I apologise for not blogging, but I got sick. Just a cold, though I milked it enough to earn half an hour watching the food channel. It wasn’t a Norwegian lesbian sneezing on me. No, I simply gave up coffee and alcohol 112 hours ago (but who’s counting?) and I’ve never felt worse.
What would induce you to do such a rash and foolish thing, I hear you ask. Well, Hanan made it sound so good at the time. It was all about cleansing and getting in shape, and clearing our minds and kidneys and I walked taller for a while, and felt fabulous. Then Leonie Casanova incited us to trek to North London for Caribbean food and a pub in Camden for a concert, and as I walked past the bar, I didn’t care that I had the liver of a 20 year-old, I just wanted a glass of wine. Thank goodness for Nadine Khouri, who was performing upstairs. As soon as she got on stage, my over-clean liver was forgotten in the pleasure of listening to her songs. If you’ve seen ‘I Can’t Think Straight’, Nadine wrote and sang ‘Number One Boy’ and ‘Underground’ in that movie and also sang the breathy vocals on ‘Mirror Mirror’. She’s a cross between a shy folk singer and a super-cool rock star.
I suspect my cold really started the day before when we attended the last day of Shiva, the Jewish prayers for the mother of our friend. It all went fine through the prayers, and started to get dodgy when we all got up to mingle. Someone brought the Orthodox rabbi over to meet Hanan and two other Palestinian friends who were there, somewhat obvious and awkward amongst the yamulkes. The rabbi shook hands warmly, and turned to me.
‘Are you Palestinian too?’ he asked. I shook my head.
‘I’m just married to one,’ I said in the enigmatic way that I tend to reserve for high-level religious leaders.
‘She’s married to me,’ Hanan clarified loudly.
The rabbi, to his credit, rubbed his hands together and proclaimed that things were now getting interesting, but there was no time for him to delve into lesbianism, Palestinian or Israeli, because Hanan interrupted to say that she had one question for him. I prayed it wouldn’t be ‘Who played the lead in ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ and it wasn’t. Instead she asked how he saw the Middle East conflict being solved.
Clearly, he had no concise answer, but spent a good twenty minutes trying to articulate one, during which I beat a hasty retreat home nursing a politically-induced headache. Hanan followed about half an hour later and sat down with a stack of business cards.
‘Who carries business cards at a Shiva?’ I asked her.
‘Apparently, everyone,’ she answered. ‘I have to email the Rabbi and the Israeli Ambassador. They love the TedxHolyLand idea.’
My wife, creating peace and clean organs wherever she goes. In the meantime, I’ve been invited to give a TED talk of my own, the full 18 minutes, at TED Salon a mini-TED event being held here in London in April. And Leonie has been asked to provide the entertainment section. It’s a real honour, and I am more than a little awed by what I have to do. Maybe I’ll get Leonie to speak while I strum ‘Little Feeling’ in the background. With a glass of wine beside me.

Hanan looks for a rabbi at Nadine's concert while Shamim hides behind Russian popstar Leonie (Beyonce) Casanova