The City of Beirut exploded last week in a stupid, ignorant, neglectful and appalling accident. Where a small fire in the port met 2,750 fucking tonnes of ammonium nitrate. One of the most unstable and explosive compounds around. Lucky they keep it right in the middle of town, makes sense.

So this chemical had been in a warehouse since 2014. It is used either as a fertiliser or as an explosive. As we found out last week. And it gets more and more unstable and volatile with time. Six years being, officially, ‘more than enough time’. Thus did over 200 people die (and sadly still counting) and over 6000 were injured. And half the city was destroyed. Hundreds of thousands homeless. The film of the actual detonation of the warehouse is the scariest image I’ve seen for decades. The force of the blast something rarely seen outside North Korean atomic testing sites. It was awesome.

Thus I’m getting to know Lebanon. More specifically, Beirut. And its people.

What I expected, following the tragedy, was mass insanity, lots of fat old women in black robes, ululating and beating chests, much screaming, more ululating and chaos. The men, toothless and wrinkled, in dirty robes, shouting. Always shouting.

But what actually happened was an obviously distraught and devastated people coming together, bringing brooms and shovels with them, and, despite their obvious collective distress, deservedly slating their useless and corrupt government and taking clearing up matters into their own hands.

The people they speak to on the news are all educated, multi-lingual, cultured, classy and eloquent in English. Even though French is their second language.

Yet what really endeared me to these people, these poor, literally shell-shocked masses, is that they are an exceptionally beautiful race. Or nation. Or state. Whatever the fuck they are, they are so in a very gorgeous way. Ok, I have prejudices, institutionalised or otherwise, and generally bestow more virtues onto people who ‘look like I do’. Which is gorgeous, obvs, and western in attire. It’s called ‘judging books by covers’ and we all do it a hundred times a day. Well, we did in the days when we were allowed out. That’s how we avoid bad people. And how the police decide on which cars to stop. Making instant judgments based on prejudice and ignorance of facts.

There was even a doctor from Beirut who was simply drop-dead gorgeous. A man-doctor. Though don’t like to presume any gender characteristics just because of a beard. But I’ll be careful with his pronouns.

The women though. Oh my. Once they rebuild Beirut, to its former glory as a gorgeous Mediterranean city, I might have to go there just to drool. Yes, I am that shallow and weak.

Happy too-fucking-hot-to-sleep Days

A xxxx