for my babies

Morning Y’all

And before I start, I would like to offer this blog with Mary in mind; I feel like you; you and your crazy staying-out-till-the-sun-comes-upness. We did it this morning, with my boss, for the most part - or at least till half two. And then with Saudi’s, the Sunni Elite and a major in the US marines and his mute fuzzy headed friend. I would like to say that I hurt, but I don’t yet. It is not that kind of hangover. I have a pack of Marlboro red that is begging to be smoked and a lucidity that is dying to be tested. Heidi is asleep.

So last night we went to the first F1 party of the weekend. It was rammed and all filmed for Fashion TV Arabia. We danced a bit but mainly sat outside discussing the world and our place within it. The thing is, we had free VIP passes - market value: BD50, or 75 quid! - and that buys you nothing. A sofa maybe, but they have always already been taken and an outside space that was nice, but filled with idiots who think they are actually important because they paid stupid money for the privilege of being able to think so. No free bar, no nubile Filipinos peeling you grapes. Nothing. I fear for the people that don’t work in PR or meeja and actually spend money on VIP anything in Bahrain. It gets you nothing and is widely acknowledged as the preserve of those lacking the wit to get it all for free.

And then there is my boss. I almost resigned on the spot, arguing that it is more sensible to not work such a Tory-Graph reading, Daily Mail defending loser than it is to work for one. In the lift up to the Saf later on, Heidi agreed with me.

He was hammered and the worst kind too. He is the type to ask questions instead of listening to your answers. I have hated the very essence of him since my interview with him on my third day here. Heidi now understands my vitriol.

But beyond that was the Saf which I believe Heidi has explained the wonders of previously. This morning though, it was on particularly good form. Not least because the owner of the hotel joined us. At which point our bar bill ceased to rise. And he was a nice guy. Sunni - the 10% that run everything - but ashamed by his privilege; “everyone should have the good fortune that I was afforded. That is Allah’s wish.” I liked him. Later on, we were joined by a major in the Marines. He’s thirty five and is just the latest of US servicemen that we have met that aren’t complete arseholes, or stupid. This is a worrying trend and may call for some serious reassessment of naturally assumed prejudices at some point in the future. I want to assume that anyone with an American accent who dons a uniform must be thick as shit and more danger to the world than their supposed enemy. But it is not that clear cut. Not over here. The few we have spoken to recently have brains, they can laugh at themselves and understand the hypocrisy of their governments stance. Many of them are cynically just in it for the money. Major Ryan last night speaks more than 10 dialects of regional Arabic.

It is scary but exhilarating when your knowledge base is exposed and threatened.

Walking back from the shop at gone 7 this morning I said hello to girl who was cleaning the windows at McDonalds - an aside in two parts: The weather here is shit at the moment, it has rained a lot and thundered and lightning’d all over the place, and, windows get cleaned here every day, an entire economy subsists on the desire for clean glass - and she turned to face me glaring, and then, seeing I was white, calmed. The Saudi’s are mad bastards with no respect for anyone. Specifically, not for women, but they have an arrogance that even I struggle to assimilate into polite behaviour. At the party last night Saudi’s would just barge into a bar queue and assume that they would be served first. They have no decorum, and no manners. The papers here are bemoaning the construction of a bridge to Qatar at the moment, worrying about what kind of visitor it will bring to the kingdom. I say, demolish the link to Saudi and learn again what polite, quiet society is actually about

I haven’t old you about Yemen yet. You must go there. I fell in love in Yemen; in love with a place and the possibility of adventure. It is the only place on earth that I have visited where I felt confronted with a world that I have never seen before. Some phrases from the article that I will probably never finish, such is the power that Yemen holds of me:

• We boarded the bus and as we entered Sana’a and we - seasoned travellers - were silenced by the face of the third world as it peered in through grubby windows, carrying its Jambiya (decorative dagger that every man - and boy - carries)
  

• Yemen is a country of 28 million people and most of them are on the street to greet us. In the cities they are everywhere, in the villages and the mountains they line the roads and tracks trying to sell us qat and rope and begging for pens. There is no interior world in Yemen; it is out there and on display, waiting to have its photo taken.
  

• In Yemen there remains a possibility of the wild and I think that that has gone now, pretty much everywhere else.

I have about 5000 word about Yemen and it is still not finished. What I am publishing in the magazine is pale imitation of what I want to say. It is a beautiful country with warm welcoming people. I want to live there. I will one day. I will get some solar cells and a laptop and I will move to the mountains and write my novel. Whilst it won’t be set there, it will have Yemen its blood. Yemen is of another age; its pace of life, slow. It is a mountain kingdom of African people enslaved by the twin headed snake queen of Islam and Qat. I want to have children, to show them Yemen.

Is that praise enough? Or too much?

If you haven’t seen them already, you can see some of the hundreds of photos I took there by clicking this link:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/bahrainandlondon

But that’s it kids; I sleepy now. 9 cigarettes have been consumed in this blogs making. It is time I went to bed again.

I hope you all are well.

Missing you. Like a strange cat misses something that it can’t quite picture or formulate aloud - and is probably just its tail as it darts out of site every time it turns - I miss each and every one of you. I miss the tones of your voices and the context of our exchanges. I miss the pubs and living rooms and the busses and trains. I miss the sense of knowing exactly where you stand.

To each and every one of you:

BIG love

XxxX