tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-113260222011-11-02T00:38:25.513+02:00I'm abroad. Or a broad, depending on your cultural agenda and gender. Or maybe both. Anyways I'm not Jewish, which can be a bit of a problem lately...stephnoreply@blogger.comBlogger331100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11326022.post-1162010043164430962006-10-28T05:38:00.000+02:002006-10-29T02:35:38.296+02:00

I have to leave Israel next week. It hurts.I finally decided - after years of thinking about it and trying to find a way out - to join the Jewish ranks.I'm too much part of it now - or it's too much part of me - to just walk away. And Jerusalem for me is as nectar to a hummingbird. I need to suck it up.My family know this of me, and are incredibly supportive. Even my little niece Rowie wrote: Yay

stephnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11326022.post-1157901945613227902006-09-10T17:54:00.000+03:002006-09-10T18:34:37.163+03:00

So I'm sitting in a bar (how unusual) swapping insults with Itai (how unusual) and jiggling to some Middle Eastern-sounding music (that turned out to be Spanish), and suddenly Itai stops barracking me and asks if I read French. He's trying to book a Eurolines coach from Paris over the Internet, and there's no way to do it in English. As it happens I do, but I can't actually read the bar monitor -

stephnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11326022.post-1157119125511684752006-09-01T16:37:00.000+03:002006-09-01T17:01:35.273+03:00

It's not often that a feedback post in Ha'aretz actually cheers me up, much less one from a Palestinian writer. But this one - in response to an article saying that the EU/World Bank money is starting to trickle through into Gaza and the West Bank - did.Title: Give food, medicine and work, not moneyName: GeorgeAs a Palestinian, I ask that those who support my people give only food, medicine,

stephnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11326022.post-1156127025483972922006-08-21T04:10:00.000+03:002006-08-21T18:24:48.123+03:00

I bumped into a bunch of English guys last night in Mike's Place, three seconds after I'd bought a soldier on leave from Lebanon another beer.For once they weren't a group of football fans, UN soldiers or journalists travelling together, so everyone had opinions of their own. One preached 'when in Rome...' (like I needed to learn it?) and another expressed similar sentiments in a more modern way,

stephnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11326022.post-1155933786409358842006-08-18T23:39:00.000+03:002006-08-18T23:43:06.420+03:00

There's this organization here that delivers pizzas to combat units on duty, even during a war. I actually paid for dinner for 30 soldiers over the Internet the other day, having heard that the Army forgot to send food along with the troops they sent to fight in Lebanon. I also sent chocolate. It's even hotter on the Lebanese border than it is in Jerusalem, but you can send chocolate... I've no

stephnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11326022.post-1155924001866737252006-08-18T19:43:00.000+03:002006-08-18T21:00:01.936+03:00

Nobody here really believes it's over at all, but the fact remains that the reservists are already home - as, of course, are the wounded. 18 year old boys with bullet wounds in their limbs whose eyes fill unexpectedly now and again, like when they're in a crowded bar and the crowd seems happy. It's called grief.The older ones look after each wounded soldier as if he were their own kid brother;

stephnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11326022.post-1153547531200647702006-07-22T08:46:00.000+03:002006-07-22T18:28:06.103+03:00

I was talking to Jeff tonight, in between laughing over an extreme game of pool, trying not to think about Tel Aviv yesterday (two helicopters flying out in the direction of Lebanon every 30 minutes, two flying back) and a looooooooong but seriously good conversation with Rachel.I won't report what Rachel and I were discussing. I asked for & received Jeff's permission to blog this story, though:

stephnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11326022.post-1152799156766933362006-07-13T16:57:00.000+03:002006-07-13T18:13:36.866+03:00

16:06 Hezbollah's Nasrallah to hold 5 P.M. press conference on captured soldiers (Haaretz)16:11 PM meets parents of abducted soldier Gilad Shalit; atmosphere 'unpleasant' (Haaretz)16:25 U.S. diplomat: Capture of soldiers on Lebanese border 'very dangerous' (AP)16:27 UN Secretary General Kofi Annan urges restraint in the Middle East (AP)17:12 IDF: 3 soldiers were killed in Hezbollah attack

stephnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11326022.post-1145879812373326542006-04-24T14:09:00.000+03:002006-10-29T03:24:41.686+02:00

It's been a while since I posted anything here, and I got told off for it a couple of evenings ago when a French friend of mine, Noel, turned up back in Jerusalem. Check out his blog if you want to see why some of us love it so much here, he has pics of his new home in Jerusalem (and also of the new baby that prevented him coming straight to the bar on arrival back here).OK, so there's been a lot

stephnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11326022.post-1139622546453214152006-02-11T02:43:00.001+02:002008-03-26T04:47:59.166+02:00

Jerusalem's a strange place, primarily because it's so close to the edge of chaos. It's a place where entire civilizations regularly collide and occasionally have been known to collapse, and everyone here is aware of that. So in general Jerusalem is a gentle place despite all its hard edges, because the option is to be totally unforgiving; totally prejudiced; totally in fear of 'the other'. And

stephnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11326022.post-1138766644362349842006-02-01T05:55:00.000+02:002006-02-01T06:11:27.046+02:00

