Originally written on Saturday, 12. August 2006.

It has been a few weeks since my last update, but it has not been an uneventful period. Liz and Phil’s Navy traded a Harrier Jump Jet for a lorry, we’ve discovered a pair moons, sorry, no, planets, no sorry, suns, er, objects that seem to be causing more confusion about what they are than George W does when he gets fried eggs and not sunny side up, when he visits his poodle in London.

Italy have won the Football World Cup, Zidane has been responsible for some of the most interesting viral emails this year, England are now seriously worrying about not retaining the Rugby World Cup in France next year [or have the All Blacks peaked a year too early again like they always seem to do], Beckham seem to have retired from international football (did he know, remember that wave when he was substituted at the end of the England Portugal match?).

The Sun will now have much more fun with their headline writers under McClaren than they ever did under Sven as we head back towards the ‘guts and hard work’ ethic of English football, rather than the more sophisticated passing football that brought us a 5 – 1 win in Germany and a narrow world cup semi final defeat to Brazil last time round. Who could forget the classic ‘At ’em Fritz’ headline from 1996 ?

But it was not all bad. Orange and Vodafone’s mobiles networks in the UK both decided to have a day off, reminding people that novelty ring phones really are not that fun after all. Blair is on holiday so can’t cause too much havoc, with the down side of course that Prescott (the only man in the UK to have an affair where the question is asked ‘so what did SHE get out of it ?) is in charge for the time being. Still, there’ll be no shortage of fry-ups for breakfast.

There have also been some other interesting events in the last few weeks. Ryan Air have now decided to charge customers for the clothing they are wearing. This follows their decision to charge flyers for carrying luggage, over and above the original ticket price. One Ryan Air spokesman was heard saying ‘the price of the ticket is for the passenger, not for extra items. If they want to travel naked ……’ I assume the Reykjavik flight will see lots of small change. Wannadoo has finally changed its name and brand to Orange as part of the France Telecom drive to rid itself of silly names.

As part of this drive, they have also renamed their low, medium and high usage tariffs to Aardvark, Dolphin and Leopard. The man behind this must have been the same man who, in the mid 1970’s convinced British Leyland that for the biggest mass market car, the Allegro, a square steering wheel really was the way forward. Even Volvo, famous for its tag line ‘its big and it’s boxy!’ saw the need to have at least one round item on a car! For more information on the engineering prowess that made BL what it is today.

And so in Libya there have been some interesting movements also. I have discovered an excellent pizza café. These are not the Mothers Pride two inch thick bases that Pizza Hut are so fond of, but wonderfully thin, stone bake pizza’s. A base so thin it may have come from Naples itself. Normally, I would not go to somewhere to eat unless it was at least half full, but when we went, we were the only people there. It really was good pizza. Followed by some wonderful Italian ice cream.

The panacota is simply excellent. The ice cream shop is unique in Tripoli, possibly even in Libya, where people will queue. Ok, not strictly speaking true. They have a Deli style ticket machine next to the till. Pays your money, get your tickets, makes your choice, as they may say on Radio Shuttelworth . This ice cream will surely Make Mary Merry!

There is also a hint of a report that a UAE based Hotel chain is investing $25 million in two currently state owner five star hotels here in Tripoli, a visitor centre at Sabratha and a $50 million sea side complex in Tripoli itself. I have to say, if this actually does happen, this will be fantastic for Libya.

As I’ve said before, Libya is a wonderful place. There is so much untapped history here including of course the faucet museum, not just in Tripoli, but around the whole of Libya. The sea front of Tripoli, at night certainly, has echoes of the French Riviera, or Capri or even Marseilles, assuming of course that Marseilles were not land locked.

Will all of this actually happen ? I don’t know. But there are quotes from various Libyan Government sources quoting the deal, as well as from with UAE, so the right noises are all being made, all it needs now is the first shovel in the ground. And on a similar topic, there was much made of the visit in the last week or two from an Italian cruise liner, The Costa Concodia, carrying around 3200 Italian tourists for a ‘day trip’ to Libya.

A part of this day trip, they visited Sabratha, Leptis Magna and of course Tripoli itse9lf. This is impressive for a number of reasons. One being the number of Italians on the cruise who knew Italian engineering was that good ?), another being that when they arrived temperatures we around 40F/110C, which is hot in either degree, but also that they covered around 800 Km / 500 miles in the one day and managed to get in a real appreciation of the Italian culture on the move 2000 years ago. See my Photo Albums for pictures of Sabratha and Manga.

So, what of the lifting of the embargo of American goods into Libya? Well, the reality is, in the short term, there is no difference. And that is primarily because the impact of the embargo, on day to day lives, was minimal. The Libyan DVD market is unchanged, the Chinese and Asian clones of western / Japanese goods remains unchanged.

GMC pickups have always been a favourite here and now that Deawoo have gone bust and have been folded into the General Motors family, there are more US cars here than ever before. Of course, the results of a recent American survey that Toyota cars were the most reliable in north America will not have gone unnoticed here, there are still more Toyota Camry’s in Tripoli than falafel in a Lebonesse restaurant.