Abie Nathan, RIP. One of Israel's more colourful characters, most noted by moi for his Voice of Peace radio station, which I spent many a night listening to in my early days in Israel (manning hostel receptions overnight, while chatting with gorgeous, nutty, drunk Israeli girls). This guy was a real pioneer of peace, and even flew for the British Air Force. Bless 'im.
The big story in Israel these last couple of days is this harrowing tale. Yes, the girl's grandfather is also her stepfather. White trash city. My heart bleeds for the little girl. I say hang the lot of 'em. Fuckers.
OK, so this month not one specific celeb for you to drool over. Instead, a collection (not a private one, only one of these pix came from my camera and I didn't take it - most of these pix are out there on the web) of some of the eye candy that you might just get accosted with on the sandy beaches of Tel Aviv. It's August, it's baking, the Med is sparkling a few metres away, and the bikinis are getting even briefer. Oooh mama. Did you ever wonder how I've managed to stay here so long? And can you guess where I'm off to in the next few minutes...?
OK, so I'm not catching a lot of the Olympics, apart from news highlights in the evenings. But doesn't it feel good to be British? Oh yes, we are a sporty nation once again. Third in the medals table, behind the mighty China and US of A, with some very inspiring performances. Most, if not all, of the names are anonymous to me, and there seems to be a distinct lack of personalities that were always around in previous Olympics. Names like Coe, Ovett, Cram, Thompson, and Christie, aahhh those were the days...or is it because the current crop of winners are excelling at sports not exactly geared for prime-time TV? Me, I'm a big 4x100/4x400 relay fan, I will be trying my best to catch those live.
As I'm writing this I see that Israel has just clinched its first medal of the Olympics, a bronze in the windsurfing. With that Israel surges into 69th place in the medals table. And as the guy pushed a Brit into fourth place, I shall be having words with him - his parents are friends of the father-in-law.
Not that I'm knocking Israeli sport, but this made me laugh. Arik Zeevi, Israel's big gold medal hope in the judo, on his failure to convince: In the days before the competition, I cried too much, like a pregnant woman. Yes indeed.
August is flying by, but tomorrow is really kicking in to high gear, what with the kids absolutely free of kindergarten until September. Junior is coming with me tomorrow to Open Spacey, Juniorette I have no idea where she'll be...I guess it's one day at a time over the next couple of weeks...[ breathe, breathe, don't forget to breathe... ]
I've been up to my neck in all kinds of shit the last couple of weeks, of which I'll briefly recap for you:
Anyway, this place might not get updated as much as I'd like, but I'll still be around, I promise peeps.
I've managed to make it 3 times to the gym this week. Up until now it's always been a couple of times, and some of those times were spent at the pool. Now it's all pure sweat baby. No pain, no gain. All I can say is London 2012 here I come...
...with cash we are. Well, with a few cheques that'll help pay off the mortgage to be precise. We signed a contract yesterday with the new tenants. The yuppie couple I spoke about here didn't want in the end, and the gay couple decided it wasn't big enough for their purposes, so we ended up advertising again. Up popped another batch of eager hopefuls, this time it's another yuppie-type couple. God bless for yuppie couples! And God bless the rental crisis in Tel Aviv, because no matter what they say, it's still ongoing...but let's hope it crashes significantly when we need to rent again!
* Too busy to blog these days...might have to post a few pix and that's yer lot...
August in Israel is damned hot and sticky. For parents of toddlers it gets even hotter and stickier while the private kindergarten industry takes 3 weeks off and spits our wee ones back into our arms...
Now, I'm not one to deny anyone a break, because for fuck's sake, small business owners in this country deserve any break they can get. But, I think it's a bit fucking cheeky that we get charged for this month. They work one week and get paid the full month. And they're a private business, it's not like they're a government run place. And it's not like I can take my business somewhere else, because they've already signed us up for the next year and taken cheques. And anyway, there is no somewhere else, as all the private kindergartens apparently do this (unless you know otherwise?)...
Of course, if we want, we can register for their kaytana (summer school type thing), which is in the second week of August (when they are officially on holiday) but of course, it'll cost us an extra 1500 shekels or so per kid. What the fuck is that all about? Really, I mean, August is hot and sweaty enough without the additional headache of trying to make sure the kids are taken care of...
Oh fuck. Where are you September?
Wow. Morrissey was in Tel Aviv last night and was class. A mix of the Smiths and his own stuff, he really has some great songs under his belt. And I was very impressed with the audience, they were singing along to most of the songs, even a couple I didn't know. Not sure what he has against Kylie Minogue, and I'm not sure everyone understood the opening string of phrases spouted in a deep Manc accent (Stock Aitken Waterman...Heysel Stadium...etc), but it made me smile...
Siouxsie didn't turn up, nobody knows why (and when telling the crowd this, Morrissey handed over the mic to a girl in the front row that ended up with a "Thank you for coming to Israeeeellll!" which brought the house down...), but the opening act, an Israeli called Assaf Avidan with his band The Mojos were actually pretty good. And the New York Dolls were pure rocknroll, pure entertainment and much much better than I anticipated.
And, as usual, people have already uploaded their videos. Here is the one and only Morrissey encore which made me go all goosebumpy...
I've noticed the new Bamba (apparently created to celebrate Israel's 60th birthday) on the shelves of my local sooper (supermarket) the last few times I've been there. And to be quite honest, the thought of Bamba filled with nougat kind of made me want to heave. Yesterday I went with the two littl'uns and after a little prodding from them, I went for it and got a bag. What can I tell you, it's not quite the sacrilege I thought it might be. In fact, it's pretty bleedin' tasty. In fact, I had to divert the kids' attention while scoffing down the rest of the bag. And no, I won't tell you how many bags made it into our trolley.
I think I've put my finger on why I don't really like Open Spacey. It's the guy who's my boss. He's one of those fuckers that will never have a nice thing to say, even if you write the best fucking guide in living history...he's got his head so far up his own arse, all he's worried about is how he looks in the company big picture. Constant planning (which from what I've seen is a complete waste of time in this place), constant conference calls, and constant bitching. Constantly writing guides? Maybe, but I've yet to see...
Just last week up came the topic of my availability once again - if I can't commit to 100% then I'll probably have my contract terminated, bla bla bla...if it's working out so fucking terribly for you, then just fire me! He knows I deliver, he even admitted as much last week, he's just pissed that I can't/won't commit to "the cause". Oh, that's right, the cause. The cause that keeps him working until 1am most nights of the week, as he keeps updating his workplan as the big bosses keep updating theirs...sorry, but that's not a cause I'm going to be fighting for...
