Let's have more winners and losers

Another Great British sporting disappointment has engulfed the nation. And yes, I know it was the English soccer team that sank, but don’t worry, if you’re Irish, Scots or Welsh, your turn will doubtless come round again.

To my eyes, it seemed as though the team expected it right from the start and didn’t much care when the campaign came to an end. Remember the distraught player who had to be helped up and then, blinded by his own tears, led away from the scene of his team’s destruction? No, I don’t mean that poor Italian chap a couple of days ago but our own beloved Gazza in a previous English World Cup expedition. Where was the passion this time?

Actually, heretical though it may sound, something good is beginning to emerge from the usual post-failure collective navel gazing.

There are rumblings that the educational approach of “everyone’s equal”, “prizes for all” and a general doing away with competition is thoroughly and disastrously flawed. Why? Because life is competitive. Every single living thing on this planet is here solely because countless millions of its ancestors had the edge on finding shelter, food and a mate over its fellow creatures. And one of the things that has bred in all of us is the need to compete. And win. Knock that out of a species and it will become extinct.

Imagine if we applied the “no winners, no losers” theory to the medical profession, “ah, he wants to be a surgeon, bless him, so let him, never mind about the exams and so what if he keeps dropping the scalpel?” Actually I want the best there is please. Or the entertainment industry: would you go to a concert given by a mediocre musician?

So let there be league tables, and prizes for the best, and pass and fail, and medals with applause for the winners. Start it early and hammer it home. Long live Simon Cowell’s big X of “Britain’s got talent” and Lord Sugar’s “you’re fired!” even though the recipients might have been trying their hardest.

One thing is for sure, although wanting to win won’t bring success, the lack of wanting is a guarantee of failure.

I like Skype

I like Skype.

So do my wife, daughter, sister, grandson, friends and millions of other people I don’t know and never will. And we’ve all got used to it with Skype letting us not just communicate what’s happening to friends and family, but actually feeling like we’ve brought them into our home. But there’s a fly in the ointment. Apparently the esteemed Ministry of Telecommunications here doesn’t like it at all and has seen fit to install hardware and software that blocks a number of voice and video systems with Skype being next on the list. Is this just another groundless rumour, or, if it’s true, ARE THEY BARKING MAD?

Is it possible to stop it, well VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) technology has been illegal in Lebanon since 2002, but like so many laws here this one has not been enforced. Until now, as one after another piece of VOIP hardware or software has just stopped working here in the last month. What’s next on the agenda, pulling the plug on being able to dial international numbers perhaps (its only 3 years since all international calls had to go via an operator and were cut after 20 minutes)?

So let me try to explain why a decision to regress by blocking Skype and others is insane in that government revenues from telecommunications will be REDUCED. Use us as an example, in our home we have the highest available speed broadband service that Lebanon can offer and we pay extra because we always exceed the quota of electrons were allowed to vibrate in a given month. Should the ministry ever make a good decision, like upping the broadband speed, we’ll be there among the first in the queue. But if VOIP and Skype are cut, we won’t need the speed and our internet bills will halve. The result will be a reduction in revenue to Ogero (the Lebanese government owned PTT). Ahha, I hear you say, but then you’ll use the international telephone service more. Err, no, I don’t think so; let’s say I want to talk to my daughter in Spain, I’ll text or email her with a time and she will then call me on one of Telefonica’s (that’s the Spanish PTT) cheap international cards, same with my wife’s brother in California. Doubtless blogs will appear telling people how to make cheap calls to Lebanon cutting everyone’s bill here as the costs are transferred overseas, less money for OGERO again

With the Lebanese skilled in languages and technology, Lebanon should be a natural home for call centres, but without VOIP, the cost of running them is too high. So say good bye to a whole business segment’s worth of opportunity, thus contributing to the frightening exodus of many of the best and best-educated of the country’s youth. And an opportunity for future additional revenue lost to Ogero.

There isn’t time or space here to go into the effects on improved financial receipts for governments that privatize telecommunications, but that surely would be the best solution if cash creation were the objective.

