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Serious satire
"Humor is a funny way of being serious"
-Thomas Edison
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To have your emails deleted please write to me at renatoobeid@hotmail.com
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Copyright© 2001-2010, Renato Obeid
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"Top blog/Renato Obeid's World/Today's pick: This rambling weblog is worth reading not so much for its satirical posts but more for its insight into the minutiae of life in Lebanon, including the etiquette of road accidents and how to hire a taxi.”
-Jane Perrone, The Guardian
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Wednesday, December 25, 2002
3.23PM WEDNESDAY 25TH DECEMBER 2002 – CHRISTMAS DAY
I was just listening to the news on the BBC World Service radio and heard an Israeli government spokesman saying "we have arrested ten suicide bombers".
3:23 pm
Thursday, December 05, 2002
The first day of eid el fitr – the three-day celebration which commemorates the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Attended the pub quiz at the Shamrock in Beit Meri yesterday, which, by the way, my team won as usual.
Afterwards, as usual, a handle full of us congregated in the (mainly) gentleman’s club atmosphere that usually prevails there after the quiz.
Peter Casey was telling us about an American ex-colleague of his who, incidentally, had won the Fattest Ass in the Midwest competition, which is a pretty impressive feat – there’d be no shortage of competition in that country and that part of that country!
A couple of years ago they were in a remote part of Taiwan and needed to get somewhere and couldn’t read any of the maps or find their way.
They stopped an old peasant lady on the road who obviously spoke no English and the American was going off at her for not speaking any English.
Finally they got to a city and a five star hotel, went in and were greeted by the receptionist who spoke to them in perfect English and with a perfect English accent but was obviously a native – “good day gentlemen, how may I help you?”
The American replied “first of all, we need to find somebody who speaks English here”.
“I think you’ll find that I do sir”.
“Really? You speak English”
At that stage Peter intervened and sorted things out.
Fat Ass visited Peter here in Lebanon a couple of years ago.
They took him to see the ancient ruins of Baalbeck – built by the Phoenicians thousands of years ago and completed by the Romans.
On seeing those ruins he said “geez, those Israelis sure made a mess of this place!”
Incredulous and bemused Peter said, “they’re ruins”.
Fat Ass was oblivious to this and continued “God damn Israelis, God damn Jews!”
Speaking of which, I haven't been to Baalbeck for ages - the last time I went there the checkpoints were Roman!
Apparently, it’s more Hezbollah checkpoints these days – a foreign friend of mine told me about how she was with a busload of Western tourists who were stopped at a checkpoint in Baalbeck.
The driver spoke to the people manning the checkpoint and then told the startled passengers that the Hezbollah wanted a word with them.Hezbollah operatives then boarded the bus and proceeded to hand out orange juice and biscuits as part of a charm offensive.
5:45 pm
Wednesday, November 27, 2002
LIFE'S A BITCH AND THEN YOU MARRY FOUR
Yesterday I went to Tripoli or Mogadishu as I call it because it looks and appears (to me anyway) like some city in the Horn of Africa.
Went to an iftar (the breaking of the fast at sunset during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan) and caught up with a friend for coffee at Brunch in downtown Tripoli afterwards.
Caught a taxi home from the tal (the central square) at about 11.00PM having agreed on a price of 25000 Lebanese Lira to be repatriated back to Keserwan (CHEAP! And well worth it) – and repatriated is the word as they do feel and appear to be separate countries.
During my conversation with the taxi driver on the forty five minute or so trip home it transpired that he was one of four brothers who were all taxi drivers and all at the same garage (taxi company) in Tripoli.
Which I found remarkable – this must be a record!
I had stumbled upon the Kennedy’s of Lebanese taxi driving!
Mr Kennedy was doing the usual Lebanese taxi driver subtle carrying on (designed to induce and encourage you to pay more) about how bad the economy was, how expensive petrol was and how they weren’t allowed to use diesel (cheaper and more efficient) anymore and how he had six children!
Six children!
I felt like saying to him “so what’s that got to do with me, don’t blame me; I didn’t **** your wife/wives, I didn’t get her/them pregnant with six children - don’t blame me!”
Compassion is my forte!
6:15 pm
Wednesday, October 30, 2002
EUROPEAN POODLE GROOMERS.
