South of West

• TV Appearance

  Posted: February 25, 2010, 9:48 pm by Rob Crilly

    The peace deal signed between the Justice and Equality Movement and Khartoum on Tuesday gave me a chance to talk about my book on Al Jazeera. It’s always fun doing TV but I invariably come away remembering the things I should have said. Anyway, I think I made my point and great to be getting the word [...]

• Trolleys in Darfur

  Posted: February 23, 2010, 8:58 pm by Rob Crilly

  Organising some of my old pictures, and I thought I’d treat you to some of my favourites. Particularly as I’m nowhere more interesting than Crouch End at the moment. If you’ve ever wondered what happens to the old baggage trolleys at Heathrow, well they end up at El Fasher airport in Darfur. Presumably there’s been [...]

• On The One Hand

  Posted: February 22, 2010, 2:57 pm by Rob Crilly

    At the weekend, leaders of the Justice and Equality Movement signed a ceasefire agreement with the Sudanese government which could lead to a final settlememt as early as next month. Good news from a part of the world that has had precious little to cheer about. But hang on, haven’t we been here before? Yes [...]

• Reactions to Saving Darfur

  Posted: February 16, 2010, 12:27 pm by Rob Crilly

  I’ve spent the past week taking my book on the road, describing its thesis to various audiences with different levels of interest in Sudan and Africa. It has been fun. I have five years of anecdotes with which to bore people. And the more I have talked about it, the more I have persuaded myself [...]

• Amnesty Ireland Event Cancelled

  Posted: February 15, 2010, 6:24 pm by Rob Crilly

  Amnesty Ireland has cancelled the event scheduled for Thursday evening in Dublin. They wanted a second panellist to contradict my assessment of Darfur, but couldn’t find anyone in time. I’m sorry if you were planning to attend but hope you can make it to The Gutter Bookshop on Wednesday at 6pm instead. [...]

• Big Pictures and Small Details

  Posted: February 11, 2010, 2:38 pm by Rob Crilly

  Fantastic meeting set up by Arab Media Watch last night to promote my book. Good discussion with Julie Flint, whose grasp of detail in Darfur is frankly terrifying, and Sam Barratt, head of media at Oxfam, who gave a neat overview of some of the challenges facing aid agencies working in awkward places. A lot of [...]

• Launch Day

  Posted: February 9, 2010, 3:58 pm by Rob Crilly

  Today is launch day. The BBC World Service has me on its website and I gave my first talk about Saving Darfur yesterday to journalism students at City University. That went well, I think. They had some good questions and laughed at the slide of me on a donkey. Last week they had been told [...]

• An Easy Mistake to Make

  Posted: February 8, 2010, 7:37 pm by Rob Crilly

  This arrives in my inbox, originating from the office of the outgoing UN Special Representative of the Secretary General to Sudan, Ashraf Jehangir… With brains like this at work, you can only wonder why Sudan remains in trouble… Esteemed Colleagues, Kindly note the following correction to the transcript of the above sent yesterday afternoon: The last [...]

• Learn From My Mistakes

  Posted: February 7, 2010, 1:48 pm by Rob Crilly

  The Crilly roadshow has rolled into London for various stuff connected with the launch of my book. It’s going to be a fun experience but also a little odd. As a text journalist the most hi-tech I get tends to be my mobile phone. Today, I’ll be getting to grips with powerpoint ready for a [...]

• How Do You Report Rape?

  Posted: February 5, 2010, 11:46 am by Rob Crilly

  I like to think of myself as old-school. I didn’t do a fancy journalism course but worked my up through local weekly papers to the regionals and then the nationals. Journalism to me is just about asking questions and writing down the answers. Sure, along the way I did a shorthand course and picked up [...]

• Reverse Editing Darfur

  Posted: February 3, 2010, 10:43 am by Rob Crilly

  It’s 18 months since I decided to write a book. It had been in the idea form for a while. The more time I spent travelling back and forth to Sudan the more I realised that the story wasn’t being told properly. Each time I went to Darfur I stumbled across more inconsistencies in the [...]

• Sudan: My Favourite Things

  Posted: February 1, 2010, 11:16 am by Rob Crilly

  I racked up more visits to Sudan than any other country during my five years in Africa. In part it was the story, the unfolding drama in Darfur and South Sudan’s troubled progress towards peace. Gradually it became clear that there was much more to this vast land than war, hunger and misery. As I [...]

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Fish cakes

Alas a fish cake.

Yet more fish cakes

Guess what ... yeah ... fish cakes.

The end of the fish cakes