Items by Rob Crilly

South of West

• Mr World Service

  Posted: March 11, 2010, 3:31 pm by Rob Crilly

  I don’t know why Bob Geldof got his knickers in a twist over the BBC’s report on aid to Ethiopia. Surely anyone who knows anything about Africa knows that in dealing with emergencies, aid agencies will have to deal with unsavoury characters. Today it is the UN’s World Food Programme that’s in the firing line. [...]

• Nice Work If You Can Get It

  Posted: March 9, 2010, 2:48 pm by Rob Crilly

  One day I fancy I might make the transition from journalism to PR. And I know what sort of thing I’d do. It wouldn’t be an aid agency, a fluffy animal zoo or a chocolate company. That would be too easy. No, if you are going to do anything then I reckon it’s good to [...]

• Search Terms

  Posted: March 7, 2010, 10:43 pm by Rob Crilly

  Here are the search terms that brought people to my blog today. Maybe I should blog more often about food to increase my hits… sudan food sudanese food rob crilly jordan food bucket of rubber sap joseph kony dreadlocks اكلات سودانية women riding on donkeys teddy bears and islam african smell [...]

• Save Darfur Goes to Darfur

  Posted: March 5, 2010, 3:18 pm by Rob Crilly

  Jerry Fowler, the soon-to-depart head of the Save Darfur Coalition, thinks I have been unfair to his campaign. His point is that I have misrepresented its case and have based my criticism on things they used to say, years ago. All of which strikes me as a little unfair when his press releases carry the [...]

• New Travelling Companion Needed

  Posted: March 4, 2010, 11:22 am by Rob Crilly

  My travelling companion for the past four years is slowing down. Sluggish in the mornings and quick to tire in the afternoons, my Sony Vaio is not the machine it was. Not even a new battery has put a spring in its step. So it’s time to find a new laptop. I want a 13.3in [...]

• Crilly’s Laws

  Posted: March 2, 2010, 9:55 pm by Rob Crilly

  As I prepare to head for yet newer shores, it strikes me (not for the first time) that with one or two basic principles the journalist can turn his hand to writing about any fragile/failed state in the world. Having developed the following laws during the past five years (mostly in Sudan and Somalia), I’ll [...]

• UN Calls for Less Foreign Interference in Somalia

  Posted: March 1, 2010, 3:16 pm by Rob Crilly

  The United Nations Political Office for Somalia continues to put out some of the more bizarre and inconsistent press releases, in a region of the world not short on, erm, idiosyncratic politics. But this is possibly my favourite. At first, I welcomed the release, headed as it is: “SRSG calls for end to external meddling in [...]

• 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 [...]

• A Few Things

  Posted: January 30, 2010, 5:44 pm by Rob Crilly

  Here are the bits and pieces that I’ve been reading this week. Goodbye Africa: Reflections on a continent – in which departing McLatchy corr Shashank Bengali writes about his domestic staff, but not in the usual expat way. This is moving and heartfelt “I am a British journalist” – in which much missed Khartoum-based blogger Meskel Square [...]

• Jerry Fowler Quits Save Darfur Coalition

  Posted: January 29, 2010, 7:22 pm by Rob Crilly

  There’s a report knocking around that Jerry Fowler, president of the Save Darfur Coalition, is leaving because of “bitter infighting”. This rather aroused my curiosity, given the way David Rubenstein was fired as executive director in 2007. The coalition and wider movement have long been accused of ignoring the realities of Darfur, and of getting [...]

• Clooney And Me

  Posted: January 28, 2010, 12:51 pm by Rob Crilly

  There were three people who declined all requests for interviews for my book: President Omar al-Bashir, Musa Hilal and George Clooney. At least Hilal had the decency to decline my requests. The other two simply didn’t respond. If I had got the chance to ask Clooney a few questions, this is what I would have [...]

• Celebrity Advocates

  Posted: January 26, 2010, 1:44 pm by Rob Crilly

  Those of you who have followed this blog over the past few years will know my views on celebrity advocacy. Or more particularly my views of celebrity advocacy as applied to Darfur. Broadly, the likes of Mia Farrow, Matt Damon and George Clooney have done an incredible job of raising awareness, funds and pressure for [...]

• It’s Not Always About the Story

  Posted: January 23, 2010, 9:48 pm by Rob Crilly

  Yesterday I posted on what I thought was a rather silly piece about how there were too many journalists in Haiti. My normal position is that few things benefit from less coverage. But I modified that by adding in references to an excellent piece by Andy Kershaw in The Independent. Since then, I’ve spent a [...]

