalition war against Gaddafi the mass murderer, the help of the coalition forces towards the people of Libya should be encouraged, its because of them that the citizens of Benghazi were spared from a bloody massacre and hopefully many other cities in Libya will soon be saved too. All this rubbish being published about Libya being another Iraq and Afghanistan is not helping, Libya is different, the people of Libya wanted peacefully to change the regime who in turn used all their weapons to fight defenceless innocent civilians who had no choice but to take arms and defend themselves, they fought bravely but their arms were nothing compared to what Gaddafi had in mind for them, he murdered and injured thousands, he attacked buildings and mosques, nothing was spared in his filthy war against the people of Libya so for all these people that are criticising the coalition forces, why didn't you put your hard hats on and went to Libya to fight along side the Libyan people? or is it much better for you to sit at home watch the massacres take place and then voice your opinion that the whole thing is about oil! and even if it is about oil, these countries would I'm sure like to have our oil but that would be purely business where they buy the oil and our country and people benefit from it, or would the sceptics rather see Gaddafi selling the oil and keeping the money for himself and his disgusting family as he has been doing for the past 42 years! and what was that all about seeing sombre looking Russians walking to the Libyan embassy with huge flower wreath dedicated to the innocent civilians allegedly killed by the coalition forces in Libya!! why didn't these people show any sympathy for the thousand of Gaddafi's victims in Libya! why don't they support the people or shut up!

What Gaddafi is showing on his TV channels is nothing but propaganda, the alleged injured looked healthy, their eyes were bright, compare that with the hundreds of videos showing the real victims of Gaddafi including children the elderly and women.

Its about time that we gave credit to the West and its people, they value the lives of human beings, they value human rights and as many witnesses from Libya said, their strikes against Gaddafi have been accurate and did not cause any harm to people, I myself spoke to people in Tripoli & Benghazi who are really appreciating what is happening and are 100% with hitting Gaddafi hard.

May his end InshaAllah comes soon and to be honest I used to have this politically correct attitude about things and thought Gaddafi should be caught and put to trial, well I don't have this feeling anymore, after seeing the genocide he, his sons & gangs have committed in Libya, I know wish they all burn in this life before they burn in hell, their filthy bodies are not worthy of being buried in Libyan soil.

Picture By: Salwa Buisier

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For all of you sceptics that pretend to care about Libyan people, look at what Gaddafi is doing, then you will know why we Libyan people are grateful for any help we can get to stop Gaddafi and his gangs

This wasn't done by UK, USA or France, it was done by Gaddafi and his gangs

Murdered By Gaddafi

2011-03-13T10:39:00.002Z

Al-Jazeera Cameraman Ali Hassan Al-Jaber

WPC Yvonne Joyce Fletcher

Gaddafi's walk of shame in London's Knightsbridge

Tunisia Stands Tall....

2011-03-07T11:26:00.000Z

From: Libya Our Home

While the world is watching the refugee crisis at the border between Libya and Tunisia and how the Tunisians are doing all they can to help, not many others are helping! where are the oil rich Arab countries? what did they do to help Tunisia to cope with these crisis? and while the world is freezing Gaddafi's assets why dont they use some of this money to help Tunisians cope?

I salute the admirable people of Tunisia who are volunteering and helping refugees, they need help, I wish those Arab countries that are stuck to their TV sets watching the massacres of the Libyan people and the plight of the refugees that they get off their bottoms and help, dont they realise that it might be their turn next to go through the wave that is sweeping the middle east.

Now that Gaddafis are headline news, more & more people associated with them will be selling their stories to the tabloids, these people have made money from their association with the Gaddafis, now they will make even more money, they are nothing but trash and not much better than the Gaddafis themselves, all will go to the trash bin of the world, I thought about providing some links to stories of such people but then I thought no, they do not deserve any more publicity.

The Green Book Burns!

2011-03-03T10:15:00.000Z

For the first time in my life I agree with the burning of a book, the idiotic green book of Gaddafi the murderer, the brave people of the city of Misrata stand as one and send a message to gaddafi, until when this mad dictator is going to claim that these brave people are drunks and drug addicts! he should look closer at home, his son Saadi looked drugged out of his mind when he said he was missing travelling and being in a safari!

I feel its not right to write about how I feel while so many people in Libya are being attacked and killed, while so many people in the city of Tripoli and other cities are being harassed and treated badly by the gangs of Gaddafi, no matter how angry and sad I feel, its nothing compared to what Libya people in Libya feel at the moment, all I can do is offer them my prayers and the prayers & support of many people all over the world to the brave Libyan people.

For once the whole world united, We are all against Gaddafi

سوف نبقى هنا - We Will Stay Here

2011-02-26T12:08:00.001Z

The song that is becoming fast the Anthem for the Libyan uprising

The people of Free Benghazi sing the same song at the beginning of this CNN report

Born in Benghazi, Raised in Tripoli - I AM LIBYAN

2011-02-25T09:49:00.001Z

taken from: Libya our home

This is a picture of the drugs the brave Libyan youth are on, very addictive, not the hallucinating drugs that Gaddafi the murderer has accused them of using.

Support from the brave people of Tunisia to the brave people of Libya

Our prayers are with my people everywhere in Libya, freedom is coming, the international community needs to step up its pressure and take a final decision to stop the massacres of the innocent in Libya, it has to be done now, our people bravely fought and still fighting the forces of the devil and they will not stop even if no one else helped.

Yesterday we protested again in London, my children led the march through Mayfair to the American and Italian Embassies, we were then joined by many students of the London School of Economics, today we are joined by people of Bahrain and Stop the war coalition, we will march from the Libyan embassy to the Bahrini embassy then to Downing street:

Aida, Amir & Mazen

This is a house in Mayfair, I don't know who they are, good support

This a link to First Edition of the Benghazi Newspaper, amazing

Libya My Proud Country

2011-02-24T08:49:00.001Z

The protests in London against the murderous Gaddafi continues, we are protesting everyday until the dictator falls, our young children here now have a flag to be proud of, even us of an older generation never experienced the pride of carrying a Libyan flag, the Gaddafi flag never meant anything to us, it was just a green rag, we almost lost our sense of belonging to Libya, we felt negative after so many years of being oppressed, the regime accuses the Libyan community living abroad of being living in luxury when the reality is completely different

Now we are all so very proud of being Libyan, the people of Libya have re-written our history which will go side to side with our pride of Omar Al-Mukhtar, yes now we can say it loud: we are the grandchildren of Omar Al-Mukhtar, we will not surrender, we will win.

Our people are standing up and will not give up the struggle, they surprised the world, those people that made fun of us on TV during recent uprisings and said Libyans are backword and only interested in food, look at Libyans now, they are the new heroes of the middle east.

I am Proud, I am Libyan, Allah save Libya

I wish people would stop calling Gaddafi a Jew, there good Jewish people and Jews do not kill their own people, I wish people would stop calling Gaddafi a dog and a donkey, these are loyal animals, Animals only attack when threatened and hungry.

Protest outside Downing Street, London

2011-02-22T22:14:00.001Z

Today almost the entire Libyan population of London plus other Libyans from other cities and many other nationalities protested outside Downing Street in London, people from all walks of life, the rich and the not so well off, women, men and children all united in one thing, the fall of Gaddafi the dictator, we are demonstrating in London everyday until he goes, tomorrow it will be outside the American Embassy in London.

protesters singing Libya's independence anthem that has not been sung in public since 1969

Long Live Free Libya

2011-02-21T15:09:00.000Z

Libyans are pleading to the world to help them, they are being massacred by mercenaries, the Libyan government is accusing the protesters of looting and damaging public buildings, my friends in Libya told me that Libyans do not do that, they don't have it in them, they are good decent people, Gaddafi is trying to turn people against each other, everyone one I know is protesting and protecting their properties, its all out war, many are shot, their injuries are beyond description, their heads are blown up, as I am writing this people are being shot in the streets of Tripoli and Zentan by African troops.

My friends are burying young men right now, they are not crying just shouting Allah Akbar, the world needs to put the oil issue on the side and help Libya.

دم الشهدا مايمشيش هبا

What do you call someone who fights against tanks, helicopter gunships, snipers, machine guns, and foreign mercenaries with their bare hands and WINS????

Libyan

Saif Al-Gaddafi's Speech....

2011-02-21T00:28:00.000Z

Libyan people give their verdict to Saif Al-Gaddafi's speech

Live TV from Benghazi Libya

2011-02-19T23:08:00.000Z

libya17feb on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free

The World Must Know About What Is Happening in Libya

2011-02-19T18:17:00.009Z

http://www.libyafeb17.com/
for updates

Free Libya

2011-02-18T16:28:00.001Z

No Justice!

2010-08-18T10:57:00.001+01:00

While I have a lot to write about my recent visit to Libya, some bad news I received a day before leaving put me off writing.

Let me start from the beginning: back in the 1960s my late father (Allah bless his soul) and my mother worked very hard for years to save money to be able to buy land to build properties, they eventually built 2 houses in one of the nicest areas in the city of Benghazi, by then my family moved to Tripoli and in the early 70s the Benghazi houses were put for rent, 2 families moved in, then came the unjust decision by the Libyan government that people living in rented accommodation should not pay rent and practically become the owners of these houses, since 1977 my family had no rent paid to them from these properties, my father tried on many occasions to persuade the families living in our houses to leave but they refused and even threatened to hit him, they became squatters and not only that, they are thieves no matter how much they try to portray themselves as devout Muslims, many good Libyan families refused to squat in homes they didn't own and moved out and returned the homes to their rightful owners but not the thieving families living in our homes for the past 33 years rent free, in fact one of the families went as far as building another floor without any permission.

