Humour
The
Big Sneeze
May 2008 – Hay-fever season is coming early
this year. It's time for sufferers to ready for battle - but finding effective
relief is no sneezing matter. Read on
Extinguishing
old flames
May 2008 – Like someone who hitches up with a
despised old flame after years apart, I'm kicking myself for having taken up
smoking again. Read on
Ad
lib
March 2008 – Want to fulfil your dreams and be
happy? Why not ad liberate yourself today? Now available in convenient 30-second doses. Beware of side
effects. Read on
Sheikh
with laughter
December 2007 – With Osama bin Laden unlikely
to branch out into comedy, it’s important to give westerners a taste of Muslim
humour. Read
on
Inside an American harem
November 2007 – Forget the ‘mystical’ East. In
the 21st century, the harem meets the American dream. Read on
Femme caramel
October 2007 – A film set in a
X Pat meets Spock’s parents
January 2007 – X Pat is invited to a Star Trek
convention but winds up in a maternity ward where he midhusbands
an infant half Vulcan. Read on
X Pat: Do not release until Xmas
December 2006
– It’s nearly Xmas and X Pat finds himself in the most delicious quandary of
his life. Read on
Virgin vote at the ballot box
October 2006 – Khaled
Diab gives up his electoral chastity and gets a taste
of political participation. Read on
X Pat and the chocolate factory
September 2006
– X Pat, the xpat xtraordinaire
and xample world citizen, in his quest to come to
terms with his first name winds up behind a deranged genius’s chocolate bars. Read on
X Pat: Quantum leaps, beer
and knitting
August
2006 – X
Pat, the xpat xtraordinaire
and xample world citizen, invites Diabolic Digest
readers to join him on an absurdist tour of the Belgian sociosphere.
Read on
The beautiful game as a political football
July 2006 – Kofi Annan would like the UN to become more like the FIFA World
Cup. While there is something to be said for the beautiful game’s potential for
uniting people and resolving conflicts bloodlessly, it might be premature to
scrap the UN and replace it with a football
From nature to naturalisation
July 2005 –
This month,
Not
a love letter to the Egyptian president
January 2005
– Faced with the grim prospects of prolonged political virginity, Khaled Diab decides to make
President Mohamed Hosni Mubarak
an indecent proposal. Read on
Remembering
the Sultan of Style
December 2004
– Ziryab is a name you’re unlikely to have come
across. One sensible reason for this is that the guy died over a millennium
ago. But his single-handed moulding of modern tastes should earn him a place in
fashion’s Hall of Fame. Read on
More
Beyoncé for our bucks
October 2004 – Some may regard Beyoncé as a child of destiny, but does she deserve $3 million for a day spent reclining on a sofa? Sex certainly sells, but Khaled Diab thinks the price is getting too high – the time has come to put in place a maximum wage, he argues. Read on
An
air of terror
November 2003 – The suggestion that I could
strike fear into anyone’s heart would reduce people I know to quivering heaps
of uncontrollable laughter. It’s not that – as a regular gym-goer – I’m especially
weedy, but even our cat, who has been known to hide in the washing machine to
avoid guests, does not find me intimidating enough to get out of my bleary-eyed
path on the staircase in the morning. Read on
The
threat of depleted geraniums
June 2003 – American and
British forces have so far failed to find any WMD in Iraq, but Khaled Diab has stumbled across a
nightmare cache of biological weapons right on his Brussels' doorstep. The
intrepid journalist risks life and limb to report on how stopping to smell the
flowers can be a dangerous affair. Read on
A
church wedding
November 2002 – Marriage is truly in the air.
With
High
noon at the last chance saloon
October 2002 – It’s high noon. The sun is beating down mercilessly on the tin roofs of a generic one-horse town. Inside the smouldering saloon, Dubya the Kid slots the last silver bullet into his patent revolver. Read on
Walking
like an Egyptian
May 2002 – The Bangles, a long forgotten 1980s
girl band, will always be remembered by an Egyptian teenager who suffered
untold playground trauma provoked by their unfounded hit theory on how to
identify his fellow countrymen through a peculiar national trait. Read on
The kelabgi
March 2000 – We Egyptians regard meat with a
certain intimacy and affection. No dinner table is quite complete without it.
We even have a word for a meal that’s missing that essential ingredient: “Urdihey,” many a husband has complained. Read on
Trouble
in the Balkans
January 2000 – Indirect flights can be cheaper,
but they can also be gruelling. Khaled Diab came from
A severe case of amnesia
I am in my dark office. It is nearing the end
of my day. Another long, fruitless day spent waiting for that elusive creature
– a case. It has been several months since my last one and that was a simple
case of abandonment by a son of a bitch – literally. I was commissioned by this
lady to find the dog who walked out on her. Read on
Ambush
Somewhere
in the sprawling metropolis the mob lies in wait. Ready for
the ambush. Concealed in the consuming crowds.
Unbeknown to the naked eye, but we know they are there – a brooding swarm
itching to pounce. Read on
ã2005 K. Diab. Unless otherwise stated, all the content on this website is the
copyright of Khaled Diab.