the ambassador's reception
Another early morning. Mohammed is in my room being grumpy while asleep, something he excels at, while Pandora has spent the morning getting almost theatrically suspicious of his socks, which is really funny because she keeps sniffing around and then doing a little leap backwards.
I'm in a bit of trouble, one of the artworks from a previous show has gone missing. The good thing is that it is a very cheap work to reproduce - it's made of those huge plastic carryalls, with some words machine embroidered on the front - but it's an artwork, and we turned CIC upside down looking for it. This is incredibly embarrassing and totally unprofessional. There are five of them and we suddenly have four. I'm blaming myself because you have to reiterate care of artwork repeatedly and firmly to Naser and Hamdy who get casual after a time, and though I think I've been excessively jumpy about it, the handling and repacking of this work to go back to the gallery has dragged on for a while and something like this was bound to happen. I really don't know what I'm going to say and am currently depending on Naser to come up with a miracle. I honestly wonder if someone hasn't mistakenly taken one home for use.
So that is incredibly shit and the reason I couldn't sleep past 5am. Mohammed and I were understandably on a downer last night but eventually I felt sulky and miserable and called him and asked him round and whined about how we never talk, and does he even fancy me, doesn't he fancy that pretty intern we interviewed today, why would he even fancy me anyway, I was basically a total pain and he did pretty well at saying the right things until I started bringing up the big betrayal and he went all noble and quiet when I don't need him to be noble, I need him to be passionate and desperate.
This is sort of fucked up I know. I don't know what's up with me.
I'm worried about his visa for the UK - it's supposed to take 48 hours and it's been a week. We're worried his bank account didn't display enough money even though it's clearly indicated that he is having his accommodation and food paid and he has 700sterling spending money. He also has Schengen and that 'extra special worker' class of USA visas all over his passport, which is a really good advantage. But this is the first time in the *fucking* UK and border control over there are going topsy turvy with racism and it's also only a tourist visa whereas most of his other ones have been for a proper reason. Dad is primed to put on his respectable telephone voice and refer to himself as 'Professor', but no-one has called.
Whereas I can just wander into Egypt, slap down a tenner and head directly to duty free and a taxi. It's shit, so filthily shit. The day Mohammed had his visa appointment, I was invited for a dinner at Lord Cromer's Residence to welcome the new ambassador. Who then made the colossal faux pas, in some sort of ill-conceived notion of cultural reciprocity, of after asking us to drink to the Queen and praising the revolution (yes the ironies simply multiply from here), asking the mixed British-Egyptian crowd to drink to drink to General Tantawy.
Naturally I didn't. Drinking to the Queen is bad enough but it's a hypocrisy I lived with so it's not shocking, and hey it's the British Embassy, you're kind of expected to pay lip service to the Queen. Tantawy? There was a lot of coughing and I think I even heard someone spill their drink, a gesture for which I have a lot of respect. Why are diplomats so universally stupid? Basically I shouldn't have gone. I went out of curiosity for what these things are like, and for the distant possibility of meeting someone rich enough to give money to CIC. Learned my lesson there.
Luckily it's a glowy and still-cool morning and it's hard to be cheerless in this light. The other day Mohammed discovered such a thing as shawerma feteer. That's feteer made with shawerma. Which if you know Egyptian food, is just insane levels of awesomeness.
I'm in a bit of trouble, one of the artworks from a previous show has gone missing. The good thing is that it is a very cheap work to reproduce - it's made of those huge plastic carryalls, with some words machine embroidered on the front - but it's an artwork, and we turned CIC upside down looking for it. This is incredibly embarrassing and totally unprofessional. There are five of them and we suddenly have four. I'm blaming myself because you have to reiterate care of artwork repeatedly and firmly to Naser and Hamdy who get casual after a time, and though I think I've been excessively jumpy about it, the handling and repacking of this work to go back to the gallery has dragged on for a while and something like this was bound to happen. I really don't know what I'm going to say and am currently depending on Naser to come up with a miracle. I honestly wonder if someone hasn't mistakenly taken one home for use.
So that is incredibly shit and the reason I couldn't sleep past 5am. Mohammed and I were understandably on a downer last night but eventually I felt sulky and miserable and called him and asked him round and whined about how we never talk, and does he even fancy me, doesn't he fancy that pretty intern we interviewed today, why would he even fancy me anyway, I was basically a total pain and he did pretty well at saying the right things until I started bringing up the big betrayal and he went all noble and quiet when I don't need him to be noble, I need him to be passionate and desperate.
This is sort of fucked up I know. I don't know what's up with me.
I'm worried about his visa for the UK - it's supposed to take 48 hours and it's been a week. We're worried his bank account didn't display enough money even though it's clearly indicated that he is having his accommodation and food paid and he has 700sterling spending money. He also has Schengen and that 'extra special worker' class of USA visas all over his passport, which is a really good advantage. But this is the first time in the *fucking* UK and border control over there are going topsy turvy with racism and it's also only a tourist visa whereas most of his other ones have been for a proper reason. Dad is primed to put on his respectable telephone voice and refer to himself as 'Professor', but no-one has called.
Whereas I can just wander into Egypt, slap down a tenner and head directly to duty free and a taxi. It's shit, so filthily shit. The day Mohammed had his visa appointment, I was invited for a dinner at Lord Cromer's Residence to welcome the new ambassador. Who then made the colossal faux pas, in some sort of ill-conceived notion of cultural reciprocity, of after asking us to drink to the Queen and praising the revolution (yes the ironies simply multiply from here), asking the mixed British-Egyptian crowd to drink to drink to General Tantawy.
Naturally I didn't. Drinking to the Queen is bad enough but it's a hypocrisy I lived with so it's not shocking, and hey it's the British Embassy, you're kind of expected to pay lip service to the Queen. Tantawy? There was a lot of coughing and I think I even heard someone spill their drink, a gesture for which I have a lot of respect. Why are diplomats so universally stupid? Basically I shouldn't have gone. I went out of curiosity for what these things are like, and for the distant possibility of meeting someone rich enough to give money to CIC. Learned my lesson there.
Luckily it's a glowy and still-cool morning and it's hard to be cheerless in this light. The other day Mohammed discovered such a thing as shawerma feteer. That's feteer made with shawerma. Which if you know Egyptian food, is just insane levels of awesomeness.