Moody: the works

A list of links to all my non-tech writings:

Essays

Glanglish - with audio versions - new post

Travel writings

Moody's Black Notebook Travels - new post

Walks with Lorenzetti

A Partial India

Novels

Doing the Business

Egyptian Romance

Egyptian Romance: a novel about travel

Once again, many people are under lockdown.  Once again, travel is hard, or impossible.  During the first lockdown, I published my black notebooks recording most of my travels over the last thirty-odd years.  So I thought this second lockdown might be a good moment to publish some more travel-related writing.

"Egyptian Romance" is a novel, but one based on information I gathered during my own trip to Egypt in 1990, which I published as a series of four posts earlier this year.  It represents a re-working of my black books from that trip in a form that some may find easier to read.  It can therefore be seen as part of a series, which includes A Partial India - a re-working of my travel notebook for India, and Walks with Lorenzetti, which re-visits a 1988 trip I made to Venice. 

Empire's End

or

The Tale of a Tourist

• Chapter 1 - Egyptian Romance
• Chapter 1 - Cairo, Saturday 18 February, 1990
• Chapter 1 - London, Sunday June 3, 1990
• Chapter 2 - The Egyptian Museum
• Chapter 2 - Cairo, Sunday 19 February, 1990
• Chapter 2 - London, Sunday 1 July, 1990
• Chapter 3 - The First Pyramids
• Chapter 3 - Saqqarah, Monday 20 February, 1990
• Chapter 3 - London, Saturday July 7, 1990
• Chapter 4 - The Great Pyramids of Giza
• Chapter 4 - Giza, Tuesday 21 February, 1990
• Chapter 4 - London, Saturday July 14, 1990
• Chapter 5 - Intermediate Periods
• Chapter 5 - Cairo, Wednesday, 22 February, 1990
• Chapter 5 - London, Sunday 29 July, 1990
• Chapter 6 - Luxor
• Chapter 6 - Luxor, Thursday 23 February, 1990
• Chapter 6 - London, Saturday 1 September, 1990
• Chapter 7 - Luxor - the West Bank
• Chapter 7 - Luxor, West Bank, Friday 24 February, 1990
• Chapter 7 - London, Saturday 8 September, 1990
• Chapter 8 - Aswan
• Chapter 8 - Between Luxor and Aswan, Saturday 25 February, 1990
• Chapter 8 - London, Sunday 16 September, 1990
• Chapter 9 - Abu Simbel
• Chapter 9 - Aswan airport, Sunday 26 February, 1990
• Chapter 9 - London, September 22, 1990
• Chapter 10 - The Decline and Fall of Egypt
• Chapter 10 - Alexandria, Monday 27 February, 1990
• Chapter 10 - London, Saturday 20 October, 1990
• Chapter 11 - Alexandria
• Chapter 11 - Alexandria, Tuesday 28 February, 1990
• Chapter 11 - London, Saturday 27 October, 1990
• Chapter 12 - Suez
• Chapter 12 - Alexandria, Wednesday 1 March, 1990
• Chapter 12 - London, Saturday 24 November, 1990
• Chapter 13 - Cairo, Thursday 2 March, 1990
• Chapter 13 - London, Saturday 15 December, 1990
• Chapter 14 - London, January 1991
• 
  
• 
  

The Coming Shift: China Starts Outsourcing

Here's another straw in the wind:

MOBILE PHONE builder China Techfaith said Wednesday that it has signed up Egyptian firm Quicktel to develop and assemble low cost handsets there.

Once therer are cheaper places to build stuff than China, the latter's role as the workshop of the world will diminish, and with it the economic and ecological imbalances that has led to.

Of course, the West - and China - will need another cheap workshop to keep their unsustainable lifestyles going, and to soak up all the outsourced pollution. My money's on Africa, and it looks like Egypt is leading the way....

Bye-Bye Biofuels...

When are people going to wake up to the fact that biofuels are not the solution, but actually exacerbate the world's problems?

A global rice shortage that has seen prices of one of the world's most important staple foods increase by 50 per cent in the past two weeks alone is triggering an international crisis, with countries banning export and threatening serious punishment for hoarders.

With rice stocks at their lowest for 30 years, prices of the grain rose more than 10 per cent on Friday to record highs and are expected to soar further in the coming months. Already China, India, Egypt, Vietnam and Cambodia have imposed tariffs or export bans, as it has become clear that world production of rice this year will decline in real terms by 3.5 per cent. The impact will be felt most keenly by the world's poorest populations, who have become increasingly dependent on the crop as the prices of other grains have become too costly.

...

Analysts have cited many factors for the rises, including rising fuel and fertiliser expenses, as well as climate change. But while drought is one factor, another is the switch from food to biofuel production in large areas of the world, in particular to fulfil the US energy demands.

And this is just the beginning....