Iraq's national archivist

I've just listening to an interview on BBC Radio 4 with the head of the Iraq national archive, Dr. Saad Eskander. A more gentle and measured yet strong fellow you'd be hard pressed to find. His story is tragic and inspirational. He left London, where he was living in exile, in 2003 to return to Baghdad, amidst increasing sectarian violence. And yet, in 5 years, despite occasional guilt about taking his children away from the safety of London, he has never regretted going back. Not once, he insists. What impresses me most is how strong a tie he feels to his homeland. It is so strong that he would risk his life and that of his family everyday for the opportunity to contribute to its rebuilding. It makes me wonder, now, living thousands of miles from home, if i would do the same if my country needed rebuilding. My country certainly has its problems, different but no fewer than any other country. What is the threshold, then, that would trip that beacon to return. Part of me hopes I never find out. The only reason would be to know better what i'm made of. I'd like to believe that stories like Dr. Eskander's would come back to me in a time of need. Thinking more broadly, his story should be a lesson about taking risks to help anybody in need.

Listen to the interview here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/takingastand/pip/0u2j8/

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you all have a wonderful and enriching 2008.

My new favourite place

Prepare yourself for the nerdiest confession in the (i hate this word) blogosphere: I love this building: the British Library.

Today was my first visit to this incredible institution, with its 13 million books, hundreds of thousands of periodicals (3 million added annually), its art exhibitions,
its multitude of beautiful reading rooms with spacious desks and friendly librarians. Not only that, but they actually serve a very proper coffee in the cafe. I've never felt this way about a library. I'm so enamoured that i've posted a link to it so you can visit too. I now possess a readers card and can go whenever I like. And i anticipate going often.



This new found love may in part be due to a sense of gratitude instilled in me this morning by Doris Lessing, whose acceptance speech for the 2007 Nobel Prize for literature was published in this weekend's Guardian, and which I got around to this morning. She writes of villagers in Zimbabwe, who crave books to read, because they have none. So precious is there education that it often comes down to alphabetic lines drawn in the sand. She tells us of a young Zimbabwean mother waiting for drinking water for her children, lost in the pages of Anna Karenina that have been stuck on the counter of a remote India store. She talks of the hope that only one page of great literature might bring to those without much else in the world. And she writes of us, alluding to the library along the way:

We are a jaded lot, we in our world - our threatened world. We are good for irony and even cynicism. Some words or ideas we hardly use, so worn out have they become. But we may want to restore some words that have lost their potency. We have a treasure-house of literature, going back to the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans. If is all there, this wealth of literature, to be discovered again and again by whoever is lucky enough to come upon it. Suppose it did not exist. How impoverished, how empty we would be.

As the young girl walks home, "held upright by thoughts of the water she would give her children once home," Lessing asks us this: "That poor girl trudging through the dust, dreaming of an education for her children, do we think that we are better than she is - we, stuffed full of food, our cupboards full of clothes, stifling in our superfluities?" Are we?
I found this a very moving piece of writing - certainly not a typical phenomena at breakfast.

I went to the libary inspired, hungry to learn, impressed and impressionable. Thanks, Mrs. Lesssing. Thanks, British Library...see you tomorrow.
The library at night.

(Death) Star's align..

Forgive the reference to Star Wars but it seems appropriate.

I've just got off the phone with a research director at St. Joseph's Hospice in Hackney, where i'm hoping to accomplish some of my research over the remainder of the academic year. My research interest is in identifying cultural barriers to the utilization of palliative care services. So is their's, it turns out. They have a particular interest in Muslim communities. So do I.

They're redeveloping space in their building to be more useful and suitable for the various communities that they serve. I'm getting ready to write a paper about issues in understanding and reconfiguring dying spaces in the context of the hospice.

It sounds like a match made in heaven. I'm really excited about all this! Pieces are coming together...

Thought i'd share it with hyperspace.

Bike Porn

This is rich (excerpts from an article in this past weekend's Observer):

"A man has been placed on the sex offenders' register for pleasuring himself with a bicycle....Clearly, Robert Stewart, 51, is unconventional; he might even be sufficiently strange to have held down a place in the Jackson 5. But a criminal? He was in his room - in a hostel in Ayr - all pumped up when two cleaners burst in. He was prosecuted and has pleaded guilty to 'disorderly conduct'. But since when was sex orderly? Why was he placed on the sex offenders' register - was the bicycle offended? Did Stewart insist on going off-road when the bicycle onfly fancied a gentle spot of handle-bar-holding in first gear?

