His wife was in unaccompanied luggage

Sharshar regaled us with the story below during a recent summit of friends. While he swears that it's true - having heard it from someone who works in the cargo department of Cairo airport - and while the involvement of Egyptair might support his claims, it nonetheless sounds slightly like an urban myth to me.

Anyway I got him to write it out in Arabic cos I thought it might sound funnier if recounted as he originally said it. Not as funny when he said it.

من القصص المعروفة في قسم الشحن التابع لمصر للطيران ان في مرة واحد خليجي كان مسافر على مصر للطيران من اوروبا و شاحن معاه كلب.
في الترانزيت و هما بينقلوا الكلب لاحظ موظفين الشحن انه مش بيتحرك, ففتحوا الصندوق لقيوا الكلب ميت, فمنعا للمشاكل و الفضايح, استلقطوالهم كلب صاحي و حطوه مكان الكلب الميت و عدت الشحنة.
لما الخليجي وصل بلدة و رايح عشان يستلم الكلب, و قبل ما يقرب من الصندوق صرخ و قال الكلب ده مش بتاعي, قعدوا يقولوله يا باشا طيب اتأكد الاول يمكن هو,
قالهم مستحيل, انا شاحن الكلب ميت

One of the well-known tales about Egyptair's cargo department:

Once a gentleman from the Gulf was travelling on Egyptair from Europe, and had put a dog in cargo.

While they were moving the dog in transit, they cargo workers noticed that he wasn't moving. When they opened his container they discovered that the dog was in fact dead. In an attempt to avoid problems and a scandal, they replaced the dead dog with a live one, and sent it on its way.

When the gentleman from the Gulf arrived in his country and went to get the dog, he started shouting, "that's not my dog" even before he got near it.

"Basha, have a look first you might be mistaken," the workers said.

"Impossible," the gentleman from the Gulf said. "The dog I put in cargo was dead".

Market stalled

I was reminded of the state's relentless obsession with minutiae today, while attempting to buy some onions.

The local street market was mildly frenzied, as is usual in last two hours before Iftar (Ramadan fast-breaking meal) when tired fasting people make last minute purchases. Whilst in a reverie examining courgettes in a vegetable stall/shop, I suddenly became aware of the frenzy stepping up a gear, and looked up to see the shop's workers hurriedly snatching up wooden crates of fruits and vegetables displayed on the pavement outside the shop, and depositing them inside. The same thing was happening all along the street, flustered men barking instructions to other men while fearfully looking towards the square where the market begins.

Standing by the scales inside the shop waiting to pay, another woman and I were effectively boxed in by crates hurriedly flung inside.

“What's happening?” I asked the woman.

“Baladiyya” [a group of municipal representatives] she replied.

Abandoning all hope of purchasing anything I dumped my onions and got out of the shop while I still could, negotiating my way through giant cabbages and crates carried by sweaty, pissed-off men.

Outside, people were standing in small groups looking in the same direction, towards a blue police box (pick-up) slowly making its way down the street. Its pace reminded me of a tank, somehow. Further up, approximately level with the box, uniformed policemen and men in plain-clothing surrounded a boy who looked like he was around 12 years old. Two men marched him towards the box by the scruff of his neck, the boy convulsed with tears.

While this was going on a lorry following the box came to a stop next to a wooden two-wheeled cart laden with vegetables. It was lifted into the back of the lorry by the policemen, who were pelted with onions and peppers falling off the cart. The lorry drove off, while the cart's owners resignedly picked-up from the ground the few intact vegetables which remained.

A man with a towel tucked into his shirt collar outside a barbers told me that seized property is returned to owners if they pay a fine, and that the size of the fine is according to the property's “capabilities”.

A young girl in tears sprinted towards a group of middle-aged women and told them, “khadoo Amira” [they took Amira]. A tough-looking woman immediately marched towards the group of policemen. Some time later I saw her marching back, Amira in tow. A bystander told me that this is the first time they have seized a woman.

More of this street furniture was added to the lorry further on, their owners only having had time to salvage their produce before the baladeyya's arrival. Loaded with carts and tables and even small baskets, it trundled on, plain-clothed men walking alongside it. There were no objections, until the lorry reached a vegetable stall manned by a vocal bearded man and his family.

He attempted to prevent the baladeyya taking his table, while beside him another fruit & veg seller desperately pushed his display inside before triumphantly bringing down his shutter.

Things became heated and, as the lorry began to move away – the table precariously placed on top, held in place by a policeman perched on the side of the lorry – the bearded man attempted to hold on to the side of the lorry. It drove off anyway, at some speed, and the man was forced to release his grip. Standing in the wake of the dust left by the lorry he pointed at bystanders and screamed at no-one in particular, “le kol zalem we ebn zalem nehaya” [every oppressor and son of an oppressor will meet his end].

I couldn't believe the effort put into clearing metre-squared bits of pavement (and to what end?), the (deliberate?) chaos of it all, the (typically) vicious way in which the state dealt with what it apparently considers people as disposable as the furniture its enforcers dumped in the lorry. It reminded me of a cowboy film, when the town's inhabitants all scurry into the safety of their houses and lock the door upon the arrival of the shadowy bad guy.

The real joke though of course is that this assault on people's livelihoods is – ostensibly, at least – carried out in the name of ensuring the free-flow of traffic. It's a shame the state isn't quite as zealous about traffic movement at other times, such as when a minor official decides to cross from one side of Cairo to another and Cairo's 2.5 million other car owners are forced to stew in their vehicles while the flotilla passes.

Sa-hell

Be gentle. Taken by a 6-year old.

I was reminded of the relationship between exclusivity and pleasure in Egypt this week when I joined members of my family enduring each other at close proximity, AKA having a summer holiday.

This year it was the Diplomats holiday village, on the North Coast, whose beautiful Mediterranean shores are gradually being cluttered with holiday resorts hidden away behind perimeter fences, security gates and entrance tickets. In addition to being financially off-limits, many of these resorts are in any case physically inaccessible: I caught a Superjet bus to the Marina resort (half an hour away from Diplomats and apparently the only stop between Marsa Matrouh and Alexandria), and saw some microbuses scuttling along, but imagine lugging two weeks' worth of luggage and kids from Cairo in a microbus on a three or four-hour ride.

Unencumbered by kids or much luggage I enjoyed the trip from Cairo, because of the El-Alamein Road's spectacular scenery - big skies and vast, empty plains, only slightly marred by the fact that we were subjected to Tamer Hosny in Craptain Hima for the duration of the trip. An elderly scowling gentlemen of discerning taste seated next to me rested his chin on his hands - which were gripping the walking stick placed in front of him – and closed his eyes throughout.

Diplomats is a labyrinthine warren of bungalows which in places reminded me of Bournemouth. The bungalows are not referred to as bungalows, of course, but rather as chalets, despite being altogether too grand for such a title. I got lost the second night there, attempting to return to our bungalow in the dark. All the streets look the same. Upstairs Auntie advised me to get my bearings through reference to a giant inflatable Pepsi can placed outside the central Social Club. It helped, but not in the dark.

