So, I’ve been in inactive blog land for the past month or so. I’ve felt bad about it, but only briefly. I’d rather write nothing than slobber onto my keyboard and hope that something semi-entertaining emerges onto the screen. There are a couple of reasons for this inactivity. First of all, I’m pretty busy at the moment, but that’s a crappy excuse because if CEOs can blog, so can I. Secondly, I’ve come to be quite happy in Beirut, and the ire that fuelled my initial posts has subsided. I obviously still have infuriating encounters with the odd overzealous valet trying to monopolize 7 spots of prime parking.

So yeah. There you have it. That’s why I’ve been away. But now something has compelled me to post. Anyone care to guess what that might be? Anger at insane World Cup fans popping up with previously unknown flags at the end of every football match? No, but close. It’s Paul the Octopus. Paul’s accurate predictions of world cup matches have me convinced of an impending octopode take-over of our planet. Bow down to the octopi.

The Monocle Weekly takes its first trip to Beirut this week and kicks off with a briefing on the state of politics in the region with Nicholas Noe, political analyst and editor-in-chief of the news service Mideastwire.com. Architect Raed Abillama is in the studio to share his views on architectural preservation as Beirut continues to develop at top speed, and pioneering Lebanese music producer Zeid Hamdan plays some of his latest tracks. Finally, we check in with Kamal Mouzawak to hear about Tawlet, his unique new culinary concept in Beirut that has the Monocle team hooked.

Listen to the podcast here.

I’m not a huge football fan. I don’t particularly enjoy watching league games on a regular basis, since they mainly feature 22 overpaid twentysomethings running around after a ball of leather and diving spectacularly all over the pitch. I supported Manchester United as a kid, but that was mainly because Eric Cantona used to kung-fu kick annoying fans and compare games to fishing and birds in the sky in post-match interviews. More recently, I’ve claimed to support Arsenal, but that was mainly to fit in with my colleagues who were all Gunners fans. Plus they’ve got a player called Nasri, which made my life in London immeasurably easier last year.

But the World Cup is a different affair altogether. Along with billions of people around the planet, I become a fervent fan and don’t miss a game. I become an expert on every rule, shouting uncontrollably through my television at balding Italian referees. I also turn into an expert half-time and post-game analyst, discussing the formations of players I didn’t know existed until a week ago. I still think Bebeto plays for Brazil (he played on their ’94 squad, for any of you kids out there too young to remember). There’s no denying the World Cup is an amazing global moment, shared by the entire planet. Old and young, rich and poor, men and women, everyone is enthralled by the month-long spectacle of nations battling it out on the pitch with fine sportsmanship and a splattering of sponsorship.

However, one thing casts a shadow over my enjoyment of the event when I’m in Beirut. You guessed it; I can’t stand the proliferation of various national flags all over the place. People who’ve never met a Brazilian, let alone set foot in Brazil plaster their cars and balconies with the Brazilian flag. They support a team to which they have no national or ancestral connection as fervently as they mispronounce the country’s name. I wonder if they know that the text emblazoned on the flag, Ordem e Progresso, means Order and Progress, two things we desperately lack in Lebanon. Fistfights will break out between cousins on opposing sides of the Italy/Germany divide. The festival of flags has started earlier than usual this year. I was away for a couple of weeks, and when I got back on Monday every other car had a foreign flag fluttering from the back window. Either the country had been taken over by visiting diplomats or world cup fever had kicked off.

I saw a convoy of 4*4s yesterday all bearing the German flag and was briefly concerned they were off to invade Poland. I saw a Fiat today being driven by a man who I can only guess was schizophrenic, seeing as he had an Argentine flag attached to one window and a Dutch one attached to the other. What annoys me most about all this is that I’ve never seen the Lebanese flag displayed and defended with such passion. Granted, we’ve never played in the World Cup, and I’m not holding my breath for 2014, but still. These aren’t’ the flags of Bayern Munich or Barcelona or Chelsea. These are national flags, to which most of us have no allegiance.

