Another crisis draws to a close

Phew, it seems that the Syrian crisis is over. Well the Syrian chemical weapons crisis, not the whole thing, but, as school reports used sometimes to say – a good start.

For a time, it seemed that the clock had been turned back to the cold war era, with Russia and the USA locked in a stand-off. I started to put some words down towards the end of August and wrote some criteria for testing possible solutions, they were these …

“First any action must be credible to the citizens of those countries taking action, and that can only happen if international law supports that action. That is a necessary, not a sufficient condition as events in the aftermath of the 2003 Iraqi invasion showed.

“Next, to be credible to citizens of this region, the Middle East, in general and Syrians in particular, any action must be aimed at improving the situation of the victims of the civil war, whatever side they are on. Killing them or their relatives won’t meet this criterion.

“Further, it should be sufficient to prevent any future use of chemicals on civilians.”

I must have been feeling a bit down about things because I then wrote …

“Can the circle ever be squared? It can’t. Talk of crossing red-lines was fine as a threat, but now the Western world has got itself into the position of a parent who tells an unruly child that he’ll be in serious trouble if he steals chocolate biscuits from the fridge, only to discover that the packet of Hobnobs is finished and the child denies all knowledge of it. Some action has to be taken to preserve parental credibility. But what?”

Hmmm. Thankfully I got that one wrong. Actually the answer was sitting there in the analogy, no more chocolate biscuits, or in this case no more chemical weapons. Simple really, not only does it satisfy all three criteria, but by neutralising stocks of Sarin and whatever other noxious agents have been manufactured, the world at least feels a safer place to live in.

Being British, I would like to think that the decision by our dear old Parliament not to authorise military action made some contribution to allowing time for more creative solutions to percolate through. Why, incidentally, are these high flown international activities important to me? Well, I live here in Beirut and it seems that if Syria catches a cold, Lebanon is usually in danger of getting pneumonia.

Does it matter, as some local pundits suggest, that the idea is a Russian one? Not one iota. As noted elsewhere, good ideas are highly promiscuous, they really do not care who has them. What does matter is that an approach has been found that is acceptable to the international community and espoused by local governments. The sight of Messrs. Lavrov and Kerry clearly enjoying each other’s company on stage makes me hope that the relationships forged in the heat of this crisis may be brought to bear on other difficult issues later on as well.

Because although the most recent crisis seems to be drawing to a close, one thing we can be sure of – there’ll be more before we’re done.

Oil and Gas for Lebanon - BLBG June 2013

June’s BLBG meeting had a different format from the usual. A panel of three comprising David Friedman, Oil & Gas industry (O&G) analyst, Niazi Kabalan, International projects lawyer specialising in O&G and Nick Wilson OG analyst discussed the geology, politics and practicality of Lebanon’s potential fields. All lived up to their billing of experts in their field. Questions and answered flowed for a good hour before the panelists were allowed their well-earned trip to the bar. The following is my memory of what was said, any errors and omissions are mine not theirs.

The first message was clear - the fields are potential ones. Until drilling starts and some hydrocarbons found and analysed there is hope, there are probabilities and there is, well, potential. Whatever the papers and the politicians say, discovery is still in the future and thus not yet assured; riches can only follow discovery. OK, then when does drilling start?

The area of the Mediterranean that is Lebanon’s has been divided into 10 zones. Leading Oil companies around the world have been invited to submit documents showing why they should be considered for test drilling. Once that process of review, known as pre-qualification has been completed, there will be a short list of companies (albeit fairly long) who will then be asked to bid for the zones. There will be winners (and of course losers) in that process, one for each zone. Each zone winner then starts the agreed drilling and we wait for the screams of joy. Now it needs to be remembered that the seabed is one and half kilometres below the surface. The potential fields are some six kilometres below that, getting there is difficult and that means expensive; estimates are currently around $40 million per well and each zone could have ten or more test wells drilled. That translates into finding companies willing to risk half a billion dollars for, at worst, nothing. And if there is something, that’s not without risk either as BP found in the Bay of Mexico.