Both of our houses in Benghazi are worth (I will use the equivalent of Libyan Pound in Sterling) in today's money about £150,000 each and will be worth a lot more as property prices continue to soar in Libya, the people living in our homes know that, they can not sell the houses so one of them told my family that they are prepared to pay us £12,000 for our home! can you believe that? and if we agree they will become the new owners and sell it at at least 10 times more, of course my family refused and told them that are nothing but thieves.

Now the upsetting news I heard a day before leaving Libya is that the government agreed to compensate us for these houses a total of £58,000, that is an insult since both these houses are family size and the cheapest 2 bedroom flat in a run down area of Tripoli costs about £100,000, the insulting amount of £58,000 will have to be shared with my mother and brothers and basically means we lost the houses, this amount does not even cover the rent we lost over the past 33 years, my brothers are going to appeal this decision and as we all agreed, we will never accept this money even if it means losing the houses for ever, I myself can not return and live in Libya since I have no home or job there, how do the authorities expect me and people like me to return when we can not even get what is rightfully ours? they should evict the thieves living in our homes, I have the right to be living there in my father's house that was built by my parents hard work, my father until the day he died kept telling me not to forget about our houses and do everything we can to get them back, his heart was broken for losing them, I feel bad for not being able to do what he wanted, will there ever be justice for people like us in Libya? so far nothing.....

My First Impression Of Tripoli....

2010-07-26T23:37:00.000+01:00

I am here, in Tripoli after about 30 years, my first impression was of a stinky disgusting poo but more about that later.... Actually so far I am liking it here even though it has been less than a day since I arrived.

I started my trip early yesterday morning with my 9 year old son Amir, we arrived nice and early at Gatwick airport, we got there at 09:15 just before the check in desk opens but I was shocked to find a queue of at least 100 African people standing there with a colossal amount of luggage, I booked with Afriqiya airways who clearly detailed their luggage allowance of 2 suit cases per passanger at a total of 48 KG each which is quite generous compared to most airlines yet most of the African passangers obviously did not pay any attention to this and brought everything but the kitchen sink! I knew we were in for a long wait, each family in front of us had way over their allowance, many of them had to buy new suit cases at the airport and transfer stuff between cases or had to pay for extra weight, this caused a lot of delay, eventually after I checked in and borded the plane, it was choas, I have never seen anything like it before. the AirBus 330 was full, there was only about 3 Libyan families, the rest were all Africans on transit to Tripoli to catch planes to their respective countries, the problem was that many of them thought they were on a public bus and just sat any and everywhere, the Libya flight crew were overwhelmed and trying very hard to get them into their booked seats, after a struggle we managed to get to our seats just to find a boy sitting in Amir's seat and a bag on my seat, a woman was standing there, I asked her politely to move her boy and the bag, she said in a minute and just stood there, I asked again she shouted at me to leave her alone, I lost it and told her to blah blah blah her bag and boy or else, she was out of there like a flash, some people can only be dealt with that way!

One and a half hours later we were still on the plane, passangers and crew shouting at eachother, when we eventually took off we were nearly 4 hours late and I was not impressed with my trip of a life time, the plane was great and brand new, each seat had a touch screen TV with great entertainment but all this was marred by the behaviour of some of the passangers, even dirty baby nappies were changed on food trays in front of their mums, the smell was out of this world.

I saw Tripoli from the sky and it was just beautiful, lots of sand and some green areas too, I was home. After we landed, we got on the coach that transfered us to the terminal, as we reached it I saw my younger brother standing outside, he saw us and waved, we got off the coach and it was all hugs and tears, inside the terminal my 2 other brothers were there with my nephews (hugs and tears take 2) now back to the poo story, as I was waiting for my bags I needed to use the toilet, I asked my brother and he poited it to me but advised me not to use it and wait until we get home No I insisted and walked in, grubby not nice then I went inside the only cubicle that was free which had a floor toilet seat, I have never used any of them before but the shock came when I looked inside, a HUGE DISGUSTING SMELLY POO was staring at me, I was in shock I nearly fainted and ran out of the toilet, my brother saw it on my face and laughed and told me that he tried to warn me! that was not a good first impression not for me and not for any new visitor to Libya just getting off the plane, a simple service that is necessary and very easy to be provided hyginically without going to too much trouble, to think that some people say that people in the west are dirty, well there is the answer for them at Tripoli's Airport.

My bags arrived quickly and we were out on our way to my mother's house, crazy driving but I liked the wide roads and the chaotic atmosphere. I couldnt recognise a thing then my brother said that we arrived in our street, everything looked new to me, the street in Hai Alandalus was lined with trees and looked very pretty, I got out of the car to the sound of ulilation (zaghareet) from my mum and sisters in-law, my neices had confetti and flower petals and were throwing them on us (hugs and tears take 3) my poor mother got all blurry eyed after huging me and started huging one of her little grand daughters and saying to her hello Amir I missed you so much and showered her with kisses, the poor little girl told her that she was Asmaa not Amir, it was so funny we all laughed, they let me walk into the house on my own then they all followed me, I walked straight into my old bedroom which has been turned into a second sitting room now, pictures of me when I was a child were everywhere, I was like a child walking from one room to the other and into the garden trying to remember things, it was magical, something I have been dreaming about for many years.

After a nice dinner, cakes and tea we sat talking until it was time for my brothers and their families to leave, they were all happy to see us and we had gifts for everyone.

This morning I took Amir out for a short walk, I was worried I might get lost, I recognised the main road but the shops changed, we walked back, an hour later one of my brothers came over and took us for a drive, I didnt expect a lot but what I saw was nice, some very impressive buildings and some vile tasteless buildings too but it was home, I loved it, I will write more about my experience as the days go by and I see more and get more experiences (good ones and bad ones I am sure) need to have a nap now, its boiling hot but I am HAPPY.

Passport Adventure!

2010-07-16T09:00:00.000+01:00

WARNING!

Very long post, read at your own risk :o)

I had a passport adventure! it started when I decided to renew my 10 year old never used Libyan passport about 3 weeks ago, I have been thinking about going to Libya for a visit after 30 years of living in the UK without going back all this time.

I went to the Libyan consulate near Knightsbridge, the guy working at the reception while he wasnt the friendliest guy in town he actually was polite even if slow, he called someone from inside who explained that they can not renew my passport as it is very old and that I need a new one, at only £15 I agreed, filled the forms handed in 6 photos (yes 6!) and was told to come back in 2 weeks time, I asked them to add my son Amir to my passport which they refused as he was already registered in his mother's passport, the idea is if I decide to go back to Libya at the end of this month I want to take Amir with me as he hasn't been there for 5 years and can not remember a thing about Libya. this annoyed me and I asked them how I am going to be able to take Amir, they wouldn't even issue him with a passport, eventually I asked them if he can travel on his British passport to which they said yes he can but he has to pay for a visa, I said fine lets do that and how much is the Visa fee please? £65! yes £65 pounds for a 9 year old Libyan boy to visit his country! and as if that was not enough, I had to go to the British passport office to get an Arabic stamp on Amir's passport, as far as I know Libya is the only country in the world that requires that to be done.

Anyway, I left the consulate and went back home without applying for Amir's visa as I wanted to wait for my new Libyan passport first.

After few unsuccessful phone calls to the Libyan consulate, I decided to pay them another visit, yesterday, first I got Amir's Arabic stamp then travelled to Knightsbridge, I met the same receptionist again, to be fair he tried to help but told me the passport hadn't been done, few minutes later he came back and said because of lack of new passports they are having to renew my old passport for another year which is fine by me, they refunded £5 back and I was told to come back at 3 in the after-noon to pick it up, I thought OK great lets apply for Amir's visa since I'm there, I handed in the forms and the fee of £65 and again I was told to come back about 3 in the after-noon so I had about 3 hours to kill, it had been many years since I went to Knightsbridge so I thought lets go for a walk around and maybe visit Harvey Nichols and Harrods which I haven't visited in many long years so next starts my Knightsbridge adventure, I will get back to the passport adventure later:

I gave Harvey Nichols a miss and went to Harrods instead, the first thing you notice is the huge number of people entering Harrods from all entrances, many of them are just tourists with no intention of buying anything (just like me) I walked inside and straight away I got that feeling that I shouldn't be there, that it is too much, over rated and just uncomfortably over the top and over priced, I didn't feel like taking pictures of all the bling they sell instead I just walked around trying to find something interesting, my first thought was if the Princess Diana & Dodi Fayed shrine was still there! Harrods was sold recently by its Egyptian owner Mohamed Al-Fayed to the Qatari Royal family and I thought perhaps they removed the shrine (which I have never seen before) but as I was walking in the Egyptian Hall I found the huge shrine surrounded by many tourists taking pictures, obviously the new owners thought it was a good people puller that will bring many more people to the shop.

inside this glass pyramid is the engagement ring that's allegedly was given to Diana by Dodi just before they died!