Met Sue downtown, we had lunch at Casper and Gambini's and then went for a walk which culminated at the Virgin Megastore where we had drinks at the rooftop café – arguably the best view in Lebanon if not the world.
We then caught a bus, of all things, to Jenny's in Ain Saade.
Bus trips in Lebanon are always interesting.
This one was full of plebes and men with their arms around each other.
An interesting aspect of Lebanese and Arab culture is that public displays of affection are usually frowned upon and taboo except if between men!
Draw your own conclusions (I've got my theories).
As with all bus rides, or any ride in Lebanon for that matter, it was pretty harrowing, particularly as we went up the mountain.
As the driver took some reckless turns, Sue observed that it was getting scary.
I agreed with her and said "gee Sue, I wish you were a bloke so I could put my arm around you"(such was the scariness of the driving and the comeliness of Sue).
On another jaunt, that weekend, we had the exact opposite and a rare exception – an overcautious Lebanese taxi driver who drove very carefully and slowly because "I don't want to put an accident" as he told us.
That night saw our return to the pub quiz.
Alas, the Hare and Hounds is dead – long live the Shamrock! (The natural successor further up the road in Beit Meri).
Sue, Jenny, her brother William and I comprised a team we called "European Poodle Groomers" based on a classified ad in that days Daily Star*.
We ended up losing by a point and Sue** blamed Chady (the proprietor who "helped" us a bit) because he misidentified one of the pictures in the table round.
After the quiz, the usual gentlemen's club type set-up ensued with just us diehards hanging around (usually Chris, Peter Casey, Chady, myself and whoever else happens to be around).
Someone, who being on the wrong side of twenty-five ought to have known better, was spouting the usual undergraduate anti-religion facile nonsense.
Sue and I were at one end of the table and Sue was looking at him in an amused sort of way.
Being Irish Catholic, she's not a great fan of that type of bollocks.
"As if nobody's ever said that kind of thing before" she told me in an aside.
"I would have thought that he would have grown out of it by now" she continued "that’s the reason they send you to university for four years – so that you can talk crap with your mates for four years and get it out of your system".
Regarding the Irish and religion, Peter Casey recounted a story about a stay at a bed and breakfast somewhere in the Irish countryside.
Apparently, they're all pretty uniform – right down to being run by the traditional old-fashioned middle-aged busybody Irishwoman.
In the morning, Peter was in the communal toilet when the landlady thought that he'd been in there for too long.
"Are you all right Mr. Casey – what are you doing in there?" she asked.
The answer to that is pretty obvious so Peter replied "I'm praying**".
The shocked and irony-lacking landlady raised the alarm and all the lodgers rushed out.
"There's a heathen in there who says he's praying!" she told the outraged lynch mob.
One of the lodgers, a middle-aged Irishman who had become the unappointed leader and negotiator, approached and spoke to Peter thru the toilet door.
"Mrs. Mcluskey says you're praying in there, what kind of heathen are you – praying in the toilet?"
Peter, realizing that he was in an irony-free zone, recanted to the Inquisition "I'm not praying!"
The delegate reported back to the mob "he's a heathen – he's not praying, he doesn’t even pray!"
Damned if you do and damned if you don't.
*Under "Miscellaneous", surprisingly, not under "Pets" it read "EUROPEAN LADY (in bold capitals) will groom your poodle or pets. Home service."
We think that's a euphemism for something else - Sue was wondering about why I spend so much time in the shower, as that group has been wondering for years, and asked me if I was "grooming my poodle" in there.
**Sue was never afraid of a drink – Saturday night was party night and Sunday was apology day.
A great part of her Sunday’s were spent telephoning people to apologize for the night before – the Beirut Telephone Directory, A-K in the morning and L-Z in the afternoon
***Peter has been rightly described as being "dry as ice".
The all-time Peter Casey classic would have to be when he was pulled over by the police back in the UK and asked if he'd been drinking.
He had (surprise, surprise) and said "I've had a skinful".
They asked him to blow into the breathalyzer and he replied "don't you believe me?"
1:00 am
Tuesday, October 22, 2002
BACK IN LEBANON
- “take me to your stereotypes”
At Beirut International Airport I was whisked through customs, not on the strength of any of my usual whisking connections but because I had befriended, on the plane from Dubai, Tony from Tony’s Food (“Making Doughs Our Specialty”).