The Pepsi can was an early indication of the extent of corporate sponsorship in Diplomats and elsewhere on the North Coast's exclusive resorts. On the beach we sat underneath Pepsi umbrellas on Vodafone beanbags. Adverts for a particular bank adorned each street corner. Signs on the El-Alamein road announced that drivers in trouble can call an emergency number – courtesy of Mobinil. The state was conspicuous by its absence. Everything was very well done, very well organised, and reserved for 0.5% of the Egyptian population.

I'm not exaggerating when I say that I heard more English in Diplomats then I do on the Tube in London. The AUC graduating class of 2020 was apparently holidaying at the same time as me. The preference for English transactions is partly explained by the fact that many of the kids I saw on the beach were accompanied by their nannies, mostly non-Arabic speakers of African and Philippine origin. One exchange particularly struck me: a group of three teenage boys elected to bury a member of their group in the sand. “Let's get cracking on this bitch!” said one of them, in the style of Sid from Last of the Summer Wine meets Notorious BIG.

And get cracking they did, first giving their victim breasts before proceeding to lovingly carve out a penis of frankly obscene proportions - which one of them then violently destroyed in a fit of possibly Freudian anger.

Speaking of knobs, an elderly gentleman decided to get his out in order to urinate – in the showers on the beach – exactly at the moment I was jogging past one morning. I wondered if he had mistaken me for a male, and was cottaging al fresco. My long-held conviction that jogging is evil was confirmed, in any case.

Instructions placed in the showers sadly do not explicitly ban pissing, but do mention that “workers and nannies” may only use the beach “in the designated areas” - a bantustan inside the bantustan. Where exactly these designated areas are remains a mystery. The workers I saw were invisible. Silently collecting rubbish, serving guests or looking after their children.

In Porto Marina I saw off-duty workers seated on the ground, eating, underneath a huge advertising hoarding showing a laughing family frolicking in water.

Nannies were everywhere in Porto Marina (entrance fee LE 10) a complex of shops, a hotel and time-share apartments, constructed around an artificial bay. Running through the mall is an artificial waterway on which punters can take a Gondolier ride (LE 20) past shops selling convertible Mini Coopers (around LE 300,000) and waterskiing equipment. My cousin's kids wanted a ride on the boat which does a circle of the artificial bay (LE 25 per person). “Hatet2elab, hatet2elab” [It's going to capsize] six-year old Elvis insisted, when the boat rocked violently in the wake of a jet-ski manned by an eleven-year old slicing his way through the lake.

One of the nannies I saw in Marina was the same height as her charges, around ten years old, fragile and tiny. In the Andrea restaurant in the Hacienda resort a kid with a raspy, newly-broken voice stood outside the toilets. “Etfaddaly” [approximately, welcome] he said, as I walked in. “Etfaddaly” he said, as I walked out. Back at the table I watched an Ethiopian nanny try to rein in a particular boisterous child wearing a t-shirt reading, “records are made to be broken”. He was amusing himself by collecting, and lobbing about, chair cushions. His mother eventually took notice. “Keda 3abat” [that's stupid] she said, and the nanny attempted to restrain him. He gave her a nasty pinch on her upper arm, discreetly.

I mentioned the Andrea kid manning the toilets to my cousin. She suggested that families will send their children out to work whatever happens and that doing this type of job is better than children being exploited in workshops. At least there they learn skills, I said. Yes, but they're exploited, she replied.

There is – of course – an artificial beach in Porto Marina, to match the artificial bay and the artificial Venice. Booths advertise video games and sell Zalabia. Children and teenagers parade up and down Marina's central strip, while in the kids' play-area sad-eyed women supervise other people's manic children in a fluorescent, bouncy castle, nursery-rhyme, hell.

Like Scooby Doo, without the fun or the flares

Innit funny how certain films are able to strip previously decent actors of all and any talent? Like paint-stripper, whooosh. Gone. I spent Tuesday night trying to find where the director of the Suspect might have hidden Amr Waked and Bassem Samra's talent, unsuccessfully.

Waked himself has disassociated himself from the film: in an interview with the Al-Shorouq newspaper he says that he walked out halfway through an advance screening such was his disgust at how awful it is, and demanded that certain scenes be re-shot. Director Mohamed Hamdy – whose cinematic capabilities are “extremely limited” according to Waked – agreed, but did not keep the promise.

Waked told Al-Shorouq that he has abandoned the ugly bastard child of the Suspect, and considers that he only has one film out this summer, the well-received 'Ibrahim El-Abyad'.

Two of the friends I saw the Suspect with also attempted to escape the film. They spent the film looking for pretexts to escape its direness, getting popcorn and going to the toilet, bobbing up and down like life buoys. Meanwhile, I laughed, as before me this monstrosity of a film blundered its way towards the final credits.

The signs that something was wrong were there from the very beginning. Respected musician Waguih Aziz was brought on to provide the score, but he got the paint-stripper treatment too. The result is the world's most intrusive, most inappropriate, most ridiculous film score, ever, with which we are barraged from the very start. The Suspect is supposedly a thriller. Why then, as we watch cars in flames and people fleeing death, do we hear muzak, an odd, interminable, very vaguely oriental mush? Imagine watching Goodfellas listening to Kenny G and his fucking saxophone covers and you'll get an idea.

So there we are, Waked and Sawsan Badr about to go tete-a-tete in a potentially tense scene, and suddenly an instrumental Jingle bloody Bell Rock or something akin to it bursts forth. Whoever is responsible for musical direction in this film has an approach similar to deaf sign-language subtitles, namely that everything, every emotion, every gesture, should be translated into music.

Unfortunately the music and and the emotion rarely coincide. The musical director was apparently blindfolded when he directed the score.

Perhaps they could have just turned up the music really loud, and turned the Suspect into a silent movie, or a musical, it wouldn't have made much difference. At least this way we would have been spared the dialogue. Much of the film is, in any case, physical, by which I mean that people never stop running.

In case you're wondering, they're running away from a mysterious killer. Waked (who, to add salt to the wound of his embarrassment at the film, appears twice, in the form of twin brothers) is Maged. Maged's brother Motaz was killed in an unexplained road accident. Ever since the accident Maged, his mother Sawsan Badr, Motaz's widow Sahar (played by Boshra) and daughter May have been terrorised by a masked, knife-wielding maniac who repeatedly succeeds in entering their villa without, apparently, any of them considering a review of home security.

We see the family burying Motaz, who was last seen motoring away from the villa in his BMW, incandescent with rage at the possibility that Sahar might be having it away with another bloke. The funeral is interrupted by police officer Sherif Beih (Samra), who arrives in a customised Jeep Wrangler of the type favoured by lothario diving instructors, wearing horrid I-give-you-good-price 1980s plastic sunglasses. We subsequently discover that Sherif Beih is an upstanding, principled, and dull police officer, despite his sartorial gigolo tendencies.

To remind us that Badr is An Old Woman she has been giving a streak of white hair Corella De Ville style, making her look like a couple of pigeons with Dysentery have wiped their bums on her head.

Seven year-old May gave the film's best performance, mainly because her role was limited to saying two lines and being carted about by the adults.

