Dinner time
Off again to Mubarak's for dinner, bearing a dozen bottles of the finest Scottish mineral water. He picks me up himself and en route we stop off at an Exchange shop from where he sends money to his Filipina friend in Bahrain. I express surprise that he should have to travel to Bahrain, given the availability of Filipina friends in Doha. We then have a jolly five minutes discussing Arabic equivalents of the phrase 'never shit on your own doorstep'. "We're having fucker for dinner, Mr. Simon." "Pardon?" "Fucker, it's very good. My cousin found a good amount in the desert last year." The light dawns. He is talking about faq'h , the desert truffle, which we had discussed in class a few weeks before, and which grows only where lightning strikes... Voiceless uvular plosive, not velar. We sit in the مجلس sipping the mineral water. Mubarak's son is going to France this morning for a football tournament, and I discuss the delights of