Above and Beyond – Group Therapy

Above and Beyond – Group Therapy

-          My new favorite album

Track List

1. Filmic
2. Alchemy feat. Zoë Johnston
3. Sun & Moon feat. Richard Bedford
4. You Got To Go feat. Zoë Johnston
5. Black Room Boy (vocals by Tony McGuinness and Richard Bedford)
6. Giving It Out feat. Zoë Johnston
7. On My Way To Heaven feat. Richard Bedford8. Prelude
9. Sun In Your Eyes
10. Love Is Not Enough feat. Zoë Johnston
11. Every Little Beat feat. Richard Bedford12. Sweetest Heart feat. Zoë Johnston
13. Thing Called Love feat. Richard Bedford14. Only A Few Things feat. Zoë Johnston
15. Eternal

You Got To Go (Little Dreamer)

-          My new favorite “feel good” track

Traffic Rules for Sale

Corruption at its finest!

On a random street in Beirut, the story goes:

Officer: “Hey sir, you can’t park here, its reserved.” (Ya rayyes, ma feek tsoff hon, ma7jouz)

Lebanese Man: “Reserved for whom?” (Ma7jouz la meen?)

Officer: “You just can’t park here.” (Khalas, mamnou3a l saffe hon)

Lebanese Man: “Fix it.” (Zabbita)

Officer: “It can’t be fixed.” (Ma btitzabbat)

Lebanese Man: “Everything can be fixed, my friend.” –and he removes 20,000L.L. from his wallet. (Kil shi byitzabat ya sa7be)

Officer: “Welcome!” – and he removes the obstacle, and holds traffic for the man to park.

In a high traffic street in Beirut, the story continues:

Officer: “Madame, you can’t park here!” (Ya madame, mamnou3a l saffe hon!)

Madame: “I will only be just a minute, my friend needs to give me something.” (Mish mtawle, sa7ibte mnazlitle gharad)

Officer: “Even though, you will block traffic, you have to move the car.” (7atta law, m3ar2le l seir)

Madame: “She’s here, she’s here!” – And the Madame’s friend shows up from behind the revolving  glass door of the adjacent building wearing a mini-skirt, a tailored blazer and casually sporting cleavage. (Hayeha, ijit ijit!)

Officer: “Madame.” – he is politely ignored by the two ladies, but doesn’t mind it because he is enjoying the view.

Officer: “Madame, I’m going to have to give you a ticket.” – and he starts to take out the ticket book. (Badde a3milik zabit)

Madame: “How dare you, I’m leaving!” – and acts like such a victim that he can’t help but smile, he is hooked. (Yii wallaw!! – felle!)

Officer: “Ok, be quick.” (Tayib, bes bsir3a)

Madame: “You are so kind!” – winks and drives off, while the officer continues to check out her friend. (Killak zo2!)

At the place where they do yearly car revisions and pay the mechanique fees, it still goes on:

Mechanic: “It won’t pass.” (Ma btinja7)

Lebanese Man: “Why not, there is nothing wrong with it.” (Leish la2, ma biha shi)

Mechanic: “The left stop light isn’t red enough, the license plate is scratched, and the left tire needs air.”

Lebanese Man: “Come on man, let us go.” (Ya zalame, Masheena)

Mechanic: “I can’t, you have to fix those stuff and come back for another check.” (Ma fiye, lezim tsali7on barra, w tirja3 t3eed l mo3ayane)

Lebanese Man: “By your honor, you’re going to make me pass through this crowd again; why don’t fix it.” (Bi sharafak, baddak t3ali2ne b kil hal 3aj2a marra tenye? Sali7a inta!

Mechanic: “I can’t, I only do the check up!” (Ma bsali7 hon, bes mo3ayane)

Lebanese Man: “So you want me to pay another mechanic to fix it? You’re the best one here.” – the mechanic pick up on the bribe. (Halla2 baddak yene idfa3 la mikansien tene ta yzabita, ma inta ashtar wa7ad hon)

Mechanic: “If I want to fix it, it will cost you $60!” (Badda tkalfak $60)

Lebanese Man: “No problem, you’re a professional.” – and pays the money discretely. (Ma mishkle, inta m3allim)

Mechanic: “Congratulations, your car passed the tests. (mabrouk, nij7it!)

Barcelona, Dubai, Beirut...Sea side.

How wonderful is it to put our city in a category with the likes of Barcelona or Dubai?

Spot the resemblance!

Port Vell - Barcelona

Dubai Marina - Dubai

Zaitunay Bay - Beirut

A holiday in Britain, with no British People!

My 2012 started with a once in a lifetime experience, the London Eye fireworks display on New Year’s Eve. The crowd, the atmosphere, the fun, the celebrations, the people singing “Happy Birthday New Year, and the fireworks were really a site to see.

What followed were 7 days of shopping and roaming around the city. Bicester Village, Oxford Street, and Westfield Mall were some of the “must visit/ shop” places I went too.

The cloudy skies, red double-decker busses, and the immigrants made my stay in London truly signature.

Yes IMMIGRANTS!

Everywhere you go, everywhere you look, each street, each store was over run by people of non-English, non-white roots. In plain and simple terms, London is now one big game of “Spot the White Man.”

I have gone online and read a few articles and reports of the immigrant situation in the UK, and what continues to come up is that Joe Public is reluctant to bring up the matter openly in order not to be branded as a racist. WTF!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8451917/Who-is-to-blame-for-fractured-Britain.html

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/politics/3906232/MPs-Act-now-on-immigration.html

Well I don’t mind being called a racist if I’m against my tax money being spent on supporting foreigners who function as parasites to my government.

I myself am an immigrant. My parents migrated to Canada when I was 3 years old. My father got some support from the Canadian government for a couple months before he was able to get a job, pay his own rent and expenses, get off welfare, and finally become a tax paying, legal Canadian citizen. My parents did it right.

What’s going on in London today, to my modest point of view, is an abuse of the system. Immigrants are flocking to the United Kingdom, mainly from conflict ridden countries and asking for housing, medical attention, benefits, allowances, and rights without contributing to the growth of the host country. They are sucking tax payers’ blood.

Over my stay, I heard a lot of stories about how the government is paying close to hundreds of pounds per week as rent for a single Iraqi family, its giving thousands of pounds per week for the same family as living expenses, child benefits, disability benefits; mind you, hardly any of them are disabled or lack the basic requirements to get a basic wage job.

In the elevator at Marks & Spenser in Oxford Street, one out of ten people is a white, English person. In a crowd at Sainsburry’s, two out of ten people speak the true British English accent. In Cost Co., perhaps the only wholesale market that requires you to be employed to get a membership, sixty out of the seventy people in the food court are true, blue eyed, red haired, white skinned English.

Those are very primitive observations, but I guess they are enough to say that London is over run my non English, colored people who are neither working nor becoming integrated in the community.

A lot may argue that Britain has had a long, black history of invading and colonizing countries, namely those that belong to those immigrants, but in my opinion it has paid its dues, and is continuing to do so, in a quite exaggerated manner.