The film is essentially a tiresome murder mystery. What secrets lurk in Sahar's past? Could Motaz still be alive? Why is Maged so cagey? Will May ever speak? Why does everyone's name begin with M? In the middle of all this Murad floats around, making sudden appearances in the villa, uninvited, without anyone minding. Who he is exactly, or where he has appeared from is never really explained, but he has great big fucking red arrow pointing at him throughout the duration of the film.

In case we weren't able to pose these questions ourselves, the villa's bowab and his wife did it for us, slapping their cheeks in a distraught, country bumpkin manner about their employers' plight while the audience wondered what exactly was the point of these characters.

The knife-wielding murderer sequences were largely tedious, as expected, with the exception of one hilariously-bad scene conducted in the hospital where May has been taken, possibly in shock at only being given two lines. Remarkably, the family have checked May into the emptiest hospital in Egypt. Pointless, lingering shots of empty ward corridors thoughtfully let the audience know that a chase scene is in the offing, and that it will be long, since this is apparently a hospital which functions without patients and only one nurse, who Sahar witnesses being strangled by the man in black. She decides that the best thing to do would be to 'hide' May in the bathroom while she herself legs it.

The ruse works because the killer is clearly stupider than Sahar, and there then follows an endless chase scene, Sahar dashing around at approximately -0.5 miles per hour in stiletto heels like a snake on stilts, the click-clack of her heels echoing around the empty hospital, but apparently insufficiently loudly enough for the killer to locate her.

Interestingly, the hospital basement car park to which Sahar flees was full of vehicles, despite being uninhabited above, we noted in between almost expiring from laughter.

Needless to say all this was accompanied by the lift music.

Further guffaws were drawn from the audience when Sherif Beih drew a gun on someone with such stiffness, at such a 90 degree angle, that it was like watching a bridge being lowered. Better still was when, at the film's denouement after a 'dramatic' shoot-out, Sherif Beih asks Magdy whether he's OK, and Magdy replies “I'm OK”, with the emotion of a catatonic mushroom.

Ultimately viewing this film was surreal. I kept asking myself whether it was all an elaborate tongue-in-cheek send-up, or a tribute to Egyptian 1980s kitsch, in the manner of Tarantino's Grindhouse – particularly when during the screening I went to, the lights went up during the intermission, the film stopped, relieved audience members were gratefully lifting themselves out of their seats only for the film to suddenly and without warning start five seconds later. It would seem that even the projectionist wanted the pain to end as soon as possible.

PLANTS DEMAND RESPECT OUTSIDE STATE COUNCIL

Potted plants demanded an end to the practice of under-watering and eventual death in every single government office in Egypt.

CAIRO: Roughly 100 potted plants who began a sit-in on the steps of Cairo State Council say they will continue their protest despite intimidation by security bodies.

The plants, a mixture of household and outdoor flowering varieties, are all members of the banned Free Foliage Movement.

The group - which counts some three gazillion members – is accused by the government of terrorist activity.

Speaking during a press conference on moustache-care held in Marina last week Interior Minister Beloved Le Juste said that the group “threatens national security and its propaganda soils Egypt's image abroad.”

Le Juste - who has a well-groomed moustache - said that the Movement's members “form part of a giant cell seeking to overthrow democracy in Egypt. This cell is in itself part of a worldwide movement.”

As evidence, Le Juste pointed to the colour of Palestinian group Hamas' flags (green) which he said “is the colour favoured by these enemies of Egypt's security”.

He also told reporters that intelligence reports have established links between the Movement and members of the Hezbollah group.

“We have pictures showing Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah gently stroking a Poinsettia leaf. Furthermore, when the Rafah crossing was breached in January 2008, palm trees – the movement's militant branch – were seen obstructing Egyptian policemen's ability to shoot at people.”

“These criminals can and will not be allowed to compromise Egypt's sovereign borders,” Le Juste added.

Speaking outside the State Council Movement member Abu Tilon poured scorn on Le Juste's statements.

“Yes, plants won't be allowed to compromise Egypt's national borders - unless Israel wants some nice Gardenias planted at the Taba crossing that is.”

Bahia Absinthifolia, secretary-general of the Movement's women's section, alleges that potted plants are routinely subjected to violations of their rights by members of Egypt's security forces.

“My husband was arrested in a midnight raid in front of our children, one of whom was still sprouting. They threatened to dead-head my husband. He then disappeared for two weeks. I was recently allowed to visit him in Tora Meshtal prison and he was in a terrible condition.

“He and other Movement members have been denied sunlight and adequate watering and kept in the criminals' section. Other prisoners put their cigarettes out in his pot.”

Security forces cracked down on the potted plants when they began to sway their leaves gently in the wind, in time to “Garrab nar el 3'eera” by Warda, the group's spiritual guide.

Police officer general Arse Tourettes El-Teez interrupted his tea drinking and prayer bead manipulation to order journalists to fuck off under threat of being hung, drawn and quartered.

El-Teez was then seen muttering into a mobile phone, after which a large group of plain-clothed thugs arrived, some armed with pruning instruments.

Speaking as she was being dragged away by the police Abu Tilon's wife Dahlia lashed out at the US administration.

“After years of repression, the oppressive Egyptian regime used us to decorate Cairo University for the speech by US president Hajeeb Al-Azaaar. Al-Azaaar was quite happy to wave at us from his flotilla as he went past but remains silent as our rights are brutally abused.”

This page cannot be displayed, you naughty boy.

As part of its long-term campaign against common sense swine flu, the government has put up US Aid funded posters inside metro underground trains, advising passengers on what measures to take to avoid contamination. One of the suggestions, after household members' temperature monitoring is, “avoid crowded areas”. I wondered if they're taking the piss.

The other arm of the flu-fighting strategy, is, as the whole world alas now knows, the culling of Egypt's 300,000 pigs. I myself used a similar strategy a while back, when I got a CD stuck in my laptop disc drive. After the fix-all cmnd+alt+esc didn't work, I switched the laptop off and on again. When that didn't work, I did a thing which I thought at the time was logical but with hindsight realise was moronic. I inserted a second CD into the disc drive.

The thinking behind this was that there's no way the bloody thing will accept a second CD, it can't hurt, and this might somehow solve the problem. I anticipate a recruitment call from the ministry of health tomorrow morning first thing.

The health minister has admitted that the cull has nothing to do with the swine flu. Advocates of the destruction of Egypt's pork industry say that is a public health measure necessary to rid Egypt of the vile four-legged health hazards and their stink. Opponents suggest that in addition to being unnecessary and insane, the measure has sectarian overtones.

The administrative court today issued an important judgement. The case was brought by a lawyer who clearly does not use Facebook and therefore has too much time on his hands. He is also clearly too concerned with what other people do with their time, and their hands. He raised a case demanding that the ministry of telecommunications ban 'obscene' websites, and the court found in his favour, goddamit.

Here's an extract from the court's pompous and stupid reasoning:

“Rights and freedoms are not absolute, but rather limited by the [need to] protect the pure essence of the family which in its turn is the basis of society, and whose constituent elements are religion, morals and patriotism. The state and society are obligated to safeguard the nation’s high level of religious upbringing, moral and patriotic values … as well as public morals.”