The good news is that there’s no shortage of companies trying to make the short list. Lebanon is seen by many as more attractive than Israel (no-one wants to upset the Arab world where there’s a lot more already discovered Oil and Gas), Cyprus (no-one wants to upset Turkey), Egypt (prices are capped at a very low level) or Syria (for obvious reasons). The not-so-good news is that until Lebanon has a fully-fledged, as distinct from caretaker, government there is no power to sign the contract engaging the winners nor, for that matter, is there a power in place to even decree how the bid process will work.  There is a Lebanese O&G advisory board, which in turn has a staff of professional advisors, with responsibility to draw up recommendations of who and how and what the contracts might look like, but the advisory board needs someone to advise. The hope is that the bidding process will complete before the end of this year. Watch this space. And hope. Because as soon as the drilling starts, even if nothing is ever found, some of that investment money will flow into Lebanon for engineering, travel, catering and all other the various support functions that will be needed.

How much might be out there? The top estimate is thirty trillion cubic feet of methane. That translates, at current prices to paying off Lebanon’s debt and having perhaps twenty-five thousand per head to invest. That sum may go even higher if the gas is what’s known as “wet”, i.e. has butane, propane or even oil fractions mixed in with it. However, the finds so far in Israel and Cyprus are “dry”. While that number is not in the same league as the millions that Qatarians expect, the Lebanese are twenty times more numerous and the Qatari reserves so far found are, perhaps, thirty times bigger. But there’d be more enough to sort out the travel, electricity and water issues facing this country.

So what does this net out to? Lebanon has to sort out a government and then implement the already decided approach (which is to follow the Norwegian model). Then the gas has to be found. It won’t make the Lebanese rich, but it could dramatically improve the infrastructure of the country. Watch this space. And hope.

Machines have feelings too

If you think your home appliances have no feelings and are simply inanimate lumps of plastic and paint with a few wires and bits of metal, think again. They seem to want attention and get jealous, with dire consequences, if too much court is paid to one over another.

Let me start at the beginning, always a good place to start if a little unimaginative. For reasons best known to my wife, redecoration time was declared last Friday. With her usual approach to turning thought into action the decorators arrived on Monday morning, paint, thinners, brushes and masking tape having spent the weekend arriving like eager guests at a party.

The first rebellion was from our central air conditioning system, which began to make groaning and creaking noises sounding just like it was in real pain and of such magnitude our next door neighbour beseeched us to turn it off before disaster struck. As if in sympathy the plan “B” AC began blowing out warm air only. Service men arrived and performed the machine equivalent of major surgery on the main one “cash, please”, but only the last rights were possible on our so called Little AC – replacement required.

Then it was the turn of our faithful old gas hob; imported from a refurbished flat in England, it had never really been able to digest the local propane gas properly, in spite of replacement nozzles, burners, connections and such like. One of its burners finally went out, so another set of men arrived to fit a new one. Bigger and better it may be, but many a good meal has come from that old hob, now gone for a third life in the home of Mohamed the decorator.

Our fridge freezer clearly mourned the loss its friend across the way and wanted attention, so the fridge stopped cooling and the freezer iced up. Another service man, another part replaced and another bill paid “cash, please”: attention duly delivered.

As an aside, services here are extremely responsive. The cooker hob and air conditioning unit were delivered and installed the day after purchase, the decorator came to give a quote and then started immediately after negotiations were completed, “cash, please”; the fridge repair man was at the door fifteen minutes after the mayday call. But (oh, yes, there’s always a “but”) they tend only to bring their hands with them – “do you have a hammer/screwdriver/pair of pliers/junction box/drill bits/dust sheets”  – all those have been asked of us in the last week. Since DIY stores are difficult to come by, I am amazed to be able to say the answer was, in all cases, “yes”.

