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October, 2006

  1. Where Up is Down

    October 29, 2006 by dafyd

    I’ve spent much of the last week in Upper Egypt which, confusingly, is in the south of Egypt. As it was Eid on Tuesday (or Wednesday, or Thursday, or thereabouts, anyway), we had a week’s holiday, which was nice. We seem to be spending more time not working than working at the moment… but it seems that it’s the same for those lucky chappies doing less exotic languages who are working as assistants in Spain or Germany. In fact, it seems the UK is the only country where we don’t get a week off in October…!

    So… I headed off down south on Sunday evening, taking the overnight sleeper to Luxor, where I spent a few days admiring the stunning temples, tombs and monuments and trying to avoid the heat (very, very difficult). I have lots and lots of photos – but if you think of every picture of Ancient Egypt you might have seen (except the pyramids and camels), then you’ll get an idea of what you’ll find in Luxor. Indiana Jones, Tomb Raider, The Mummy… they don’t even come close!

    Then on Wednesday evening I got the train back up to Cairo (not a sleeper this time, but a ridiculously comfortable night train), and met Yvonne in Cairo, where we spent a couple of days sightseeing: the Egyptian Museum – home to so many antiquities that even the curators aren’t sure quite what’s in there – and various other touristy bits around town, including, bizarrely, the Hard Rock Cafe (‘cos we were bored and hungry). Then yesterday afternoon, the train back up to Alex, ready for classes to start again on Monday.

    As I say, I have many many photos – which I will upload as soon as I have a chance.

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  2. On landing

    October 21, 2006 by dafyd

    I just wanted to share this passage with you. It’s from a novel by a chappy called Paul Micou, The Cover Artist, which I found at the British Council the other week:

    Drunk and discombobulated, Oscar Lemoine bounced on to the windswept tarmac of Val d’Argent’s private airport in the middle of a November night, protected from physical harm by an aeroplane. Elizabeth lay curled in a seat next to him. His drunkenness was due to having sat on a Paris runway drinking gin for three hours – after assisting a desperate fellow-traveller in convincing a sympathetic crew member to bend the rules – while the authorities held their collective finger in the air to gauge the winds on the southern coast. Oscar imbibed an even larger amount while airborne because the flight attendants had all gone pale and were hugging each other as if for the last time. On landing, while Oscar held hands with his drunken seatmate and petted Elizabeth’s brow, the smallish and disreputable-looking aeroplane skidded ninety degrees in an unexpected inch of slush, while trying to turn towards the terminal. The craft tipped one of its wheels off the ground, and made most of the passengers scream. The captain quickly apologised; the flight attendants swore and made hand gestures suggesting that the pilot was a booze-soaked incompetent.

    It’s a great novel, a cross between Evelyn Waugh and Douglas Adams. Alas, it is now out of print, but there appears to be a few copies at AbeBooks.

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  3. Books? Yes, we’ve got those…

    October 19, 2006 by dafyd

    Waterstones branch imageI’ve just spotted (well, I knew it was happening for a while, but I’ve finally got round to checking it out) that Waterstone’s has, at long last, launched a proper website.

    For the last five years, Waterstones.com was operated by Amazon, with Waterstone’s contributing a certain amount of editorial content each month and getting a pitiful amount of commision for each sale. Bizarrely, this is exactly the same arrangement that Borders / Books etc still uses – which means that the three biggest players in the UK book market (excluding WH Smiths, who don’t count, and the supermarkets, who do, I suppose) were sharing a e-commerce platform. A ridiculous business position, frankly. The fact the prices and availability on the old site were Amazon’s, as opposed to Waterstone’s, caused huge amounts of confusion in stores.