Tony’s a nice friendly guy and his name obviously means something in this town – I couldn’t believe that they recognized him from his name alone, let alone that being the proprietor of a company called Tony’s Food (“Making Doughs Our Specialty”) qualifies you and your mates for special treatment.
11:00 am
Tuesday, October 15, 2002
LIVE
It’s 1.00am in Washington, 4.00pm in London and 6.00pm in Baghdad where the polls have just closed in the plebiscite on Saddam Hussein’s rule.
Our exit polls, that is the amount of people voting “yes” and thus exiting alive, indicate a one hundred percent yes vote.
Based on and projecting from those figures, we’re taking a punt and calling Baghdad for Saddam Hussein.
Repeat, we can now call Baghdad for Saddam Hussein.
We’ll be back in an hour when the polls close in the north and south.
It’s funny how the media, politicians, etc refer to Saddam Hussein as ‘’Saddam’’.
You don’t hear any other world leader referred to by his first name.
E.g. you don’t hear George W Bush making statements to the extent of ‘’Robert has oppressed his people and threatened his neighbours’’ about Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe.
Maybe because a name like Saddam is very distinctive (it’s even rare in the Arab world) whereas a name like Robert is pretty common and is more likely to be the name of bloke at the local hardware store than that of a ruthless dictator.
6:00 pm
Friday, August 23, 2002
Went to the ------------ Mayoral Ball at Scenic Hills Riding Ranch or Range (whatever it is).It was a good night, the usual ------------ Mayoral Ball type scenario - a good country-type bash (albeit genteel country folks, the community notables).This year’s theme was Moulin Rouge – it was advertised as “have le time of your life” (to think that they had hired a public relations company to organize it - they hired a PR company to come up with "have les time of your life"?).In his welcoming speech Mayor ------- conceded to the French theme – uttering one word in French: “it’s a French theme tonight so bonjour” (rather than bonsoir).It's all one word - all he had to do was get one word right!They don't need a PR firm, they need the Alliance Française.I was telling ------- about it later on and he asked me whether I corrected him.To which I replied that of course I didn’t (I wouldn’t do that sort of thing!) but that I’m not going to vote for him - he doesn’t know night from day!
8:00 pm
Wednesday, July 24, 2002
Watched Pearl Harbor at Sam’s.
At 184 minutes duration, the movie is longer than the actual attack on Pearl Harbor (125 minutes).
The late US Senator Hiram Johnson observed that “the first casualty when war comes is truth”
The last casualty of war must be the movie.
8:00 pm
Saturday, July 20, 2002
St.George-Illawarra beat South Sydney 48-10 at the Sydney Football Stadium (about the size of a Perjil Island).
5:00 pm
Wednesday, July 17, 2002
SPAIN ERECTS RABAT-PROOF FENCE
The confrontation between Spain and Morocco over a sprig of parsley in the Mediterranean intensified today when elite Spanish assault troops reoccupied the disputed islet of Perejil (parsley in Spanish) dislodged the six Moroccan troops guarding an observation post that had been established a week earlier after Moroccan frontier police had raised the country’s flag there and then proceeded to build a fence around the small rocky outpost (about the size of a football field).
12:00 pm
Sunday, June 30, 2002
Watched the Harlem Globetrotters vs. Germany World Cup soccer final on the big screen at Javanotti’s in Leichardt with Anthony.
It was a full house and great atmosphere as usual*.
Most of those in attendance were supporting Brazil but I wasn’t.
I got yellow carded on several occasions by Anthony – he thinks that the term “nig-nog” is “unsavory’.
I think that it’s only “unsavory” if there are nig-nogs around – I’m not politically correct just polite.
And seeing that there were no nig-nogs around (nobody could hear us anyway) and that neither Anthony nor I are nig-nogs, then I didn’t see any problem with it.
I suppose it could have been worse – Anthony has red carded me on at least one occasion (dissolved our conclave over another instance of political incorrectness).
Besides, I did learn something (I always do when I’m with Anthony) – there are no jungles in Africa.
Who knew?
*Our cousin Eddy Makhoul, the proprietor, is a great host and my choice for man of the tournament.