Was that it then? Oh, dear me, no! I don’t really think of us as technology freaks: OK, we have a couple of laptops, a PC, an iPad, a couple of iPhones, streaming video and music piped around the house from iTunes, but that’s about par for the course these days isn’t it? The whole thing relies on the internet and, given the vagaries of the electricity supply, the clever bits of electronics that whizz bits and bytes into, out of and all around our flat are protected by a black box which smooths out all the electrical lumps and bumps as Electricity du Liban (EDL), the generator on the balcony and our local bakery dance around one another taking turns to supply us. The black box is known as an Uninterruptible Power Supply or UPS for short. The UPS resented being moved from of its hideaway in order to give the decorators free access to the wall behind it, and became an UIPS – an Unreliable and Interruptible Power Supply. Off to the menders for twenty-four hours, “cash, please”.

Perhaps foolishly we exposed our modem and routers to the power sources directly. “It’s only for a day”, we told ourselves, “it should be all right”. It wasn’t. They did what we all do when our proper sustenance is suddenly cut off, they got all grumpy and sulked. They just refused to pass on the bits and bytes to their usual proper places. We spent an hour while resetting and reloading was going on, in the waiting room of our internet service provider, which was rather like being in a dentist’s waiting room but with fewer comforts and more anxiety. Going in person was the only way to get them to help with the mix of boxes we’ve wired together over the years.

The series of hiccoughs and failures listed above looks unbelievable, but they all did happen in the last week, like some collective mechanical epidemic. The only machine that carried on working happily all through was the bank’s cash dispenser across the road, presumably delighted with the increased attention it has been getting.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go out, let’s hope the car hasn’t noticed …….

The British are coming

Almost directly opposite where I live there’s a “Commercial Centre” with names like “Clean House” (a cleaning service), “Jump and Slide” (a gym for kids) and “Christine’s Clothing” (a clothing shop, nothing quite like stating the obvious).  Friday means happy hour at the Duke of Wellington pub, watering hole of the Brits here and also at the Greedy Goose which tends to be more Irish orientated. Where am I? Surprise – West Beirut. It makes a bit of a change from the al-Maroush and al-Dar restaurants, flanked by Halal shops in the Edgware Road. In all fairness, I nod thanks to our American cousins, who with Hollywood and the internet, are also in there pushing the English language, and I have to smile at the “Duke of Wellington”, named after the hero of Waterloo, and this a francophone country.

But things go deeper than just the name of the shops and bars. Jaguar is, and has been for years, a favourite mark here, jostling with BMW, Mercedes and Chevrolet, so the imminent launch of Jaguar’s “F” series is eagerly awaited. British Airways have bought back the London-Beirut route from Lufthansa and earlier this year upped the number of flights. Marks and Spencer are opening in Downtown Beirut next month, with a fashion show to launch it (the first I've been to). Tescos are back in here via a local supermarket chain – does “good food tastes better at Spinneys” sound familiar? McVities’ Hobnobs, Walkers’ shortbread, Whiskeys galore and smoked salmon are part of the Scottish contingent. Oh, and yesterday I listened to Virgin radio (just started up) while driving (in my Swindon made Honda) to Beirut’s most famous Hotel, the Phoenicia, (part of the Intercontinental Hotels PLC chain) to have lunch with a friend (a senior executive at HSBC). I could go on, but I won’t, so apologies to any brand that feels passed over, but lists get boring in the end and the point is made, I think.

Why is this? I’m not an economist and this is not intended as a research paper, but let me just speculate a bit. Most of my recent ancestors worked in those industries spawned by the industrial evolution; a steel-maker, two cutlers and a shipbuilder have passed their genes to me, but not the industries. Most have headed to the Far East (the industries, not my ancestors), painful losses that have left a legacy, though, of Brits finding what they’re good at, doing it, selling it then shipping it off by sea. The Lebanese have been great traders, and that means buying good stuff and selling it on, Beirut wasn’t one of the Silk Road’s great ports simply as an accident of geography. So, there is a natural symbiosis, a set of points of contact, albeit at a distance. Add to that the catalysts of language, noted above, and the five year long stagnation in Europe making extending markets essential and I think we have some if by no means all of the reasons for the increase in British brands here.