This is a book of condolences I found on the second floor, notice on the plaque the word "Killed" without any mention of the car crash, Mohamed Al-Fayed is still convinced that Diana & Dodi's accident was organised by the British establishment but that of course was never proved.

When Mohamed Al-Fayed bought Harrods he added the Egyptian Hall which is OK but still looks like a fair ride in a theme park, what he did then is he added many statues dotted near the roof of a sphinx with a man's face, the face is actually modelled on Mohamed Al-Fayed's own face so that you can see him staring at you where ever you walk, what he did after that is he got the Egyptian Hall listed, that means no one would ever be able to change anything, including his face, he left his legacy there for everyone to see, now and in the future.

Al-Fayed staring at you!

By then I was really bored and was really ready to leave, the place was heaving with people from all over the world but the majority I would say were Americans and Gulf Arabs then I remembered that many years ago (about 20 years) I visited the pet department which was full of all sorts of exotic and purebred pets so I looked around and indeed they still had a pet department but with very few animals for sale, you were not allowed to take pictures so I respected the rule and only looked at the fluffy kittens that were for sale at £1000 each! then I went to an enclosure that had 5 white Chihuahua puppies, they looked like white rats but were really cute and full of life, what is the price you might ask! the price was a measly £2,200 each! wow do people actually spend that much money to buy a purebred animal??

At this point I saw some people take pictures so being me, I just took my phone out of my pocket and clicked away, here are a couple in case someone is considering buying a Harrods Chihuahua :o)

Chihuahua anyone?

Well after you buy your precious puppy, what about accessories, clothing, bedding and treats? yes they do have them all, here are some items you might consider buying for your spoilt pet:

Princess pink dog bed

only £399 lol

all the latest in pets fashion!!

Yummy cupcakes, biscuits and birthday cakes, no they are not for humans, these are treats for pets!

I know some people will think that some Europeans value animals more than people and they laugh at them for buying expensive items for their pets, yes many do care about animals and there is nothing wrong with that, most of the stupid items I mentioned up are thankfully only bought by few people, the majority have more sense than fall for this stupid bling, to be honest, to me there is NO difference between an Arab buying a diamond studded mobile phone at £100,000 and a European/British person buying a diamond studded dog collar at £100,000 too, they are both the same, lots of money, no taste and no sense what so ever.

It was time to leave by then and head back to the Libyan consulate, as I arrived about 2:30 a number of Libyan people were waiting for their passports, the receptionist then came with a pile of passports and started handing them, he saw me and said he had my passport, as he was ready to give it to me, he noticed something, a note, he then told me sorry I need to take it back it needs one more stamp by then the nice Libyan lady that works at the visa section came over and gave me Amir's passport with the Visa to enter Libya, I sat down for a while not knowing what is going on until a man from the consulate came out to talk to me, he said that my passport was never renewed and therefore could not be extended and that I need a new passport, I started to get angry by then and told him that I originally applied for a new one and so on... then he said that it might take a week to one month for my passport to be ready, I was shocked I told him that I applied about 3 weeks ago and that because they told me it was going to be ready this after-noon that I payed £65 for Amir's visa, he was actually very nice and understanding, he told me to go upstairs and ask to talk to the consul, I did just that, while I was waiting the same guy came over and asked me to follow him, he took me to the consul who was surprisingly very friendly, I explained the situation to him and he actually was very angry that they refused to add Amir to my passport and that I was made to pay £65 for a visa for my Libyan son to visit his country, he picked up the phone and told them downstairs off and that they had no right to make rules and decisions, he then agreed to renew my passport for another year and asked me to come back as soon as I am back from Libya and promised me a brand new passport he then told me to go downstairs to pick up the £65 I paid, I was very pleased with him, he really did do his job well, unfortunately there are some there that think just because they work in an office then they can make up the rules and do what ever they want, the money was refunded immediately and I left the consulate a happy bunny, all in all it was not a bad experience, I expected a lot worse but there are some really good people there that do try to help. I am still not sure if I will be going to Libya, after a 30 years absence for me this is a major step, if I do go it will have to be soon (in the next week or so) as I want to be back before Ramadan, InshaAllah Khair.

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This morning I received an Email which read:

Dear Anglo-Libyan,

Congratulations! Emma Lee here, and your blog, Anglo Libyan, has received

our 2010 Top 40 Muslim Blogs award!

You can see your name amongst our winners here at:

www.onlinephdprograms.com/top_muslim/#Anglo_Libyan

Winners were chosen through a scoring system led by internet nominations,

which came from your reader base!

I had no idea about the Muslim Blogs Awards, I do not know who voted for me but I am honoured. many thanks to Emma and all that voted me.

SPELBOUND!

2010-06-06T14:00:00.004+01:00

After last week with all the bad news and the upsets, I can only pray that life gets better for everyone in Gaza, yesterday there was a big demonstration in London against the Israeli aggression, I didn't go but some of my friends did, unfortunately in few days time everything will be forgotten as usual and Israel will carry on with its crimes against fellow human beings.

Last night I watched the final of Britain's Got Talent, I didn't pay much attention to it this year but I have seen the winning act during the auditions and I thought they were amazing so it was no surprise that they won the competition, SPELBOUND are very talented and very discipline, their act is breath taking and I am sure they made the whole nation proud:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myWHD0dsaBY

As usual there was a mixture of freaks, untalented people and animals and some that were talented, here are my other favourite acts, Tina & Chandi the dog followed by the wonderful strong voice of Christopher Stone:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TL7NIs_5IY0

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Yesterday Aida was invited to a birthday outing by one of her school friends, it was the first time that Aida went out to central London without any of us, she was accompanied by 7 friends and the mother of the birthday girl. They first went to watch Prince Of Persia at the cinema then went for a party lunch at Planet Hollywood, which she thought was amazing, I myself have never been there but I suppose when our children do things we never have it still feels good, Aida is 11 years old now and is really looking after herself and the way she looks.

2010-05-31T10:04:00.000+01:00

This And That!!

2010-05-17T09:28:00.003+01:00

Where do I start? A lot has been happening but I didn't feel like updating my blog which is a shame since I do like writing my thoughts and what ever!
A day after my last post, my father in law died in Benghazi and we decided again that Aida would accompany her mother while Amir stays with me, it was a quick decision as they had to leave the following morning, luckily it was the beginning of the Easter holiday and the kids were off school for the next 2 weeks, of course as most people know the Ash cloud covered the skies above Britain 2 weeks later and so Aida and her mum could not return and had to stay an extra week in Libya until they managed to fly back.

Aida & her cousin Bushra at Tripoli Airport

Amir did not give me any trouble at all, as last year when we both stayed together, he was as good as gold and really enjoyed being with me, we managed to do few things but the most enjoyable day was when we visited Chessington's World Of Adventures, that was amazing, some of the rides were really scary, something that I used to enjoy a lot but now as I am older they sort of make me dizzy and vomitty but it was worth it just for the screams and laughs that were coming from Amir.

The theme park contains a fully stocked zoo too which was great as I do love animals, the highlight was a naughty little cute gorilla that we just wanted to take home but I think there was more chance of us being locked up there than bringing the baby gorilla home :oS

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Last week we had a general election here in the UK, the result of which probably wasn't what many people wanted but that is democracy at its best, I too voted, a privilege I got from living in this wonderful country where human rights are recognised and respected, I saw a middle age Iraqi woman walking towards the polling station holding her British passport and voting card up with a very proud look on her face, this lady never had the opportunity to vote before but now walked proudly doing what we all should do in a free society, good on her.

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Many of us are still in shock about the tragic Libyan airplane crash that killed so many innocent lives, my condolences to the families of all victims including my brother's in-laws who lost their daughter in this tragedy and the best of luck to the boy survivor Ruben who has captured the world's heart, lets hope the Libyan authorities do the right thing with their investigation and compensate all victims no matter what nationality they were.

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Amir with what must be the biggest Crisp in the world!

Toulouse

2010-04-07T03:25:00.006+01:00

Q:What do you call a Frenchman with 2 toilet seats on his head?

A: Toulouse! (2 Loos)

I know, I know, its an old English joke and its not funny but I had to mention it since it has been in my head ever since I went to Toulouse in France last week for a couple of days.

I knew this silly joke for a long time but I never thought I would actually go there one day!

You see, my closest friend whom I knew since I was a child and who I haven't seen for over 16 years was in Toulouse doing a training course with Air Bus, Air Bus is one of the most popular reasons for people visiting and studying in Toulouse, so when my friend told me he was there, I waited until he successfully finished his course and had few days left so I decided to go and visit him, we have always kept in touch but it was about time to meet again.

That morning I woke up early and drove to Gatwick airport to catch the 6:30 am flight to Toulouse, I only had hand luggage and soon was sitting in the plane waiting for it to fly but sit is what we did as the plane did not move for the next hour, we had many excuses about the luggage truck getting lost and so on! eventually we were on our way. I kept thinking about my friend, we were in our early 30s when we last met, now we are heading towards late 40s, I was wondering what he looked like and how old am I going to look like to him.

One hour and thirty minutes later we landed in Toulouse, I was out in few minutes, looked around the people waiting and there at the end I saw my friend's smiling face, he hadn't changed much but he had no hair left at all, I don't have much hair but compared to him, well there is no comparison :o)

Seeing him brought back many happy memories of when we used to be neighbours and close friends to our studying days in Oxford and so on... seeing him made me realise that I do miss Libya a lot that part of me was still there waiting for me to come back.