If someone can illuminate me as to how society should safeguard moral values when society itself is getting busy with the google searches, I would be grateful.

Some ministry of telecommunications suit gave an interview on talk show 90 Minutes this evening, sounding non-loony and quite reasonable. Maybe they'll appeal, or ignore it. Or maybe Egypt's youth will be dusting off their porn collection before the year is out.

The porn decision – issued by a court, OK, but some observers suggest that the government is waiting for any opportunity to control internet activity – forms part of a series of weird decisions taken by state bodies recently.

Observe:

Porn – spreading depravity. Ban.

Pigs – spreading sausages. Destroy.

Hezbollah cell in Egypt – sending aid. Prosecute.

Caritas – spreading love. Stop.*

Emos – spreading black eyeliner. Arrest.

* To be fair, the campaign against Catholic relief organisation Caritas is being led by newspaper El-Masry El-Youm, which more and more seems to “report” news from another planet.

The common factor in all these cases is that they involve a foreign element (or an element foreign to Islam, as with the pigs), which reminds me of a bonkers front page story published by Al Ahram recently:

The official Egyptian government daily newspaper, al-Ahram, devoted its main front-page headline Saturday to an unprecedented attack against the leaders of Iran, Syria, Qatar, Hezbollah, the Muslim Brotherhood movement in Egypt, Hamas, as well as the Qatari-owned Al-Jazeera television network and Hezbollah’s al-Manar television. Al-Ahram accused those countries and organizations, which have been dubbed by Egyptian commentators as the “Axis of Evil,” of collaboration with the “plot” to topple Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s regime from power by means of terror attacks inside Egypt.

(This was before Swine Flu, which is why pigs weren't included in the list of mortal enemies.)

I'm stating the obvious, but I'll say it anyway: a paranoid regime which exerts the majority of its energies on rabble rousing against an external threat(s) is trying to conceal its own inadequacies. Which is not to say that suspicion of the other does not exist in Egyptian society. It does. Ask an Egyptian Bahai. But as with xenophobia against immigrants in Western Europe, how much of this antipathy is attributable to deliberate misinformation, and poor education, and media which loves a sensation? Does what is ostensibly over zealous nationalism mask a deep insecurity, even a loss of identity?

A pharoah god, apparently, demonstrating complete disregard for the nation's high level of religious upbringing, moral and patriotic values.

Original picture here.

Bread and butter VII

Here's an article what I wrote about having my gear nicked.

Two days after World Press Freedom Day, Egypt marked the event in its unique, inimitable style on Monday.

The April 6 Youth Movement - a small group of young activists who are a regular feature at anti-government demonstrations and in police stations – announced at the end of April that their birthday gift to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on May 4 would be a protest “to let people know that Mubarak isn't holy, and that he's a failure as a civil servant.”

The group planned to hold its demonstration at Cairo's State Council, where the administrative judiciary is hearing the ongoing case against Egypt's gas exports to Israel.

Five of the group's activists were arrested even before they reached the State Council and immediately taken to the nearby Dokki police station. 17 people were detained over the course of the day.

There was considerable activity at the State Council. Mubarak's birthday coincided with two other high-profile cases being heard by the court other than the gas export trial: the banning of aid caravans to Gaza and the constitutionality of interior ministry police officers on university campuses.

The case roster read like a laundry list of sensitive issues for Mubarak.

At around noon some 30 central security trucks surrounded the State Council. Plain-clothed thugs employed by the security forces on occasions like these were spread out on the building's steps. State security investigations officers, who interrogated everyone attempting to go inside, prevented journalists from entering the State Council.

'Yalla, to the police station'

Journalists hanging around outside the building were given a scouring by gusts of sand-filled wind (sandstorms hit Cairo this weekend).

The tedium of waiting was dispelled suddenly when the gas case hearing concluded and activists who had somehow got inside the State Council earlier that morning emerged. About twenty of them now stood on the steps – on the opposite side to that occupied by the plain-clothed thugs.

Approximately two minutes before they came out a particularly zealous state security officer approached me and instructed me to put my camera in my bag. I refused, on the grounds that how I choose to carry my camera when not using it is none of his bloody business.

The protesters then emerged, and people on the steps immediately started filming them with mobile phone cameras.

“Look, they're being allowed to film,” a press photographer complained to the officer, at almost the same moment as police officers and plain-clothed thugs descended on them.

“Not anymore,” the officer said.

Mayhem then ensued as individual protesters were surrounded and attacked. The police apparently gave no thought to the danger posed by the location of the protesters – on the steps - and as a result two people fell or were pushed to the ground.

One female journalist tumbled down on her back, her head bouncing off each of the ten steps. She was helped up looking visibly dazed, and staggered away.

While watching all this, open-mouthed, I heard an officer say, “take the camera” and suddenly found myself in a bizarre tug of war with a man who had grabbed my camera's strap.

This went on for about thirty seconds before he got the better of me, at which point another officer pulled my mobile phone out of my hands.

“Yalla, to the police station,” the officer said. Uncertain as to whether he meant me or just my electrical goods, I legged it.

Police criticize press

I got my stuff back eventually (the few photographs I had managed to take had been deleted, of course) after an hour spent in Dokki police station.

The arrested April 6 Youth activists had been left outside the police station in a locked police truck where they busied themselves with chanting “down with Hosni Mubarak”.

Twenty minutes of the time spent in the police station was spent working out my name. I have Egyptian nationality but a British father, and the foreign middle name and surname apparently caused considerable confusion.

The rest of the time we listened to a bored police station employee (his exact job was unclear) hold forth on the press (“I read all the papers but trust [independent daily] El-Masry El-Youm most”) and press criticism of police violations (“Nobody is above criticism. Even doctors make mistakes and should be held to account”).

“The difference is that nobody takes a scalpel out of a doctor's hand while they are in the middle of performing an operation,” someone said, in reference to my camera.

“You're not going to provoke me,” the man replied.

(Editors note: All 17 of those detained on Monday were released later that night according to sources in Cairo.)

Originally published here.

It's his birthday and I'll cry if I want to

Today is Mubarak's 81^st birthday. To mark this, and to mark the fact that he's been in power for 28 years - 1/3^rd of his lifetime - here's a list of 28 of the wonderful things which have happened under his beneficent and wise reign rule.

I would have posted this earlier but some of his henchmen stole my effin camera and mobile phone while I was covering a demo, and I spent two hours getting them back. Funny thing is, I wasn't even taking any photographs at the time the camera was taken. I was too busy staring open mouthed as a female journalist tumbled down the steps of the State Council while above her about twenty peaceful protestors were set upon by the police.

The list

1. Seventy killed in the Moqattam Hill rockslide in 1993.


2. 37% of Egypt's urban population live in informal housing


3. Three years imprisonment for Kareem Amer


4. Four years imprisonment for Ayman Nour


5. A five-year battle by Bahais for the right not to have to lie about their faith.


6. April 6th 2008: the death of three people in Mahalla killed by the police has not been investigated.


7. 85% of rural female household heads are illiterate


8. 8.7% unemployment rate


9. Laila Haddad and her two kids detained in Cairo Airport for around 30 hours. Because Laila is Palestinian


10. Egypt has the highest prevalence of Hepatitis C in the world (roughly 11% of the population)


11. 12 - 15 million people live in slum housing


12. 45% of Egypt's female population over 15 can not read


13. $50 billion in US aid received since 1979


14. 60% of steel market share owned by Ahmed Ezz with government support.


