the state we want to be in

The power men, those we are taught to believe will get us to a way of living we want, have an instinct for where the power is and they gravitate towards it. Take Donald Rumsfeld’s love of hi-tech missile shields, recon systems, computer mines, natty drones. It’s a classic power move- technology always beating a human argument in the absence of common sense- or hard earned experience.

It is interesting to speculate on the different power structures in a corporation and in an army. A corporation is ‘at war’ all the time with the competition. The army is mostly not at war. The army has to develop instincts for preventing mistakes, but business mistakes are welcomed- they are a sign of ‘learning’. New risky strategies pay off big time in business- the downside can be minimal. But the downside of new risky strategies in real war is huge. In war winning everytime is the main thing. In business profit is the main thing and winning is just one way of making a profit. The main method is creatively and constantly launching new initiatives until one of them works. New product development. But this is not a war winning strategy.

The problem of politics is not the state that we are in or the state we want to be in, it is the problem of moving from one state to another, that is more desired. It is all in the movement.

eat molokia

The ancient Egyptians swore by it for its aphrodisiac qualities. Five thousand years later, the Japanese and South Koreans are making it into green tea, tofu and even ice cream.

This is molokia, a green vegetable of the jute or mallow family, which is one of  Egypt's most traditional dishes. Perhaps its reputation as an Old Kingdom viagra stems from its amazing growth- under hot conditions such as the Nile delta in summer it can grow up to 25cm per day. Once harvested it is made into a green soup that almost all Egyptians find very delicious. It makes expatriate Egyptians nostalgic at just the mention of it. Sam Habib, an Egyptian born Australian likens preparing molokia to 'the smell of Cairo on a Friday."

Others claim its glutinous, sticky texture and garlicky smell make it a bit of an acquired taste. Many Egyptians may take this view as an insult just as the French would sniff at people ridiculing their traditional snail dishes or smelly cheeses.

The Japanese and Koreans value its amazing protein and folic acid levels- the highest for any green leaf vegetable-it also contains more iron and calcium and magnesium, all essential minerals increasingly hard to acquire in factory farmed spinach and broccoli.

Health conscious Koreans and Japanese, who write it ‘morokeiya’ make it into a savory green tea, a luminous green buckwheat noodle, soya tofu, and a green ice cream that sells alongside other delicacies such as a sorbet made from fresh eels.

The Molokia fad has been growing, especially in the Far East, for the last ten years, even promprting morokhia tourism from Japan to Egypt.  " I came to see the mysterious Egyptian pyramids and to eat the health giving Morokeiya", Kawabata Iku san, a Japanese tourist from Saitama province visiting Egypt said.

Molokia, though native to Egypt, long ago spread to the Levant.

"Our way of making molokia is better than the Egyptian," says a Palestinian woman proudly explaining the superiority of Levantine-style molokia.

"Palestinians, Lebanese and Syrians cook molokia as leaves in the same way spinach is made, which takes away the glutinous, slimy taste and texture of the soup."

Egyptians and Levantines are well known for their heated rivalry over who produces better soap operas, who has the better Arabic dialect and whose molokia is tastier.

Egyptian expatriates are now relieved that they no longer deprived of the traditional delicacy. In the past, molokia was not easily obtainable in many countries. Now, shops in cities as far as Los Angeles and Sydney offer frozen molokia.

Egyptians living in Japan and South Korea are even better off as fresh  molokia can be purchased for the green vegetable grown in both countries. However, Usama Saleh, who has lived in Tokyo for five years claims that Japanese molokia,  “like everything in Japan, has less smell and taste than the Egyptian vegetable.”

Stories abound about the origin of the traditional molokia dish but some may be apocryphal.

It is claimed there are depictions of preparation of mallow leaves on ancient Egyptian tomb walls.

"The Stela of Ahmose depicts Molokhia being prepared. It is also mentioned by Pliny as a favourite dish," says Dr Nevine Medhat, an Egyptologist.

The modern name stems, according to legend, from the time an Arab king was seriously ill and a doctor  made a soup with molokia and cured the king. Since then, people call this soup "King's soup" or molokia, from the Arabic for king: moloch. More earthy accounts suggest it is called after the king because it will make a male lover feel like a king!