Not only do I like the talking movies of friends and family that Skype offers, I like Hollywood’s efforts since sound was added to silent movies, and I wouldn’t want to go back to the silent picture days nor the pictureless voice. There can, nay must, be no going back to the old ways.

UK hotels banish headaches

Paying my bill at an hotel in Somerset, I overheard the following exchange.
Hotel guest, “Have you got any Nurofen?”
Hotel receptionist, “I’m sorry we’re not allowed to give you those any more.”
Hotel receptionist, “But I can tell you where there’s a pharmacy.”

Various thoughts struck me, “I’ve got some, shall I help/interfere?”, “The Elfin Safety mob have struck again” and “perhaps it’s an insurance liability problem” and then, with true compassion and sympathy for my fellow man, I forgot all about the matter.

Until I walked into Tescos. And there, on the shelves, ready to be plucked and chucked into a trolley was enough Nurofen to cure a family of four’s accumulated head and other aches for a year or so. A quick look at the internet, and there’s a price comparison site for all the well known supermarkets, with Tesco even promoting their own version of the generic drug, Ibuprofen, and rather cheaper than the marketed, packaged and (highly) priced branded stuff. By the way, Sainsbury’s were offering the best Nurofen deal when I looked, must remember to get some before going back to Beirut.

So why can’t hotels hand out over-the-counter pain relief products? Risk of suicide? I don’t think so, with complementary razors being fairly standard. Worried that guests might get a little woozy and confused, errr, where was the bar again? Concerned about allergy reactions, weeeeellllll, the average menu proffers dishes containing nuts, dairy products, flour and sugar, which together would zap a good proportion of the population; so clearly anyone dining is expected to know what they can’t eat and take precautions appropriately. Test that last one against the dire warnings on supermarket (remember, those places where you get pain-killers) food packaging - “WARNING! This product MAY contain NUTS” emblazoned on every packet of, wait for it, SALTED PEANUTS!

I’m at a loss to explain it, unless of course…… ah, yes, I’ve got it. Once upon a time chaps without ties couldn’t go into the restaurant, guests wearing jeans and trainers were quietly requested to dress more appropriately, particularly if female. So now with T-shirts being almost formal attire, hotels have decided that they just don’t want the type of person who has a headache. Pass me an aspirin, please.

Back in England

Back in England for a few days, but I’m not going to rename this blog grahamnotinlebanon. Sorry and all that if you thought I’d gone for ever, but, no, I have every intention of being back in Lebanon soon.

I spent a few days in North Somerset, overlooking the Bristol Channel. So what strikes the returning ex-pat. or this one at least? Being used to the Mediterranean now, I’ve become rather accustomed to seeing the sea as blue, a bit lighter here, a bit darker there, but true blue through and through. I’d forgotten how muddy and browny-grey the water of the Bristol Channel is. And it moves seriously up and down with the tides. The range on the twice monthly Springs can be as much as fifteen meters, exposing sand banks and large tracts of darker sticky mud-like material at low-water and it’s presumably the violent stirring up of this stuff by the tidal flow that gives the Bristol channel its characteristic colour. And also makes the water gallop up an average beach at the rate of a meter every three or four minutes. Not a good idea to start wandering about at low tide or there could be a cry of “why is the sea all around me?!”

The light is different too. There’s an expression often heard west of the Pennines (yes I know they’re a bit further North) “if you can see the hills, it’s going to rain, and if you can’t then it’s raining already”. Take a look at a Constable painting, he captures this diffuse, gentle light perfectly, to the point where you can see in your mind’s eye what the landscape would be like if it were raining. A modern Santorini by comparison shows the harder, more direct Mediterranean brightness, even though all his work seems to have cloud strewn skies: who knows, maybe he just keeps running out of blue.

It sounds really corny to say it, but I’d forgotten how green this “green and pleasant land” is in early June. There is almost always some breeze here, the boughs on the tree just outside the window are moving gently. Indeed trees abound in England, all with their summer hats of foliage. Close up they look like an army of gentle green giants nodding slowly to one another. And below the trees there’s a lot more green spreading away from the sides of meanderings roads in all directions, carpeting the gently undulating countryside.

Oh and then there’s breakfast, but that’s a subject for another day. But where can someone get a good kipper in Beirut?

