Gamal Mubarak

answered critics of our government and seemed to take a swipe at certain members of the media community in a press conference yesterday, according to the official MENA news agency.

Speaking for the Office of the President Gamal Mubarak today denounced the scurrilous hate-mongering slanders of US-based “human rights” group Amnesty International and vigorously defended himself against certain insinuations in biased western media outlets.

"We have quite enough Egyptian nationals to torture," declared the dashing scion of Dear Leader, "without taking in khawagat as well. This report is a shameful attack and we call upon the American government to deal with those who published it in an appropriate manner."

“And I have never, and will never, sodomize any Egyptian” continued the soon to be wed Mubarak, “with or without a nightstick. And if I did, I wouldn’t need Dick Cheney’s permission.” MENA

You dumb Czech twat,

Howard K. "Sturn"? Ooooh, that's going to work out great. Noooobody's going to figure that out. William F. Cuntstler at your service.

You know who I ran into the other night when I was picking up a loaf of bread? Yeah, that's right Crowner. You know who I mean because you know where I buy my bread. Anyway, he's pretty pissed about the "brain dead puppy" schtick and said "if I ever see lettuce-dick in my restaurant again, I'm going kick his ass from here to Imababa."

Burn the darkies

is Tony Blair's take on the best way to put the "e" back into Grate Britain.

Blair, whose cell in Scheveningse was being prepped for his mid-summer arrival as we went to press this week, told a group of worried white people that "We need to stop thinking of this [Great White Britain] as a society that has gone wrong—it has n0t—instead, we need to blame specific groups [nignogs, jigaboos, jungle bunnies, fuzzy-wuzzies and last but not least those hard core, nappy-headed hos of Rutgers] that for specific reasons [DNA] have gone outside of the proper lines … and need by specific measures [attack dogs set on their grandmas, their brothers necklaced, and a lynching or two] to be brought back into the cotton field."

Number Ten has not responded to a report out of Tehran University that a new study has found white middle aged men to be “more than averagely prone to disregard for international law” and “more than nine hundred times more likely [than a brown or olive-toned person of similar weight and age] to order the invasion of another country.”

Meanwhile, Nation of Pearls is under imminent legal threat by Howard K. Sturn. The story, originally broken by Nation of Pearls back in February (you read it here first!), is that Sturn killed fuck-cushion ex-girlfriend Anna Maria “town bicycle” Smith (seen above shortly before she was killed) and her cleft-palated spawn “Danny” under contract for the surviving members of squillionaire sugar daddy Marshal McClued-out XXV. Now Sturn, attempting to avoid the kind of civil suit liability that has hampered the lifestyles other well-known killers, has hired lawyer Lin Wood to sue media outlets, like Nation of Pearls, who dare to print the truth. Sturn inherits Wood from two other well-known kiddy-wackers, Patsy and John Ramsay, but he has a funny girly name and we’re not afraid of him.

Holy fuck!

What's this? An Islamic Dr. Ruth? So says the Daily Gleaner! Better known for white-washing news that wasn't bland enough to begin with, Egypt’s frumpiest newspaper has tossed off something good for once.

Seems "Happy" Heba Kotb (seen here without here without her veil using a prop at recent appearance), still babe-alicious at nearly 40, runs a TV show called "Big Ones" to bring the good news to boys and girls that blowjobs and masturbation, even the banned-by-Azhar reverse mohagababe position, are not specifically prohibited by scripture after all. And even more startling, apparently even women can derive pleasure from sex.

High five Heba!

No mention in the story that 98 percent of Egyptian women have had their clitoris surgically removed, or that blowjobs are available from the guards outside most embassies and banks anyway, but maybe that’s on the DVD.

Meanwhile, all-round good guy George Clooney is at it again. His latest artistic endeavor is based on the Roald Dalh classic The Fantastic Mr. Fox. The plot revolves around the efforts of fourteen fantastically clever vulpus criminalisee to steal chickens from the retarded son of a Texan oil baron. While bombshell Kate Blanchett is lined up to play a chicken, Susan Pelosi is rumoured to have a walk-on as the farmer’s rebellious daughter and Barak Obama plays a crafty guy in overalls named Zapus Princeps. Lion’s Gate is said to have lined up Middle Eastern distribution rights through its palatial Damascus office.

