I’ve had a frog lying on my desk for ages. I don’t mind it. It’s harmless and only moves when you move it (it’s plastic.) The toy frog is orange actually, but I thought it looked cooler in green. Original image: Now for the David Attenborough bit: For many years zoologists have debated the existence of a particular frog belonging to the genus Hyla. Recently, however, the keyboard-dwelling species of frog has made the transition from cryptozoology to zoology.

Infomania Nymphomania? No, no! INFO-mania Oh, I see what is it then? Blackberry push email get through push me out of sleep out of hours and days out of life Sacrifice all for some crack- berry Answer quick always on but switched off Neither here nor there Always trying to make one last check until the end of days when nothing crosses the ether When signals are no more when all’s gone forever

Honey and dew a glass for each one pours into the other Drink! They say Drink! From life and to life vessels of success are close drink, dear friend, drink! And so she drinks it all lives it all day and night night and day I live, she says not by my own word but by that of others of whimsical fancy and of delinquent disdain Half full or half empty

“Fact of fiction,” the man with the funny red polka dots hat says, “fact of fiction is what it is!” “Fact or fiction?” I say, correcting him. “Fact of fiction!” He giggles and interjects nonsensical sounds into his speech. “Eeh, hee, wee-yoo! Fact of fiction! Eee-yoooo!” “Right, so, fact of fiction? What does it mean?” “Oh, so many things, so many little things, so many big things,” he says. His hands stretch in all directions, spiraling upwards and downwards.

life. take. death. instant. tea. garbage. feeling. alive. hope. danger. run. fight. live. be. welcome to the human condition. Poetry? Why not. Smallcaps? Understatements. Periods? Fullstops. Are we done yet? We’re just getting started.

Welcome to our city of dreams of temptations and mastications and fabrications of fornications Nothing but emptiness it might seem Judge not for big it is small it is and all it is too All will be clear Laid out on the streets of our city truth is never lost lies are clear as day Fakery and trickery concrete and glass all the better in a city of dreams High-rise and low-rise

Layal took small steps. She looked across a field of rubble, befallen houses and distressed foliage. “In that house, in that house,” she said, pointing with her arm outstretched at what remained of Uncle Sharif’s two storey mansion, “in that house my uncle, my three cousins, his wife and mother stayed. “The enemy jets flew past, not missing a single house in their onslaught. The roof caved in in the attack, crushing them as they scrambled for safety…by daybreak the rescue teams retrieved the bodies…and I…I saw…” she almost collapsed if not for Hassan, an aid worker, by her side.

There once was a boy who was constantly told how to be, how to do and how to grow up. On television, MTV told him to wear lose parachute pants, spike up his hair and lyricise suggestive words. In the theater, movies told him to act suave and to accept everything and anything as the truth. In bookshops, supermarket bestsellers told him to acknowledge the absurd. On the street, drivers rushed passed him, showing him that life had no time for quiet solitude.

It came to be that I would participate in the 2006-2007 Hajj, the Islamic pilgrimage. For about a week I was part of three million or so Muslims going through the duties of the Hajj. Each sacred duty is outwardly symbolic and inwardly revealing. Whether it was changing into a simple; unstitched white garment, circling the Ka’ba, retracing Hajar’s (Hagar) search for water for infant Ismail (Ishmail,) camping at Mount Arafat, gathering pebbles and stoning the jamarat, or leaving Mina, each of these tasks has either reinforced preexisting notions or has led me to new truths.

Some of you might have noticed the January 2007 issue of National Geographic with Dubai as one of its cover articles. On that note, here’s a little something to look at from my archives. National Geographic, February 1946: That’s right, probably one of the first articles in NG dealing solely with our little island of hope, Bahrein: Port of Pearls and Petroleum – With 6 illustrations and Map, 11 Natural Color Photographs by Maynard Owen Williams.