"The BBC website shows us, by way of illustration, a bicycle; one can only trust it is not the actual bicycle, as it is an offense to show victims of sex crimes. I mean, first the trauma off the attack, now its anonymity blown.

"Anyway two things strike me about this suspiciously racy-looking bicycle. First, it is not a mountain bike, so perhaps Stewart could have bought it as a mounting bike. SEcond, it is a male bicycle, so either this is a fit-up or our friend is a homosexual pedalophile. But again, I pose the question: is that a crime? Of the recent spate of sexual assaults, thsi seems one of the less harmful.

"Politics is meant to be kept out of the bedroom, so why can't one keep bicycles in the bedroom?"

Well, i for one am shocked. I'm posting a long withheld photo of my trusty delivery bicycle in the hopes that should anyone ever see anyone abusing it they'll let me know. Anyway, i've been talking about posting a photo of it for ages.

Here's a picture of me with my bike in sunnier, warmer days. At the moment it's wet and wet and grey. Daylight has moved on by 4:30 if not earlier. Our plants are having trouble coping.

The Dreaded Lurgi

Came home this rainy evening to a distinctly unwell feeling. Crawling into Caroline's arms for comfort after a particularly disgusting Thai take-out I leaned forward for a kiss and encountered a turned cheek.

"You've got the Lurgi", she said.

"Huh?"

What follows is an explanation ripped from the pages of Wikipedia, or Wikipaedia as they might spell it here:

The lurgy (also spelled lurgi) is British English slang for an unspecified or mythical contagious disease, generally one considered inconvenient and non-fatal with obvious symptoms, such as influenza or the common cold. Phrases like "I've got the lurgi" are commonly heard when somebody is explaining why they cannot attend a social occasion, come to work, etc. It is also often referred to as "The Dreaded Lurgi", based on a Goon Show episode of 1954.

The term is also used in the context of playground games, where lurgi is often used as a phantom contagion or unclean quality, in a manner similar to the North American concept of cooties. For example, "You can't play with us, you've got the lurgi!" could be used when excluding another child from a group.

Etymology
There is some suggestion that it is a corruption and contraction of the word "allergy". This is not supported by the use of the hard 'g' in Lurgy (rhyming with Fergie), as allergy has a softer 'g' sound.

There is also the theory that it is based on the Northern English dialectic phrase "fever-lurgy" meaning lazy or idle.

Another possible origin of the word, and certainly the reason it has become widespread in British culture, can be found in the 1950s BBC radio programme, The Goon Show.

In a 1954 programme of The Goon Show, "Lurgi Strikes Britain", Ned Seagoon must deal with a national outbreak of a highly dangerous, highly infectious and — as it turns out — highly fictitious disease known as the Dreaded Lurgie.[1] It eventually becomes apparent that the disease is merely a convoluted ruse perpetrated by the arch-criminals Count Moriarty and Hercules Grytpype-Thynne in order to sell large numbers of brass band instruments, the playing of which is claimed to be the only cure. In the show, the symptoms of lurgi manifested as an uncontrollable urge to shout "EEEE-YACKABOO!" without realising. It was implied that the disease was fatal; Moriarty claims that the British Isles could be wiped out in as little as six weeks.

References
^ Quinion, Michael. The Dreaded Lurgi. World Wide Words.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lurgy"

Dear Sahir,

Thought about you last night.

We went to see Devendra Banhart at the Forum in Kentish Town, part of north london. The man seems too long and narrow to have a voice of such astonishing depth. He's a warbler, and a fantastic one. A charismatic fellow, he's as charming when he's mumbling into the mic as when he's speaking clearly. Quite boyish in speach, which belies the beard and the 70s rock-star hair. Anyway, that he's thin as a rail isn't the only reason i thought of you. Missing the times when we could sit down daily and listen to music in the wooden sanctuary of your Burlington flat. Caroline turned to me and said she hopes we don't have a flashback - it was Devendra we were listening to that night at yours post-graduation. "That would be amazing," i thought.

Lot's of music to see in this town. Last week it was Chemical Brothers and Justice (the latter the better) - see photo. I know it's no different from New York, but the endless possibilities for a night out can be paralyzing.

Instead of the NY Times Sunday edition, we get the Guardian (£1.50) on Saturday or The Observer (£1.70) and we read it at breakfast for the rest of the week. There was a funny column this week (in the Sunday Telegraph, actually) from Oliver Pritchett, writing about "'probability forcasts,' so that weather presenters avoid getting things wrong...temperature charts would be replaced by charts showing 'possible' temperatures":

"Good evening, and it's a very mixed bag with the weather outlook today. As you can see, we've got these question mark symbols over a large part of North-west England where, sticking my neck out, the winds could be fairly brisk-ish.