 

I have a long running duel going on with some Lebanese friends about British cuisine with good natured banter as the weapon of choice. Try as I might to persuade them of the rich delight of venison stew (“oh no, you eat Bambi”), that wonderful combination of zest and fruit and pastry called Bakewell tart, the savoury luxury of beef Wellington (“that’s French”; with a name like that – yeah right), the angelic simplicity of Yorkshire pudding and that meaty winter warmer, Lancashire hot-pot, all I get back are comments about fish ‘n’ chips. But who knows, Pontefract cakes may be next on the list; come to think of it, Tescos might be shipping them already.

Happy Birthday Ma'am, Great Party

The British Embassy here just threw a party to celebrate Her Majesty the Queen’s (HMQ) official birthday. They call it, not surprisingly, the Queen’s Birthday Party, or “QBP”.

  

Actually HMQ has two birthdays. The anniversary of her date of birth is the obvious one; it’s easy for me to remember, April 21^st, because it’s also my granddaughter’s. And then there’s the “official” one celebrated on the first, second or third Saturday in June. Edward VII was a great party goer and loved events, but, being born in November, found his own birthday celebrations frequently ruined by the infamous British weather: his solution was to invent the Monarch’s official birthday, have it in June and even then to have a plan A, B and C – the three Saturdays. Though extremely simple, this was clearly a seriously good idea as, over a hundred years later, it’s still going strong.

The celebrations are held in late May or June across all the commonwealth countries and territories, (even though the Falklands might prefer Kind Edward’s November) at more or less the same time and by all British embassies as well. It’s an opportunity to say “thank you” to many, to wave the flag and to have a good time.

Lebanese weddings, as noted elsewhere in this blog, can be massive affairs. This has led to the creation of specialised locations at which to hold them. This year’s chosen QBP location was one such, called Nuit blanche (a French expression meaning “party all night”). It boasts a spectacular view over Beirut and the Bay of Junieh. It’s about 60km West to the Mediterranean horizon and with city pollution left far below, the sunset is of the multi-coloured, many faceted variety that can only be seen from an Eastern Mediterranean vantage point. The closest I've seen elsewhere is while standing on a hill-top looking out from the Isle of Skye and standing on San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, but you don’t get the unique Mediterranean blue in those places. Then the stars come out.

A fleet of London style taxi cabs ferried us back and forth from the car park – nice touch. First stop the flag waving, with stalls offering Scottish smoked salmon, a view of the new Range Rover and many others of the British brands available here, including a plethora of Scotch whiskies. Champagne, of course, was there for those who preferred it.

Down a walkway to the main mingle area with music, canapés and more champagne enjoyed by the two thousand invitees. The only formalities were the two national anthems, performed live by a baritone soloist and a short speech from the British Ambassador, Tom Fletcher, during which he read a message from Her Majesty.

The invitation said clearly “until 9:00 p.m.” but things were still going strong at midnight. About the only thing missing was the lady being celebrated parachuting in herself, but I suppose the embassy had to keep something back for next year. Great party.

The Syrians have arrived

In Lebanon I am ajnabi – a foreigner. Foreigner carries overtones of strange, unusual and in this country that loves foreigners, welcome guest.

I suppose in its favour, the word is much more empathic than the American one – Alien – as well as being more accurate post Ridley Scott and Sigourney Weaver. Although I’ve lived nearly a third of my adult life in Lebanon, I’m still a foreigner and that means I need to obtain permission from the powers that be to stay here from time to time. The time recently came round again.

I duly collected all the required paperwork, passport (to prove I’m me), marriage certificate (to prove I have a legitimate reason to be here), my Lebanese wife’s identity card (to prove she’s who she is) my wife’s ikraj qaid, a document without British equivalent  which goes back to Ottoman Empire days and records her family history (it proves that the marriage certificate is registered as part of her family history and has therefore  been properly processed and is legitimate), property deeds (to prove I have somewhere to live), bank statements (to prove I am of independent means), two photographs (of me!) and, finally, my previous and now expired permit.