And “the portions are so generous!”We had a lot of fun saying the in a New York Jewish accent, “how do you pay the rent?”
8:00 pm
Saturday, June 01, 2002
For a myriad of reasons, I hate shopping.
That I’m so fussy is just one of them.
I spent the past “working week” traveling into Sydney (by train) in the morning and returning in the early evening, as if it were a job or something, shopping.
And all this for just a mere handful of items – working out to an average of one item procured per day.
Despite this, one would be mistaken to assume that I was just ambling around – although a lot of time is taken up with little return, my method within this time-wasting is pretty industrious.
I blitz through scores of shops, select a couple of “candidates” and, towards the end of the day, make my ultimate selection.
The items I find the hardest to shop for are eyeglasses and shoes – to the extent that I’ve almost given up on finding a pair of glasses and am not really looking anymore.
My main gripe with today’s fashion is that glasses are too small (wearing those new thin glasses is like viewing life though a letterbox or Ned Kelly mask) and that sneakers are too big – puffy, glowy and with extraneous bits stuck all over them.
I’ve had my current glasses for ten years (my brother says that they’re bound to come back in fashion anytime now).
And I figure that it’s way too early to look for another pair of sneakers, as I only got my current pair about a year ago after scouring Sydney looking – especially looking for the exact same pair that I brought the last time I was here (1998) that have apparently since been discontinued.
Even in their heyday, they mustn’t have been the most popular line ever because, at the time I brought them, they were two for the price of one.
I took one pair back to Lebanon with me and tried to give the other pair away before I left but didn’t have enough time for such a Herculean task so I outsourced that to my aunty who didn’t have any luck either, amongst any of my cousins, and finally ended up giving them to the caretaker.
Understandably, my aunty, being the exact opposite of me (Anthony calls us “The Odd Couple” and hums that theme tune whenever he sees us) has little patience for shopping with me and can often be heard inquiring incredulously “you can’t find a whatever in the whole of Sydney?!?”
I correct her – my search also includes Melbourne and Lebanon.
Mum says that I should establish my own small factory and make clones of all my clothes and accessories.
This time around, I looked all over Sydney until my sister Maha stepped in and broke the impasse – taking me on a mercy mission to the Fila outlet at Birkenhead Point where I finally found the pair I wanted – a pair of plain navy blue good old-fashioned sneakers.
They were the only pair and my exact size – the tag said that they were a sample and, seeing I haven’t seen any other pairs around anywhere, I’m assuming that they were as popular (or unpopular rather) as my last pair.
They were only thirty dollars but I would have paid much more than that and God knows I did indirectly, when you consider all the hours of my valuable time that I put into the search.
Although I’m not into brands, I did make a startling discovery – much of today’s “fashion” clothing doesn’t fit me.
At one designer outlet, I couldn’t even fit into an extra large and left in shame.
I analyzed this and came to the conclusion that the demographic for fashionable menswear these days is mostly gay and Asian.
Hence, the sizes are going to be smaller because most of that demographic is in better shape than I am (Asians naturally and gays narcissistically).
And it’s not like I’m fat, although a “gay” extra large doesn’t fit me I’m usually a medium or (at most) a large in hetero sizes.
Anyway, as I’m fashion averse, I don’t care if I’m condemned to a lifetime of King Gee.
I find shopping for books a lot easier.
I can’t remember the last time I bought a book I didn’t like and can count only about ten of those in my entire reading “career”.
One such book was “Catch 22” – couldn’t get into it and found myself in a veritable catch-22 over whether to persevere until I got to the actual catch-22 part (the reason I bought the book in the first place) or to put it away.
I put it away.
I’m not much of a book reviewer but I know what I like.My all-time favorite “book review” is Noel Me Mate’s stand-up comedy line - “I read “1984”…in 1983…and I remember thinking ‘I thought Year Seven was tough!’” (We were in Year Seven in 1983).
I recently opened an Ezy Banking ‘’bank account’’ (sic) which I can use anywhere except inside an actual bank.
I can make EFTPOS transactions with it, use an ATM etc but I can’t use it inside a bank.
It’s like those British passports that were issued to Hong Kong residents that don’t entitle them to actually live in Britain.