No point asking

how yesterday afternoon flushed itself down time’s toilet, let alone where the last two months have gone. The notes I took, the record of my trials and my tribulations, have disappeared. Mascara and toilet paper may not have been a wise choice of media, but they were all I had in that hell hole. So now we have no idea where the Aishas may be, or what the fate of "Al" was. The whereabouts of the Caddy are equally a mystery. My last memory of her was tilted into a ditch somewhere past Benha with half a dozen blood-eyed gallebeyas jumping on the roof howling, beating their chests and attempting to pull the chrome from the grill. But I don't even trust this memory. The wracking pain of forced detox has seared much of what was once written across my synapses into oblivion. I feel a new man in many ways. Able to start afresh. A little healed, a little holier now than I was.

Nige rolled in around 11 and here I was by the window, watching the happy flow of the Nile. The slow roll I should say. You know, I’ve been in this country a few years now, long enough to remember other rulers, sunnier days. Long enough to remember Krakov the one-eyed chimpanzee at the Giza zoo, and how he came to be eaten. Long enough even to remember Naguib in the days when you could talk to him without leaning over and shouting in his ear. Back when he was still shaving and writing his own stuff. Long enough to have watched a few miles of water flow under that bridge, and a few dumb asses jump off it too. You know what I mean. What could I say? Nige was all about facts and responsibility and waving a scrap of a summons in front of me (what kind of charge is "transporting chickens across a state line" anyway?).

Like the man said, Nige: "In the early morning rain, with a dollar in my hand, with an aching in my heart and my old pockets full of sand…"

So we tucked into a bottle of Aida he happened to have there under his arm and I gave our partners at 19330 a call and soon enough the office was humming to the old tunes.

The morning rain don't pour, and the sun always shines here in Cairo.

Don’t expect any apologies

for the missing issues. Frankly, fuck you to everyone who has written in asking about them. We’ve been busy. The server’s been down. There was a death in the family. We were on holiday. None of your damn business.

Mind you, what have you missed? About all I see this morning is a Toronto Star piece by some wet behind the ears Canuck that our uppity little Europhile who’s been neglecting the Press Review these last few issues should have snapped up and regurgitated as so much bile and belly button lint.

Our colonial friend points out that policemen in Egypt are paid so little that they are forced to panhandle from passing tourists, and apparently that’s why they end up fiddling with prisoners, shoving stuff up their butts and generally behaving in a way that would offend their mothers. (Well, maybe not Jimmy’s mom, but certainly my mother!) Now, maybe back in Toronto (where the hell is that anyway? Some Arctic dominion?) the business of sodomizing men who don’t like being sodomized is left to grubby underfed men in dirty uniforms, but not in Cairo. No way, eh? Here in the Turd World, the division of labor cuts the other way. Here, the job of sticking broom sticks up guys’ asses is for the smooth faced, well-fed boys in suits. Why escapes us. It’s just one of those little cultural differences that MP Fiki refers to in the final quote of the piece.

Anyway. Whatever. Canadians taking on the Egyptians is kind of like midget mud-wrestling, you just want to get in there with a cudgel and smite the pair of them a mighty smiting. Smite smite smite. Smile. I’m going to try to sleep this off.

A brain dead puppy

won big in the media this week, as floppy eared mutt "Lazarus" lapped up the NYT's attention at some big hoopy-doo dog show. Seems this adorable little kelb spent a quarter of an hour with no oxygen going to it’s little doggy brain.

But after receiving more medical attention than your average Iraqi village saw in all of 2006, up jumped doggy and all was well. Breathless hacks report that Lazarus rolled on his back to have his tummy patted!

Come on. Have a heart. It’s touching. Especially when you consider the sort of nasty dispositions that pampered spaniels can have.

So anyway, on to something completely unrelated: serial brawler Omar "Rocky XIX" Sharif has been sentenced for punching out a Beverly Hills parking attendant in 2005.

“Stupid Mexican” was the sound bite when Juan didn’t bring the Porsche quick enough.

The attack follows on a 2003 fracas in Paris in which the actor-turned-restauranteur head-butted a cop outside a casino and another the next year in India in which he beat down a fellow actor with a table lamp.

