Traveling the lyrics of Ian Dury Once again the chance arrived to tick off another destination in my pointless quest to travel the lyrics in Ian Dury’s, Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick. Even without its link to the opening line of the legendary (ish) song I would have gone to Sudan anyway, precisely because it’s near the bottom of the list of places to go to for sensible people and near the top of the list of places the…
The custom, auto-rickshaw scene in Sudan In a short space of time, cheap, Asian imports have transformed many aspects of life for Africans: mobile phones are now within reach of the relatively poor, opening up communication in what has always been an oral culture that values the spoken word over the written one; Chinese motorbikes have created jobs for two-wheeled taxi drivers and increased access for individuals in more remote places that you might have had to wait a week…
A Catholic wedding in Sudan Dear God I had expected to be writing to you with your Allah hat on, seeing that Sudan is a Muslim country, but as luck would have it I got invited to a Catholic wedding so thought I had better have a few words with you about it. Whatever religious hat you had on when you created the people of Sudan you must have been in a good mood, as they are a likeable lot…
Who’s going to put Egypt back together again? “What do you think of President Sisi”, asked one of the charming young ladies who had been helping me buy a train ticket. “Well, er um”, I waffled, trying not to commit myself too much in one direction. We were, after all, standing by a group of people queueing for tickets and the wrong opinion, too firmly expressed has caused some to disappear without trace during his excellency’s reign. “I hate him”, she…
Taking tourist security to that extra level in Egypt Deep in misty dreams of sumptuous temptations, something knocked on the doors of my subconscious, cruelly beckoning me back to the world of daylight. The unwarranted intrusion into my reverie metamorphosed into the insistent clatter of fist against the shoddy carpentry claiming to be my door. Some words of arabic had little trouble piercing the feeble woodwork, “hokouma” was the only word I needed to understand, government. “Yeah,yeah, yeah”, I grumbled…
The first signs were good: within minutes of getting off the bus somewhere on the outskirts of Fayoum I’d found a motorbike taxi who didn’t make any attempt to rip me off, in fact I couldn’t be sure if he wasnt just some guy who was happy to help out. Â Certainly he spent most of the time shouting out to all and sundry as we passed by, something along the lines of, “look look a foreigner has come to visit”!…
A visit to Manshiyat Naser, Cairo There is one major obstacle taking the back streets in a walk to Manshiyat Naser: tea. At times it’s only a matter of minutes between the shouts of hearty fellows inviting you over to join them in another glass, that traditional measure of hospitality throughout so much of the world. My clumsy pronunciation of, “shukran, ana lissa shribt shai” (thanks I’ve just drunk tea) my only weapon to politely stave off the numerous calls…
Egypt’s biggest camel market near Cairo As we left the dusty concrete of Cairo’s outskirts behind us in the early morning haze, the mini bus driver replaced the calming tones of qur’anic recitation with the strident, impassioned voice of an Imam in full hellfire and brimstone mode. Of course the vast bulk of its meaning flew way over my humble understanding of arabic but with almost shouted exclamations concerning America and France I could be fairly sure he wasnt complimenting…
Just because you have a doctorate in speaking English loudly while waving your arms about, doesn’t mean you have mastered the art of communication as you travel around the world. Buying a melon with grunts and pointing may be an admirable skill but you’re missing out if you don’t learn at least a bit of the local language wherever you go. With English being the most international language and native English speakers being the most bone idle of linguists as…
It took me two weeks to work out what was wrong with Kiev and that’s because, on the surface of it, there’s nothing particularly wrong with it at all. Eventually I came to realise that all was not as it should be. Strolling its boulevards and broad streets, the European will feel at home amongst the grand 19th century architecture, after all this was an era when Tsarist Russia was so enamoured by life to their west that French was…