Someone asked me who I was supporting today, and I obviously said England. I got the kind of look you get when you say you collect garden gnomes. Disgust and confusion infused with pity. I explained I was British and had lived in England for a very long time and so on. The guy retorted: Yeah but they don’t stand a chance. I found it odd how blissfully unaware he was that you don’t support a national team according to how likely they are to win; you support them because of some deep personal connection. Otherwise what’s the point? Of course women support teams based on who has the better looking players, making Italy and Argentina favourites amongst the fairer sex. They must have a thing for men in headbands who gesticulate a lot, maybe I should give it a shot someday.

I suspect that in the highly unlike event that Brazil play Lebanon in a World Cup match, most of Beirut would be dancing samba and drinking Caipirinhas when the Brazilians win. In the meantime, I may stick an English flag on my balcony on June 12^th when we play the USA. My only concern is that the last time I did that my neighbours thought I’d started a regional office for the Red Cross in my flat.

Be sure to check out all the bands in the video like New Government, Scrambled Eggs and LUmi.

True, it’s hardly as obscure as say being from Botswana, but when I want to reminisce about watching Newsround and Bananaman, I’ve always felt fellow Brits were few and far between in Beirut. Any Beirutis who grew up in the US have it easy, American culture being so ubiquitous that I’m sure even Massai tribesmen in Kenya are aware that Ross and Rachel were on a break. Anyone who grew up in France is also spoilt for choice when it comes to popular culture. Lebanon is a francophone country, and prides itself, sometimes misguidedly, on its links to our ex-colonizers, something of a prolonged Stockholm syndrome. You even get the full bouquet of French terrestrial and satellite TV stations from your neighborhood pirate cable provider. My provider comes in the form of a diminutive Armenian man who seems to have inherited very little from his ancestors beyond one tooth, a stutter, a sweaty disposition and no understanding of what the BBC is.

I can’t complain too much though, because things are much easier than the last time I moved to Beirut in 1997. Back then I had to rely on memory for any attachment to my native London. I had to dig out old VHS tapes of Have I Got News For You, Fawlty Towers and Blackadder. Oh, by the by, VHS tapes were those big boxy things we used before DVDs, for you kids out there.

Now I download the latest episodes of QI and Mock The Week on YouTube. I download podcasts from BBC Four, and enjoy the surreal prospect of listening to Germaine Greer discuss post-feminism whilst I’m stuck in traffic behind a pimped-out yellow Honda Civic with two of Lebanon’s finest soldiers whistling at everything in a skirt.

And more recently, I’ve actually been meeting Brits, of the proper kind and the Lebanese kind, like myself. And as they say, once it rains it pours. I went from not knowing a single Brit for years to suddenly being surrounded by people from all corners of the UK. I’m overcome with a very un-English sense of joy when I speak to someone who has a proper English accent, never mind if it’s from Godalming, Somerset or Manchester.  So in the last few weeks I’ve been remincing about a childhood spent watching Superted, Neighbours and The Bill. I’ve been recounting tales of meeting Jet, Hunter and John Fashinu at a taping of Big Break’s Christmas special with John Virgo and Jim Davidson. This probably means nothing to most people, but it means the world to me.

I’ve been away from Beirut for a couple of weeks now. I spent a few days in London last week, and it was refreshing to walk around aimlessly on pavements under a gentle drizzle. It was nice to wander into Waterstone’s and ask knowledgeable staff for book recommendations. It was nice to walk past my old school, my old university and my old flat. It was nice to walk into a pub with carpets rendered pungent from years of spilt lager. It was nice to have a conversation with a cabbie “bout all these fecking foreigners”, with a delightful sense of irony and self-awareness.

One particularly chilly day I headed to Canary Wharf for an interview. I boarded the Jubilee Line armed with a well-stocked iPod and a copy of the Financial Times. As the train trundled along, I caught a reflection of myself in the window. I was far paler than I was a week ago, especially in the unforgiving neon light. I looked like a caged corporate slave again, my Windsor knot choking any ambitions of creativity I have been harboring for the past year. My lips were chapped. I looked down at my hands clutching the FT, dried and cracked from the subzero temperatures outside. When I got to my interview, I gave it my all. I was even invited back for a second round, which I’ve politely declined.

