The Songstone

Opposite my chamber window, On the sunny roof, at play, High above the city's tumult, Flocks of doves sit day by day. Well, not flocks, but you will remember the various comings and goings of the doves outside my bedroom window. First there was mother dove: Collared dove and her eggs Then one day mother disappeared and one of the eggs, which had been just about to hatch, soon grew black and a bit smelly, until I pushed it over the edge. All was not lost though; after a few days another collared dove turned up and laid two more eggs, one of which soon hatched to produce this little charmer: the lovely doveling So all was well. I felt quite paternal and supplied bits of strawberry and bread, which were scoffed voraciously. On my window-ledge, to lure them, Crumbs of bread I often strew, And, behind the curtain hiding, Watch them flutter to and fro Alas, this passerine paradise could not last. The other morning, very early, there was a squawking and wailing outsid

I've never been in a desert before. High Wycombe, where I spent my adolescent years, does not qualify, geomorphometrically, so it was a pleasure to take a jeep out of Doha a couple of weeks ago and see the sand: Camels I couldn't avoid the ghastly trap of paying 10 riyals to a Bedouin tout to hold his hunting falcon: A bird in the hand Well, that's Qatar for you: sand. And sea. And Doha. No rivers, lakes or mountains. Still, it has its charms; one of my students has promised to take me out for some falconry. If he passes his exams. Any suggestion that I will now pay him extra attention in class will be vigorously rebutted...

Ah well, the long and pleasant weekend is over and five hours of classes beckon this morning. Enjoy tha Sunday morning lie-in, yer bastards:

February's winner is regular contender Rod Liddle, for this  nasty little piece in the Spectator (no, I don't normally read the rag but it came up on one of the BBC's stories about Libya as an external link). Of course the breathtaking bigotry and sheer ignorance Liddle displays here fit in well at the Spectator, as a glimpse at some of the comments below the article confirms. For a quick tour of the darkest parts of the Tory soul, look no further. If anything nasty should happen here (I don't remotely anticipate it, but...) I want to make it clear that I do NOT wish to be evacuated, by HMG or anyone else; I shall see it through and observe. Oh and by the way, Liddle, my salary, although quite generous, comes nowhere near the vast sums you rake in. If more proof were needed that there is no correlation whatsoever between remuneration and worth, you have surely provided it.

There's an obnoxious little crow flapping round our school. Foulsmalls is the corvid's name; she stinks of spite and stool An ugly bird, of evil mien, she pecks and caws and claws. Her frizzy feathers, frazzled face are fairly fatal flaws This crow is desperate for a mate (her beady eye's on me). Her halitosis, though, is such Don Juan himself would flee For gossip, innuendo, cant Foulsmalls is your bird; a vicious tongue, a nose for dung: her beak's in every turd

In the compound where I ‘worked’ until yesterday (affectionately known as the Gulag to its inmates), Rashid is the ‘tea boy’. Aged 25 and from Mombasa, he has a degree, fluent English (he was laughing at the native speaker banter in the tea room) and is obviously as bright as a magpie’s eye. So why is he serving us coffee and wiping the tables for 1500 riyals (£250) a month? Corruption, he sighed; unless you know the right people in Kenya, or pay bribes, it’s impossible to find a job. Marwan picked us up outside the souk on Wednesday evening, driving a Toyota that he was using as an unlicensed taxi (the licensed variety are in short supply in Doha). He wanted 15 riyals for the trip back but we beat him down to 10 and got in. He was from Syria, also with a degree and very good English. His day job? A cook in a Lebanese restaurant for 850 riyals a month. So he borrows a car and drives the streets to augment his income, much of which he sends home, and works 20 hour days. After hearin

I am having huge problems accessing the internet right now; multiple proxy servers and stress. Bear with me a while...