Today I had a telling-off from a jumped-up failed artist of a mini administrator for one of our funders, and she was so rude I had to write to her director about it. If they have an issue (there are some minor communications issues which are TOTALLY UNDERSTANDABLE given there's been an UPRISING two streets away in the last two weeks) they can ( Read more... )

Being on holiday and feeling ill has left me far too much time to discover assholes on the internet.

The problem being, the discovery has been on the internet; the assholes are out there in the real world.

Maybe it is distance, but I'm terrified at the way things are going in Britain. When was it last possible to write an article like this, and have ( Read more... )

Feel like I need advice. It's a little complex to follow but it would be really nice if you'd follow it through.

We're doing this amazing workshop right now, right, with about five very young Egyptian artists. As one of the exercises in this, we decided to do a group read of Alain Badiou's 15 Theses of Contemporary Art. It's a short and very ( Read more... )

1) Bearing in mind you have never met me, never send me this message on facebook:
'Hey Mia, X and I will be in Cairo form October 17 till November 7 and look forward to meeting. We are on a research trip wanting to meet as many artists as possible and visit artist studios. Your suggestions would me most welcome. Email me at imatwat@yahoo.com and I' ( Read more... )

Wow, today is depressing.

I was UN-invited from the Bogota Biennial when they learned I don't speak Spanish - which is supremely unprofessional conduct: it's a simple consideration and easy to research, and you don't send someone a full-blown invitation until you know you can hire them. It's fine to work in a country whose language you don't know, ( Read more... )

I'm about to head to a march so this is a quick update. My period was emotionally fucked up, total depression on day 1 and telling Mohammed I'm not sure if I love him any more, and the next day I was in a state of grace and everything I looked at and thought about moved me to joyful tears. The taxi driver wouldn't let me pay, an offer that happens ( Read more... )

Pandora is being overwhelmingly cute this evening. Lying in triumph on the latest object over which she has achieved dominance - a sheet of newspaper that she batted off the table by trying to get underneath it - and beating up the Catnip Fish of Wonder - she then encountered the immense enigma that is bubbles.

She's a talkative cat anyway, but ( Read more... )

I'm obsessed by the phone-hacking scandal, which in the Guardian is outstripping other minor news events like the creation of a new republic in Sudan.

When it comes to major advertisers, the Church of England, the British political elite, and Prince Alwaleed Bin-Talal all pulling out of support for News Corp, let's not kid ourselves that it's due ( Read more... )

Today, ordering my shawerma lunch, I did the whole interaction in Arabic, even the bit when I didn't get the receipt I needed to redeem the Pepsi can from the guy at the fridge and had to go and point it out at the cash desk again (little aside but I love the overstaffing principle, and thus the minute departmentalisation, of a lot of Egyptian ( Read more... )

This is hideous.

Writer Tom MacMaster invented the American-Syrian identity of Amina Araf in the form of an online identity and, when the Arab Spring hots up, the blog damascusgaygirl.blogspot.com. He does this for four years. He is eventually found out. He writes a long selfpitying apology here. In the meantime, he:

- Photographed a female stranger ( Read more... )