• Covering a Crisis

  Posted: January 22, 2010, 12:45 pm by Rob Crilly

  Interesting debate on coverage of Haiti and the aid operation. I was rather unimpressed by this view, from The New Republic… …in Haiti, the dozens of redundant dispatches are stressing an already perilously fragile situation, as all the journalists scrambling to get into the country chew up valuable capacity and resources. Surely there’s a better way. The [...]

• A Mint Idea

  Posted: January 19, 2010, 1:03 am by Rob Crilly

  In the annals of good ideas, Somalia’s plan to print money would be a conspicuous absentee. However, this appears to be exactly what the Transitional Federal Government – currently in control of two Mogadishu blocks, 300 camels and a Panamanian-registered tugboat (I made that up, but you get the picture) – is planning to do. [...]

• Somalia and Yemen

  Posted: January 19, 2010, 4:05 pm by Rob Crilly

  Unhappy new year in Somalia. This just in from the UNHCR… The number of Somali casualties and displaced civilians continues to grow as fighting in central areas of Somalia rages on. Since the beginning of the year, fighting and general insecurity have displaced an estimated 63,000 people in Somalia. As the world wakes up to Yemen’s problems and parallels are [...]

• What They’re Saying About Saving Darfur III

  Posted: January 18, 2010, 11:28 am by Rob Crilly

  Today it’s Adam Mynott, who served as BBC East Africa Correspondent for four years on Saving Darfur The crisis in Darfur is complex, multi-layered and has its roots deep in history.  It is not, as it is often portrayed, a straightforward issue of good versus bad. Rob Crilly has spent more time than any other journalist I [...]

• Odds and Sods

  Posted: January 16, 2010, 6:27 pm by Rob Crilly

  Football United: Football Has Become the Air That Sudan Breathes: Stephen Constantine, Sudan’s national football coach, on a different side to a country known for war, oil and famine World media’s view on a year of President Obama: Don’t expect any criticism in Kenya, unlike elsewhere How did it come to this?: The Economist on Sudan’s elections [...]

• A Way Ahead for Sudan Advocacy?

  Posted: January 15, 2010, 11:47 am by Rob Crilly

  The Darfur advocacy movement has been going through a period of self-examination. A new American president, a changed pattern on the ground and a growing realisation that conditions for many of the displaced have not eased despite almost six years of campaigning has provoked some headscratching about the way ahead. Readers of this blog will know [...]

• Save Darfur, Ban the Burqa

  Posted: January 13, 2010, 12:31 pm by Rob Crilly

  Last year the head of the UN-AU hybrid force commander announced that the war in Darfur was over. Since then there has been a slew (OK, two) of reports from Darfur that reinforce the idea that the region has settled into an uneasy calm. A calm full of tension, kidnapping and banditry to be sure, [...]

• What They Are Saying About Saving Darfur 2

  Posted: January 12, 2010, 10:15 am by Rob Crilly

  MARTIN GEISSLER, ITV News Saving Darfur is an engaging and insightful look into one of Africa’s most intractable conflicts. Rob Crilly has as good a grasp of the people and the politics of the region as anyone writing on the subject today. This book’s triumph is the author’s ability to make the complexities of the crisis accessible, through [...]

• In Today’s Predictable Headlines: World Cup in Doubt

  Posted: January 9, 2010, 8:46 am by Rob Crilly

  I went to bed listening to the BBC World Service. After years covering wars in Africa, there are still some stories that are so shocking they make it difficult to sleep. This was one of them: Players in Togo’s national football team have told of their shock when gunmen fired on their bus as they drove [...]

• Moral Imperatives and an Ethical Analysis of Darfur II

  Posted: January 8, 2010, 10:38 am by Rob Crilly

  Been thinking more about the motivations behind Darfur activists’ interest in Sudan, their ethical frameworks and moral reasoning following on from a previous post I wrote on Ben Wallace-Wells Darfuristan piece. It was prompted by Bec Hamilton’s invitation to comment, in which she took exception to Wallace-Wells interpretation of the peace v justice debate, which came [...]

• Beware: Shameless Plug

  Posted: January 6, 2010, 10:32 pm by Rob Crilly

  It’s been fun and painful in equal measures. At some stage I’ll post more fully on writing a book – well this particular book – but for now it’s enough to say that the whole thing is pretty much done, apart from the promotion stuff which I hope will be the best bit. Along the way [...]

• Things Get Worse in Somalia

  Posted: January 5, 2010, 5:00 pm by Rob Crilly

  Press release from the UN’s World Food Programme: Rising threats and attacks on humanitarian operations, as well as the imposition of a string of unacceptable demands from armed groups, have made it virtually impossible for WFP to continue reaching up to one million people in need in southern Somalia. Rising threats and attacks on humanitarian operations, as [...]