Capitol building, equivalent to Town Hall or City Council

After we went to the hotel for a few minutes, we went out for a walk to see the town and have a well deserved coffee, it was still morning and the weather was nice and sunny, the centre of town was small with many beautiful old buildings but not many shops which is good for someone coming from London, of course all around the squares they have many street cafes, something we don't really have in the UK unless you want to breath pollution and have a heart attack!

We had many coffees and many stories to tell each other, that's until he told me that after 6 weeks of hard studying in Toulouse, he did not have any time to buy presents for his wife and children and that the only time to do that was the 2 days I was with him, I didn't mind too much as I thought still we will be together, 2 days later I felt that my feet melted from all the walking we did, I probably walked more in 2 days than what I would do in a year, maybe I should get rid of my car!

One sight I have never seen in the UK although I heard it would be introduced soon, is bicycles for hire attached to coin/credit card machines, you swipe your card, take the bike and then return it to any point where they have bikes for hire, which is all over the city, great idea.

The first day after we went back to the hotel which is an apartment/hotel, they each had a little kitchen and a sitting room in their apartment, we were invited for dinner by one of the Libyan pilots staying there, dinner was Makarona Mbowkha (steamed noodles with lamb and tomato sauce) which was nice but to my horror it was covered with horrible raisins which I hate more than anything, my kids call them rotten grapes and I couldn't agree more, so while trying not to appear rude, I pushed the raisins to one side, we were served a really nice Harissa (North African Chili Sauce) which tasted like home made Harissa, I asked the guy if he made it, he said no, that he bought it from an Algerian shop up the road so I made a note of buying some.

The next day we went to the Algerian shop and got some Harissa, the city is full of North Africans mainly Algerians and Tunisians, just like Paris but unlike Paris most North Africans in Toulouse seemed well dressed and middle class, in the evening many of them would be sitting in the cafes with families and friends looking their best, another thing I noticed most of the French people were very friendly which is completely different from Paris, here even though they do not speak much English they still carried on talking to you in French and tried to to make you understand, nice people.

While walking back from the Algerian shop I noticed certain ladies of the night (except it was early morning) standing at street corners trying to do some trade, the weird thing is that the average age of these ladies was about 65 years old with some well over 70! looking very strange with caked makeup on their faces, strange world!

The rest of the day was spent shopping, shopping and more shopping by the time we were back all I wanted to do was to put my feet up.

That night we had a fine dinning dinner, this is where the food is so well presented that it looks like a picture, even the plates were like triangular tiles! it was OK when it came to taste but really pretty to look at, the dessert was out of this world, I have watched people on TV make chocolate fondant but never actually tried it before, I especially like it when they split the cake and melted chocolate oozes out, so I ordered it and it looked stunning, I am not really into chocolate cakes, I prefer non chocolate but had to try this one, the cake was warm served with a small tub of custard and fresh strawberry and I split it with my spoon and the most delicious melted chocolate came out, it really was heavenly, the other dessert was blocks of chocolate with a tooth pick stuck in them then dipped in batter and fried then served with fruit sauce, it was a bit like Lugmet ElGadi but with warm chocolate inside, it was lovely.

Another common sight in Toulouse is the large amount of tramps walking around the city begging for money yet each single one of them had a huge dog with him, how can they afford to keep the dogs and buy the Alcohol that keeps them drunk all the time!! I felt more sorry for the dogs who seemed bored and miserable, the owners of these dogs above were on the side arguing and shouting at each other while drinking, the poor dogs just huddled together.

Next morning we went for a great breakfast at the hotel, started with pancakes and crepes with honey, followed by a plate of smoked salmon with the most fantastic crunchy crispy French bread that was followed by cheese & mushroom omelet followed by fresh fruit salad of pineapple and lychee with nuts all washed down with fresh orange juice and fresh coffee, I swear I wished my tummy was bigger so that I could eat more lol.

Luckily both my flight back to London and my friend's flight back to Libya were within one hour of each other that after noon, so we went together but I was a bit concerned about the Harissa I bought, I wasn't sure if it would be classed as liquid which is forbidden to carry on hand luggage in British planes (another thanks to Ben Laden for making life more difficult for all of us) I enquired at the check in desk and as I suspected I was told it is classed as liquid and I had 2 choices, either bin the Harissa or pay £20 to check in my small bag, I did just that, I wasn't going to go home with out my Harissa, probably ended up as the most expensive Harissa in the world!

2 hours later I was back in good old London and stuck in a traffic jam driving towards home, at least some things never change, home sweet home.

Did I write all of the above?? Who is going to read all of this???? its 5:30AM !!!!!!

The Circus Comes To Town (Sirte Town)

2010-03-27T10:35:00.010Z

The Arab circus comes to town, Sirte town that is! The same old boring circus sets tent in Libya this time and with no new acts, just the same old acts, the same old clowns and performers have gathered again, the same circus that was deemed a failure even before it arrived, no one is expecting anything new or useful, just the same hot air over and over again even though they know that the costs will run in the hundreds of millions of pounds but that is OK as long as it keeps the old clowns happy.
As usual ordinary Arab people have no say in the matter, if it was up to them then they would happily cancel the performance and contribute all that money to help poor children all over the world, help the suffering children of Gaza and their families but instead we will have a lot of leaders condemning Israel for its crimes against the Palestinians yet those leaders are as guilty as the Israelis for they talk but do not take action, they sit on their puffed up armchairs eat, drink and watch fat dancers performing for them with no care in the world.

Channel 4 recently showed a documentary called "The Children Of Gaza" it was a pleasure to watch and very powerful, anyone with a bit of humanity in them would be moved by the plight of these brave children.
you can watch the documentary on this link:

http://www.archive.org/details/ChildrenOfGaza

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This is a new version of the famous song IMAGINE, this version comes from the US TV show Glee, it is sung by a group of deaf teenagers accompanied by the cast, watch until the end, it really is beautiful:

Alice & Sophie!

2010-03-19T10:11:00.000Z

I have received a "friendly warning" to update my blog from the newly formed LBMB so I thought I better update before the warnings become not so friendly lol .

The kids have been waiting to watch the new Alice In Wonderland film since they saw the trailers a while ago, I too wanted to watch it as it seemed good fun 3D film and what a delight it was! the effects were amazing, we all liked the red queen best, played by the talented Helena Bonham Carter, she had a huge head which made her character really funny and Johnny Depp was wonderful as the mad hatter, highly recommended especially if you watch the 3D version.

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I have been enjoying a newish column on The Tripoli Post by Sophie McBain called Tripoli Diaries, this is how its described:

“In the Tripoli Post's new weekly column, Sophie McBain explores the ins and outs of expat life in Libya's capital city.”

So far Sophie has written 9 articles about life in Tripoli and its not about expats only, read the diaries and I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

Greed!!!!

2010-03-03T11:45:00.017Z

Staying on the subject of weddings, these are pictures from a mass wedding in the USA, the company that organised the wedding told the happy couples that they hid presents inside the huge wedding cake including one cheques to the value of $50,000, the idea was that when the married couple cut the cake, each might find a present which could be that nice fat cheques!

But what happened shows how greedy humans can be, the ladies as soon as they heard about the cheques, the forgot about their husbands and forgot about their beautiful white wedding dresses and attacked the huge cake just to find that cheque:

These ladies found some presents but clearly they are not happy!

The winner with the $50,000 cheque, I wonder if she dumped her husband!

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One more picture

It seems somebody forgot to take his hat off inside the mosque lol :o)

Big Fat Gypsy Weddings.....

2010-02-22T12:32:00.005Z

My favourite programs on TV are usually reality TV programs so when I saw an advert about gypsy weddings in the UK I thought that sounded interesting and so I watched it when it was on and it really was an amazing program.

Most people including British people know very little about the gypsies which in turn are a private community that do not mix a lot with everyone else, here in the UK there are 2 types or groups of gypsies, the Romani Gypsies and the Travellers which originally came from Ireland but have been here for many generations, the program I watched was about the Travellers community which still holds a very strong Irish accent even though they have been here for so long which can only mean that they do keep together and hardly mix with the rest of us.

Most people think of Gypsies as low class people with no morals what so ever, to be honest some gypsies are to blame for this bad reputation but in general good and bad are in every community, this program showed a rare insight into the Traveller community, it showed the prejudice they sometimes encounter but one thing for sure, it showed that when it comes to glitter, tack and over the top taste they are by far the best.

Someone on the program said that she never met any group of people with a higher moral values than the gypsies, obviously she hadn't met many people but there is some truth to what she said, even though the program showed many teenage gypsy girls dressed in very skimpy clothes that barely covered them yet this was their way of attracting men, according to gypsy moral laws, girls are not allowed to have a boyfriend and therefore end up getting married at a very young age usually before their 18th birthday and until then they live at their parents house and are not allowed to sleep with men out of wedding lock, that was something I never knew and they seem to believe strongly in it.

Most gypsy girls start saving for their wedding at a very young age and they have this obsession about the size of their wedding dresses, the bigger the better, the size of these dresses are amazing and unlike anything I have ever seen in my life, some of the dresses weight about 170 KG! yes!! in fact the dress maker said most girls end up with permanent scars on their hips due to the massive weight of their dresses yet they will not go for anything else! it was very weird seeing them trying to get into their wedding carriages with these dresses.

