(Photo credit: Wikipedia ) 'You write very well, you know. You just need to get out of the Middle East. It's doing y...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia ) There comes a time when some form of reality has to intrude into writing novels, usually when you feel s...

For no particularly good reason, a handful of things you probably didn't know (or even want to know) about Shemlan: A Deadly Tragedy...

(Photo credit: Côte d’Azur ) I wonder if Gulf News gave Beirut's Phoenicia Hotel the option of dropping its quarter page colour ad ...

"Those looking for nonstop action, political intrigue, smatterings of sex and violence and explosions aplenty need look no further...

So I've started Beirut - An Explosive Thriller' s review programme. It's reasonably wearying, tracking down active book blog...

Rafic Hariri beirut 2 (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) I follow the #Beirut hashtag (Tweetdeck's multiple columns are a wonderful t...

Isn't this all exciting? So the final edit of Beirut - An Explosive Thriller is back from proofreading and ready to be formatted fo...

Pound for pound, the Lebanese LIRA is the daftest regulation you'll see in quite a while. It's yet another example of a governme...

Image via Wikipedia "A Facebook group on the conflict between the army and Fatah Al Islam in Lebanon grew a membership of 8,000 in a...

Gulf News filed a Reuters report today on moves to improve Lebanon's internet access. The headline alone made me laugh, "Leban...

Image via Wikipedia I have long been meaning to post this but for one reason or another the timing has never seemed quite propitious. Today...

Image via Wikipedia At the last GeekFest Dubai, we forgot to announce that we'd decided to expand the project and go ahead with GeekFes...

In the early days of this silly little blog, I put up a post that was essentially a crib from an experiment in Wiki creation that I was pl...

Please note I've updated this post and made it easier to read here . Cheers! Some people think I’ve wasted 20 years in the Arab World, b...

One of the strangest buildings on earth is St Mary's Church in Sharjah. It's a marvellous, miraculous little place, even for those o...