Holy crap. The 9 September protesters are attacking the Israeli Embassy.

I'm not there. I'm staying out of this one. I went to today's protest but was groped and lost my mood. I'm not yet in the swing of revolution again. I did an exercise video and posted extensively about it instead. That's my white privilege.

Here's my reaction from tonight. Maybe ( Read more... )

I had a lovely day with standard_human. I would be writing about that, but I just heard that Omar Moustafa died.

I found out via facebook and so far haven't found out why and how, because no close-enough friends who would know and who I can ask, have been online. But I can make a guess.

Omar was 21, and very clearly three things: extremely decent person, intensely ( Read more... )

I think what is hard to square between the actions of the rioters and the views of the anti-neoliberalist commentators is, well, the actions of the rioters ( Read more... )

I'm at the 'oh, why can't I just sit around here having caffe lattes instead?' phase of my pre-travel behaviour.

I've done 'staying late at work emailing every conceivable document and message to myself that I've decided I will work on but actually I won't touch' and 'then returning, sweaty, to office, to print out e-ticket'.

I've done 'staying up ( 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... )

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... )

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 ( Read more... )

'The rights of workers to strike and protest should not interfere with the rights of those who wish to conduct their lives normally' - Mohammed Al-Guindi, justice minister

I can't find the actual quote any more but this is very very close.

This is bowdlerising the very notion of antagonism. Protest is by definition an antagonistic act. How can ( Read more... )

MoFa, Aida ElKeshef and NadimX have been arrested. There's a big protest tomorrow and they was putting posters up outside the syndicate of journalists in preparation, and they've been taken to the police HQ in Nasr City. MoFa/Ganzeer is a designer and adorable bloke, Aida I only slightly know but is a filmmaker and uber protester, and NadimX I don' ( Read more... )

That's weird. I'm sitting here at my desk at work, which is on the 4th Floor. My desk, which is one of those flat pack things whose pluggy joints are prone to being a bit loose loose, swayed just the tiniest bit, just enough to notice. So did my chair and computer screen I and, it seemed, the world in general.

This wasn't me being dizzy, I don't ( Read more... )