Joe Ayoub

Joe Ayoub of Brandcell marketing is another Executive contributer and takes the award for Beirut's coolest offices so far. You'll be able to read his words of wisdom next week sometime.

This blog is getting a bit monochromatic, apologies. Also, I think I should invest in a small step ladder - these last few pictures make it look like I'm about 3ft tall.

A useful man to have around...

Walid Noshie has probably spent a small fortune searching for some 380kg of gold that was lost off the coast of Lebanon when a plane caught fire and crashed just after take-off back 1957. Sound familiar? No surprise then that it was this guy who Hariri called to help coordinate efforts to locate the flight recorders of flight ET-409. No sign of the gold, yet, but he did find both black boxes. There's a big interview in this month's magazine.

Karim Makarem

I finally sunk my teeth into the first of a bunch of portraits of business leaders who regularly contribute to the magazine. After an aborted attempt to get on the roof we settled for this interesting curved wall in the offices of the oft quoted Karim Makarem of Ramco real estate advisors, one of Beirut's top real estate figures. Curvy walls are bloody great. So are subjects who are quite willing to give you a reasonable chunk of their time to let you shoot them without making you feel like you're clogging up their schedule.

Corporate location portraiture is usually an exercise in overcoming a combination of far-too-busy-for-you subjects and less than ideal surroundings, but today was a refreshing change.

A Lebanese Valentines day

Five years ago on February 14 a bloody great bomb tossed chunks of Lebanon's then Prime Minister, Rafik Hariri, all over downtown Beirut. Now each year a (steadily dwindling) sea of flags waving mark his passing, al la the 'Cedar Revolution' of March 14, which booted the Syrians out of Lebanon.
Sadly not everyone could enjoy the day happily and a few sorry souls were escorted home courtesy of the Red Cross, after finding themselves on the wrong end of a rapidly descending flag staff. Given the close confines and the surprise circa 30º temperatures perhaps a few scuffles were inevitable.

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