Armed with all the above, in duplicate or triplicate as required, together with a sum of money, I headed off to my local General Security Office. I noticed a queue of people four abreast on the pavement, stretching back hundreds of yards and held back by Police. I walked into the courtyard and found another huge queue, which I was invited to jump and did so. The lobby of the building was heaving. I had to give up my iPhone and, seeing it heaped on a pile of cell phones, feared that I would never see that trusty instrument again. I climbed the stairs (no chance of getting into a lift) and on the appropriate floor found a melee that would have done justice to a local football derby with the turnstiles closed.

This was nothing like anything I’d seen on previous pilgrimages to General Security. I asked myself “what is going on?” And then the penny dropped. Everyone was Syrian, except me and an Iraqi woman who’d come to study for a Ph. D. in computer science. The Syrians are all fleeing from the civil war there and many are applying for residency in Lebanon. Some would want to re-occupy the second homes they already have, some to stay with relatives, some to seek the assistance being offered by the already heavily indebted Lebanese Government. All want the chance to stay alive and have a life.

No-one can be sure, but word has it that a million people have arrived from Syria since last summer; as is the way, half a million have registered and the remainder is a guess.

It is a still unfolding tragedy bringing this about, but is there a worse tragedy in the making? Water, electricity, roads, housing and food all have to be supplied and there weren’t enough of some of these to go round the three million Lebanese before the human tsunami gathered strength; the waste all has to be disposed of too.  How can any country absorb an increase of one third in its population without warning in less than a year? Imagine the entire population of the Netherlands arriving in England. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve nothing against either the Syrians or the Dutch, indeed I have considerable admiration for many that I’ve met, but there is enough of a good thing. While Lebanon has an amazing track record of absorbing displaced peoples, one thinks of the Armenians and Palestinians in the last century alone, this Syrian exodus is likely to change forever the demographics of a country already an uneasy patchwork of religions and ethnicities.

While the news is full of the waging of war and the consequent appalling destruction of humans and buildings, that is just the bloody and violent tip of the iceberg made up mainly of quiet but emotionally distressing human suffering. I have now seen it for myself in the lines of people, waiting for the chance of a new life.

I would like to say I waited quietly amongst these sufferers for my turn at the overcrowded hatches. It wasn’t like that. I was spotted and asked to go into the captain’s office, where we chatted while he had one of his staff fill out my form and check all was in order. He told me that they were coping and holding to the system, but only just. I say we chatted, but it was while he was signing papers from a continual human stream and rapidly issuing instructions to assorted staff in person and over two ‘phones. I asked him how he kept sane amidst the stress of continuous interruptions. “It’s the physical that’s difficult, I keep getting sick and I’m sure it’s being exposed to strains of bugs I’m not used to”. While he could well be right, I think the stress is much more a factor.

As proof the system still worked, I was reunited with my iPhone when all was finished.

At current course and speed, how long before foreigners become the norm, even the majority and will we all still be welcome guests?

BLBG Meeting May 2013

Lively, exciting, even occasionally confrontational, so what was the subject under discussion? Amazingly, the answer to the question is … registration of British nationals in Lebanon with the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), the FCO’s travel advice to Lebanon, and the British Embassy’s telephone service here in Beirut.

Atif Janjua has the wonderful, Romanesque sounding title of Vice Consul at the Embassy. He was standing in for the Deputy Head of Mission, called away at the last minute to another appointment. Sincere thanks to Atif for leaping into the breach with so little warning.

In living memory, the communications part of the embassy’s crisis plan has depended on a network of volunteers, the wardens, to be the major branches of a communication tree. Each week every warden has received a list of British nationals registered in his or her area to be able to be ready with said communications should they be needed. Registration used to be by going to the embassy and filling in a form, then the job could be done by fax and most recently using an on-line service called LOCATE. This was essentially a “registration just in case” service and has recently been withdrawn. Atif’s first task then was to try to explain why the powers that be in London had taken such a decision and what the role of the wardens might be now.