The joys of international travel

Why is international travel never smooth?

In truth, I suppose my trip back to London yesterday was probably as good as it gets. The flight left Beirut on time, I’d just had to get up at quarter to five in the morning to be at the airport to catch it. Although an early riser by habit and inclination, that’s getting a bit much. We were only in the Heathrow “stack” for about ten minutes. Yesterday, that meant circling over Reading. That would be bad enough in itself, but seeing other planes above and below with what feel like rapid changes of speed and direction, up and down, as well as sideways, you get the impression that avoiding getting up close and personal with another sky-user is not as easy as seeing all the empty space up there would suggest. Thank you Mr. Pilot, sir.

The real issue with the flight was my fellow passenger. A nice enough chap, he was below average in size so I didn’t suffer from seat overflow problems, he didn’t take breakfast so no messy eater syndrome, he was polite but undemanding and indeed slept most of the way. “What are you complaining about then?” I here you say. Well, actually, the fellow had the most horrendous halitosis and insisted on breathing for the whole flight: how selfish can someone get? Another problem of up close and personal.

We landed slightly early, at about the same time as ten other flights, which swamped UK Border in fine style. “We’ve introduced stronger checks for your safety, so you might have to wait a little longer to get into the UK” read the notice I stood beside in the queue. Hmm, they were certainly right about that. To give them their due, they did eventually step it up to six officers for the UK/EEC passports alone, but not, I suspect, good timing if it was your first trip out of Bangladesh coming to visit your uncle in Bradford.

I found the right baggage carousel (I’ve stood at the wrong one on occasion), my suitcase popped into sight immediately (isn’t looking anxiously at the black hole disgorging bags that aren’t yours one of the most stressful bits of the whole travel experience?), customs didn’t stop me (I’ve learned to suppress sneezes going through the green channel, for fear of being thought a cocaine mule who’s just tried a sample) and the taxi queue was short and standing in sunshine.

“Where are you going, sir?” asked the taxi scheduler. I’ve learned to lie at this point and gave a false address. The truth is that my first stop is always to pick up an aging vehicle from whichever of my children has been lumbered with looking after it since my last trip. But I’ve discovered that “take me to a Red Saab in Wandsworth” doesn’t go down very well so I chat to the cabbie for a bit and then let him (why is a London cabbie nearly always a “him”) gently into the secret destination at which we arrived yesterday with hardly a hint of traffic.

And that’s where the little glitches mentioned above paled into insignificance as things really began to go awry - my old Saab’s Ministry of Transport Road Worthiness Certificate (the MOT) had run out last week!

Anything grows

In Lebanon, a sun that’s shining

Is looked on as nothing striking,

Here heaven knows, anything grows

.

Tomatoes red in great abundance

And yellow bananas there

beside the road, anything grows

.

We all need five a day

Of some fruit today,

Veggies too today

That’s just right today,

When nearly all today,

Of our food today,

Could be organic if we chose

.

A chef I’m not nor good cook either

I know that you’re none the wiser

As heaven knows, food here just grows

With apologies to Cole Porter’s “Anything Goes”.

We spent the weekend in Zahlé, about an hour or so’s drive inland from Beirut. It’s an old picturesque town climbing rapidly up the side of a mountain rising from the floor of the Bekaa valley – hence the town’s nickname, the bride of the Bekaa. Climb the path running beside the little river and you come to an area where restaurants are situated, many of which span the river, providing a sound back drop of bubbling water to eat by. The restaurants all offer variations on the traditional Lebanese celebration meal.

Said meal consists of three parts, the first is known as the mesa. During this phase, which can last a good hour, dish after dish is brought, until the table is pretty well completely covered, after which, dishes are just piled over one another. The staples are hummus (based on a very fine purée of chick peas), mtabal (an aubergine dip), fatouche (a salad with croutons made of unleavened bread that look the cousins of potato crisps) and tabouleh (based on chopped parsley and eaten with lettuce or cabbage leaves). The dips were all eaten, not with knives and forks, but with wonderfully thin, hot, unleavened bread that looked like very fine pancakes. Alongside the staples came marinated beetroot, a dish of spiced green leaves (rocket, thyme and fizzy, crisp, little ones), sliced grapefruit-sized tomatoes with black pepper, small whole onions in lemon juice, various cheeses and a huge bowl of salad ingredients (lettuce, spring onions, tomatoes, lemons and white cabbage) in case you felt imaginative enough to create your own extra dishes.