• A Crucial Year for Sudan

  Posted: December 29, 2009, 11:09 am by Rob Crilly

  The dropoff in interest in Sudan and its wars couldn’t come at a worse time. In a few months time Sudanese voters will take part in nationwide elections. Then, at the start of 2011, Southern Sudan will vote on independence – the culmination of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement. The next 12 months then have [...]

• My African Advent Calendar: Day 24, BABIES OF IMMACULATE CONCEPTION

  Posted: December 24, 2009, 11:10 am by Rob Crilly

  All 21 of them. All apparently conceived without sex. All miracle babies. It is more than five years since police in Kenya seized 21 children from two homes as part of an investigation into baby smuggling. Archbishop Gilbert Deya, who ran an evangelical church in London, reckoned he could make women pregnant through the power of [...]

• My African Advent Calendar: Day 23, AN ASS

  Posted: December 23, 2009, 10:11 am by Rob Crilly

  Insert your own gag here. The problem with riding donkeys in Darfur is that rider is expected to hit ridee with a big stick in order to facilitate steering. For the first 30min it is possible to threaten to hit the donkey across the face in order to turn left (hit the right side) or right [...]

• My African Advent Calendar: Day 22, A PROPHET

  Posted: December 22, 2009, 12:23 pm by Rob Crilly

  And lo, a prophet appeared in a faraway land. “Follow me,” she declared, “but only those that have two testicles – no more, no less. “And I will protect you with my magic potions and butter and together we will deliver the Promised Land to our people. You must kill snakes.” Alice Lakwena’s Holy Spirit Movement very nearly [...]

• Moral Imperatives and an Ethical Analysis of Darfur

  Posted: December 21, 2009, 12:13 am by Rob Crilly

  I’m guesting over at Bec Hamilton’s Promise of Engagement blog. She invited posts in response to Ben Wallace-Wells excellent piece in Rolling Stone magazine, entitled Darfuristan. He charts the way the international responses to the unfolding crisis in Darfur have led us into a quagmire. There were lots of points that interested me and several [...]

• My African Advent Calendar: Day 21, A BOAT

  Posted: December 21, 2009, 12:58 pm by Rob Crilly

  It has been another good year for the pirates – less so for the 272 sailors (as of last week) still held in or just off Somalia, including the Chandlers from Tunbridge Wells (whose boat is pictured above). With few ideas on how to tackle the menace, 2010 will hold more of the same. The [...]

• African Advent Calendar: Day 18, A TEDDY BEAR

  Posted: December 20, 2009, 12:09 pm by Rob Crilly

  Just don’t call him Mohammed… Anyone know what happened to the little chap?  I seem to recall someone telling me he had been released from the Sudanese cupboard where he was locked up…

• My African Advent Calendar: Day 19, A PRINCE

  Posted: December 19, 2009, 2:12 pm by Rob Crilly

  A king is born? A wise man? Anyway, can’t say much more about this particular snap

• African Advent Calendar: Day 18, A GOAT

  Posted: December 18, 2009, 1:02 pm by Rob Crilly

  ME (VIA PHONE): Well I’m having a bit of difficulty getting access on election night. The place is swarming with press and the Obamas are a bit fed up with it all. I’ve just bought them a goat though so I think I should get in for that piece we discussed… ED: Oh, thanks. (CLICK BRRRR) 30 [...]

• African Advent Calendar: Day 17, A PLANE

  Posted: December 17, 2009, 4:01 pm by Rob Crilly

  Well… two actually, proving it’s difficult to keep your sanctions-busting arsenal secret when anyone can peruse your Chinese-built hardware using nothing more sophisticated than Google Earth. Thanks to Andrei Chang at Kanwa Defense Review Monthly for the image.

• Keep Up The Good Work JP

  Posted: December 16, 2009, 10:55 pm by Rob Crilly

  This arrives in my email inbox, from John Prendergast, presumably by mistake… Dear Friends, Help Enough Stop Crimes Against Humanity Sometimes [...]

• My African Advent Calendar: Day 16, A BUCKET

  Posted: December 16, 2009, 2:16 pm by Rob Crilly

  Each bucket weighs almost 75lb when full with sticky, white latex sap. But Amos Mulbh was still able to manoeuvre nimbly over fallen trees in Firestone’s Harbel plantation. After all, he had learned how to balance the thin wooden beam across his thin shoulders when he was just 12. I met Amos a in 2006 [...]