I feel very unwelcome (about as welcome as a bank robber).
A second-class citizen in this new two-tier banking world.
12:00 pm
Friday, March 29, 2002
AUSTRALIAN BASTILE DAY
Forty-six “illegal immigrants” escaped from the notorious Woomera immigration detention center in the South Australian desert as it was stormed by hundreds of protestors
12:00 pm
Wednesday, March 20, 2002
Melbourne is reeling* as North Melbourne (AFL) football club captain Wayne Carey resigns over an extramarital affair with best friend and North Melbourne Vice Captain Anthony Stevens's wife, Kelli.
I think that Stevens deserved it to an extent for marrying somebody called Kelli.
I have a theory that girls called Kelly/Kelli or any other variation of the name are sluts.
Any Kellys taking offence at this are kindly requested to email me to arrange ‘’sexy time’’ (as Borat would put it).
* Some have even called it ‘’the Melbourne September 11’’.
6:30 am
Wednesday, February 27, 2002
Went to Canberra, the nation’s capital*, with Anthony.
Anthony was performing at a club called “Insomnia”.
What’s insomnia in Canberra? - “It’s 10.00pm and I cant’ sleep!”
Insomnia, as we know it, may not exist in sleepy Canberra but it did while I was there.
Anthony and I were staying overnight in a hotel that looked a lot like the Watergate, and I couldn’t sleep so I went for a walk all over town at 4.00am looking for food.
None to be found - all the restaurants and clubs were closed (including “Insomnia”).
What do they do in Canberra during Ramadan?
If you can’t sleep in Sydney it doesn’t matter because that gives you more waking time to enjoy paradise – Sydney insomniacs are the luckiest of the lucky (people who call Sydney home).
Being in Canberra got me thinking as to why culturally attuned broadcasters like the BBC don’t pronounce Australian names in the local accent, as the trend is these days with other foreign names?
E.g. why don’t they annunciate “Stralia” (Australia) the Australian way just as they do “Chee-lay” (Chile) the Chilean way?Why isn’t it "John Houred" when they’re referring to our Prime Minister John Howard just as they pronounce "Ignacio Luis Lula da Silva" the Portuguese way (God they have a lot of fun with that name)?
And what’s with calling a Filipino woman a “Filpina”, as the BBC and other trendy media outlets do?
It’s the feminine form of Filipino in Spanish not English – which even a Filipina will tell you doesn’t have masculine or feminine.And why do they only make this vernacular exception for Filpinas? They don’t refer to Australian women as "Sheilas" - "a Sheila has been arrested on drugs charges in Indonesia".
*Melbourne was originally the capital of Australia (from Federation in 1901 to 1927) until agitation by Sydney resulted in the capital and parliament being moved to a sheep paddock in the middle of nowhere called Canberra as a compromise. (It’s often joked that that was a waste of a perfectly good sheep paddock).We’d always been told that Canberra was equidistant from Melbourne and Sydney but, although I’ve been to Canberra several times and had always suspected that the distance wasn’t quite "equi" (that it was closer to Sydney) it wasn’t until this trip that the full extent of this "equi" deficiency dawned on me - it isn’t equidistant at all, Canberra is practically an outer suburb of Sydney.It couldn’t have been more than fifteen minutes after we’d left the heart of Canberra, that I, just by chance, happened to see a signpost announcing that we had just entered NSW.We’ve been scammed.
12:00 pm
Monday, February 18, 2002
DUH
I just received my new Australian passport.
At the back where it says ‘’in case of accident or death please notify_____’’ should I just write ‘’a doctor, a mortician’’?
8:00 pm
Saturday, January 12, 2002
Noel Me Mate and I were talking to some Irish girls at a pub in Port Melbourne tonight.
Noel asked one of them whether she was Catholic or Protestant and she replied Catholic of course.
Noel told her that this was a Protestant pub and that the Catholic pub was across the road (a la Northern Ireland).
She apologized and was getting up to leave until he told her it was only a joke.
Noel went on to joke that it was nice of them to share their flag with Italy (India and Mexico too sort of was my contribution).
Chairman Noel says that Irish girls are either sluts or nuns.
We didn’t find out which category these girls fitted into because we were too busy taking the piss.
Still, it was good craic anyway.
8:00 am
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