Two Ayatollahs in a coffee cup

I know this seems a little crazy, but it is true. Here I am having an expresso, and I try a little Iranian fortune telling. In Iran something that a lot of people do, is to turn a cup of thick Turkish coffee over, either after making a wish, or just leaving it to the cup. I just said a Zoroastrian Ashem Vohu and turned it, after placing the saucer on top of the cup, that I had just finished drinking. As you know thick Turkish coffee leaves some residue behind. So when you turn it around, you will have the coffee trickle down the sides of the cup. I waited for about five minutes, and the turned it over to have a look. To be quite honest, most of the time I cannot really see a lot. But this time it was weird. You know as you turn the cup over for the second time, the coffee that had just poured toward the rim, now tries to trick down to the bottom. And I was thinking really quickly,'heck there are now new brown threads, that are ruining the tapestry of art, that has taken five minutes to crystalize'. But I had to trust it. So I placed the cup in the saucer, and waited a couple of minutes. Then I looked around the saucer for little drawings, outlines, whatever. And then I saw it. And the coincidence was excellent. As was just reading the story about the results of the vote in Iran. The conclusion was that there is a split in the ranks of the religious rulers in Iran. Anyway my handy, but low quality Vario MDA, that I am using to read, write and post on the net, took this picture. You can see one Ayatollah on the right facing East, and another Ayatollah on the left, looking away from the other Ayatollah. There are other images. The Ayatollah on the right seems to be looking at the Korean Penninsula. There is a clear black dot to mark his eye, and there is clear bigger black dot in what looks like the capital of North Korea. The Ayatollah on the left seems to be just idly sitting, and not looking at anything in particular, and does not have a pronounced well shaped beard; that the one on the left has, that is so reminiscent of Ayatollah Khomeini's posters. Then there are the dots running down the middle, that depict the divide. Maybe this is the split in the global Shiite movement, and the one on the left, are the Labanese Shiites that do not like the ones in Qom. Anyway that was one strong experience that I did not know where to put, so I put it here.

Hercules found when I was born

Crazy as the title of this thread suggests, I just happened to find this interesting article about Hercules. It said they found it in Bahman or the month of Aquarius in 1957. That is a week after I was born (16/01/1957). Strange coincidence. Perhaps. Here is why. I am one of the few people who believe that Alexander the Great was actually Iranian. If you read Eskandarnameh in Shahnameh it clearly states so. How does that link to me? Well we Mostofis come from a town in Iran called Garikan, and my grandad was the famous Senator of Azarbaijan in the time of Reza Shah and wrote the famous diary/history book of Qajar Dynasty of Iran, and he referred to himself as Abdollah Mostofi Garakani. When I asked my dad, who was the founder of the Petrochemical Industry of Iran and also found the world's biggest oil well, (sorry have to put that in out of respect, because it is the first time I am mentioning him here), he told me that we Mostofis were Greek.

Greek! Yes we came along in the time of Alexander the Great and created our own town called Garakan, which means Greek. So wow, how strange is that? Not exactly your bog standard Iranian eh? Maybe that explains how global we Mostofis are. We were administrators, and my great great great (don't really know how many greats ago really) was the Treasurer of the Emperor, and yes Mostofi means Chancellor.

So getting back to Hercules. Look at the photo. He looks very much like us Mostofis. Really I am serious. Ah forget it, you won't listen to me. So what is my take on all this. I just don't think the Greeks went through all this trouble just for the hell of it. I mean it is a real pain in the ass to get up there and bash away at that rock for such a long time. For what reason? The reason is that they wanted to show the ancient links that bind the people of Iran and Greece.

Yes they call me AliGadgeti

I don't smoke or drink (too much) maybe a little whisky now and then. But I tend to waste my money on gadgets. The wife tells me all the time, "oh not another one, I have to dust". And I say, "But, but, but, this one has this feature etc, and it is really cheap". I am cheap. I mean I usually try to get away with itsy bitsy gadgets that are less than £20. Yes, I am a real sucker for that cool grown up toy for less than £20. But I tend to think if I can get a gadget that is a combination of three £20 gadgets less than let's say £40, then that's a bargain.