15. Between 16,000 - 20,000 people in administrative detention


16. Seventeen people die after being tortured in 2005 (The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights www.eohr.org)


17. Activists detained for 45 days after 2006 peaceful protests against constitutional amendments.


18. A 19th century palace, house of the upper house of parliament catches fire on August 18th 2008. A month later on September 27th, a downtown theatre catches fire, the same month as the Beni Suef theatre fire which killed 45 people in 2005.


19. February 20th 2002: 370 die in train blaze.


20. 20% of population below poverty line


21. Twenty-two people convicted in the widely-criticised Mahalla trial. Sentenced to between 3 and 5 years imprisonment.


22. Thirty Sudanese asylum-seekers and refugees killed when police violently break up the Mostafa Mahmoud sit-in.


23. 35% illiteracy rates


24. 12,000 people live in graveyards in Egypt


25. 2,000,000 cars on the streets of Cairo. 60% over ten years old.


26. Seventy-nine cars in Mubarak's flotilla


27. Twenty eight years of emergency rule.

The President indicating the number of candidates who will be allowed to compete in presidential elections (without being imprisoned) after he steps down in 2050.

Obscenity

In summer, Cairo's broader bridges become pavement cafes. The perennial huddles of anonymous illicit lovers facing the water are joined by families and groups of friends parked on plastic chairs. A ten year-old in beaded belly-dancer's headgear courses through the crowd chased by her brother and sister, all watched by another kid seated by a cart selling Termes, a cat stalking a fly. Unable to leave the cart he alternates between watching the children play, filling plastic cups with termes and squirming out the precious and relentless energy of childhood, stuck in a plastic chair.

Cars, buses, taxis and motorbikes are the animated backdrop to all this. The bridge shakes with their passage. The ground is littered with the confetti of Termes skins. When the breeze stops briefly the air smells vaguely of vomit and shit. Can it be true that sewage pipes are attached to the bottom of bridges? Why in Egypt does the underworld, the dirt and the darkness, constantly threaten to usurp the happiness above?

On another part of the river Ghanem is shepherding his plants in a nursery. His right arm is full of faded tattoos, a picture of what looks like Christ is bordered with illegible writing on his shriveled skin.

A beautiful plant with pink flowers is selected. How much? 12 pounds says Ghanem. We give him 15. We wait for change. Some baksheesh for us ya basha, Ghanem says. We request the change. Saloo 3al naby [pray for the Prophet] he says, stalling. 3alayh el salah wel salam [peace be upon Him], we say. Money so we can drink tea, he says, something for us, and suddenly it is no longer just business.

In an almost deserted bar downtown an American film is being shown on a television while in the real world below three women work. One of the woman is almost middle-aged, though she has tried to mask this fact with dyed blonde hair and lycra. Another girl seems still to be a teenager. The third is wearing her coat. All are leaning over men, one knee on a chair, suggestive. The man who seems to be in charge says you can photograph anything except the women. Enty fahma tab3an. [You understand why of course].

At one point the youngest of the woman, the girl, addresses the blonde with 'mama'.

Somewhere in Mexico a kid falls sick, a genius somewhere else decides to call it Pig Flu, and that's that for Egypt's pigs who are filthy, dirty, disease-carrying obscenities, and condemned to death swiftly, and without hesitation. Strange that this particular obscenity should take precedence over the hundreds of ages-old others, command this much attention, this many resources.

Every new crisis, every new tragedy in Egypt is a reprieve, a fresh start, another chance to put things right. It's never taken. Things are always and inevitably ballsed up, and back we are dragged to zero. Kids go on wiping windscreens at traffic lights, pensioners beg for your loose change and everywhere there is the sigh of failure and defeat. This is what is really obscene.

Metro and marriage

The Egyptian legal system hasn't been at its best this week. On Wednesday 19 year-old Mahmoud El-Esawy was found guilty of a double-murder and sentenced to death. The case is high-profile because one of the victims was a the daughter of a well-known singer, and the heat the police knew they would get if they didn't find the perpetrator seems to have spurred them to either:

a. carry out a remarkably fast and efficient investigation, or

b. stitch up some poor bastard who doesn't have the connections to buy himself out.

I know which option I'd bet my mother on, if this tragic video is anything to go by. For non Arabic-speakers, El-Esawy was taken to the villa where the murder took place and filmed by the police while he "explained" how he carried out the crime. This unedited version was leaked by a newspaper. El-Esawy is clearly being coached as to what to say, but the most telling part is when – after El-Esawy doesn't perform as required - the agitated, offscreen voice says ya Mahmoud, hatsa7sa7 wala a7'lly 7ad yesa7sa7ak? [Mahmoud, are you going to wake up or shall I make someone wake you up?]

I don't understand why this video, plus the fact that the only thing linking El-Esawy to the crime is a blood-stained vest which he says doesn't belong to him, wasn't enough to make the court dismiss the charges.

Speaking of obscenity, today I spent the morning in Abdeen Court, where the author of a graphic novel and the individual who published it are standing trial for “infringing public morals”. The graphic novel in question, Metro, has a couple of illustrations showing the characters – cover your eyes, ladies – copulating under a blanket. While the comic's presentation of the grim realities of Egyptian society isn't exactly kosher in National Democratic Party terms, it doesn't say anything which hasn't already been said before, either. The backstory to this is that the publisher, Mohamed El-Sharqawy, has done bird previously for his political activity, before his reincarnation as a bookseller, and this would seem to be about settling old scores.

Abdeen court is currently in the process of being renovated, and the courtroom the case was heard in was all shining marble and clean walls. The carcass of half a fan was nonetheless inexplicably strewn to the right of the judge's bench, underneath a desk, together with other assorted crap.

The judge himself has a very good, sonorous voice, which he used almost immediately we went into the courtroom to tell Sharqawy off for talking. I meanwhile spent the court session in battle with a copper who spent the entire time telling people to put away their (silent) mobile phones or in my case a voice recorder, which was also apparently contraband. When not doing this, we fought over the 30 cm square area of land I was allowed to stand in.

The wonderful Sonallah Ibrahim gave testimony today, as did Ahmed El-Labbad, a graphic novel artist. Ibrahim and El-Labbad were asked a series of inane questions about whether they found the two scenes in question offensive, and about the criteria separating a graphic novel from porn. It was all so ridiculous, I waited for the judge to stop at any moment and announce, “right this is clearly a load of old bollocks. Sharqawy, gentlemen, get your coats and let's all go for a round of mini-golf.”

But there we are, in Egypt reality really is stranger than fiction, and fiction depicting reality is wrong, and you'll never believe this but on the way home from court a bloke I had never met before proposed to me.

I heard a cheery saba7 el-foll! [top of the morning!] and looked over to see a spritely-looking gentleman of around 70 in a sharp suit sitting on a chair. I waved. He beckoned me over with his baton sale [breadstick]. I went over , established that his name was Farouq and that he is the proprietor of a furniture store before he got straight down to business.