• My African Advent Calendar: Day 15, A GOLF CLUB

  Posted: December 15, 2009, 1:55 pm by Rob Crilly

  The BBC’s Adam Mynott gets his feet wet retrieving his ball from a wayward tee shot at Nairobi’s Race Course par-three second hole (if memory serves).

• My African Advent Calendar: Day 14, A HORSE

  Posted: December 14, 2009, 1:15 pm by Rob Crilly

  She was always a bit fat and a bit lazy. Not really what you want in a racehorse. Riyah – named after the Arabic for wind – was the outcome of a genetic experiment, a cross between a purebred Arabian and a local Sudanese horse. It never quite worked out for her connections picking up [...]

• My African Advent Calendar: Day 13, A CAR

  Posted: December 13, 2009, 1:42 pm by Rob Crilly

  In the end it wasn’t the crude bombs dropped from the Sudan Air Force Antonovs that came closest to hurting me in Darfur. It was the journey back through Chad’s border region that proved the most frightening. The run from Bahai (where Jem rebels had deposited me) to Tine went fine. Then, after a night [...]

• My African Advent Calendar: Day 12, A FISH

  Posted: December 12, 2009, 11:34 pm by Rob Crilly

  Shieb and his fish in Omdurman OK, so the pedants will note that this Advent calendar is cutting free from tradition and starting on December 12. Fair enough – I simply didn’t think of it earlier. (And also I suspect I would have been unable to sustain it for 24 windows.) But for now, enjoy the [...]

• Two Great Posts on the DRC

  Posted: December 12, 2009, 6:31 pm by Rob Crilly

  I don’t like blogs that moan. Who wants to read a bunch of whinging? Particularly when it involves the author explaining how clever they are while the rest of the world is wrong*. So I was feeling a little guilty about my last post, regarding Angelina Jolie and her inaccurate portrayal of Darfur. Needn’t have [...]

• Angelina Jolie and the Need for Evidence-Based Advocacy

  Posted: December 11, 2009, 3:13 pm by Rob Crilly

  Angelina Jolie uses the occasion of Human Rights Day and Barack Obama’s Nobel prize to remind us that Darfur is still far from resolved, despite being largely forgotten. In a Newsweek piece she argues that there is much work to be done. So far so good. But once again she characterises the conflict in stark [...]

• Memorial for Five Rwandans Killed in Darfur

  Posted: December 9, 2009, 10:30 am by Rob Crilly

  Whatever the failings of the joint United Nations, African Union mission to Darfur, there’s no doubting the bravery or commitment of the soldiers who put their lives on the line in an increasingly fragmented and bandit-riddled land. Five Rwandans died in two attacks at the end of last week. While the rest of the world has [...]

• The Taliban and Al Shabaab

  Posted: December 8, 2009, 3:04 pm by Rob Crilly

  Fascinating post at William S Lind’s blog written by Mark Sexton, a reserve special forces NCO, on how the Taliban takes villages in Afghanistan A current method used by Taliban in Afghanistan to gain control of an area deemed of strategic interest to the Taliban leadership operating from safe havens in Pakistan or within Afghanistan is [...]

• Press Release of the Week

  Posted: December 7, 2009, 5:05 pm by Rob Crilly

  A press release with an ever so slightly frustrated tone reaches me from the EU’s anti-piracy operation: On December 7th 2009, EU NAVFOR Netherlands warship HNLMS Evertsen detected a sailing vessel in the Gulf of Aden. The region is considered a hotbed for piracy and is considered too dangerous for lone yachtsmen. Fair enough. Maybe not everyone [...]

• Somalia’s Very Good Things

  Posted: December 5, 2009, 1:15 pm by Rob Crilly

  Stumbled across a list of Somalia’s Greatest Hits on the change.org war and peace site. Given this week’s killing and general renewed grounds for pessimism, it’s perhaps a good time to remember the cool things about Somalia – rather than give in to temptation and simply brick up the whole country and declare the last [...]

• Somalia: Tragedy Repeated

  Posted: December 3, 2009, 6:53 pm by Rob Crilly

  Another bloody day in Somalia. This looks like one of the worst suicide bombings to be carried out in the lawless country. So far it looks as if 19 people have been confirmed dead – although that is likely to rise way beyond 40. The target was also a desperately cynical choice – a hotel graduation [...]

• The Seven Somali Pirates

  Posted: December 2, 2009, 1:04 pm by Rob Crilly

  The increasing sophistication of Somalia’s pirates and their relationship with the local population – forming co-operatives that invest in and protect their communities – puts me in mind of JM Coetzee’s recent Diary of a Bad Year, in which he discusses the film The Seven Samurai and what it says about formation of statehood… The Kurosawan [...]