So what brought all this on, you might ask. Well I love Radio, DAB Radio in particular, and above all to record good quality music freely. Funnily enough I never got too caught up in the download game. Son did. Wow, he is there big time. Not me. I have found this fantastic station called Chill on DAB Radio and it does not have ads, no talk, and non stop.

But until now I have had to sit with the PURE radio connected to a cheap bass and tweater booster that makes the sound like my HIFI and it is always on, and I have to sit behind the PC, as I do anyway, most of the time, to enjoy it. Well now there is this great portable device called Oono MiniDAB DAB/FM Radio with MP3 Player. Check out this link. But it is well over my limits. I would end up in the shed with no dinners if I wasted the family funds on that. But this is the sort of thing that will be the shape of things to come, and will be much cheaper one day. I wish.

For that anonymous Iranian

Many Iranians either cannot write English or cannot use the internet to get their thoughts across. I come across a few in my life. So I created this blog called Articles by an Iranian. You will find the link on the side.

Photo blogging is another story

I tend to get up people's noses with photos. If I am not chatting and giving everyone a headache, I am clicking away with my lousy camera phone. And that's what I do, record everything. And I am a pain in the ass. Ah well ...

Mobile Blogging

Perhaps the greatest thrill and freedom I have at the moment, is being able to just type whateva from this T-Mobile Vario phone, and then send it to the web. Absolutely fantastic. I got loads of cruddy photos with it, that I will connect the site from my flickr.

Going live

I first opened this blog to consolidate all my works, and I thought I would keep it quiet. But now I don't care. With the beautiful conjunction we have today of Mars Moon Sun Jupiter and Venus it absolutely lovely.

I believe in coincidence: here is an example: Brakes

Below is a true story. I call it Brakes.

Today was a funny day. Sohila told me that her car brakes were making a funny sound. So I called the AA and they promyptly came around, and told me that one of them was seriously thin. We took the car to BMW and they said it might take a while to fix it. In the mean time the AA were going to provide a loan car from Avis. So they dropped me off at Avis, and they gave us a brand new Renault Laguna with keyless and push button ignition and hand brake. My first reaction was, oh oh Sohila will get confused. I had to get Sohila to Avis to show her driving license. Everything was great until she got into the car, and just did not like the feel. On our way back she stopped the car and bang another car bashed into her. What a day. So we took the cars to Avis and exchanged insurance details. Our worry now was, whether the BMW was going to be ready in 48 hours whilst we had the loan car. Anyway the next day we were called by BMW, and were told that the car would be ready to pick up. So then we had to worry about how it would be possible to return the Avis car and pick up the BMW. Sohila said that someone had to call Avis to find out whether they could pick the loan car from BMW. I was at work, and refused, and she was outside, and could not call. So I said to her, "you do it" and of course she said to me, "you do it", whilst I was serving customers at work. So we both put the phone down on each other. I then suddenly heard a voice from behind me, saying, "you did tell me you worked at B&Q" and I could not believe my eyes, it was the Avis lady. Suddenly she had turned up in front of me. Wow what a coincidence. So I asked her what to do, and it was all sorted.

Free from desk keyboard

This is the first message not sent from my keyboard on my desk. I finally am free from my keyboard.

Full Circle

I remember the early days of Internet, and web publishing. We all used to use odd names. This was a new toy, and it helped me to get a lot of my phobias off my chest. One of them was my name. Suddenly I could present my ideas wrapped up in another "better" name. I used just about all the good ones as email addresses, then forgot them, or lost them. I did the same with free websites. Now I see that Blogger is having a revamp, and I see that my own surname is the only one I like, because all the good ones are taken.