    This new site was being developed when I was still working there at Christmas, so it’s taken them a while to launch… but it’s certainly been worth the wait. From the looks of things, it has been developed from the old Ottakars site (one of the only British “real” booksellers that even tried to challenge Amazon) and HMV‘s e-commerce engine. The content is pretty impressive – not just fairly detailed editorial reviews, but general industry news (Yossarian’s column has been kept from Ottakars.co.uk) and even individual pages for each store (here’s mine). Golly, Waterstone’s has even got itself a blog. Whatever next?

    One of the more exciting things – in my view, anyway – is that you can now order online and have your books delivered to your nearest store for free (like Amazon does with certain partners in the US). I’ve been saying for years that Waterstone’s should have been doing something like that – converting online customers into “real” customers, with all the benefits of physical sales.

    Another interesting bit is the “Ask a Bookseller” section, which allows you to email a bookseller for recommendations or advice on what to read next. Waterstone’s staff has always been its strong point (he says, modestly), especially now it can’t hope to compete price-wise with Amazon or the supermarkets, so it makes perfect sense to retain this presence online. I only hope that the help does come from real, front-line booksellers, not Brentford head office chappies – I’m rather tempted to send in a request for recommendations, just to see how well it works.

    So – when I’m back in the UK, I’ll be trying out the service from the new website… for pick up in store, obviously!

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  4. Just a reminder…

    October 16, 2006 by dafyd

    University Challenge – 8.30, BBC2, tonight.

    Don’t miss it!

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  5. Ramadan Watching

    October 12, 2006 by dafyd

    I may have given the impression in previous posts that I am not a fan of Ramadan. This is not quite true. Sure, it’s an inconvenience, but it’s also a fairly unique cultural phenomenon, and I’m really glad to get the opportunity to witness it first hand.

    Also, MBC2, one of the TV channels that we can actually receive on our fairly rubbish set, seems to be spending Ramadan screening movies. And only movies.

    Now, 80% of these movies are fairly rubbish, cheap, made-for-TV, run-of-the-mill American fayre. But every so often, a gem crops up. Or, on Tuesday, a whole day’s worth… something, followed by War Games (which really hasn’t aged well), followed by the truly fantastic IQ (which is, in my opinion, incredibly underrated). Then, to top it all off, the evening finished with the awesome A Few Good Men. Can’t beat it.

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  6. Ooh, another update

    October 2, 2006 by dafyd

    I thought, being short of ideas, that I might type a little about what I’m actually doing on this course in Alexandria.

    In one sense, I have no idea. I could be in nice, small, quiet Durham, enjoying the last few days before term starts, eating ham sandwiches and having a drink in the evenings in the Undie.

    In the other sense – the one I actually meant – the course takes up four mornings a week. Yes, it really is a terribly heavy workload. Monday to Thursday, 9 o’clock to 1.30. The working day is divided into four sessions, each lasting an hour, with a half hour break at 11. In fact, most of the classes we have are doubles, so two hours, with a short break after an hour.

    The focus of the course is, obviously, Arabic. That’s Modern Standard Arabic, sort of like Received Pronunciation, which is the base of the language spoken from Morocco to Iraq. We have seven hours a week of grammar and vocabulary (thrilling, I know), and three hours of translation between English and Arabic. Add to that two hours of Media (reading the newspaper) every Tuesday, and we have 12 hours a week of learning standard Arabic. Which is considerably more than I have ever spent dedicated to learning a single language.

    The remaining four hours are Egyptian Colloquial Arabic – the Arabic actually spoken in Egypt. As Egypt is the centre of the Arab film and television industry, it’s fair to say that it is understood pretty much everywhere in the Middle East.

    The course is incredibly good. So much better than Durham’s Arabic, but I’m not sure that’s saying much. We are in a dedicated building (the “TAFL Centre”), and our teachers are on the staff of the Faculty of Arts, teaching us as an extra, which makes them very good teachers. The materials we’re using have been written specially (not some crummy American textbook) and are very, very good. If Alexandria can get this right, why can’t Durham?

    Anyway – there you go. A brief guide to my studies at the moment.

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