The Interview

By day a Cairo dentist and by night a novelist, he spent years battling censorship to get published. Today, he is a bestselling writer across the world and remains a fierce critic of Egypt's repressive regime. Rachel Cooke talks to the acclaimed author about love, torture, and why he still practises dentistry.

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• Rachel Cooke
• The Observer, Sunday 31 May 2009

Alaa Al Aswany photographed at the Gore Hotel, London, May 2009. Photograph: Andy Hall

Alaa al Aswany, the Arab world's bestselling novelist, swallows the last of his morning coffee, and throws back his boulder-like head in a gesture that comes close to, but is not quite, contentment. He is longing for a cigarette, too, only today he is not at home in Cairo, where he can happily smoke himself to death if he so chooses (the Egyptians puff their way through 19 million cigarettes every day) but in the quiet confines of the Gore hotel, Kensington; it will be a while longer before he can scoot out to the pavement and light up.
Still, he is not complaining. As cities go, London is not bad. "I have feelings about cities," he says in his wonderful, solemn English. "The kind of feelings a man has towards ladies. Some I love, and some ... not." London is one of those Aswany loves, though it cannot, in his view, touch Cairo or even Alexandria. "Ah! I cannot be objective about Egypt. It is only in Egypt that I feel myself. When I'm abroad, I'm someone who has much in common with myself, but it's not really me. I am always homesick!"

Choose ONE of the following:
> About 170 words
>Add comments to at least 3 of your classmates’ blogs

1.Write about a career-related website that you enjoy visiting.

You should:-

• provide a link
• describe the website (sections, features,etc)
• say how often you visit the site
• explain why you like the site.
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2.Who is a person/expert on your field that you admire?

Say:

• Who she/he is.(short biography)
• What she/he has done. (examples of their work)
• Why you like her/him.
• Include his/her image

Well. I suppose the career related website that I visit most is the Guardian newspaper.

It's the website of a famous broadsheet newspaper in the UK. Politically it has traditionally positioned itself a little left-of centre. My uncle says it's for poofs and teachers. I started reading it at University and I haven't stopped since.

I visit the site every day, it's one of the pages that opens automatically when I connect to the internet. It's the only site I use to check on British news. I like it because it's completely free, well made and well designed and I generally agree with the opinions the writers have.

It also has quite a lot of international news which can be uncommon for British newspapers and has great sports coverage. The sports writers regularly make me laugh out loud because they all write with an attitude that says, sport is a silly triviality, despite being experts in the area and despite clearly having dedicated their entire lives to it.

There are also forums to leave comments and argue with uninformed idiots you'll never meet, and there are podcasts, programs in an mp3 format to download and listen to.

Online newspapers are struggling to make their businesses work but I really hope this page continues. I think it's probably the only web page I would be willing to pay for. Maybe.

Book. 

Write about your favourite book. 

Include

• Basic details + picture
• Why you like it
• A quote with a brief explanation of the context
• A copy of a review from AMAZON and your opinion of it.
• 150 words + 3 comments

I haven't read loads of books but I try to read some of the more famous ones so I don't feel too ignorant. The one book which really left me amazed, so much so that I have re-read it several times, is Catch 22 by Joseph Heller. 

The book is set in World War II and is a scrambled account of the activities of a squadron based on an island near Italy. Each chapter deals with a different character but there is a main story dealing with one soldier, Yossarian, which continues throughout the book. 

It's so funny, relentlessly so, very clever and has is a great reflection on the idiocy of war. Something I wholly agree with.

Here is an example of the brilliant logic of Yossarian who's only objective is to survive the war. 

Yossarian: Those bastards are trying to kill me.
1st Lt. Milo Minderbinder: No one is trying to kill you sweetheart. Now eat your dessert like a good boy.
Yossarian: Oh yeah? Then why are they shooting at me Milo?
Dobbs: They're shooting at everyone Yossarian.
Yossarian: And what difference does that make?
Dobbs: Look Yossarian, suppose, I mean just suppose everyone thought the same way you do.
Yossarian: Then I'd be a damn fool to think any different.

 Here is a review of the book on Amazon.

 The ultimate exploration of the human condition 20 Nov 1998

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

On the surface, Catch-22 is a fine novel about the U.S Army Air Force in Europe during the 1939-45 war. You do not have to scratch the surface hard to find a classic, timeless novel of the fine line between sanity and total madness. Is Yossarian, the 'hero', totally sane, or utterly, irredeemably insane? You tell me. Catch-22 is unique in its ability to thrust confusion, frustration, despair, insanity, death and plain old fashioned misery in waves - and yet repeatedly surprise you with its sidesplitting humour. When you laugh, you are not laughing at Heller's finely crafted characters, with all their idiosyncrasies, but at yourself, your friends and relatives. Because Heller's situations mirror the daily stupidities that we all put up with, laugh about and cry about. Reading Catch-22 is like sitting through the main feature a second time - you know exactly what will happen next; you know that nothing can change it. You cannot help hoping that it won't be so bad. But, of course, it's worse.

I would agree but also add that the book brilliantly shows so many of our daily obsessions and convictions to be completely silly, illogical, even ridiculous.

Write about a photograph you like.

Say:
Who took it
What it shows
When it was taken
Why you like it
Upload it too
Include any other information you'd like to mention.Write at least 150 words.




At last. One of my favourite subjects. 


My father is a photographer so I have been surround by photos and cameras all my life. I nearly always carry a camera with me although I don't have a particularly expensive one. At the moment I have a cheap canon digital thing and a GoPro. 


I have lots of favourite photos. Some taken by my friends and family, some by myself. On this blog I'd like to talk about a photo called Migrant Mother by a photographer called Dorothea Lange.

Lange was taking photos during the great depression in the USA. This was a time when economic crises and poor management of the land forced hundreds of thousands of people to migrate west to California. They didn't have money or food and had to kill birds and scrounge vegetables to eat. Thousands died. 


The photo shows a mother, probably young but with a face hard with experience. Her two children bury their heads in her neck. It's an increbily strong image and I think I like it because it looks a little like my mother, though she probably wouldn't appreciate me saying so. 

Oral Presentation

Here are the details for the oral presentation

• A subject related to your career. E.g. A favourite director, special equipment, favourite writer etc. 
• 4 mins
• Power point (maximum 5 words per slide)
• No notes. The presentation should be done by memory with the slides to help you. 

Let me know if you have any questions. 

HB

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/tube-dlr-trams-and-train-travelcard-zones-map.pdf

You are going to spend a week in London evaluating tourist locations for an end of year study trip.
Here is a list of things you want to do while you are there.  Follow the links and fill in the table.

Half Day Outings
London Eye
http://www.londoneye.com/
The British Museum
http://www.britishmuseum.org/
The Tower of London
http://www.hrp.org.uk/TowerOfLondon/ (including Crown Jewels)
Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum
http://www.madametussauds.com/london/
The Natural History Museum
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/
The Tate Modern Art Gallery
http://www.tate.org.uk/
Full day
Kew Gardens
http://www.kew.org/
Camden Market
http://www.camden-market.org/
For each location say:
What day you will visit,
How much you will have to pay to get in,
Which Tube station you will travel to (nearest to location), and the zone it is in.

What will you do on the other days? (2 full days / 4 half days / 1 full day 2 half days)
Search the web for other things to do in London.
What is the total cost?