One Thousand Shades of Grey

Again Mr Hosseini takes us back to Afghanistan for another grim look at life under the Taliban in a sort of soap opera style compressed history of how they got there, viewed through the eyes of a myriad of unfortunate characters. A thousand splendid suns spans thirty years of conflict in Afghanistan, from the 1970s to 2003. We follow the plight of the two main heroines Mariam and laila, both stuck in an abusive marriage to Rasheed, devoid of love and fraught with tensions. Mariam and laila’s relationship is complicated beginning as rivals but slowly transforming into their own family unit offering each other companionship as they become more and more isolated from the world and protection from the excesses of Rasheed. As in kite runner the story concentrates on the emotional journeys of the main characters and their interaction with each other whilst showing us glimpses of life in Kabul as part of the backdrop, including a return to the bloody Ghazi stadium, and a description of the Ti...

Eskişehir (meaning old city) is located on the banks of the river Porsuk in north-western Turkey in Eskişehir province on the main road and rail route between Ankara and Istanbul. Eskişehir is currently largely ignored by western tourists (although has a thriving tourist industry of visitors coming from the east) presumably due to its landlocked location and sometimes harsh climatically conditions. However Eskişehir is truly one of the gems of central Turkey, the city itself is very modern and beautiful and offers a range of eateries, shopping destinations, Turkish baths, nargile houses, museums and Ottoman architecture. The two universities give the cosmopolitan city a lively and youthful vibe; it’s a fantastic destination for foodies as the quality of the restaurants here is very high. The city has a few local delicacies including helva, boza and my personal favourite çiğ börek, a fine dough mixture filled with ground meat, spices and onions then pan fried in hot oil and chased down...

Mr Cornwell is as usual on form, when it comes to historical novels Bernard Cornwell is absolutely at the top of his game, seemingly churning out novel after novel of brilliantly researched historical novels that literally takes the reader and places him in the centre of various historical events. This time we are at the battle of Agincourt with long bowmen Nick Hook (another typically lovable rouge) stumbling about in the muddy battlefields of medieval France. Cornwells narrative and attention to detail is spot on both on and off the battle field and brings to life the six hundred year old battle as if Cornwell was an eyewitness, present on the sidelines taking notes in his jotter. The historical context is also supremely well researched with the narrative starting with the persecution of lollards in England. As always I highly recommend this novel or any novel by Bernard Cornwall who is a truly masterful storyteller.

It might come to some as a strange turnaround for me to decide to support a football team for the first time in 33 years having spent the rest of my life sitting on the fence as to which football team I support. When it comes to supporting national teams then no problem I always follow England and Turkey as family ties dictate, but when it comes to supporting local clubs I have never found one relevant enough to me to take an interest and to support any of the teams my friends support i.e. Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester united just makes no sense after all I’m not from north London or Manchester so these clubs hold little relevance to me on a personal level. That all changed on the 26th October in Eskisehir when the decision was taken out of my hands. I went with my brother in law, sister in law and wife to watch Galatasaray play Eskisehir in the Turkish super league at a bar in Eskisehir city centre just outside the stadium. In an historic game Eskişehirspor hammered Galatasaray 4-2 ...

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So we wake up today to the first black president of the USA, I the noticed odds on Obama winning the presidency at the William Hill website were: BARACK OBAMA is now 1/ 2 favourite to win the US Presidential Election with William Hill who make John McCain the 6/4 outsider. I wonder if William Hill will be offering odds on the amount of assassination attempts during his presidency (two assassination plots already during his campaign) and the possible outcomes. After all isn’t that the historical precedent set by previous visionary groundbreaking American presidents.

So I have arrived back in England after a two week visit to Turkey a country which I absolutely love, I am one hundred percent self confessed Turkophile. However whilst I was there I tried to update this blog with some random ramblings about what I was up to out there and was met with the following message: Bu siteye erişim mahkeme kararıyla engellenmiştir. T.C. Diyarbakır 1. Sulh Ceza Mahkemesi 20.10.2008 tarih ve 2008/2761 sayılı kararı gereği bu siteye erişim engellenmiştir. Access to this web site has been suspended in accordance with decision no: 2008/2761 of T.R. Diyarbakır 1st Criminal Court of Peace. My first reaction was confusion, surely there must be some mistake but no, I tried clicking the link again and was met with the same message. My second reaction was akin to some kind of violent suppressed rage as it dawned on me just how wide and indiscriminate the website ban in Turkey was, I mean I had heard talk about You tube being inaccessible due to a slanging match between G...