Father and Son

Batu Caves Temple, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia ©Tauseef Mehrali 2005

The Tannery

The Tannery, Fez, Morocco ©Tauseef Mehrali 2006

Karbala in Verse

A pretty self-explanatory link that does what it says on the tin.

Decisions, decisions

My task yesterday was to convince a precocious 6 year old lad recovering from leukaemia to have an injection. Not usually too taxing a requirement as these kids have been subjected to more pin pricks than even the most elderly of tailors. This particular injection was different though. It had to be given intramuscularly i.e. in an arm or bum. In a bid to empower him I offered him the choice. He eventually opted for his posterior. Next we had to decide on a side.

Me: Which bum do you want it in? Left or right?
Kid: Ermmm...ermmm...which bum?
Me: That's right.
Kid: Ermmm...my mum's bum!

Proof

Photographic proof of my alleged trips to Fez and Bosnia is now available in 'My Travels'.

Travels with a Tangerine

Tim Mackintosh-Smith's entertaining travelogue subtitled 'A journey in the footsteps of Ibn Battutah' has made its way onto television with the first part being aired on BBC 4 tonight at 21:00.

Tim Mackintosh-Smith sets off in the footsteps of the Moroccan scholar Ibn Battutah who, in 1325, embarked on a thirty-year pilgrimage across forty countries and three continents.

This first episode, retracing Ibn Battutah's journey across North Africa, tells the story of an unprecedented age of wanderlust in the Islamic world.

Heading first for Battutah's birthplace, Tangier in Morocco, Tim stumbles on a performance of medieval trance music, devours a sheep's head in the souq and meets children being taught about the Hajj pilgrimage, the original reason Battutah left home.

Following Battutah's trail to Egypt, Tim ventures into the countryside by tuk-tuk and donkey to a remote village where Battutah had an astonishing prophetic dream. In Cairo, Tim visits Al Azhar, the world's oldest university, and explores how the search for knowledge and understanding is integral to Islam.

After sailing down the Nile, Tim finds a camel herder who is prepared to take him across the desert, and they set out into the wilderness.

Time to stand up to the extremists

Thanks to tc of Heliotype fame for bringing this to my attention.

Time to stand up to the extremists

Today's news of a third letter bomb attack - this time sent to the DVLA - should be a wake up call for everyone in this country. For too long we have allowed an extremist minority of Radical Motorists to grow like a cancer in our midst.

And the few brave souls who have stood up to the stifling politically correct "multivehicular" consensus and warned of the threat posed by Extremist Motorism have been shouted down with wild accusations of "Motorphobia" for their pains.

Let us be clear. The vast majority of British Motorists are law-abiding moderates. But they have allowed their community to be hijacked by a radical fringe with no respect for our common values.

These extremists have infiltrated so-called "driving schools" and taken over the most prominent Motorist organisations, such as the RAC and AA. And they have a hidden fanatic agenda of replacing our British rule of law with their Highway Code.

It's time for moderate mainstream Motorists to acknowledge the problem in their community and, errm, drive out the extremists. They need to be clear and unequivocal in their condemnation of the latest Motorist outrages. They should start cooperating with the transport police rather than complaining about how they're being "victimised".

And the government needs to take off the kid gloves and crack down hard on hate-filled extremists such as Jeremy Clarkson who hog the airwaves and give all Motorists a bad name.

Oh, and one more thing. How are we supposed to communicate properly if some of them insist on covering up their faces?

The Medina

The Medina, Fez, Morocco ©Tauseef Mehrali 2006

The Medina (2), Fez, Morocco ©Tauseef Mehrali 2006

Guess who's back?

In the end, this comment proved sufficient incentive to overcome the ineptitude of the cretins behind blogger.com who decided to fix something that wasn't broken and in doing so cripple by ability to blog. It was galling to discover that a mere '/' lay between me cluttering cyberspace with my random thoughts and remaining effectively mute for the last couple of months.

Any way, let the good times begin (again).