Today, blue is probably the most popular colour around.
We assosiate good things with it, it represents all sorts of positive things: air, sea, freshness, calm, and a few not so; feeling blue, blue monday. At least in this day and age, blue get a good deal of attention. But it was not always so- Continue reading “The colour blue – the devil, the virgin and the red dyers’ bribes” »
I admit I don’t really keep up with Northern Irish news much these days. It’s either desperately provincial – or just plain desperate. Yes, someone planted a bomb the other day, and yes, somebody got hurt. And I’m sure the obscure rural radio show is still going on without me. So. Some things never change.
But the other day, I got tangled in a BBC-infused NI-news-net. And some old skeletons dropped out of the closet. Good old names like Michael Stone and Mad Dog Adair.
Gerry Adams and Martin McGunniess nearly had their parliamentary meeting disturbed by Michael Stone, the old rascal, who wanted to slit the throats of the Shinners. Seriously. No kidding.
Michael Stone – exceptionally bad haircut and not-a-winning personality – stuck his nose out again, and this is a good wan!
Continue reading “Northern Irelands silly ghosts. Attempted murder, hahaha!” »
The sea – most of all the sea.
Coming from Damascus, two things are sights for sore eyes: the sea, and green things. I drank in green; on corners, on waste ground, balconies, flowerpots. My friends had lived in, and not really left Damascus, for a month at this point and I can only imagine how they felt. Nurseries. Trees in pots. Trailing ivy. Gums. Mimosa (?). Breathing air.
And the sea.
Awfully toxic and polluted, but to see a horizon. Delicious. Sniffing salt air.
The Mediterranean sea, basically a very large and deep bathtub with originally only the shallow Gibraltar strait to replace water through, the oceanographers estimates it takes a century to replace all the water in the Med, so it’s saltier (evaporation, narrow flow) than the atlantic, and have less nutrients.
The nutrient-poor, high-salinity of the Mediterranean sea getting mixed with water from the Red sea, through the Suez canal, and tiny marine creatures with it. It’s been going on for a while, but no one know quite which way it’s going.
Do we ever? Continue reading “Beirut” »
Damascus is a suprisingly small city- or at least it feels that way. The traffic is as maddening as you’d expect; but not quite as crazy as you’d might fear. The old city is as exotic as you’d hope, but not as impossible as you’d might be lead to believe.
This is not Bankok. This is not Jakarta. Thank god.
No dogs, was one of the first things that hit me. Going to bed after arriving, at four in the morning, I thought- fall asleep fast – the dogs will start the morning concerto, and then the mosque, and then the traffic.
But there are no dogs. It makes sense, of course, when you think of it, but four in the morning.. I expected a Bankok alarmclock. Continue reading “Damascus” »
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