One fact is certain, molokia was banned by King al-Hakim Biamr Allah in the  11 th century. Some say the deeply eccentric ruler, aware of the aphrodisiac qualities of molokia, sought to prevent women and men from a possible life of debauchery.

sole destroyer

Walking in Wadi Digla in my new desert boots, worn only twice before, but, which already showed signs of egregious wear and tear on the soles (the little central stubby bits having come away from the 'commando' grip pattern) I suffered, for the first time in my life, complete sole breakdown- losing a heel and all the tread off one boot and half a heel off the other. Half a heel is worse than a whole heel- you end up walking like Byron after one too many camparis. (I discovered the problem getting down slopes made suddenly dangerous and strange, like riding a bike with a flat tyre). The heels, too, rather interestingly, were full of ordinary cheapo yellow foam rubber coated in this cruddy plastic that disintegrated as easily as a sandcastle against the tide. I could just picture that Chinese factory boss making the decision to use nothing but the worst materials. The topsides, however, made of suede were fine- just as comfortable as before- the reason I bought the boots in the first place. I thought I was being smart- buying a no-name brand because of fit not kudos. How wrong I was. It was funny too though. I showed the shorn soles to everyone and we mused on how I could probably get them repaired, maybe with old car tyre soles like they use for sandals. Maybe without heels. Heelless boots- why not?

definition

a house is a machine for wasting time in

guardian newspaper article

This weekend the Guardian newspaper did a spread about places 50 travellers have enjoyed visiting. Mine was the cave of the swimmers in the Egyptian desert. Ever mindful of publicity opportunities I failed to have added the fact that this winter we are doing a month long desert trek using camels travelling the same route (probably the second or third group to do so ever) as 1873 explorer Gerhard Rohlfs. There are a six of us going with three bedouin. Room for one, maybe two at a pinch more. If interested go to theexplorerschool.com for more info or contact me via robtwigger@gmail.com

It's going to be a month, incredible and expensive(ish).

all this and heaven too

All this and heaven too is a fantastic memoir by the incredible Helena Edwards. I highly recommend her book because of its well placed truly perceptive comments placed within stories of great interest. You can buy it online from crucible publishing at the below website:

http://www.cruciblepublishers.com/productDetail.asp?PID=1086

 Helena knew Gurdjieff, JG Bennet and Idries Shah and what she has to say about them all is well worth reading.

trying and doing

Whether you love or hate writer and poet Charles Bukowski, it has to be admitted he had a sense of humour. On his gravestone he had inscribed, as advice to future writers, ‘Don’t Try’.

It was something he knew a lot about. He tried very hard in his 20s to get stories into print. He had two published and then gave up, worn down by all the rejections. After ten years of drinking and not writing he went back to poetry and at 49 wrote his first novel Post Office. Until he died 24 years later he wrote almost every night, and today there are 60 volumes of poetry, short stories, non-fiction and novels- most of it still in print. Most people would say he learnt to try very hard indeed.

But what Bukowski meant was: ‘do’ don’t ‘try to do’. I think of ‘trying’ as a kind of posture, encouraged at school and at home, by over eager teachers and parents. The kids who act and look keenest, while keeping a weather eye on the other kids so as not to appear as creeps, get ahead. They learn first and foremost how to appear to be ‘trying hard’. They get rewarded with attention for looking interested, for 'trying'. But life is about doing not trying.

What you need to do in writing is to construct a method where you don’t have to try, you just do. This might mean accepting you make lots of revisions so any one draft however bad, doesn’t get you down. Or it might mean planning the whole thing out so you can write it straight through almost on autopilot. Whatever it takes to eliminate that constipated unproductive sensation of ‘trying’.

Often a breakthrough comes when you’ve been working away and got seemingly nowhere. You then almost give up, but somehow don’t. Emotionally, you’re drained. The next day, without effort, you know how to fix everything. But instead of having to take it to the brink like this invent a method that works for you: trust that you will have breakthroughs and when you hit a wall keep up momentum but don’t ‘try’. When I hit a wall – which means I don’t know what to do next with a completed, but unsatisfactory, draft- I print it out, read through, make a list of corrections- and even if the corrections are tiny this process often reveals the deeper problems which I then instantly fix. But if I thought about those deep problems I’d get in a mess trying too hard. Laser printers are a marvelous invention.

Trying is keeping going with the brakes still on. It is keeping going without knowing where to go. It is keeping going when you are aiming at a result rather than a process. You are aiming at ‘having written a novel’ rather than writing it. You have to enjoy the process a little bit. You don’t have to love it but there must be some satisfaction sitting there at the keyboard.

You have to keep going but it is better to move sideways like a crab than to head butt a brick wall. Sooner or later you’ll find a break you can move through. Easily.