For North Wales, thunderstorms would be a pretty good each-way bet. Scotland, as usual, is anybody's guess. In South-east England we've got a lot of those arrows moving in from Devon and Cornwall, so by midday you should be seeing a lot more arrows here and along the South coast. The pollen count will be, you know, comme ci comme ça.

"That's about all I have to say about the weather, but, as you know, BBC Weather has now taken over the functions of the Office for National Statistics, so now we can look at the wider picture. First, I'll deal with the population of the United Kingdom. As you can see on the map, we've got this ridge of high population moving towards us from Eastern Europe.

"I think this will break up before it reaches us or drift away into the North Sea, although you may get a few scattered Slovenians in East Anglia. And if you live north of the Wash and you're going out today, it might be a good idea to take a Polish phrase book with you....

"If you go to our website, weatherbbc.co.uk/whatever, you'll see we've got some new figures from the Department of Education - which calls itself something else these days. A reasonable percentage of pupils passed GCSE maths and several handfuls of children (that's pretty big hands, remember) can read by the time they leave primary school compared with last year's figure, which was comparable to the population of a fairly large town in Austria.

That's probably quite good news. So, if you're going out today and you have a daughter aged 10, it might be a good idea to buy her a book. The Government has announced that it is investing squillions of pounds in school buildings. (Alex Deakin may have already announced this three times in earlier bulletins.)

"Crime figures now. This year a fair number of people have been victims of muggings, compared with quite a few last year. So, if you're going out tonight it might be a good idea to stay at home.

"Now, let's look at the Health Forecast map. It's a pretty grim picture here with these little skull-and-crossbones symbols sweeping in from the North-east, bringing with them lots of ever-so nasty illnesses, then they collide with these symbols, which are not puffy clouds, but little obese people. And over here, there's a scattering of persistent flu viruses. So, if you're going out today, you've got a roughly one in four chance of coming back alive."

Sounds fairly similar to the forecast in our country. Things aren't so different.

On an up-note, the weather today is actually very Septemberish. I had the french doors open at breakfast.

Hope you're sleeping well, my friend.

rain, rain, go away...

Caroline went to see a comedian recently who talked about how everyone always says that this or that "is the worst/best thing since records began." What an exciting time it must have been when records really did begin because then everything would be the biggest/smallest/best/worst/wettest/driest/warmest/coldest since records began. Talking 'bout the weather, mostly. Anyway, this summer is officially the wettest summer since records began and that is only comforting in the sense that one can imagine it doesn't get much worse than this. It's wet and cold and even the sunny mornings feel like spring mornings and well, it would be just about the worst summer ever except i'm just so darned pleased to have a place of my own with a girl that i love and life is good. So good that i haven't taken a moment to write about it. Just have to imagine that i've been on holiday like most of the people in this country who've stepped away to sunnier places. Still, given the protest at Heathrow and all the goings on about carbon footprints, one can comfortably say that staying put is a lifestyle choice of the green and fashionable. Anyway, all the traveling i've down over the last few years, and the fact that one transatlantic flight - just one - is the equivalent of one twelfth of the average persons annual carbon output, means that i've got some staying put to do. Fine with me. I just hope the sun comes out.

Until it does, we're at home watching the first season of Lost. This show is amazing! I hate to go on about a TV show, given that I hate TV, but there have been those occasions over the past few years where i've envied those with the little picture box in their living rooms and many of them have involved people talking about this show, which i'm finally getting to watch. I'm not going to say much about it because everyone has already seen it. But we're loving it and it's passing the rainy days and evenings.

And another thing...we went out to see the Piney Gir Country Road Show on Friday night. Piney Gir is from Kansas and i remembered downloading some of her music a few years ago. She came to England nine years ago and started playing the working mens clubs around the country with a country band. She started converting all her songs to country music and on friday she was playing at the Spitz in the old Spitalfield Market just down the road. The Spitz is across from The Three Bells, which is where Jack the Ripper used to drink. You wouldn't know it though, as this is wear London's ultra-hip convene at the weekends. It's Shoreditch, darling! I would, i swear, never go out for a country music night in the States. And i hate to admit it, but it felt great to hear a little country music. Reminds me of home...sadly. Still her indie-tinged alt-country had the small crowd swinging with delight. Spoke to her after the show and it turns out she lives in the neighborhood. Told her i'd see in the Shakie...that's what people call the Shakespeare. The shakey in stokey. They've got a nickname for everything here.

Except for me. I'm still waiting for mine.