“Te2o3dy fe masr we tetgawwezeeny?” [How about settling in Egypt and marrying me?] he said, while waving his baton sale at me.

“Mana already 2a3da fe masr” [I already live in Egypt]

“Tayyeb! Tetgawwezeeny ba2a!” [OK! Marry me then!]

After rebuffing repeated gentlemanly offers of tea and marriage I left. Neharek sa3eed! [Good day! – a charming and now virtually obsolete greeting from another age] he called after me.

Farouq, the future Mr Scarr

April 6, again.

Confirmation that the 6 April Youth Movement's “Day of Anger” was a day of nothing very much at all came when I found myself photographing my own face to see what a friend's sunglasses looked like, through sheer boredom.

The day “started” at noon, when I went to the headquarters of the Egyptian Federation of Trade Unions and found its entrance surrounded by shifty-looking types in jeans and shirts, moustaches in suits clutching walkie-talkies, and not a protestor to be seen. As soon as I arrived this state security man, Hisham El-Iraqi, greeted me with a cheery saba7 el fol [good morning] before urging me to shove off in a extremely gentlemanly manner because, “there won't be anything here today”.

I crossed the street and stood with the other five journos who had also been shooed away, about 50 metres distance from the Federation. It wasn't long before El-Iraqi and pals descended on us in all their Police-sunglassed glory and the “persuasion” began again. “Between you and me, nobody will be allowed to protest today,” El-Iraqi said. “You mean just here or anywhere in Cairo?” I asked. “Anywhere,” he replied. “The only place where a demonstration will take place is the Journalists' Syndicate”.

(Journalists' Syndicate demonstrations are the baby playpen of the protest world – small, tightly controlled and penned in).

And he was right, although students at Ain Shams university apparently didn't get this memo and violent confrontations took place between them and the police. Some of them were arrested.

As far as I've heard, this was the only violence which occurred today.

With nothing else to do I spent lots of time today pondering the police and state security today, in particular their dress-sense. One officer particularly caught my eye, decked-out as he was in a gangster-style pinstriped suit and long little finger nail. (What is the purport and purpose of this repulsive affectation? Explanations I have heard so far include Cocaine-cutting, earwax-removal, nostril exploration and letting the world know that the nail's owner does not perform manual work. The last explanation is questionable since the long finger-nail is beloved of several carpenters I know).


Pimp suit's every movement was shadowed by one of the widest men in the history of the universe, seen below in the black t-shirt. This is the first time I have seen a state security officer accompanied by a bodyguard. I wondered whether this was yet another affectation, like the finger nail.



The Muslim Brotherhood didn't mobilise today, and the various security bodies present vastly outnumbered protestors. All the usual suspects were there; Kefaya, Socialists, April 6 Youth Movement members, Mohamed Abdel Qodous, El-Ghad. Ayman Nour's arrival created something of a stir, as photographers stepped on each other's heads to get a shot of the man.

Nour today unveiled El-Ghad's “Cairo Declaration”. The Cairo Declaration is a list of ten demands which Hosny has a year to respond to, or else. If he doesn't they'll announce a[nother] national strike on April 6 2010. When Nour mentioned his Cairo Declaration at a seminar recently blogger/activist Karim El-Beheiry launched into a long rant which can be summarised with, “who the bloody hell does he think he is? Saad Zaghloul?” Fair play.

Also speaking at that particular seminar was Kefaya's Abdel Halim Qandil, who suggested that the idea of reform under the current regime is nonsense.

Today's events give credence to Qandil's position, I think. “Only” about 34 people were arrested either today or preemptively in the past two days, and there wasn't the same tension in the air as there was on April 6 last year when hundreds were detained. Today was stage-managed. This is a regime which doesn't have the ability or maturity to deal with surprises, and April 2008 (and particularly Mahalla) was a surprise. April 6 2009 was not, and neither will 2010 be. Today it was business as usual herding the dissent into the Journalists' Syndicate, the only place in Egypt where one can freely chant down with Hosny Mubarak into the ether.

Bread and butter VI

Here I go on about Captain Mamdouh Farag. Again.

Flotilla the pun*

Much is often made of the vitality of Cairo's street life and its grimy, insistent, animation, its business of 24 hour people, cars, donkeys and drama. A never-ending presence has not however, lent Cairo's population ownership over the capital's streets which - like every other aspect of Egyptian public life – remain under the strict control of a regime afflicted with a mania for micromanagement and heavy-handedness.

Which is why I was nonplussed when I heard that singer-songwriter Shady Ahmed had decided to busk in Cairo's streets. The decision was made in the same week that an author faces a trial for writing a comic book in which , amongst other things, the events of May 25 2005 are described. On that day – Black Wednesday – females journalists and protestors were sexually assaulted in downtown Cairo as members of police looked on. Next week, on April 6, demonstrators will again take to Egypt's streets a year after Egyptians in Mahalla had the temerity to take to their own streets and protest rising food prices; three people were killed in the ensuing confrontations between the crowd and police.

Shady chose to start out in the foreigner-enclave of Zamalek, outside the Diwan bookshop. I was there with a DNE colleague, Jon Jensen, who apparently used to inhabit the island. A Maison Thomas delivery guy walked past. “Thomas!” Jon Jensen shouted. “Baaasha!” Thomas replied.

Within four minutes of Shady opening his mouth in song a gentleman in an ill-fitting dull brown jacket, and an ill-fitting dull brown mustache appeared. Unmistakably a mokhber. He was accompanied by Thomas, and one of Thomas' colleagues. The mokhber proceeded to ask the usual, boring questions about Shady's identity, address and alta mater before buggering off. He hung around, looking uncomfortable, for the duration of the performance.


The law's second appearance came in the form of an 3askary ta2meen - a low-ranking uniformed policeman - again accompanied by Thomas - making me wonder whether Thomas gives tips as well as receiving them. The policeman, an officious pompous type requested that Shady stop singing because “people have complained about the disturbance”. (All this was said as the roar of 26 July Street's traffic practically drowned him out).

He was immediately surrounded by two passers-by and a traffic cop. I then apparently had a brief out-of-body episode, because I heard the traffic cop say, “leave him alone, he's not doing anything wrong, this is about personal freedom.” Like Ban Ki-Moon. It was a beautiful moment.

Shady was mostly resolutely ignored by the people at the bus stop in front of which he was performing. The majority of passers-by cast a furtive glance. The exception to this was a bloke carrying a bag of bread. He stopped for a spot of improvisation, delicately picking the right notes out of the air with his thumb and forefinger.


There was something heartening about the fact that Shady was able to sing in the street, and I left with an odd, unfamiliar feeling which I identified eventually as mild joy.

This feeling was quickly dispelled as Dr Moftases and I sat in a queue of traffic waiting to join the October Bridge. After ten minutes of non-movement we decided to get out and walk, and discovered the cause of the delay; a mawkeb, or flotilla. One side of the October Bridge was almost completely empty save for three angry-looking policemen shouting instructions into their walkie-talkies, holding up traffic trying to join the bridge and angrily moving a group of kids on off the bridge, where they had been looking at the Nile.