The reasons he advanced were essentially threefold. When crises have happened in the last ten years, including the Bali bombing, the grounding of all commercial airlines’ flights in and out of Europe thanks to the Icelandic volcanic ash cloud (see picture at the end of this piece), the tsunami in Japan (pictured above) and even the hostilities in 2006 here, LOCATE had proved ineffective due to low usage and insufficient data. With the arrival on the scene of social networking tools like Twitter and facebook, together with mobile phone penetration, a plethora of “push” information systems are available to communicate to those with access to those services. Finally, when a crisis hits, experience shows that the local embassy and the FCO are inundated, nay swamped with requests for help and information; a single full-time professional crisis management centre can be resourced to far greater levels than might be available to any individual embassy, so the investment has been made such a centre is now operational centrally in London (pictured below).

This naturally led on to the telephone service, which has not always been seen in the past as a model of efficiency. Here’s where the meeting got lively, with the following question being posed in a number of different guises – given that the telephone service at the embassy is perceived as unresponsive, how can it possibly be expected to be a satisfactory instrument in time of crisis? Atif’s response to this was simple – a significant investment has been made in a new ‘phone system with a menu driven front end, personalised voice answering service and improved reception staffing. He invited us all to try it and let him know of any problems. Another recurrent theme was what if the internet is affected or even offline. It was then he assured us that wardens were still seen as a major part of the support structure for Brits abroad with new guidance expected out from the FCO in the near future.

Finally, Atif explained the way in which the travel advice was debated before change – at the highest levels of the UK government even  –  and the balancing act needed between looking after the interests of British nationals (without trying to appear “nannyish”) and managing the relationship between the governments of the UK and the various host countries. Opinions were mixed about which should take priority and the discussion showed just how sensitive a subject this topic is.

What you may ask, has all this to do with business? Well above all, business is looking for the unattainable nirvana of stability. Second best is to know that in the event of a crisis, people and systems are in place to minimize and cope with the extent of a consequent disaster. The short list above shows they can occur anywhere, anytime without warning,

For Wimps, Nerds and those who like the Big Bang.

Last Monday night was the inaugural meeting of the Beirut Big Bang Club. No, it isn't a group of aging hippies trying a bit of swapping with “50 shades” as the operating manual. Rather it has the high minded purpose of trying to make sense of the recent developments of modern science. The group is the brain-child of Vicky, an Anglo-Dutch lady ex-pat living in Beirut, together with two of her friends, Brighid and Tracey.

I was told never to accept lifts in cars from strange men, but I thought it was safe to offer some ladies of my acquaintance a lift back to Beirut after a memorial service up in the mountains for a late friend. They just happened to be the same three mentioned above. Rewarded for my gallantry by their company over an Indian meal, wine and conversation flowed. Vicky suddenly turned to me and said “You know something about black holes, Graham, could you come and talk to us about them?” She explained that there was a small group, including all those then round the table, interested in such phenomena but the group needed someone to explain things in understandable terms. Some years ago I had written a poem about the Large Hadron Collider (it’s published elsewhere on this blog) and Vicky thought I could, well, sort of, you know, expand on it a bit; in prose; with a few diagrams and pictures.

How could I possible resist? Quite easily you might say. “Sorry the buses don’t run frequently enough”, “but you have a car, you've just given us a lift”; “I’m going on a very long trip”, “No, you aren't  you've just come back”; “But I don’t know anything about the subject”, but that damned poem and my even more damned ego got in the way of that one. So I heard myself say “Yes”. Oops.

I prepared for what I hoped would be a twenty minute talk, covering a bit of the “Sky at night” with a dash of relativity propped up by a childish drawing of a space ship (courtesy of Prof. Richard Feynman), a few impressively big numbers and a teaspoon.

The day arrived. Vicky had accumulated about fifteen intelligent, enthusiastic, questioning people, gave everyone food and drink, and then started proceedings with an amazing introduction of someone that, I realised with some trepidation, was me.

And then we were off.

Some TV programs I've seen approach modern science popularisation with a “this is incredibly weird and complicated and difficult and you won’t understand it – see, look at these clever people standing in front of chalk boards writing loads of incomprehensible symbols and things”.  I’d wanted to do rather the opposite and show how the simplest observations like “it gets dark at night” can lead to profound conclusions with a small sprinkling of logic, how even really big numbers can become accessible (that’s what the teaspoon was for) and how the same phenomena that account for those exotic objects known as “black holes” have a direct bearing on things like the working of cell ‘phones and SatNavs.

