Izdihar - Magic Kingdom Escapology

You may notice that I've added a ShareThis feature/icon to each post. It clearly isn't sitting comfortably within the skin at the moment. I can only attribute this to my less than stellar HTML/CSS skills. I will get round to sorting it out over the next… more »

I suspect that this should have occurred to me before but, as ever, the more obvious things aren't necessarily the first one you think of. This isn't likely to be a comprehensive set of questions, and my answers may not be complete (or even wholly… more »

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Of necessity, this post needs to be short, as despite the lateness of the hour, I need to go and exercise - a circuit of compound walking should do. About 10 days ago, I went off for my annual company medical - 'they' feel it's important, and I wouldn't… more »

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Were you a regular follower of this small but perfectly formed corner of BlogEstate, you may have had cause to notice that there has been a little more going on of late, and you may come to wonder whether there is any purpose behind it. Well you would… more »

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Sitting at breakfast this morning, looking over the Bahrain museum and the road junction immediately in front of it, it finally felt that relaxation had come to us. The massage yesterday afternoon and a good night's sleep were no doubt contributory… more »

It's quiet here in Bahrain at the moment. AM is asleep on the bed - the consequence of an Imigran tablet a little earlier today. The light has subsided outside and what traffic there is on the corniche has slowed to a crawl. Not exactly fertile material… more »

We are now in Bahrain, have been since 12:00 or so to be more accurate. Smooth passage across highway and causeway, can't complain really. The day has been spent, as ever, browsing round the bookshop in Seef Mall, buying books, buying magazines,… more »

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Well the week for me is over. It seems early I know but I've taken tomorrow off so AM and I can get over to Bahrain early and not get quite so caught up in the queues on the Causeway. As vital to the sanity of the average expat as Bahrain is, getting… more »

Given that I spent most of the evening pre-occupied with fixing up the CSS code for the site, time has become somewhat limited for content creation round here. I thought therefore, to tell you a little about that peculiarly British concern, the weather.… more »

I started something of a fashion, but wasn't quite panning out right - blogger's block perhaps. Maybe another shot at it with a clearer head on a different day. Till then it's is consigned to the pile that never quite made it out of the closet. There's… more »

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There's a delightful folksiness about the small ads you can find adorning the noticeboards of your local convenience store; the missing pet section, that old sofa that would look just right in your spare room if only it were recovered (with BBQ fuel and… more »

If I have something on my mind then I should write of it If I write of it then perhaps I have something to say If I have something to say then I think that someone should listen If someone were to listen then just maybe they would hear me If they were… more »

Lets get the hard part out of the way first - yes, I'm 48 years old tomorrow and there's nothing I can do about it... Face it, given a choice there are not that many of us who would willingly get older if it wasn't actually required by the laws of… more »

I'm sure I can't be the only one who has written about this one over the course of the last 24 hours, certainly not if you're a sports journalist. Can I be the only one who is mightily disappointed in the actions of Thierry Henry? I doubt it very much.… more »

gob⋅ble⋅de⋅geek [gob-uhl-dee-geek] –noun language characterised by highly technical concepts and jargon, usually hard to understand by lay business persons: "The last account review was nothing but gobbledegeek to me" said the… more »

Some of my images recently have probably been just slightly outside the norm of what I've been doing for the last thirty-ish years. When I started into the realms of photography, I was heavily influenced by the likes of Ansel Adams - I still like his… more »

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I've decided to have a night off and leave you to your own devices for a while. I don't want you to be too downhearted though, so I've found you a couple of things to read whilst I'm kipping. The first is a piece from the Washington Post - "When a child… more »

It's been an odd kind of a day in the Blogosphere, all kinds of unexpected pieces of news that have rippled throughout the Twitterverse. Hints, claims, denials, counter-claims, accusations, I told you so's, and records set in alignment - it's all… more »

You'd think based on one or two recent post that I have something of a dislike of the place I've chosen to work and live - I did chose, no one put a gun to my head and made me come here. It's probably true that I'm a little jaded where KSA is concerned,… more »

...and waiting, watching the time pass. Quite why I don't know, but it's what I do. It'll do me no good, I know. I'll be a grouch in the morning, I'm a grouch most mornings. I start slow and build throughout the week. Some weeks I may be on top form as… more »

The mobile phone rings... "Chris, I've been talking with the rest of the band all week and we don't think it's working" Mildly stunned at the sense of what I've been told, I begin to suspect I've been the unwitting victim of a euphemism. "We'll talk… more »

Not so many hours back, I said that Mr Hoffman-Gill had given me an idea for a post or two, in fact there's probably material in this area for many more. The area in question was triggered by the many music related lists he seems to go in for, but I… more »

Well I crashed and burned tonight. A working week caught up with me and the body, mind and spirit let go on the sofa in front of the telly. Never mind, I have stuff in the pipeline for sometime tomorrow - Blurred Clarity (Daniel Hoffman-Gill) has given… more »

It would appear I'm all out of words this evening, but as I've not posted any images for a few posts, it seemed an ideal opportunity to trawl the archives and pull out something you may not have seen - at least if you've not been looking at my flickr… more »

It's an unlikely combination I grant you, but with the third of the bands' rehearsals now under my belt, these two are coming closer together. It's fair to say that the former are winning out in the track count so far as we gradually construct our set.… more »

Stepping out through the front door, The Walker emerges into the glare of sodium street lights. Turning right, he heads for the outer wall, where his pre-determined and sterile route awaits. Clad in a garb of hooded top and jogging bottoms, he struggles… more »

There will unfortunately be no blog post this evening, as the proprietor of the site has been much too all consumed with band practice. This has been both a bad thing and a good thing; bad in the sense that I didn't know all my parts, and good in the… more »

Male: Have you finished in the bathroom? Female Significant Other: Yes I have but Donkey has gone in there now, so you'll have to wait... M: Oh! He's not washing his mane again is he? FSO: Yes, and he's filing his hooves too... M: I hope to God he's not… more »

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Another in my exceptionally infrequent series of things from elsewhere... more »

To be honest this is much how it feels when trying to blog using an iPhone. It's very early days of course and the whole process is eminently feasible, but I'm not sure I'd want to do it like this all the time. I'm instantly reminded of the early days… more »

It's becoming clearer to me that I need to keep my Moleskine closer to hand these days - normally it sits in my camera bag, which doubles as my air travel carry-on (you can get loads in it, but it weighs a ton). Too often, these days I find myself… more »

Or so it would seem, not that I've done much to be honest. It would though seem that my Google rank on the search term "Izdihar" is now up to #2 - Google search for Izdihar. Now, how to get that top spot I wonder? Edit: Just did a search on "Chris of… more »

The more I look around other people's blogs, the more I find a propensity for creating lists of salient (and not so salient) facts and figures about the blogee. As one who can rarely resist a trend and probably because I doubt I ever had an original… more »

I thought that today I would do a list, everyone else does them after all, so why should my readers miss out on all the fun. Not sure where these came from, but they somewhat inexplicably popped into my head today. So for now then, here we go: lazy… more »

What's hidden behind the publicly visible blogger pages I wonder? How many unfinished, or possibly finished, posts still languish behind a 'Draft' status, publish button un-pressed? What's hidden there? Perhaps the blogger got cold feet, subject matter… more »