• The Rise of Somali Sea Power

  Posted: December 1, 2009, 7:12 pm by Rob Crilly

  I made a rather rash prediction at the end of last year about Somalia’s pirates. I think I got it wrong. They won’t be buying Djibouti any time soon. They have their eyes on Dubai. This brilliant piece from Reuters explains the emergence of a new type of equity, one that pretty much guarantees a pretty [...]

• One Step at a Time

  Posted: November 30, 2009, 6:15 pm by Rob Crilly

    I haven’t done a very good job, but in my posts about Amanda Lindhout and Nigel Brennan I’ve tried to avoid using a know-it-all, old-Africa-hand tone. But the truth is that from the moment they were kidnapped it was obvious that they had only themselves to blame. There’s nothing wrong with throwing yourself in at [...]

• Lessons of Somali Kidnapping

  Posted: November 25, 2009, 11:26 pm by Rob Crilly

  It’s wonderful news that the two journalists kidnapped last year in Mogadishu have been freed today after 15 months. The dribs and drabs of news coming out of Somalia have at times suggested Amanda Lindhout and Nigel Brennan might not survive. Both had been desperately ill and rumours circulated constantly that, with little prospect of [...]

• No Longer Our Favourite African War

  Posted: November 19, 2009, 10:36 pm by Rob Crilly

  One of the first things that puzzled me about Darfur was why the West cared about what was happening in Sudan’s western region, when it gave such little attention to conflicts in Somalia, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and others that I’ve forgotten about. Now it seems that Darfur is going the way of [...]

• So You Wanna Be A Stringer

  Posted: November 19, 2009, 2:15 am by Rob Crilly

  I spent five years as a stringer for various British, American and Irish news organisations in Africa. I built my portfolio from scratch until I was the first port of call for up to a dozen newspapers and radio stations. The money was good, the hours flexible enough for the occasional 18 holes in mid-morning and [...]

• Just When You Thought Things Couldn’t Get Any Worse in Somalia… Sky Pirates

  Posted: November 16, 2009, 8:49 pm by Rob Crilly

  Not content with bringing shipping lanes to a standstill off Somalia, gunmen are now intent on snagging European passengers from flights in and out of the lawless country and holding them for ransom. Yusuf M Hasan has written a gripping account of the thwarted hijacking of a flight from Bossaso, Puntland, to Djibouti… Diyaarada way afduuban [...]

• Linguistic Gymnastics and Genocide

  Posted: November 13, 2009, 2:23 pm by Rob Crilly

  Interesting op-ed piece in The Washington Post today by Michael Gerson, who does a good job of reminding the world that suffering continues in Darfur even though the region may have slipped off our radar in recent months. However, he makes a couple of points that may accidentally cast light on the motivations and thinking [...]

• EXCLUSIVE: Interview with a bloke on a satphone

  Posted: November 11, 2009, 10:47 pm by Rob Crilly

  The accent may have been thick and the line crackly as the words travelled through the ether but there was no doubting the sinister timbre of the universal pirate battle cry. “ARRRRRRRGGGGH,” said a man called Red Beard – his nickname apparently coming from the traditional use of henna to colour his facial hair – who [...]

• The Smell of Africa

  Posted: November 8, 2009, 11:14 pm by Rob Crilly

  So there I was buying shower gel in my new local supermarket in Jerusalem, when my eye was caught by an African scented variety.  I don’t tend to pay much attention to the flavour of my grooming products but on this occasion – already nostalgic for my old home – I thought this was just [...]

• A New Low for Uwe Boll

  Posted: November 6, 2009, 12:33 am by Rob Crilly

  more about “A New Low for Uwe Boll“, posted with vodpod No-one was much interested in my scoop from last year that the man widely regarded as the world’s worst film director was working on a project about the Darfur conflict, provisionally entitled “Janjaweed”. Now the trailer is out, and I for one can’t wait [...]

• A New Low

  Posted: November 6, 2009, 7:51 pm by Rob Crilly

  The Congolese army has been accused many times of brutality. Like so many African armies it is a mishmash of different rebel militias teased into a semblance of a national force, while retaining a certain relaxed approach to battlefield law. The deeply flawed United Nations peacekeeping mission managed to overlook their failings up until this [...]

• Fishing Boats Armed to Deter Pirates

  Posted: October 30, 2009, 6:13 pm by Rob Crilly

  Somali pirates are back in the news after kidnapping a couple from Tunbridge Wells (my hometown incidentally) as they sailed their yacht from the Seychelles to Tanzania. I hope they are released safe and sound but I can’t help thinking their course was reckless, given the number of attacks on boats and ships – many [...]

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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