Today I read...
Life in Hell, a Baghdad diary ( originally published in TIME magazine) starts with the descent into the ex-'Saddam Hussein International' airport, before taking the 'Highway of Death'...
'A lapsed Hindu, I'm nonetheless grateful for any and all gifts that purport to holiness; somewhere in my bags are a tiny sandalwood Ganesha, pages of the New Testament and a string of Islamic prayer beads. In Iraq, you want to have God--anybody's God--within easy reach.
Sister Benedetta smiles politely when I joke that many of our fellow passengers will be calling to their maker when the plane begins its hellish descent. To avoid being shot down by Iraqi insurgents, the pilot must stay at 30,000 ft. until the plane is directly over Baghdad airport, then bank into a spiraling dive, straightening up just yards from the runway. If you're looking out the window, it can feel as if the plane is in a free fall from which it can't possibly pull out. I've learned from experience to ask for an aisle seat...'
Nosemonkey is righteously angry in ''All Civilised People'' , Obsolete has a devastating fisking of Reid's conference speech , Channel 4 fact-checks the PM's claims from his last conference speech - which Chicken Yogurt dissects with trademark mordant wit.
Hell, it's all very depressing. I had a long conversation with the lovely Art Malik last night about the state of the Middle East and the history of Iraq ( where his family are originally from) and the UK/US foreign policy and it left both of us rather gloomy, which was a shame, as it was a damn good party.
I leave hoping you can raise your spirits with a link to new discovery, the fabulous Spinster's Quest. It has cheered me up after a morning of surfing a rising wave of anger in blogland. More from me later, when I have an exciting announcement to make...
'A lapsed Hindu, I'm nonetheless grateful for any and all gifts that purport to holiness; somewhere in my bags are a tiny sandalwood Ganesha, pages of the New Testament and a string of Islamic prayer beads. In Iraq, you want to have God--anybody's God--within easy reach.
Sister Benedetta smiles politely when I joke that many of our fellow passengers will be calling to their maker when the plane begins its hellish descent. To avoid being shot down by Iraqi insurgents, the pilot must stay at 30,000 ft. until the plane is directly over Baghdad airport, then bank into a spiraling dive, straightening up just yards from the runway. If you're looking out the window, it can feel as if the plane is in a free fall from which it can't possibly pull out. I've learned from experience to ask for an aisle seat...'
Nosemonkey is righteously angry in ''All Civilised People'' , Obsolete has a devastating fisking of Reid's conference speech , Channel 4 fact-checks the PM's claims from his last conference speech - which Chicken Yogurt dissects with trademark mordant wit.
Hell, it's all very depressing. I had a long conversation with the lovely Art Malik last night about the state of the Middle East and the history of Iraq ( where his family are originally from) and the UK/US foreign policy and it left both of us rather gloomy, which was a shame, as it was a damn good party.
I leave hoping you can raise your spirits with a link to new discovery, the fabulous Spinster's Quest. It has cheered me up after a morning of surfing a rising wave of anger in blogland. More from me later, when I have an exciting announcement to make...
posted by Rachel at 11:22 am
Loved this line: "...a tiny sandalwood Ganesha, pages of the New Testament and a string of Islamic prayer beads. In Iraq, you want to have God--anybody's God--within easy reach." Reminded me of that great book I read in Kerela: THE LIFE OF PI...
Thanks for the link. Reid makes my skin crawl.