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Diplomatic niceties
March 2, 2010Zion Evrony, Israel’s ambassador to Ireland isn’t the most liked man in the Emerald Isles, it would seem.Putting aside the passport theft business for a moment, he’s faced other bits and pieces of local resistance recently. A month ago, a mini row was prompted by the decision of a local council to invite him to [...]
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Tennis in Dubai
February 19, 2010Israeli female Tennis number 1, Shahar Peer was barred from playing in the Dubai Open a year ago – I blogged about it here. Following the justified fuss about the matter, the Dubai authorities had no option but to issue her a visa and allow her into the country to take part this year.Now, if [...]
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One State, One People…
February 17, 2010Tzipi Hotovely (Likud) made a name for herself on Saturday evening political programme “The Council of Wisemen” – Moetzet HaHakhamim – before becoming the youngest member of the current Knesset. The program – as do most political programmes in Israel – involves a lot of shouting, which no doubt prepared her well for her present [...]
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Maybe Ill loiter about for a bit after all…
February 12, 2010…but less of my whiny parsing and editorialising. Israel is far too an interesting a place not to write and blog about, after all. That said, I am acutely aware of my lack of knowledge and awareness about all sorts of things in this odd little corner of the world: Far better that I watch [...]
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Hello, goodbye
February 7, 2010It’s stopped being fun, and started to feel quite narcissistic. Writing a blog is an excellent way of keeping track of my thoughts: The problem is that it doesn’t actually do very much by way of figuring out what other people are thinking, or whether my tuppence worth has any chance whatsoever of influencing the [...]
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Im cold
December 30, 2009…so cold. At least, after the miserable weather in London this week, *winter* in Tel Aviv will be a welcome change. Leaving Ben Gurion last week:Stern Faced Child Playing At Security Expert (leafing through my British passport): What is the origin of your name?Me: NigerianSFCPASE (Eyebrows raised): Algerian?Me: No, NigerianSFCPASE: What language do you speak [...]
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A few things
December 21, 2009…before I bugger off on holiday:(Yeah, I should be packing. But I think Mrs Goy has done it all for me. I hope Mrs Goy has done it all for me…)To be quite honest, the return of the “Organ Harvesting” row doesn’t particularly interest me. It’s quite obvious that tampering with dead bodies, without the [...]
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This time next week
December 18, 2009…strikes by British Airways cabin crew allowing, I’ll be in London following a time honoured Christian tradition in the United Kingdom – getting drunk in front of Eastenders, after eating way too much of my mother’s Jollof Rice and Turkey.Nice.I’d always kind of wondered what Jews do on Christmas Day. And then Saturday Night Live [...]
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Bah, Humbug
December 14, 2009…used to be the preserve of the Christian-leaning world – you know, the miserable old geezer who pisses over everyone’s parade each year by pointing out that Jesus was probably born in October, or that the incongruities in the accounts in the four Gospels makes it at least likely that they were narrated, long after [...]
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Bring him home – Shalit, redux
December 9, 2009As a postscript to my musings yesterday, about the emotional and psychological significance of captured soldiers: an interesting article about the same subject by Ethan Bronner, NYT’s man in Jerusalem.One paragraph in particular caught my eye: ‘
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On Doughnuts, Gilad Shalit and other Chanukah Miracles
December 8, 2009When I lived in England, we used to run an ironic Christmas Tree Sweepstakes: the earliest confirmed date for spotting an erected Christmas Tree, indubitable evidence of the commercialisation of a sanctified family holiday (this bit always made me laugh – Christmas has always been commercial), cueing hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth in the petite [...]
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Being Jew-ish
November 30, 2009What does it mean to be, like, Jewish? On the one hand, it seems straightforward enough – matrilineal descent and all that. On the other, it does seem at times a rather complicated matter. Certainly, I for one would struggle to find anything in common between the nice young men (only men, mind – women [...]
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Flight plan
November 29, 2009I have to fly through Ben Gurion International Airport next week. Oh Joy…Quite seriously: The security checks are little more than an irritation these days – if nothing else, I find it vaguely amusing (albeit, if I am to be honest, also a little troubling) that the pre-pubescent security officials see fit to waste as [...]
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Macheads, the Movie
November 28, 2009I’ve used a Mac for about three years. I switched from PCs mainly because of the iPod, a hypothetical gadget come to life, a toy that I’d had wet dreams over about since I was about 8 years old. The Mac family of lifestyle/productivity tools are cool toys; they also attract an unlikely, unwieldy community [...]
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Talk Show Blues
November 27, 2009…so you have a bit of time on your hands, it’s late at night, perhaps you’ve had a drink or two. The radio is on and some angry men (they are usually men – women write letters) are shouting at each other. They think they’re having a rational, lucid conversation. They’re not, of course: it’s [...]
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Eatliz
November 25, 2009They were on at the Barby last night. Couldn’t make it, sadly – someone was picked (against his will) to be childcare for the evening. Their music is worth checking out IMHO: their website is here
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Oh dear
November 25, 2009From the Ynetnews website: Alert civilian at Tel Aviv Port spots government agent planting dummy bomb near vehicle as part of training course. Panic ensues as alarmed police officials unaware of exercise evacuate area; three employees suspended over incident. The full comedy of errors is here.A slight digression: I wonder whether Khaled Mashaal’s feet [...]
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And if you thought that the newspapers were bad…
November 4, 2009Shahar Golan posted this on his frgdr.com blog a couple of weeks ago. It is an interview with Ada Yonath, Professor of Chemistry at Machon Weizmann, and who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry last month. Or two interviews with Prof. Yonath Or one. As you’ll see from the clip, Yonath was interviewed on [...]
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Newspapers
November 2, 2009I read a lot, but I stopped getting a daily newspaper quite a while ago: I no longer see the point, to be quite honest. For one thing, newspapers lost the battle against 24 hour news channels quite a while ago, (incidentally, I loathe rolling news channels…well, that’s not entirely true. I have a love/hate/hate [...]
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Walt Whitman – O Captain! My Captain!
October 29, 20091O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done; The ship has weather’