I’m afraid London isn’t home anymore. I’m afraid there are ambitions I have for myself in Beirut, I want to be part of the generation that comes back and makes a difference. I have role to play in Beirut that surpasses my role as a faceless zombie on the Jubilee Line. Plus its warm in Beirut. And most important of all, I miss it.

So, the year is 1992. The Chicago Bulls are NBA Champions. Andre Agassi is sporting a full head of hair. Kids are sitting around their rooms with Troll dolls attached to their pencils as Kriss Kross’ Jump and Sir Mix-a-lot’s Baby Got Back blare out of the boombox. Home Alone and Sister Act are topping the box office. And I’m a 10 year old kid.

Of all the year’s cinematic offerings, I’m particularly excited about the prospect of watching Aladdin, especially since I’ve discovered that he’s modelled on Tom Cruise and that makes the fat little bespectacled Arab kid in me really proud. It’s going to be cool to be Arab.

I settle into my seat at the Odeon on High Street Ken, and I’m ready for a mystical land full of anthropomorphic cuteness from monkeys and whatnot. Then I sit through 90 minutes of thinly veiled racism, which leaves me crushed. Even Robin William’s psychotic take on the Genie isn’t enough to salvage the film in my eyes.

I go home, and being the nerdy English school kid that I was, embark on a quest to chastise Disney for their insolence through the only means available to me: a strongly worded letter.

The details are a bit fuzzy and haven’t withstood the test of time in my memory, and I have no idea what I wrote. But I remember being particularly vexed by the swashbuckling and monstrous law enforcers. Plus the following lyrics didn’t really sit well with a proud Lebanese kid, who’d never actually seen his parent’s homeland yet:

Oh I come from a land, from a faraway place / Where the caravan camels roam / Where it’s flat and immense / And the heat is intense / It’s barbaric, but hey, it’s home

So there you have it. I was a ridiculous 10 year old with a warped sense of pride sending a letter to one of the biggest corporations in the world. End of story. Right?

Not exactly. Through some weird combination of events, it would seem Disney thought a fat 10 year old had a point. They thanked me for my letter and forwarded it to the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee, of which I’ve been an honorary member ever since.

Moral of the story. Always complain when something just isn’t right, sometimes people listen.

O zouzou, how dashing you are as you stand tall under the weight of all the Brylcreem that has established permanent residence from the roots of your hair to the tip of your lush pony tail

O zouzou, how charming you are when you whistle at young ladies passing by, forever stealing their hearts. All helpless victims at your feet. 2eww 2eww.

O zouzou, how cool you are, reclining against walls in department stores sneering at the passers by

O zouzou, how pensive you are, sitting on your throne of white plastic on the sidewalk committing the remnants of pumpkin seeds to the seaside air

O zouzou, how distinguished you are in your 1991 Mercedes CE Coupe with Serround bass and windows darker than the night itself, a true lover of the classic car

O zouzou, how I love it when you cheer on-screen kisses and bad-guy punch-outs at the cinema, a true lover of the arts you are

O zouzou, how I rejoice when the stars align and place me next to you in traffic as I gently hear the sounds of Assi Al Halani waft over from your pirated CD to my eager ears

O zouzou, how I admire the cigarette dangling magically from your lip all day, oscillating with the uttering of every new word

O zouzou, how I love thee.

Cameron has always been a specialist of the big brainless money-churning blockbuster. He’s brought us such visionary films as Terminator 2, Titanic and True Lies. He even wrote Rambo. And now comes Avatar. The first reason I hate Avatar is the slew of 3D films it has spawned. Now every studio thinks they can make a billion dollars by making us wear stupid glasses and get slightly queasy at the sight of various objects coming our way in a darkened room. At least they’re not the silly red and green glasses of my childhood, which made you look like a genetic reject.

