I’m reading a great book, picked up at Bookworld for a pound (£1) the other day. You know when you read a book that is worth every penny of the RRP, I feel bad that I managed to pick it up as a bargain. How much do the authors really get anyway? Are they on a flat fee or a % of sales?

Anyway. The book is called ‘Salam Pax: The Baghdad Blog’. It’s a diary of an Iraqi man who recounts the details of his everyday life in Baghdad, the story of the war from the inside of the besieged country. It’s incisive & funny and an extremely interesting record of the anticipation, resentment, bemusement and sheer terror felt by a someone living in the last days of a dictatorship. The original website “Where is Raed?” is still up on the web but ends in August 2004, and from what I can see so far, Salam Pax continues his recordings at “The Daily Absurdity Report“.

While we are busy worrying how we’re going to fit all our stuff into a tiny apartment in Paris, stressing over the fact we’ll have to somehow afford to live in such an expensive city – there’s shit going on in the world. Terrible stuff. Life & death stuff.

The realisation of the absurdity of it all makes me feel sick. It’s time to focus on the things we can do to make things right. There are plenty of options.

Have a nice weekend.