After an hour and a half, barely half the material had been used and the questions were still going strong: thankfully, so were the answers. But enough is enough, so we adjourned, well, -ish, because the discussion kept going. It had made for an enjoyable if very different from usual evening, the first of a series no doubt.

A few loose ends need to be tied up. Getting dark at night implies the observable universe is finite. The teaspoon, well it turns out that if you count the number of water molecules in a teaspoon, and then calculate the distance to the edge of the observable universe, in kilometres, the two numbers are roughly the same.

Finally and especially thanks to Vicky and her friends for starting the Big Bang Club.   

My pet Phobia come to life

Most of us are afraid of something. For many it’s getting stuck in a lift, for others it’s flying or seeing nothing between them and a bull in an open field. Phobias they’re called and, courtesy of a pub quiz, I came across a really weird one recently – aibohphobia. I’ll tell you what that’s a fear of later.

My own, or one of them anyway, is ornithophobia: fear of birds.

Walking through pigeon infested squares makes my flesh creep, and they seem to know and make an effort to take off close to me and “buzz” my head as they do so.

I used to dread as a child being taken to neighbours’, relatives’ or friends’ houses where there was a budgerigar, because usually the party piece was to let the bird out of its cage to fly around the room. The trajectory was unpredictable except for one thing: it would make for me. “Oh you’re so lucky (s)he likes you and wants to sit on your head/shoulder/hand” would coo the owner. “For why”, thought I, “doubtless to empty themselves on me to distract me before pecking my eyes out, how is that lucky?”

Lucky is winning the lottery; lucky is finding that the person you fancy fancies you back; lucky is being taken to a new a restaurant and discovering that your favourite meal is their speciality. Lucky is definitely not being cooped up in a confined space with a feathered, incontinent, flying dinosaur descendant.

Brown pigeons like to sit on the rail of our small balcony where clothes are dried and aired. To keep unwanted little visitors out, we have what my wife calls “strainers”, fine mesh sliding doors which are a barrier to mosquitos, flies, wasps and, of course in my eyes the most important, small birds. Like all Beirut flats we have a second, bigger, swishier, more imposing balcony adjoining the living area. We’ve enclosed it with windows and put in some furniture to make a second dining and sitting room.

A few days ago, I was sitting where I am now, at my laptop, typing. I could hear pigeon calls. I’m used to the sound the brown pigeons make and don’t believe my pulse rate is severely challenged any more by it, thanks to those strainers. However, this time, the calls seemed louder than normal and coming from a different direction.

Then I saw it, a pigeon sitting on one of the chairs on the big balcony, calling to a friend who flew in while I watched. One of the windows had been left open. My throat dried up, I could taste bile and my breathing rate went up. That’s it; my worst nightmare come true, birds – plural – in the house. Memories of Hitchcock’s masterpiece of horror – the Birds – came into my mind. Then a horrible thought struck me. What about the connecting doors? Were they open? Was the flat vulnerable to further invasion? Screwing up what courage I could, I crept through and shut the connecting doors before further disaster could strike, having dared myself to get from the balcony items that flying things could knock over and break. I still do not know how I walked into that space with nothing between me and them.

Fine, damage limited, but how to get rid of them and close the offending open window to prevent further incursions. Of course, the classic Lebanese solution – get someone else to do it.

I rang our concierge, mercifully a country man, who strode onto the balcony, chased each bird in turn, captured it in his hands and threw it out of the open window to fly away unhurt. This left a mass of feathers on the floor, but I can deal with those once disconnected from their owners. We shut the window and tried all the others. Money and coke (the Pepsi variety, careful now) changed hands. And that was the end of that

.

Well, not quite, I now obsessively check each window every morning. We’re on the seventh floor, so I can’t even pretend it’s to prevent possible burglar entry.

I promised to tell you what aibohphobia is. Look carefully and see if you see a clue in the word. Yes, you’ve guessed it, a fear of palindromes. I wish I had that one instead, there really is no possibility I can see of being invaded by palindromes through an open window.