So here we sit, faced with the awfully named Pandora, a rainforest on acid inhabited by a race of annoyingly and relentlessly new-age oversized Smurfs. Its basically a John Smith meets Pocahontas story set in an improbably elaborate environment some 150 years in the future. You’d think that 150 years from now people would have stopped using unmistakably Bush-era terms like shock-and-awe and vilifying big heartless corporations. To be fair to Cameron, the movie took years to elaborate, and much of those years (8 to be specific) were spent under the mind-numbing gung-ho attitude of the Bush neocons. And the film has been met by conservatives in the US with much ire. All the quacks from Glenn Beck to Rush Limbaugh have taken to calling Cameron a tree-hugging, America-hating, Marx-loving, sandal-wearing commie. That’s the kind of treatment usually reserved for the latest outings by Michael Moore or Oliver Stone. The right-wing hatred of the film is probably the only thing it has going for it in my view.

Don’t get me wrong, the experience is entirely immersive. The vistas on Pandora are absolutely breathtaking, especially in 3D. You kind of come out wishing you could book a holiday on one of the floating mountains. The film is also a new benchmark with regards to technology in movie making. However, I was consistently annoyed by the pseudo-religious mumbo jumbo and caricature Marine oafs and corporate whores. I mean, surely audiences in 2010 are capable of accepting more subtlety from their blockbusters than this. You just need to look at franchises like the Bourne Identity to see how subtle yet entertaining popcorn movies can be. A Slate review of the film notes that the original Sanskrit meaning of “avatar”—the bodily form taken by a deity descending to earth—is also suggested in this movie’s quasi-religious cosmology. But so what? Superficial depth of analysis is far worse than a deeply superficial story.

The Hurt Locker on the other hand, is what movie screens were made for. It deals in a more direct and less insulting fashion with the implications of warfare in far-flung places. The film starts in the summer of 2004, where Sergeant J.T. Sanborn and Specialist Owen Eldridge of Bravo Company are at the volatile center of the war, part of a small counterforce specifically trained to handle Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), that account for more than half of American hostile deaths and have killed thousands of Iraqis. It’s a high-pressure, high-stakes assignment which becomes glaringly apparent when they lose their team leader during a mission. The gleefully reckless Staff Sergeant William James (an amazing Jeremy Renner) takes over, much to the dismay of the rest of the team. Throughout the film we slowly realize that James is a hybrid of a swaggering cowboy, a highly professional solider and a real human being.

Its impossibly tense from the get-go and the film basically swings back and forth from ultimate boredom to impossibly dangerous situations. A perfect representation of time spent in the war theatre. The depiction of Iraq in 2003 is spot on, and as someone who lives in the Middle East I can safely say that the cinematography captures the feeling of sweat and claustrophobia and dust hanging in the air perfectly. The acting is spot on by every member of the cast, even the 10 year old Iraqi bootleg DVD salesman at Camp Victory. There isn’t a boring minute throughout, yet the film is rife with contemplations on the nature and legitimacy of war. It examines war as a drug, evident in Jeremy Renner’s free-wheeling adrenaline junkie character who is itching to be sent back on a second tour. The Hurt Locker opens with a quote from War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, a 2002 book by war correspondent and journalist Chris Hedges: “The rush of battle is a potent and often lethal addiction, for war is a drug.”

The Oscars have long been a pointless exercise in futility, both as a telecast and as a benchmark by which to judge the year’s films. They are highly political, and no one really cares about them anymore beyond figuring out “who” Beyonce is wearing this year. “Academy Award Winner” is a nice title to blurt out before someone’s name in a trailer, but many of the worlds greatest actors and directors were never recognized with a statuette. So, what I’m trying to say is let’s not pay too much attention to who wins how many trophies on the night itself. If you have to choose between watching Avatar and The Hurt Locker, watch the latter. You’ll have more fun and come out of it having learnt something real and honest about human nature.