OK so here's the way I'm seeing things right now.Hamas got into power in the Palestinian Areas a couple of weeks ago, and I genuinely believe that most of the people that voted for them did so because they're good in local government. Most of them.I also believe that most of them would _not_ have voted for Hamas if they'd anticipated their being in control of their 'national' government.Doesn't

stephnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11326022.post-1137450933705853232006-01-16T22:34:00.000+02:002006-01-17T00:35:33.730+02:00

I've been watching events unfold in Hebron with my eyes popping, and tonight I think the nadir was reached. The headline in Ha'aretz currently reads 'Jewish Hebron areas are a closed military zone'.The situation in Hebron has the potential to divide Israel, much much more than the Gaza pullout ever did. This isn't one of those hilltop settlements with football-pitch lights; this is a real town,

stephnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11326022.post-1137130607067307932006-01-13T05:12:00.000+02:002006-01-14T19:10:33.910+02:00

So I'm in Mike's relatively early one night, because my sleeping pattern's messed up and I was trying to normalize it (up all night and all day, then drink, then go to bed before midnight). Udi - who always drinks early, so I rarely see him - turned up at around 9 and stayed an hour or so, so we got talking. Turns out he's heading out to the Sinai for a business meeting next day. Would I like to

stephnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11326022.post-1134014742219431972005-12-08T05:10:00.000+02:002005-12-08T06:05:42.250+02:00

Back in Israel, and - an unprecedented two weeks down the line - finally back in Jerusalem, where I get to sleep more than four hours at a stretch, and boy does that feel good! Nothing against Tel Aviv (at all), and it was good to see the Zend people and the Hayarkon folk and the Mike's Place gang again, but Jerusalem's like nowhere else in this world.I'm still trying to analyse why.I think -

stephnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11326022.post-1130840010234952842005-11-01T11:25:00.000+02:002005-11-01T13:12:24.083+02:00

And so it was Hallowe'en, yet again, already.It's been six unbelievable years since the one person I wanted to grow old with, died. He just didn't wake up one day and that was it; we were in our mid-thirties, and our story had a sudden ending.We spent most of our life together in Hitchin, so I went back to Hitchin tonight in the hope of finally laying his anxious ghost to rest. I've somehow

stephnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11326022.post-1129318366689129752005-10-14T21:20:00.000+02:002005-10-17T02:34:43.400+02:00

Matt Zandstra and I share a long history of attempting to drop in on the London PHP user group's monthly meeting, usually thwarted by either cash tragedies (mine) or parental duties (his). This month I finally made it in following a frenzied exchange of email with Matt, who wanted to go but was suffering from an ear infection brought on by (as far as I can figure) the aforementioned parental

stephnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11326022.post-1129313403172422192005-10-14T19:23:00.000+02:002005-10-17T01:18:06.490+02:00

September, October... same old, same old. My mother's been disastrously ill again, this time with a chest infection that just hangs and hangs, rendering her physically weak and all too easily depressed. If it weren't for the fact that my uncle lives within reach, I'd be on the brink of cancelling my Israel trip altogether(! please god don't make me have to do that) - I'm very glad he's on hand

stephnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11326022.post-1125854384229604122005-09-04T18:33:00.000+03:002005-09-04T20:19:44.256+03:00

Well, August just flew by and there was too much going on to write about. Dontcha hate it when reality flaps about that way? It was pretty mixed-up too...August opened with the week when my mother collapsed and ended up spending several days in the local hospital on a drip, first trying not to remember my father's bad times there (he died of cancer) and then trying not to panic over their MSRA

stephnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11326022.post-1123729098573413782005-08-11T05:51:00.000+03:002005-08-11T05:58:18.580+03:00

From an elderly article entitled "Every Word You Say":The Police member who underwent the greatest shock was probably Stewart Copeland. As the band prepared to finish writing the album in February, there were continual, gruesome TV reports of the bombing of Beirut. Stewart Copeland had spent much of his youth there, due to his father's CIA - connected overseas job. "My home town was being bombed.

stephnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11326022.post-1123718436571768502005-08-11T02:36:00.000+03:002005-08-11T03:02:05.140+03:00

Russ surprised me tonight.Russ is the only Maori I know. I can't properly pronounce the tribe he's from, much less spell it, but he's incredibly bolshy (and considers this normal), and he's also a nice guy when he bothers to listen. Most times he just makes decisions before listening, which isn't so cool. I'd also guess that his given name isn't 'Russ'. I'd guess that's what he calls himself

stephnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11326022.post-1122874154130351452005-08-01T07:40:00.000+03:002005-08-01T11:59:03.063+03:00

My mate Nigel's going through one of those 'sad and lonely' phases we all go through from time to time. For the last few weeks, when I've stayed over, we've crashed out to the strains of Have you ever fallen in love (with someone you shouldn't have fallen in love with)? - thanks so much Pete Shelley.Eventually something snapped, the inevitable happened, and he slept with the wrong woman. It was

stephnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11326022.post-1122682344577560482005-07-30T02:45:00.000+03:002005-07-30T03:12:24.583+03:00