If ever a reminder was needed that your country is being held hostage by a group of thieving, redundant, gangster pimps, you need look no further than these flotillas. The idea is that 894,000 cars should be forced to wait, sometimes up to two hours, because ma3aaly el wazir Mr. Prick minster of bribes wants to get home in time to watch himself on 90 De2ee2a, or do a spot of pilates, or polish his forehead. Or because he just doesn't want to mix with the hoi-polloi. Entire districts are cleared of traffic for these morons. Here's some empty road at rush hour right here:

The NDP: emptying tarmac since forever.

Interestingly, Moftases sent me this, describing an accident involving a flotilla which may possibly have been the same one we witnessed on Wednesday night.

My translation:

A car forming part of the Interior Minister's security detail hit citizen Mohamed Gamal while the minister's flotilla was passing through Gamat El-Dowal El-Arabiyya street on Wednesday, amidst a noticeably tightened security presence.

Gamal found himself thrown on the ground next to his flattened mobile phone. Security men in the area didn't lift a finger to help him. Rather, they showered him with blame, saying, “why don't you open your eyes?”

The matter didn't stop there. The security men then became suspicious about Gamal – who works in a computer store on Gamat El-Dowal El-Arabiya Street – and demanded to see his I.D and work cards, without displaying the slightest concern about his injuries.

*Geddit?? Apologies.

Indo Drama

Hamalawy used Adobe Lightroom to make this photo of Shibeen El-Koum strikers look wowzers blazers.

Yet another trip to Egypt's Delta this week, this time to Shibeen El-Koum, in Menufeya – birth place of Mubarak but otherwise lovely.

Workers at the Indorama – formerly Shibeen El-Koum - spinning factory have been on strike since 5th March, after company chairman announced that workers won't be getting the annual raise given them every year in March because the company isn't making any profits.

The company was privatised in 2006, and had already been making a loss prior to its sell-off. As usual, blame for the losses is attributed to the other party by workers and management. In Shibeen, workers showed Per Bjorklund and I round the shell of a factory halls. A worker pointed to the place where machines had once stood, his voice bouncing around the hall's empty walls like a squash ball as he explained that management has sold functioning machines only to replace them with new ones which were then sold for scrap.

The current strike is the 95th to have taken place since the company was privatised. There is something broken in the relationship between workers and management, a deep sense of having being betrayed on the part of workers which, in its crudest form, manifests itself in a suspicion of the Indian administrative employees and technicians. They accuse the Indian staff of granting themselves powers beyond their job description and treating them in an imperious manner. The resentment is exacerbated by the knowledge that Indian workers are paid an undisclosed amount in dollars, and are provided with free accommodation and cars while the company buses used to transport workers are left to rot.

By far the most revealing conversation I had about Shibeen – and about class relations in Egypt generally - was with a member of Indorama's management.

The company chairman had told me that he was too busy to speak to me but that his administrative manager would telephone me. I concluded that this was a brush-off, and decided to invite myself to their office. The administrative manager did in fact call me while I was on the way, announcing himself as 'Colonel' Emad, and demanding to know who I am and what I want in the breathy, impatient tone which is the signature of senior Egyptian police officers. When I cheerfully told him that I was on the way to the office without an appointment he then reprimanded me about my manners.

Per Bjorklund and I were admitted to the Colonel's office soon after arriving and discovered a man in a moustache and Italian loafers. The office, which was surprisingly small for a colonel, was dominated by his desk which, in addition to various bric-a-brac, had a writing pad with three small clocks on it, like a ship's deck. His filing cabinet were decorated with several stickers of F-16 jets, while the Colonel himself was drinking out of a travel mug with another picture of a plane emblazoned on it and the name of a manufacturer of something or other in Detroit.

A natural yogurt and a spoon stood incongruously amongst all the armaments.

We asked the Colonel why Shibeen El-Koum is making a loss and why Indorama bought it in the first place, amongst other questions. He blamed everything – in that insistent whisper - without exception, on the workers. This is a selection of some of the gems he came out with, lifted directly from my article:

As for the issue at the center of the strike, Abdel Khaliq says that despite assertions to the contrary from the Minister of Manpower herself, Indorama is not obliged to pay the yearly bonus because it is making a loss. “If you were making the loss, how would you pay?” he asked.

Abdel Khaliq says that the strike is being conducted illegally.

“Work, and let the trade union committee ask for your rights. Prove that you are productive rather than putting a blanket out on the street and saying that you’re not going to work — that’s the law of the jungle. How can you ask me for more money when you don’t want to work?”

Abdel Khaliq claims that workers’ wages have been doubled despite the losses the company is suffering — a claim which Shalaby denies.
And why is the company making a loss? Abdel Khaliq says that the problem is simple: workers don’t want to work.

“In the past Shibeen El-Koum was famous all over the world; someone taking it over while it was making a loss was bound to turn it around with this reputation. Why? Because of the quality. It has the best yarn in the world. Since we took over it’s become the worst. Why? Because the workers don’t want to work. They say that the government sold them out,” Abdel Khaliq said.

“Why don’t they work like they did while the factory was government-owned? Because the government has a whip — if a worker did anything a call was made to the police and they came and took him.

“The private sector meanwhile is chaos. We sent yarn to Spain and it was returned because it was of such poor quality. Who made this yarn which sells for a fourth of what it should sell for? Is it not the worker? If it’s bad quality why’s isn’t he doing anything about it?”

Abdel Khaliq claims that striking workers are “just hanging out” and that “only 10 percent” of workers are actually involved in the strike.

“Workers still think that they’re working in the government sector: all they say is ‘give me’. We’ve doubled wages and tripled the food allowance.

Why aren’t they happy? Because of their culture. Freedom without culture results in thuggery.”

I've always found this paternalistic attitude to the “great unwashed” who shouldn't be given the sharp knife of autonomy in case they cut themselves or others, repellent. It is particularly galling when it comes from a man with F-16 jets on his filing cabinets who has almost certainly been employed because of his connections with security bodies whose job it is to quash workers exercising any form of autonomy (he told us that he was previously employed in the army).

These comments aside, the Colonel was able to counter a few of the allegations made by workers with semi-convincing responses, and I left his office confused by the knot of the back and forth of the various allegations.

Luckily, Per did some good thinking here. I agree with him that, “the worst accusations and suspicions put forward by some of the workers doesn't necessarily have to be true. A company can make losses without any conspiracies being involved, of course. In the end, it's just about who is going to pay - the capitalists or the workers.”

Akunt

There is an expression in Arabic, 'faqary', which means bringing bad luck. I pondered on it in the early hours of Thursday morning as I watched a diminutive topless Senegalese-American pop singer standing on top of a car threatening to punch members of his own audience.

This is the 3rd mass event I have been to in Cairo which has gone spectacularly wrong. Should I ban myself from attending future events in the interests of Cairo's nightlife?

The diminutive topless individual was Akon, he of 'Smack That' fame. While presumably having a fleeting moment of optimism, I volunteered (!) to cover his concert, thinking that it might be a laugh on some level.