The weddings and clothes are out of this world, talk about tacky but that is the way they like it, not every ones idea of a perfect wedding but each to their own....

These videos show some clips of the program, if you can get the full program then do watch it, very strange and an eye opener:

Here is a link to another short clip

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2XuqGS1fm8

The full program can be watched her but I am not sure if it is available outside of the UK

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXrEyWIX-rw

The Israeli / Arab Food War.....

2010-02-15T13:50:00.005Z

Many have heard or read about the Israeli / Arab food war, this began when Israel decided that some popular Middle Eastern dishes are Israeli dishes and they went as far as calling them Israeli traditional food ignoring the fact that some of these dishes have been served in the Middle East for many centuries.

In the news in recent months they reported about the biggest Humus and Tabouleh dishes prepared by Lebanese chefs to enter the Guinness World Of Records and to be registered as Lebanese traditional food dishes and not Israeli, as far as I remember Lebanon succeeded in their bid.

While I understand that many Jews that lived in Arab/Middle Eastern countries may have taken with them these dishes when they immigrated to Israel but I do not think that this changes the identity of the food too!

In Libya there are food dishes that were associated with the Libyan Jewish community such as Haraimi but at the end this is a Libyan dish and not Israeli so can you imagine my surprise when I discovered that the Israeli/Arab food war has actually reached Libya!

The following pictures are from a flight magazine where they had an article about Israeli food, the article lists some "Popular Israeli Dishes" that are all very traditional Arab dishes including Schawarma and Falafel but wait for it: SHAKSHUKA! yes our very own Libyan Shakshuka has become a Popular Israeli Dish!!

click on picture for a bigger view

The article to be fair, did mention that Libyan Jews brought this dish to Israel when they immigrated yet still its listed under popular Israeli dishes, I wonder where else the fact that this is a Libyan dish is listed! soon it will become as a traditional Israeli dish as they have claimed Humus, Tabouleh and Falafel are.

Here is what the article says:

This ultra basic combination of eggs, tomatoes, garlic and spices cooked over high heat arrived in Israel from Libya in the 1950s. Originally a staple of the urban lower classes, today shakshuka can be found nationwide and has become a true culinary icon.

Blue Eye Syndrome

2010-02-09T10:57:00.006Z

It has been a long time since I blogged, I am not sure why! but this is life, at times you just do not feel like doing certain things, I am not sure if this means I will be blogging normally but here it goes....

I meant to write about this experience for sometime but kept postponing it, this happened on my way back from a trip to Egypt although what happened is not only exclusive to Egypt, I had sort of similar experiences in other countries such as Tunisia and Jordan and always with their customs people but not the general population.

I was standing at the front of the que to board the plane coming back to London, there was another que for fast boarding this is where people pay extra to be boarded first, so my que we were waiting to be told we can board, there was a British (white) man standing in front of me, a customs officer then came over and said we can board, he checked the passport of the guy in front of me and told him to proceed, he then did the same with me, as I walked forward I saw other custom men talk to the guy in front of me, they told him that they have not started boarding other passengers yet and only fast boarding were allowed in, he told them that their colleague said he can go but no problem and stood there then I came forward and instead of telling the same politely just as they did with the other passenger, they actually started shouting at me, about 4 or 5 people just shouting at me that I can not board the plane like if I was a stupid person pushing in, everyone looked at me and I was so embarrassed that I thought no I am not going to let them do that to me, I started shouting back at them and told them why are you shouting at me? I am not pushing and that they should talk to their colleague who told me to go, they became very rude to me and their colleague who was shaking now because he knew he made a mistake suddenly told them in Arabic that I pushed my passport to him and forced him to let me in! then one of them who is just an employee at the check in desk tried to show off and to scare me, he said that I am not allowed to board the plane and that they will cancel my ticket, I told him to go and play away from me that he had no authority to do anything like that, I lived most of my life in a democratic free country that respects its citizens and that I am not scared of of nonsense like that, then the guy in front of me who is British and white and more of a man than all of them put together said to them that they had no right to shout at me and threaten me because it means he has to face the same threat, guess what???? they told him that he did not do anything wrong and he is free to board the plane! the problem was me pushing to board, he reminded them that he was in front of me but that they treated him differently, this fell on silent ears, he actually refused to board the plane and stood by me, I told him in Arabic we call this The Blue Eye Syndrome, which means if you are white then you are right but if you are dark then you can not be right!! he told me that he heard of such thing but thought it was a myth until now, he stood there listening to them threatening to rip my ticket and lock me up while I continued to tell them to stop talking rubbish and that I would only talk to their superior.

Eventually their superior came over and asked what was going on, straight away they told him that I spoke Arabic and pulled him to the side and started whispering in his ear, then I shouted to them and said be honest, do not lie like you have been doing for the last 15 minutes. Their boss came over to me few minutes later and actually was descent and polite, he asked me about what happened, before I said anything the other guy said to him that he was at the top of the que and basically told him the truth, I then gave my side of the story and since the brave British man supported me to him there was no doubt that they treated me badly, he apologised and told me to board the plane and asked me if I had any problem or a complaint, I said yes I do have a big problem with the way they treated me which obviously was because I am of an Arabic origin but that I just wanted to get back home to London where I am always respected for who I am and that I didn't want to delay the passengers any more.

I thanked the gentleman who stood by me just because he saw how badly they treated me, they made a fool of themselves in front of all the passengers and I was proud of myself for not letting little people think they can control me and scare me with their dictator attitude.

Again as I mentioned before this seems to happen to a lot people that hold European/USA passports but are not of white origin and happens all over our so called not racist Arab world, if this attitude continuous then obviously Arab countries still have a very long way before they are even half civilised.

Seasons Greetings....

2009-12-24T19:22:00.006Z

Wishing all people that celebrate it a Happy & Peaceful Christmas

Just come back from the supermarket which was like a mad house, crowds of people buying anything and everything even though supermarkets are only closed for one day which is tomorrow Christmas day, I suppose people are the same everywhere when ever the thought of no shops open then they have to stock up!

The fact that Britain is going through a recession did not put people off shopping actually the truth is that I haven't seen better prices for a long time, there are many discounts and offers to entice people to buy, sales have started already in many shops and many goods are affordable, bless Britain a country that knows how to look after its people a lesson to many countries out there that have no respect what so ever to their own people.

Here is the fabulous voice of Fairouz singing the Arabic version of "Silent Night":

Yes Eid......No Eid!!

2009-11-27T08:29:00.006Z

After days of confusion in Libya about which day to celebrate Eid, the authorities did not disappoint! they took the ridiculous decision of deciding that Eid is on Thursday 26/11 while the whole world celebrates Eid today 27/11.

As far as I know most Libyans ignored the Libyan decision and are celebrating Eid today, any way my family are having their Eid today, many people in Libya showed their frustration by making a lot jokes about Eid... is this enough? are people in Libya so used to being controlled that they will do nothing!! have they not had enough.......

Eid Mubarak to all Muslims and Allah bless Libya and her People

Wedding Wish

2009-11-18T09:47:00.007Z

My younger brother got married in Tripoli 2 days ago, I thought long and hard about going back to attend the wedding but it didn't happen, the children wanted to go too but they had school and it is not easy to take time off school here, we all felt a bit upset that we couldn't be with the family at this happy occasion, I wish my brother and his wife the best inshaAllah.
Sometimes I think that if going back to Libya for a short visit was straight forward then I would do it but I am worried about the delays and obstacles that might be thrown at me while there which could keep me stuck in the country for weeks when I really need to get back here and be with my family, I have friends from other countries that go back and forward between the UK and their country of origin with no questions asked and can stay for as long or as short as they want, perhaps when this is what it would be like in Libya then I will take the big step and go back for a short visit.

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Remember Susan Boyle? I wrote about this talented lady here, after disappearing for months, she has made a come back and is releasing an album next week titled I Dreamed A Dream, which is the song that made her the most famous woman on earth over night.
Here is Susan singing at her best "I dreamed a dream" a week ago at the Dancing with the Stars TV program:

Here is the link if video does not work: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C8xCDzEdr4

Digital Photography

2009-11-11T16:55:00.006Z

I have just bought one of these Digital Photo Frames, the kids have been asking me for a while to get one, I am not sure if everyone is like me but since digital cameras came out it seems we print less photos than when we used to have normal cameras with films (that seems like a very long time ago!) now computers and camera phones are jammed full with pictures that we seem to forget about, I downloaded 100s of photos into the new digital frame but after few minutes of viewing them I got really bored, I might be old fashioned but you cant beat proper printed photographs, viewing them on computers and these digital photo frames is just not the same, photos seem like they have lost their magic, technology isn't always that great or maybe my age is catching up with me and I am becoming an old boring man!

Get Stuffed!!

2009-10-25T10:38:00.000Z

In a area in north London called Angel, I usually drive by a weird shop that sells or hires stuffed animals! its a grubby shop and usually when driving by I can spot large animals inside such as ostrich and zebra, the other day as I was driving by, Amir my son spotted the shop and asked me if we can stop and have a look so I thought why not, I too always wanted to have a look and this was my chance, we parked the car and walked over to the shop but unfortunately it was closed, I am not sure if it is closed for good or just for the day, the shutters were down which made looking inside the shop and taking pictures difficult but still we managed to spot many animals inside and just about managed to take few photos through the shutters, that is why pictures are not clear, they had a sign saying no photography was allowed but there was no one there to stop me!

