Touffar for Esquire gulf

This would have been my first magazine appearance but they put it back a month till March so Executive, which prints next week, pips them to it. Touffar are heavily politicised rappers from the Bekaa valley area of Lebanon. I couldn't understand a word of the concert but it was apparent they were pretty pissed. The unsubbed version of US freelancer and all round nice guy Josh Wood's story, as it will appear in next month's edition of Esquire gulf, is below. Cheers to Touffar for letting me blind them with flashes for the entire concert.

Bananas in Beirut

Turkish author Ece Temelkuran was in Beirut at the end of December for an interview with Turkey's second best read daily Milliyet by journalist Devrim Sevimay, which appeared in the paper on January 3. Her new book, "Sound of Bananas," the story, among other things, of a Filipino maid and Syrian construction worker living in Beirut, is out soon but you'll need to be pretty hot on your Turkish or Arabic to read it.

Ashura

Although most of the Shiite community have toned down their commemoration of the death of Prophet Mohammed's grandson, those in the Lebanon's southern town Nabatieh still go the whole hog. The head is cut with a razor and then smacked repeatedly to make the blood flow, or, as per the really messy ones below, the head is repeatedly struck with some force by a massive great big poke your eye out sword. For you here in all its gory goodness...

For news on the bombs that marred the observation of Ashura in Beirut's suburbs have a look here

Happy to oblige

Richard Ian 'art' Hall, Foreign News Editor at The Daily Star and all-round gent recently started a blog. Good enough excuse for some photo making...

Beirut Marathon

Over 20,000 runners took to the streets of Beirut today - those pictured here were some of the 245 who slogged it out for the whole 23 mile marathon course. In the rain. I discovered the hard way that my new flash trigger didn't bounce, just as the first runners crossed the finish line so, sadly, there were no sweaty-just-about-to-die shots.



Haifa Wehbe - apparently she's big stuff on the pop scene out here. Daily Star sports supremo Kenny Laurie blagged me all the way into the VIP area to take a picture of him with her; I was so carried away with the light-bouncing opportunities afforded by the tiny white tent we were in I totally forgot to get him in the frame. Kenny, I'm sorry - but look closely and you'll see he's reflected in the right hand frame of her AVs. Out of the box, right?

Bad day to be a sheep...

The Muslim world celebrated Eid al-Adha festival today, which was bad news for ovines. Families buy a sheep, which the butcher promptly slaughters. A third of the meat they eat, a third goes to their relatives and a third is given to the poor.

The sheep seemed in no way distressed before they were killed, their throats cut with a simple knife. They made no sound, just the rattling gasp of the air leaving their lungs for the last time.

The twitching was unsettling.

It's called soccer out here...

This was for a Daily Star story about a Lebanese football academy that just established ties with Manchester City, of all places, so expect to see this guy on telly some time soon. The power went out just after this happy accident occurred, myself and reporter Kenny Laurie scurried off while the kids stuck out in the pitch black.