Saudi Arabia:

Transnistria, Baron Munchhausen, Salisbury, Russian & Saudi Ineptitude, Paveway Bombs

16 October 2018 | Living

◄ Baron Munchausen at Benderry Back in July I made a brief (ie 24 hour) visit to Tranistria – that curious sliver of a nation sandwiched between Moldova and Ukraine and recognized by nobody in the world except for Vladimir Putin and his friends. In my Transnistria ...

View Post

Saudi Madness

22 December 2017 | Living

I love absurd countries, which is why I wrote Bad Lands and Dark Lands. Countries like North Korea, which threaten the outside world with nuclear Armageddon, but in fact couldn’t make something as simple as a bicycle. Any country – and again North Korea is a perfect e...

View Post

More Political Hypocrisy, More Political Idiocy & the Badass Queen

27 January 2015 | Culture

Some days you scan the morning news and the sheer hypocrisy and idiocy of our political leaders simply stuns you. My last posting was over the gall of political leaders turning up in France to march for free speech while, back home, they were busy torturing, jailing, ...

View Post

Charlie Hebdo, Hypocrisy & Saudi Arabia

16 January 2015 | Culture

As Marc Lynch, a professor at George Washington University, summed it up: ‘Glad so many world leaders could take time off jailing and torturing journalists and dissidents to march for free expression in France.’ Photo: Raif Badawi © Juan Osborne for Amnesty Internati...

View Post

Eight Months on Ghazzah St

14 November 2014 | Media

Hilary Mantel wrote a number of books before her big breakthrough with Wolf Hall. Followed up by her second Booker Prize winner Bring Up the Bodies. I saw the two books, as plays, in London earlier this year. On the same day, matinee and evening performance so it was ...

View Post