(Click on pictures for a bigger view)

in this picture there is a lion and a hippo's head!

Unsurprisingly the name of this is... yes you guessed it right:

Taxidermy (stuffing animals) must be a dying tradition and the truth is that these animals do look quite freaky and there is no way that I would put one in my house, I think this shop mainly hire their animals as props for movies and shows and so on......

Staying on the subject of stuffed animals, yesterday (Saturday) I took the kids to the Natural History Museum we travelled by train which added fun to the day, the museum was very busy being a Saturday and school's half term holiday, there was a long Que outside and once we were inside, the place was jammed even though we got there early, we only managed to go through half of the museum in 3 hours, it has been many years since I went there and it had changed a lot, the most popular exhibit was the Dinosaurs area but there was a Que of few hundred people trying to get in, by then we were tired and the kids didn't want to stand in the Que so we gave it a miss, hopefully we will come back another time when its quieter.

The last of the Dodo which has been extinct for hundreds of years

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The X Factor which has taken over British TV as it does every year at this time is in full swing, from what I have watched so far there aren't many talents this year but I do like 2 girls that seem to be talented and do have a good voice, one of them is Lucy Jones who comes from Wales, she has given good performances so far and I think she has a chance of winning the x factor this year, here she is singing My Funny Valentine on last night's show, very classy:

Here is the link to the song in case the above video does not work

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kblg2qV9Vmo

Halal Food!!

2009-10-14T09:47:00.006+01:00

Halal food is becoming more and more the norm in London, where ever you go there are shops and restaurants selling halal food, even most primary schools now offer only halal food as standard and it is becoming acceptable by most people, in fact many people I know have admitted that they do prefer the taste of halal meat and appreciate the fact that it doesn't contain blood.
Many well known food outlets now offer halal branches, halal Nando's and Subway are every where in London, I actually think that the halal branches are more than non halal branches and I think it wont be long before most places here will offer halal food.
On the other hand I myself do occasionally go to some fast food restaurants for a non-halal burger like the Angus burger at Burger King which is not available in a halal version and I believe since Britain is officially a Christian country then we have a licence to say Besmellah (in the name of Allah) and eat non halal meat, many years ago I was at some one's house and one of London's highest Islamic clerics was there, I asked him if it was OK to eat non halal food, he told me that while preference is for halal food that if I fancy something that wasn't available as halal then I should go ahead and eat it and that's what I do sometimes, it is common sense, for example in an area called Wood Green in London there are 2 Subway restaurants within 100 meters of each other, one is halal the other is not, in this case I wouldn't go to the non halal Subway when the other one is only few minutes away.

So the other day I had a discussion with friends who weren't convinced that I should eat non halal food and they thought I should only stick to halal food and so on...
The day after I was in a busy high street here in London, at lunch time I felt hungry and fancied a burger at Burger King, as I was walking towards the restaurant I noticed this new hut selling burgers and hot dogs, all food was advertised as Halal, it looked clean so I thought I will try it, I went there and saw a man inside cooking burgers on a hot plate, I stood there trying to get his attention but instead of serving me he was looking at a girl who was wearing a muffin top, he kept whistling at her and doing funny things with his eyes with no respect for me what so ever, he looked north African and was young enough to be my son, I thought to myself this is not going well but kept myself calm and waited for him to serve me, eventually he turned to me and asked what I wanted! since it has been many years since I had hot dog, I ordered a hot dog even though I wasn't sure if I really wanted it, he put the hot dog in a bun and I told him to put some mustard on it, by then a friend of his passed and they both spoke in Arabic/Algerian, as he handed me the hot dog an old English lady came over and ordered something, I paid him and walked off. I took a bite of the hot dog and it was stone cold and really disgusting, I got angry but still kept calm and thought no I am not going to let it go, I walked back to the hut and spoke to the guy in Arabic so to be discreet, I told him the food was cold, he became angry and started shouting so I said to him, listen I am speaking to you in Arabic so that I don't put off your customers, by then there was a Que of about 6 or 7 people and told him to taste the food that it was stone cold but no he wouldn't accept it and kept shouting and saying his food is good and that I was nasty to him and so on that's when I told him that perhaps if he wasn't ogling the girl and paid attention to cooking then his food would be hot (still speaking in Arabic to him) he continued shouting back in English and said he didn't want my custom so I said in English, fine just give me back my money which he did while swearing at me, that's when I really had enough of him, I turned to the people queuing and told them not to buy anything from him that his food was cold and disgusting and that is why I got my money back, they all looked at me and walked off so fast! he went mad and was screaming abuse at me in the middle of a busy high street, I smiled at him and walked away, I don't think someone like him would become successful, he had no customer service or any manners, me! I went to Burger King for a well deserved Angus Burger, Yum...

Staying on the subject of food, here is a channel on Youtube about Libyan Cooking, they are posted By Libyan Jews living in Italy and Libyan recipes from Italian TV (La cucina tripolina) cooked mainly by old Libyan Jewish ladies, very interesting to watch, here is a video about cooking Libya's national dish: BAZIN

Queen Fatima of Libya

2009-10-03T17:55:00.014+01:00

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

"كُلُّ نَفْسٍ ذَائِقَةُ الْمَوْتِ ثُمَّ إِلَيْنَا تُرْجَعُونَ

"صدق الله العظيم

It is with great regret to read the news of the passing away of Queen Fatima Al-Shifa Al-Sinousi, wife of Libya's late King Idris Al-Sinousi.

Queen Fatima died today in a hospital in Cairo after she fell ill last month, Queen Fatima was born in 1911 and left Libya in 1969 with her husband the King, they both never returned back to their beloved Libya.

Queen Fatima is to be buried in Medina in Saudi Arabia.

Here is a link of a post I did about her which includes rare pictures of a lady that shunned the lime light and lived her life quietly in Egypt refusing to get into any media interviews or comments, she had a dignified life, an elegant beautiful lady that was never to see Libya again.

A friend of mine left this comment on my facebook which I think says it all:

"I feel today that a page of our history has been turned for good. A nice and a clean one, representing all the hopes we had for our country and the future ...رحم الله الملكة فاطمة و اسكنها فسيح جناته "

above picture taken from: Libya Al-Mostakbal

إنا لله وإنا إليه راجعون

Libyan Slap Up Meal

2009-10-02T08:59:00.006+01:00

Salam, long time no see :o)

I have been away from the blog world for a while as I had some issues to deal with, I am not sure if I will continue to blog the same way I used to but we will see.....

It has not been long since Ramadan finished and we all celebrated Eid, I actually have a rant about Libyan Ramadan here in the UK which I know some people wouldn't like but still I have to say my piece, most Muslim communities in the UK celebrate Ramadan by doing the occasional Iftar (Ramadan dinner) for their community where families and single people gather together in a hall, restaurant, hotel or even a mosque, usually a selection of their national dishes are served and it can be very enjoyable if done correctly, now I know that the Libyan community here is not well off but there are other communities that are lets say, a lot poorer, I myself over the years have been to other Arab/Muslim community Iftars and they were usually simple but clean and well organised, after all here in the UK they cater for all pockets, you can actually organise a decent clean hygienic dinner for very little money which brings me to the Libyan community Iftars, one of the official Iftars held in Ramadan was advertised on the Internet and Libyan families were invited to attend, I didn't attend this one but have been to similar ones few times, the advertised Iftar I mentioned was attended by many Libyans, they even posted pictures on the Internet but is it just me or was that not right!!

people were served food straight from the cooking pot as you can see from the picture, believe me this is normal! it really does look like a slap up meal served in prison, I have even seen people serve French bread tucked under their arms (remember they work in hot kitchens and might be a bit sweaty!) then when they arrive at your table they break the bread with their hands and just pile it on top of the tables that have no dishes or even table cloths, some of these tables have old encrusted food stains that even Bacteria wouldn't like, how is that for hygiene? and if you dare mention anything you would just get: eat man its not going to kill you!

A friend of mine who lives in London but travels a lot to Libya told me that it is nothing like that there, that food events are well organised and clean and that the Libyan community here need to move on, I am not sure why we are not trying to improve our standards here, I only see this with Libyan community, of course I am not saying everyone is like that but it does seem to be the norm with most, maybe we should look at other Muslim communities here that are lees fortunate than us yet they got it right, we can learn a lot from them.

Looking at the picture again, I bet the UK hasn't seen anything like this since Victorian times!

Market Shopping....

2009-08-25T10:25:00.003+01:00

Yesterday I went to Ridley Road market for some vegetable and fruit shopping, another reason for going there is usually the excellent Turkish supermarket at the end of the road where you can almost always find clean mumbar (Masareen) for sale although I didn't buy any this time, this is a strange market, it is full of all sorts of nationalities, Asians Arabs Turks and a lot of Africans, a lot of African produce is sold there all sorts of weird looking veg, the butchers sell tripe, lamb heads and a lot of feet! cows lambs pigs legs and other parts too plus many fish stalls too so you can imagine what the smell is like, very stinky! usually when walking there I have to lift my trousers up a bit since the ground is wet with fishy water!

apparently the police raid this market from time to time because bush meat was found for sale there (illegally) bush meat is Monkey meat mainly, imported from Africa in dry form (like Gedeed) then sold illegally under the counter to certain customers.