No problem with five a day (the long running campaign to get us Brits to eat more fruit and veg) here then, five a meal is downright abstemious.

But we haven’t finished the mesé yet, there are hot dishes too – cheese rolls, chicken livers and other inside bits (not much gets wasted), chicken wings and thick cut double fried chips. And for the brave there’s kibbi nehyi; it’s “lamburger on the hoof”, finely ground uncooked lamb mixed with cracked wheat and eaten with lots of olive oil and the thin bread mentioned above, oh! and just in case, take arak, whisky or other strong liquor with it – the alcohol will ensure the demise of the risks associated with eating raw meat, or at least that’s the hope/excuse.

Excellent meal, lots of variety, no embarrassing moments when presented with something you don’t like, there’s so much to choose from, just move on to another dish. It’s balanced, with a good mixture of protein, carbohydrates and vegetable matter and contains all the vitamins and minerals known to science, as well, no doubt, as some that aren’t.

And then came phase II - the Barbecue. Arrive skewers of finely minced, spiced meat; skewers of marinated, diced lamb; skewers of spiced chicken; barbecued onions and tomatoes. Traditional inland fare, no sign of fish here: well, the river is very shallow.

How does one finish off such a meal? Phase III which is fruit, fruit and more fruit. We were expected to move to another table for this, where, laid out were bowls of apples, strawberries, sliced melons (honeydew and water), peaches, cherries, apricots and kiwi fruit.

Kiwi fruit! Err, not normally associated with the Levant aren’t kiwi fruit, but Lebanese agriculture has been trying to diversify and, surprise, surprise, kiwi fruit do very nicely thank you in the Bekaa, where anything, anything grows!

The King is dead, long live the King

Watching on CNN the change of British Prime minister a couple of days ago reminded me of the traditional statement made at Royal changeovers, “The King is dead, long live the King”. We Brits really are brutal to our leaders. As PM, Mr. Brown had the traffic stopped for him on his short journey from Downing Street to Buckingham Palace, on leaving, his car was confronted by early evening London traffic and was even overtaken by a cyclist, albeit jumping a red light. It was not, you will have noticed, a return trip, as his right to go back to what had been home for some three years had been forfeited with his resignation.

We celebrate centenaries of literary, scientific and artistic figures (the four hundredth anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth, the three hundredth anniversary of J.S.Bach’s) but rarely that of politicians and still less past Kings and Queens, so last week saw the much unmarked hundredth anniversary of the death of King Edward VII. What, you might ask, is the connection with Lebanon? Well, he was the last British Monarch to visit Beirut, albeit over thirty years before accession to the throne.

By one of those odd trains of thought this nugget of pub-quiz trivia brought back vivid memories of the coronation. There had been a succession of them, after the record reign of Queen Victoria, the one of Edward VII infamous for having his assorted mistresses gathered together in one part of the viewing gallery in an area nicknamed “the King’s loose box”. But they were all London affairs, photographed for and reported in newspapers the following day for the rest of the population. By contrast, the coronation of the present Queen was televised live, something that boosted sales of TV sets dramatically, back in 1953. My dad bought one – a state of the art, up to the minute, twelve inch screen affair with a black and white image which it was virtually impossible to see without the curtains closed. About twenty five assorted family and neighbours packed our front room for the spectacle, both the event itself and the introduction to a television. The day after, my school, like all schools I suppose, gave a party for the pupils, OUTSIDE, in Sheffield, in glorious sunshine. All present were given a mug decorated with pictures of the coronation – this device, aptly called a coronation mug, which would by now be a collector’s item, has long since been lost or broken or recycled or all three.

Now what connects these two events with a gap of over fifty years? The unwritten constitution in action? That’s a factor certainly, but for me, it’s the effect of the media in making me an active observer of what is happening as it happens, so that although, obviously, I’m not part of it, the feeling of involvement is real.