Sunday 29 July 2007

Faxing to you from an Egyptian prison cell

A repentant (currently jailed) Egyptian terrorrist leader putting the finishing touches to a recantation that undermines the Muslim theological basis for violent Jihad recently gave a foretaste of his conversion (faxed from an Egyptian prison to an Arabic newspaper).

This was the response of Ayman Al-Zawahiri (Al-Qaida number two) in a video message broadcast:

"Do they now have fax machines in Egyptian cells? I wonder if they're connected to the same line as the electric-shock machines [used to torture prisoners]."

Source: 'The Guardian', Friday 27.07.07

Sunday 22 July 2007

Tea and Cricket

When speaking of my latest mountain-tea-drinking adventure with my supervisor she remarked, "How very English of you!"

As I completed my rebuttal, "On the contrary, drinking tea is very Pakistani." It dawned on me, "Actually..."

But by then, beating me to it, she remarked, "What, like cricket?"

There's one to think about: What came first to Pakistan (or India as it was then), the tea or the English?

Regardless, one thing is for sure today, as with cricket (and not too much else), the Pakistanis do it better.

Monday 16 July 2007

Snow-Done


Mission Accomplished... kind of anyway. As intended, we sat in the clouds and sipped hot tea but, admittedly, the tea was bought from a cafe at the bottom and not made on a camp fire. In actual fact, forget making tea, we couldn't even get a small fire started! The damp forest wood just would not burn. We tried using firelighters and tissue paper brought from home, we tried chopping the wood to small pieces, we even tried spraying flammable insect repellant but it just would not catch light. It just wasn't meant to be. Anyway, it didn't dampen our spirits because we had Ambrosia Rice Pudding with us which tastes good hot or cold.

Thursday 12 July 2007

Operation Hot Tea on Cold Snowdon

Hot milky tea tastes better sipped on a cold icy mountain-top after a long testing walk. For those heading to Mount Snowdon (i.e. me), good news! No need to make a fire, boil the water and fill the flusk at the bottom. Apparently, there's a cafe at the top.