Doha Days (5)

Of locusts, warping on the eastern wind,

That o'er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung

Like night, and darken'd all the land of Nile:

BBC Middle East and Al Jazeera have rolling coverage of ‘The crisis in Egypt’. Many Egyptians here are glued to their screens watching events, while the government in Egypt has taken to blaming the foreign media, including Al Jazeera, for inciting the protests. This war of words escalated recently: Qatar itself has come under fire for allowing Al Jazeera to broadcast. Tunisia, Egypt, the splitting of Sudan, protests in Jordan and Yemen; I have come to the region at an interesting time.

Sad news and good on the ornithological front. Mother dove (for that is what the bird on my window ledge was) abandoned her eggs, one of which soon became putrid in the sun. But 4 days later a new dove has come in and laid two more. The nest, which looks like a mass of multi-coloured electrical wire because it IS a mass of multi-coloured electrical wire, is thus inhabited again and I hope to bring you pictures of eggs and chicks soon (when I work out how to get them from phone to blog. Yes, I know it’s simple, but this is me we’re talking about).

Still no souk trip, but definitely tonight, if necessary alone...