I'm English, right? - whatever else I may be, and one of the reasons I need a blog in the first place is because there's such a huge schism between me and most English people. I've not only been to Israel, I've also come to the conclusion that the Jews aren't in the wrong. In England, that makes me akin to the guys that visited South Africa for sunlit holidays in the late 1970's and early 1980'

stephnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11326022.post-1122213950949118712005-07-24T16:25:00.000+03:002005-07-24T17:15:54.290+03:00

It's July, so naturally I spent two hours killing wasps as the sun struggled to rise this morning. They'd invaded the kitchen in the caretaker's cottage, even crawling across the Spanish cat Nidos' dinner. A yowl, a bang of the catflap and an appalling choking sound was readily discernable over my wasp-flattening slaps (I couldn't find the spray so dinner mats did the job). No sign of the cat,

stephnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11326022.post-1115511486734540192005-05-08T02:32:00.000+03:002005-05-08T03:18:06.756+03:00

Wilhelm's still alive :-) This being a guy I met two years ago and spent all night talking to. The first night in Amsterdam, we did exactly the same thing. Result: I spent the PHP-GTK 2 talk hanging around the womens' room at the RAI trying to either vomit or sleep... and most of the rest of the conference simply trying to sleep. But thanks anyway to Sander for trying to make things feel

stephnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11326022.post-1114877550336408692005-04-30T19:11:00.000+03:002005-04-30T19:12:30.336+03:00

OK, it's up.http://freespace.virgin.net/steph.fox/floyd/

stephnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11326022.post-1114865438876600772005-04-30T15:19:00.000+03:002005-04-30T15:50:38.876+03:00

Having given up on my old life now, I've finally achieved some kind of equilibrium. It just means I drink in different bars and get to talk to people who haven't suddenly decided to hate me while I was out of the country, but it's better, if not altogether happy.Friday nights are still hell, and the policemen (it's true about them getting younger by the way) all say 'hello' when I walk by. It

stephnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11326022.post-1113702383552789762005-04-17T04:11:00.000+03:002005-04-17T04:46:23.556+03:00

I keep hearing Jilted John, I don't know why...My mother's car didn't just get egged this weekend, it got a brick through its window. She's gone to stay with my uncle because she doesn't dare leave the car out on the street here with no window, and we have nowhere to hide it, and it can't be fixed 'til Monday.She talked about the violence on the street here last night - I was lucky, I went over

stephnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11326022.post-1112838781062307082005-04-07T04:26:00.000+03:002005-04-07T05:00:33.953+03:00

Sounds like an advertising slogan, no?I'm just talking about the England I came home to, yeah yeah whinging again - I promise (tho' I often break my promises) that this'll be the last time I mention it.My mother's car had eggs thrown over it twice last week - not by birds, but by teenagers. Don't these kids know it's not even properly Spring yet?There was someone in our cellar a couple of nights

stephnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11326022.post-1111709641140716952005-03-25T01:49:00.000+02:002005-03-25T02:14:01.143+02:00

We had a full staff meeting today at Zend - all of us, from all over the world, connected by long-distance telephone, a common purpose, and the sound of a small child making a lot of noise. Of course we all denied having any children on the spot, but it was funniest hearing the Israeli office in full flow. (C'mon Amnon, we all know it was you!)'Course I got homesick - for about the first 40

stephnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11326022.post-1111374044370289872005-03-21T04:49:00.000+02:002005-03-21T05:00:44.370+02:00

So I'm home, and it's as though I never went away - certainly nobody seems to have noticed I left at all.Tonight there was a bully in the house, who - once he had a few beers behind him - made a big point of telling me that nobody he knows likes me.I turned to the next person to me (who doesn't know me well) and said loudly, 'Hey, that's just one more reason not to want to be here.'Bad move.She

stephnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11326022.post-1111173944724694312005-03-18T19:32:00.000+02:002005-03-18T21:26:41.450+02:00

"In a few hours from now, Jordan's exactly where I'll be."OK, that was the theory. But I wasn't - I ended up stressing out over going there at all, with full-on nightmares on a regular basis etc etc, most of which stemmed from seeing my friends in Mike's Place making world headlines a couple of years back. After some 5 months in Israel, where everyone says exactly what they think regardless of

stephnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11326022.post-1110425341930134612005-03-10T04:56:00.000+02:002005-03-10T05:29:01.933+02:00

I worked (not in a particularly productive way) today.I should be in Jordan; there's a bit of a situation with my visa and I'm technically illegal here at present. But I dread leaving Israel. I never liked leaving Israel from the first time I came here, but it's worse when you're relying very heavily on the border security allowing you back into the country at all, and your entire life is based

stephnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11326022.post-1110342695507383022005-03-09T06:00:00.000+02:002005-03-09T06:40:10.653+02:00

So I'm sitting on a bench in Tel Aviv Central bus station. It's 3am. I left Mike's Place at midnight because I needed to get home to Jerusalem fairly early, and if you daren't risk taxis (you have to speak fluent Hebrew in order to dissuade the cabbies here from charging you the Earth, Moon and planets to get from A to B) the only option after midnight is the sherutim.The sherutim are a great

stephnoreply@blogger.com0