The fruits and vegetables are usually quite good and it has to be the cheapest place in London to buy Mangos and other exotic fruits.

Most of the stalls are run by down to earth white English people, some are run by Asians and Africans. as you enter the market the first stall on your left is the one I like best, they have great variety of fruits and is always busy, the English lady working there was asking everyone if they were fasting, if they said no she said shame, if they said yes she would have a big smile on her face and says, good that you are fasting means you will be buying a lot of stuff from me and she was right, Muslims were buying her lovely fruits non stop, I got some too.

By the time I finished shopping, I was carrying about 10 heavy carrier bags full of fruits vegetables and cakes, Turkish bread, Kunafa dough and lots of nice and wonderful things from the Turkish shop, it was a struggle to walk back to the car but worth it since the kids loved everything.

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Here is something that might make you smile, I think its from Algerian TV, I thought it was very funny when I first saw it at a Friend's Face Book :o)

Fatwa Du Ramadan!

Hero Or Mass Murderer?

2009-08-21T09:14:00.004+01:00

Wishing everyone a blissful and happy Ramadan, here Ramadan starts tomorrow and as usual Libya starts Ramadan a day earlier and insists they are right and everyone else got it wrong!

Ramadan Mubarak

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A Hero or Mass Murderer?

Al-Megrahi returned yesterday to Libya, I too was hoping his return to Libya would be a low key event but he was received as a hero!
I do not know if he is guilty of this horrible crime but this man was convicted of killing 270 innocent civilians yet the Libyan authorities showed how distasteful they are at a time when the victim's families were watching in pain, to most of them this is not acceptable.
Al-Megrahi protested his innocence for 10 years then few days ago he dropped his appeal and therefore accepted his guilt, I know he is ill and dying but if he is innocent he should have stuck to his appeal to the end, his family were never prevented from visiting him or even living near by. at the end of the day whether he did this crime or not, Al-Megrahi was working for the Libyan intelligence and I do know from people that worked for Libyan Airlines in the 1980s that he was feared and was involved in many nasty acts against Libyans, this does not make him into a hero, what about the thousands of Libyans that died just because they cried freedom, people like Al-Jahmi and the hundreds that were killed in Bu Sleem prison and many others... they were the real heroes.
The Scottish government did take a courageous step by releasing Al-Megrahi to spend his last days with his family, whether they did it for compassionate reasons or purely for business is for you to decide.

If he was innocent, he should have stayed and died fighting to clear his name and the Libyan authorities have embarrassed themselves yet again

Wives Of Kings & Presidents!

2009-07-26T14:14:00.005+01:00

Salam, it has a been a while since I blogged which was due to spending sometime with the family and loosing the blogging bug a bit!

A good friend has sent me a funny Email which I thought I would share with you, the Email was in Arabic but I have translated it to English to the best of my knowledge, hope you enjoy:

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Wives of Kings and Presidents

Sheikha Moza, wife of the Amir of Qatar

Glum!

Princess Haya, wife of the ruler of Dubai

He really chose well

Wife of the Algerian President
They suit each other!

Queen Lalla Salma, wife of the King of Morocco
Why so angry?

Safiya, wife of President of Libya

And people wonder why he is so confused!!

Queen Rania, wife of the king of Jordon

Just great

Susan, wife of the President of Egypt

So cool!

Wife of the President of Sudan
What's up Man?

Asma, wife of the President of Syria
She doesn't look Syrian!

Laila, wife of the President of Tunisia

Wow!

Suha, wife of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat

What did she see in him!!

And finally, the prettiest Queen voted for the year 2008 (and I could not agree more)

Her Majesty, Queen Mobutu Sisi Kuku, Queen of Congo Brazzaville
I think she looks very sweet :o)

An Evening At A Libyan Do.....

2009-07-06T16:00:00.000+01:00

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!

2009-06-26T16:45:00.004+01:00

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

2009-06-21T17:55:00.004+01:00

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!

2009-06-17T18:59:00.000+01:00

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....

2009-06-08T10:36:00.001+01:00

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....

2009-06-03T09:30:00.000+01:00

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!

2009-05-30T22:17:00.003+01:00

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!

2009-05-24T22:16:00.001+01:00

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!

2009-05-21T11:34:00.008+01:00

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!!

2009-05-18T12:30:00.000+01:00

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

2009-05-15T19:55:00.002+01:00

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...

2009-05-11T09:15:00.007+01:00

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!

2009-05-08T17:28:00.006+01:00

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

2009-05-04T17:27:00.008+01:00

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!

2009-04-30T13:10:00.006+01:00

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....

2009-04-26T14:03:00.008+01:00

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:

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

The aims of this award:

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.

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!

2009-04-20T11:06:00.009+01:00

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!

2009-04-15T09:55:00.003+01:00

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...

2009-04-12T12:00:00.003+01:00

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!!

2009-04-09T18:49:00.012+01:00

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.

Respecting Women

2009-04-05T18:30:00.000+01:00

When I wrote my lost post "Autumn Thunder" there was an issue I wanted to write about but I was not sure if I should, anyway it had nothing to do with the event it self but with mainly the Libyan community in London, as I walked in the hotel I found most of the invited people standing outside the hall where the film was going to be screened as the doors were still closed, I noticed very few ladies there, they were standing with their partners, about 20 minutes later I saw a member of staff open one of the hall's doors slightly then suddenly from no where I saw a group of Libyan ladies, about 15 or 20 run past us and straight into the whole, it really was like a flash then the member of staff closed the door, obviously they were hidden somewhere out of sight until some body asked the organisers to open the door for them to keep them away from prying male Libyan eyes!!!! after the doors were open for the rest of us to go in the event hall, the first thing I noticed was how all the ladies were seated right at the back all in one group in a segregated section, I immediately looked at the few ladies I saw in the beginning who were standing with their partners, they all looked puzzled and confused, I am sure they wanted to sit with their families but eventually decided to segregate from their families and sat at back with the other ladies and they really did not look very happy, if you check the pictures of the same event that took place in Washington DC and in Oslo you will notice that Libyan ladies attended both of these events too but rightly they sat with their families as full members of the Libyan community, they were not herded and hidden at the back as if they were something to be ashamed of, I myself did not take my family as they had to attend Arabic school on that day and did not have time to come to this event but if they did attend I was not going to let them sit away from me, most of the ladies there were young, probably did not know much about Libya, so wouldn't it have been better if they sat with their fathers or husbands who would have explained things to them especially that the film was full of old historical facts!! by letting them all sit together at the back they had no chance of asking any one if they had a question and to be honest I do find things like that a bit insulting, this was not a social event, it was an educational respectable event full of respectable people, we were not there to ogle women and make a pass at them, after all these same ladies go to mixed schools and colleges, they use mixed transport and do their shopping in mixed stores, the silly thing is that who ever decided that women are to sit at the back probably thought it was best to not draw any attention to them, they did the exact opposite, the only lady I saw sitting with everyone else was European.

They got it right in Washington DC and in Oslo but in London, well as usual we got it wrong, no surprise there!

I know some people will not like what I wrote but I meant it in the best most tasteful way, it has nothing to do with being a westerner or modern but all to do with respecting our Libyan ladies and accepting their place along side their brothers, fathers, husbands and sons, that is not wrong.

Autumn Thunder

2009-03-22T09:14:00.007Z

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

2009-03-18T13:52:00.004Z

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!!

2009-03-09T14:20:00.005Z

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!!

2009-03-05T09:15:00.000Z

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)

Father & Son...

2009-02-11T13:48:00.003Z

Aida and her mum are in Libya since Sunday due to the death of a close relative of my wife, it was a rush decision, we decided that Aida should go with her to keep her company, so we took a week off her school and next week is half term anyway, they will be away for 2 weeks.

Amir, my lovely little boy is staying with me, he did ask why he was not going to Libya and I told him that they were going to attend a funeral which means a sad event not a holiday, he accepted that and actually was happy to stay with me.

I was a bit worried that he might get upset, especially that he has to go to school while his sister is away, he actually exceeded my expectations of him, MashaAllah, I know it has been only 4 days but he has been so good that I can not describe it, I am enjoying my time with him, I even started playing games on the Wii console with him, something I have never done before as I am really rubbish at video games and tend not to play them, of course he is showing me what to do and how to do it, how do kids learn all these complicated moves?? I am still rubbish at games but he is teaching me.

He had a treat on Sunday when we went to watch Bolt in 3D, it was funny and the graphics were really amazing.

My only problem with him is actually food, I am a bad cook and can hardly cook anything so it has been lots of takeaways which is getting boring, maybe I should try and make something but what if he doesn't eat it :o)

All I can say is Allah bless Amir, he has been as good as gold and he is filling my life with his wicked jokes, laughter, energy and noise, lovely :o)

Museum Of Childhood, London.

2009-02-05T14:36:00.001Z

Last Sunday Amir stayed with me while mum and Aida went shopping with friends, it was a freezing day and I thought I would take Amir and visit the Museum Of Childhood in east London, we got there early as it was filling up, the museum is housed in a huge beautiful building and exhibits toys that children played with hundreds of years ago to this day.

Old Rocking Horses (all exhibits are behind glass, that's why the pictures are a bit fuzzy)

Amir looking at Star wars figures

Cinderella and the ugly sisters, I thought they all looked scary and freaky!