The signs that this was a disastrous decision were all there from the start. When I went to purchase tickets from the Opera House (the incongruous setting for Akon's performance), I was informed that tickets for LE 150, 250, 500, 750 and a whopping 1,000 were available.

Maybe the LE 1,000 tickets offer the chance to be dry-humped by Akon on stage, I thought, silently.

“Will I be able to see anything in the LE 150 area?” I inquired out loud.

“Yes, yes. You'll be able to see...something...” the ticket woman replied, with an unsettling grin.

“Are the LE 150 tickets in the toilets?”

She grinned (knowingly).

I was wrong: the LE 150 area wasn't in the toilets, it was mostly between the toilets. Wady El-Mer7adayn.

Needless to say it was at the very back of the Opera car park which had been converted into the venue for the evening's shenanigans. Screens were vaguely visible if you a. Climbed a tree or b. Were over 6 ft or c. Climbed on top of one of the portable toilet cabins until instructed to get down by toilet staff.

The view was largely obstructed by the strange platform erected for the LE 500 or LE 750 crowd who, being superior beings, had been given SOFAS to sit on. The LE 250 cattle had been herded into an area to the right of this platform, while the LE 150 pariahs stood behind them separated by a barrier reminiscent of the Berlin Wall, guarded by fridge-sized bodyguards one of whom was brandishing a thick wooden stick. He thumped the stick down menacingly on the barrier whenever any of the LE 150s threatened an attempt to escape the colony.

The LE 1,000 section was a distant promised land whispered about but never seen. The only news we received about it came two hours into proceedings, when someone on stage requested the LE 1,000 golden people to “go and get their money back”. How odd, we thought. No explanation was given.

The majority 11-year old LE 150s and their parents milled around the area, the kids in a state of high excitement, the parents looking for anywhere to park themselves (the only option was pavement curbs). Bad boys in tracksuits and baseball hats started impromptu breakdancing sessions while far away on the distant stage an individual called DJ Ahmed Shaker played records and sang forgettable Arabic R n B numbers.

Three and a half hours later, at 11.30 p.m., Akon still hadn't appeared. By this time the LE 150s had got bored of the breakdancing and were milling about the LE 150/LE 250 barrier. The bodyguard with the stick was looking ever more edgier, barking instructions at his colleagues, mountain-sized all.

Suddenly and spontaneously the LE 150s made their move, storming and knocking over the barrier before charging, cheering, into beautiful freedom. The bodyguards were hopelessly outnumbered by pubescent teenagers and a DNE hack, and conceded defeat.

We arrived in the LE 250 area just in time to witness Lebanese chanteuse Melinda start her act. She was wearing gold lame leggings and that is all I have to say on the matter.

There then ensued what felt like years of standing, accompanied to the soundtrack of tunes spun by DJ Feedo. By this time two of the three giant screens had given up the ghost, as if in solidarity with us.

At midnight a man and a woman who I am given to understand are Nile FM DJs appeared on stage. “OK you're not going to believe this...” the woman said. Akon's not coming, I thought, secretly slightly relieved.

“Akon's STUCK IN TRAFFIC!!!” the woman announced, before she and her colleague made witticisms about how it would have better for Akon to get the metro. How we laughed.

“BULLSHIT”, said the crowd.

Just as I was about to throw up from so much standing a gentleman sporting a mohawk and a tartan skirt which wasn't actually a kilt bounded on stage, at about 12.40 a.m.

He went through the motions of warming up the crowd, quite successfully, before roaring, “Akon if you in Cairo lemme hear you say something.”

“Konvict [sic] Music,” a weedy voice said from nowhere.

Akon eventually appeared on stage, without providing any explanation as to why he had kept us standing for two hours – as befits an ARSEHOLE superstar, after all.

He and the Kilt man launched into their act with great gusto. The crowd loved it, pogoing and swaying their way through songs only a few of which I recognised. The rest of his material just morphed into some indistinguishable grey-coloured mush.

The fact that Akon was lip-synching appeared not to bother the crowd.

Akon chatted between songs, muttering on about how happy he is to be back in Africa, and how a man in America once told him that to succeed you need “money, power and respect” and that “no-one's better than anyone else just because they have more money than you”.

I looked up at the LE 500s sitting on the sofas and sighed.

One of Akon's more cryptic pronouncements was, “I can stand in Cairo and know that I'm not the only person from the Ghetto.” Whether this was a reference to the 0.1% of Cairo's elite who had been able to afford a ticket or to Cairenes generally remains a mystery.

Akon then took his shirt off (to the delight of the 50 women in the audience) and from this moment on everything went downhill: it was like a secret code for hell's guards to open the gates.

It started with crowd surfing. Akon did it twice, prompting a horrified and frenzied reaction from the bodyguards on stage who scrambled to fish him out of the crowd.

Apparently spurred on by the success of this endeavour, Akon then declared, “today we're one people, one blood, one world” and that he was going to cross from the front of the stage to the back of the crowd, on top of their heads.

He called it his 'bridge of peace', and instructed everyone to put their hands up so that they could carry him. “This won't work unless we all work together!” he screeched while people started working out where the nearest escape exit was.

Off he went, crawling over the hands elevated over people's heads, like a demented crab. I wondered whether he has some kind of Jesus complex, and this is his version of walking on water.

Approximately halfway across Akon – by this time sounding somewhat tense – had started instructing people not to pull him back, and eventually to "get away from him".

It was at this point that the surge of people moving towards Akon caused a lighting rig on which people had been standing to collapse – on top of other crowd members. Akon was unperturbed - “we can just cut it out of the film,” he said while people started fleeing the area. Prick.

True to his word, Akon proceeded all to the way back of the deserted LE 150 area. 'Mr Konvict' Big Stuff by this time could be heard saying “help me, help me” into the mic, like a girl. I went out to find him standing on top of something, surrounded by bodyguards several of which were now armed with sticks, which they were using to keep people away from Scaredy Pants – who by this time had started throwing punches. Smack That indeed.

He was eventually unceremoniously escorted out of the area on bodyguards' shoulders before the concert came to an abrupt end. Akon was ushered out to his waiting Hummer by the bodyguards.


Akon left in his wake two trashed cars, which he had elected to stand on top of. His fans had done the same and this was the result:




I wonder if Akon will be charged with criminal damage.

I subsequently found out that the reason why the LE 1,000s had been instructed to get their money back was that the LE 1,000 had partly collapsed, causing “minor cuts and bruises” according to one employee I spoke to. Another man standing near the light rig told me that people had been injured by its collapse. I saw several people walking around looking stunned and traumatised, and a kid in an ambulance having his arm wrapped in bandages.

The funny thing is that on the way to buy the tickets for this effin cock-up on Monday, I saw builders in the process of erecting the feeble-looking wooden frame which was the stage and had visions of it collapsing.

Perhaps the organisers and Pepsi (sponsors of the events) who beamed their logo onto the Cairo Opera House dome (which is itself wrong somehow) should have invested more money in safety, rather than using the profits of their extortionately-priced tickets on sofas.

If anyone ever sees me at a corporate-sponsored event again, they have the permission to drop-kick me.