Casualties of War

I feel sorry for this kid, sentenced to jail for life, as I feel sorry for his victim. And no, not making a moral equivalence between an invading force and a civilian victim of that force – I just feel pain for both of the men in this story, and for both of their families. It should be Putin up there on trial. And you know that this young man’s mother has no clue what is happening to him – she likely only gets to hear a highly-edited version of events. A tragedy all around.

File Under “Cool”

A civilization at least 11,000 years old.

The modern story of Gobekli Tepe begins in 1994, when a Kurdish shepherd followed his flock over the lonely, infertile hillsides, passing a single mulberry tree, which the locals regarded as ‘sacred’. The bells hanging on his sheep tinkled in the stillness. Then he spotted something. Crouching down, he brushed away the dust, and exposed a large, oblong stone. The man looked left and right: there were similar stone outcrops, peeping from the sands.

Calling his dog to heel, the shepherd informed someone of his finds when he got back to the village. Maybe the stones were important. He was not wrong. The solitary Kurdish man, on that summer’s day in 1994, had made an irreversibly profound discovery – which would eventually lead to the penis pillars of Karahan Tepe, and an archaeological anomaly which challenges, time and again, everything we know of human prehistory.

And no, “penis pillars” is not a typo. But overlook all the jokes you can make – men’s obsessions were ever thus – and read the story. Readers of my site know I used to live in Turkey. I have not been back since my time there, but have often thought how great it would be to visit Istanbul again, now that I am no longer the messy, messed-up young woman I was and have grown into a messy, middle-aged woman. If I am so lucky as to return, I will add Gobekli Tepe to my itinerary.

VE Day

It is VE Day and, as such, I would be remiss in not promoting my book here. My mother features prominently in the book, so I guess it is fitting to promote it this Mother’s Day, too. (She would be all in favour of trying to push sales, but I must admit, I find it rather cringe, as the kids say.) I would also like to share this song, so get out your Kleenex. I can’t listen to it without thinking of mum – both my parents, actually.

Late to the Party

Since I am always late to the party, I finally decided to open a Substack. Not sure how often I will publish there. For now, I transferred all the essays, etc., I had on Medium and transferred them over. Therefore, if you want to read something from my Medium account that I’ve linked to in a previous post here (such as my essay for Holocaust Remembrance Day or my robin story) you will have to see them on my Substack, as I have closed down my Medium page(s).