Great Dr. Who toys

more freaky dolls

the little Chinese doll was the cutest in there

an Original Golliwog doll, of course the term Golliwog is now considered a racist name as it is understandably offensive to black people yet in the museum they used the original name to describe the doll, here is how Carol Thatcher got into trouble recently for using this name

The ultimate doll house, every little girl's dream

Raleigh Chopper bicycle, every boy's dream in my time, sadly I never got one :o(

Great rocking horses for children to play on

This poster had little stories in many languages, in the middle right section there something written in Arabic about Ali Baba.

Old board games

this is a bit embarrassing for people of certain age! that's what us boys wore in the 70s, how awful lol

these are the 2 dresses worn by the 2 young girls you see in the painting following this picture (1933)

Beautiful old baby furniture, that potty looks like a throne

The museum was fun with lots of exhibits and things to do, they had many interactive games and gadgets for kids and adults to try but with all the high tech toys and video games available for children these days, the activities in the museum were not that exiting for the children.

There was a large number of English people visiting the museum, many of them were this sort of new age environment concise people that like to think of themselves as middle class, you can usually spot them out because their kids tend to dress in horrible second hand bought clothes and sometimes they ride wooden bicycles yet they are well off!!

as on other occasions, I find most of these people very rude and full of crap, their children were rude to each other, they were very rude to Amir on many occasions right in front of their parents who did not do anything about it, in fact some parents encouraged their kids to be rude by letting them push other kids and take over the toys that were there for all to play with, Amir is a very peaceful boy and did not want to get in trouble with anyone, unlike me, I usually end up arguing and making a fuss over things like that, however on this occasion I did not want to upset Amir who didn't like arguments and had to swallow my tongue and move over but not before giving a tongue lashing to few people, as for the mother who let her daughter push Amir when he tried to get on the rocking horse and encouraged her to do so, I did nothing except call them trash and then when Amir finally got on the horse and the same girl came back for more, we did make her wait and wait a long time. middle class!! middle class my foot! what a joke, they need to learn manners before they try to even pretend they are better than any one else, now I feel better that I got this out of my system :o)

On the other hand, the majority of people there English or otherwise were nice people that treated everyone with respect.

The Big Freeze!

2009-02-02T14:05:00.006Z

They have been waning us for 2 days that arctic weather was moving in from Russia and that it was going to snow heavily, yesterday was a very cold day, by night it strated to snow.

This is what the cars looked like last night

This morning at about 7am, the street completely covered in snow

Yet again it seems London got caught by surprise, strange since a weather warning was issues 2 days ago! many people are angry here that everything came to a stand still just because of heavy snow, well it certainly was a happy day for kids in London, all schools shut down and they got to play in the snow.

Transport was heavily affected, all of London's buses were cancelled, train service almost at a stop and hardly anyone driving, how a city as big and as important as London become so afftected!!

I took Amir to the park and some of the neighbours were there too, they all had a great time snow ball fighting and making snow men, everybody loves the snow.

Amir made this little cute snow man and put a hat on it

Amir with his creation, seconds before he smashed it to bits with his plastic Narnia sword

It is about 2pm at the moment and it is still snowing heavily, not sure if things are back to normal tomorrow or not?? it really can be just like a third world country here sometimes!

Friends & The DEC...

2009-01-27T18:37:00.002Z

Who said the Internet was no good? it sure has many good sides one of which is finding long lost friends and relatives.

2 weeks ago when I was searching Facebook I found a name that seemed familiar so I sent the guy a message:

Hello xxx
are you my cousin?
my mother is xxxx.

Few days later I got this reply:

Yes, I am your cousin.
How did you find me? I just talked to my mom to ask about you and she says hi and sends you her regards.

These relatives moved to the USA nearly 30 years ago and we have lost contact with them, my mother would sure be happy to hear this news :o)

AS if that wasn't enough, I got a message from this Libyan lady that lives in the USA too asking me if I was THE Nasser that is the son of Aunt Aida! instantly I recognised her as our neighbours daughter that I have not seen since 1980 when she was still a young girl, we exchanged messages and updated each other with what has happened in our lives since, afterwards I was left with a good, some times sad feeling with lots of good memories playing in my mind.

Although I was never a fan of facebook as I find it quite childish at the best of times and mainly use it to keep in touch with some people but these recent events made me use it more than usual and now I feel facebook does have a good side :o)

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The DEC Gaza appeal banned from broadcasting by the BBC and Sky has been broadcast by other British channels as from today . while there is no surprise that Sky banned it as it is and always has been a supporter and a mouth piece for Israel, on the other hand the BBC used to be proud of being impartial and trying to tell the truth, by refusing to show an appeal which is aimed at helping the civilians in Gaza shows that the BBC is playing in the hands of Israel just like Sky and as for the excuse that the money raised by the appeal might by hijacked by Hamas, well the people running the DEC appeal thought was a ridiculous excuse as they themselves know how and where to distribute the money and they stressed on the point that they are a reputable organization and they assured everyone that the money raised will go to the suffering people of Gaza, the British people have always donated to the needy and they will continue to do so even when some big suits try to stop them by their form of dictatorship.

Here is the appeal as seen by the British public:

Please help them if you can, God bless you

Feeling Vomitty!!

2009-01-22T12:16:00.001Z

Few days ago I became yet another victim to the Norovirus or what is commonly called as the vomiting bug! Man talk about feeling vomitty! it lasted for about 2 days, the problem is that sometimes you need to do things but the nausea goes with you everywhere, I even had to take a plastic bag with me in the car just in case. although when you are that sick you hardly eat anything, mainly fluids yet the vomit keeps coming, no idea where from and just makes you feel like going to bed and switching off completely but the tummy will not let go, oh its so disgusting, hope no one is reading this while eating, of course I am much better now AlHamdulellah and back to normal and just keep laughing at how I was running to bathrooms all over the place as the bug kept playing games with me.

The best comfort I found was a bottle of 7 Up constantly by my side, it is highly recommended even if it is supposed to be a junk drink! my friends keep laughing at me for saying that I feel vomitty but I think this is the best way to describe it.

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It was the time for me to upgrade my mobile phone (how time flies!!) this is usually a bit of a headache for me as I never know what new handset to get and what are all the new applications in them are for or whether I need them or not! luckily when I went to the Orange shop I was given a choice of the 2 newest handsets they have, one was free, the other was for about £50 extra, I opted for the free handset and I am very happy with it so far, it is the new Samsung Pixon with touch screen.

Nice phone although I am still struggling with some of its features and finding the PC Suite difficult to manage unlike the Nokia PC suite which is straight forward. the touch screen feature is very good and simple to use and the camera quality is great with 8MP, glad I don't have to worry about upgrading for a long time now

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A new travel agency opened in London specialising in travel to Libya, it is called Eye Of Libya here is how they describe themselves:

"Eye of Libya Ltd. (EOL) is an inbound tour operator and travel agency that offers all facets of inbound travel and business development consultancy around Libya"

Check their website for more information.

What Co-Existence??

2009-01-18T18:18:00.000Z

Co-exist!! seems like such a joke these days, when I came to this country as a teenager I was faced with a much wider culture that included people of all colours and religions, as time went by I became more aware of other people's cultures and customs and I started to appreciate and respect everyone and learnt that we all can co-exist, that was something I was always proud of then things, bad things, started to happen yet I always tried to keep an open mind, the Israel-Lebanon war made me question many things and now after ceasefire was declared in the Israel-Gaza war, I am not sure if I can still believe in co-existence.

We all watched the atrocities committed by the Israeli army in Gaza, we witnessed the biggest child massacre in recent history with more than 400 Palestinian children killed, yet we saw at the same time that almost all of the Israeli nation supported the killing, how can I co-exist with people like that? I used to believe it was possible, I am not sure any more! Of all the people in the world, the Jews were always singled out for the suffering they endured, no one should dispute their suffering and the massacres they suffered, they went through the Holocaust that is a fact but there are other facts that they try to hide or brush under the carpet, these are that many others suffered the same, gypsies, disabled people, people of other religions and different orientation were killed too but no one dares to talk about them, why is that?? why is it that what happened in Bosnia, Kosovo, Rowanda and other places is not called Holocaust? why cant the Jewish community accept that suffering was not exclusive to them? what happened to them was wrong but they can not force the world to feel guilty for ever and they must accept that any commemoration of the Holocaust must include other victims too including Palestinians.

Israel was outraged when the Vatican called Gaza a big concentration camp, outraged?!! what the Israeli army did was just like what the Nazis did, a genocide against helpless people, if they do not like to hear that then tough! wake up Israelis and smell the roses, your country is conducting war crimes and many of you are supporting it, supporting the use of illegal weapons such as White phosphorus and DIME bombs, doctors in Gaza are seeing new and dreadful types of injuries that they are not used to (check some of the awful pictures on My Being Days Blog) so again Israel is doing what the Nazis did, using the people of Gaza to try new weapons bought from America yet many Israelis talk about their own suffering while wearing designer sunglasses, drinking cappuccino outside their pretty street cafes and say that what we see on TV is nothing but Palestinian propaganda!! can we co-exist with these people?? can we co-exist with child murderers and their supporters?? I am not sure any more ....

For as long as Israel is occupying Palestinian land and for as long as Israel is treating Palestinians as subhuman beings and subjecting them to a continuous Holocaust, I can not see co-existence between Arabs & Israelis.