July | 2006 | Unnecessary and not very diverting musings

Browsing All Posts published on »July, 2006«

Sunday Chronicle

July 30, 2006

Yesterday I went for a day-use at Novotel with K. I like Novotel because for 65 L.E. you can order food and drinks as well as spend the day by the pool. In addition we saw Egyptian singer Rouby there (see pic). She has lost so much weight that she resembled an overtanned newt. I […]

Halim: a review

July 29, 2006

Went to see the movie Halim yesterday about the legendary Egyptian singer Abdelhalim Hafez (note: Wikipedia biography quite different from movie). My friend K and I, being the only two people in Cairo who haven’t seen The Yacobian Building, decided to team up to settle this once and for all, and we woke up bright […]

El takeef ne3ma

July 25, 2006

My dad says this all the time as soon as he sets foot in our apartment in Kuwait.“Yaaahhhh…el takeef ne3ma ya wlad,” (air-conditioning is a blessing, kids). And never have I heeded his words as much as now, having just returned home from Basata, to revel in paved floors and soothing cooled air. Basata, or […]

Have tried to resist but it’s too awful

July 24, 2006

As soon as I got back from Basata I checked out the news and read various editorials. Is there any real point in reading the news beyond ascertaining that the bombing continues and people are still dying? And then the editorials; whatever I read, it always brings me back to a recurring chain of thoughts. […]

To continue…

July 21, 2006

The film was, in so far as I know anything about films, really great. It was 68 minutes and I wasn’t bored once – I learned some new swear words as well. The director said she shot 52 hours of film, and I think she really managed to distill the essence of these girls’ lives. […]

A little distraction from the carnage

July 19, 2006

Did a large number of things these past couple of days that resulted in my reaching a heretofore unknown level of dirtiness. I met my friend E for lunch yesterday (we’re pretty much dating at this point, I think. At least, I cannot remember spending so much time with, and talking on the phone so […]

Vehicular Intimacy

July 15, 2006

I was out with sandmonkey again today (the perils of living in Heliopolis impose grave ills on us all). Afterwards he put me in a taxi.Taxi driver: madakhalsh ma3aki leh?Me: hayrawa7 3ala beito ba2a.TD: tab markebsh leh?Me: taree2o gheir taree2y. We aslan mish haykafy me3aya. Kebeer 3ala el taxiyat howa. Me7tag ye2ata3 nafso 7etat ya3nee.Td: […]

Forsoothsayer meets the sandmonkey

July 13, 2006

Yesterday I met the sandmonkey and he’s surprisingly nice! Not as all as big of a dickhead as his blog would lead you to think. He’s just a regular Egyptian dude who holds perfectly understandable views and giggles a lot. He’s not even as much of a yuppie-ass shit as you’d expect – but being […]

This blog is turning into a social diary

July 12, 2006

Home, exhausted, and coated with dirt. Pretty much the usual condition for Cairenes. Went to the opera today to watch a jazz performance by Ahmed Rabie and co. with my friend E and some friends of hers I hadn’t met before. The thing is, I hate jazz. But I always agree to go to jazz […]

Mint tea and shisha (with background football) Part II

July 10, 2006

As predicted, I did indeed have to secure the services of a plumber within the first few days of my arrival. I hadn’t even considered, actually, the mere possibility that I wouldn’t. Stuff breaks down on a minutely basis here, no one knows why. Well, in this case, we do know: my sister left the […]