The sensitive little darlings, The Sun, subsequently deleted this tweet. You may have seen The Sun's Kelvin MacKenzie protesting ...

(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 ) Running in a new car on the Dubai-Al Ain highway is not something I'd recommend, people. It's dead...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Here's a story. Globe-spanning super-airline Qatar Airways started life as a 'labour flight...

I was last in Aleppo in 2006, to attend the wedding of pal Lena to Koko which took place in the C14th Armenian Orthodox Church in the heart...

Jamila's Thread is a lovely little book to hold in your hand, it truly is. It's almost enough to make me give up my 'a book ...

(Photo credit: AlphaBetaUnlimited ) I have long been struck by how little people back home knew - or cared - about the situation in t...

Would I like to write a 1,000 word short story for Time Out Dubai as part of their Emirates Airline Festival of Literature coverage? Su...

I've gone and done it again. I couldn't help myself. I've published another collection of 'best of' posts from years...

(Photo credit: IsaacMao ) Saturday the 8th March will see me once again pretending to be an author at the LitFest. As well as my usual ...

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

It's quite a neat title for an expat blog, isn't it? The Displaced Nation is a blog that ties together people from all over the...

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) The car dealers are rubbing their hands, gleefully cackling and singing 'happy days are here again'...

The frontispiece of my prized copy of Arabia Felix.  Note TE Lawrence was, at the time he wrote his  foreword for Thomas' book,...

(Photo credit: mikecogh ) One of my favourite jokes of all time is that people in Dubai don't understand the Flintstones, while Abu...

Gerrard King's amazing pill skull image,  wot graces the cover of Shemlan - A Deadly Tragedy. I didn't realise until the di...