Rumors of an 11-city show tour with Mike Tyson have yet to be confirmed, but meanwhile Sharif—who was not ordered muzzled by the judge—will be attending “anger management counseling.”

Maybe an oxygen tube would have been more a propos.

…my only comfort

is knowing that these dispatches are being read by the world. That the world knows of my plight, and that my colleagues are extending themselves to their utmost to find me and release me from this hell hole.

“Al”—as the pudgy guy in the next cell but one continues to insist I call him (as in “I was once the next president of this country” I guess—is ailing. Coughing through the night and complaining that he’s going to die if they don’t let him out. When they move him we’re locked in our cells and he passes by, trussed and muzzled. Hannibal the Cannibal...

Hugh—wherever you're holed up with that pair of babes—it's not working. We rolled in from that little beach blanket go-gofest that we've always said we should give the interns (see what you're missing you bastard?) to find this scrap of sodden toilet paper tacked on the office door.

Give it up.

Our peace and progress

had a close call yesterday when a virtual revolution took place at Al Alzar Mosque, according to the Egyptian government news service, MENA:

Upwards of a dozen black jumpsuit clad fundies with long beards and crazy bloodshot eyes were shouting nasty things about the modernizing regime of Dear Leader Mubarak, when a few hundred valiant boys from the undercover Shebab Brigades stepped up to take charge. Despite the interference of the leering Jew leeches of the troublemaking Zionist foreign press, our boys used sticks to subdue the Muslim Threat in accordance with all legal standards. Peace was restored under the patronage of Dear Leader (PBOH).

We join the workers of Egypt and the Arab world in congratulating Dear Leader for guiding us on the path of reform. MENA

A mallet wielding astronaut

was arrested in Orlando last Monday. Dressed up in a wig and plastic underwear, and armed with a knife and pellet gun, Lisa Marie Nowak, who apparently went into space last year and didn’t completely come back, was there to do some repair work on her relationship with fellow space cadet Bill Oefelein; to whit, wacking his girlfriend.

While a Nation of Pearls investigation has revealed that Nowak’s mission (code named STS-121) was delayed repeatedly, our space correspondent was unable to confirm that it was because Nowak’s rubber duck got stuck under the brake pedal.

Meanwhile, gold-digging Playboy bunny Anna Maria Smith showed up dead, probably murdered by the offspring of erstwhile sugar-daddy Howard Marshall IX over the squillionare’s squillion dollar estate. Smith, who’s own spawn, “Danny,” up and died a while back, may have been receiving death threats since rumors began to circulate last month about an upcoming tell-all appearance in the pages of the soon to be launched print edition of Nation of Pearls.

At press time, Tony Blair, husband of Playboy bunny wannabe Cherie (shown above at a recent gala event), was unavailable for comment on the paternity of Smith’s newest child. Read into that what you may.

Back door art

is the title of Culture Minister Farouk Hosni’s current exhibition at the Institute for Sycophantic Art.

As usual, Hosni’s art is spectacular. Touchingly ironic, it shows the naked power of wasta as nothing else really can. Raw acrylics are smeared across the canvas in sweeping, arrogant strokes that dare the viewer to deny this man’s right to hang anything, anywhere, anytime. Including you.

“If my daughter stuck that on the fridge,” observed a critic who works for the international press, “I’d burn it and take her for a psychological assessment.” Or maybe it was the other way around.

Security at the show is tight, with paintings hung high to avoid urine splashes.

The minister, who is also a women’s fashion consultant, was unavailable for comment. But then again, his painting speaks for itself.

An underprecedented surge in readership

and a staff crisis, are driving us to take extreme measures. Nation of Pearls is expanding its contributor base.

A word of warning. Nation of Pearls is not a forum for sticking it to your favorite politician or professional rival under the cloak of anonymity. Nor is it a platform for trumpeting weird political theories and ideas that you can’t tell your friends about. Just because you can make up a name and sign up for a email account is no excuse to get fucked up and post shit that you wouldn’t spout in the real world.

Really.

Nation of Pearls is a serious publication dedicated to journalism of the highest standards.

If you think you can meet our standards, email our editorial board.

Fitna Ninjas

It's been a while since I saw something quite this impressive. Takes me back a piece, it really does. Must have been The Bogside, c.1974, when I awoke with a pounding headache on the backseat of some slag's Austin Minor, aroused by the sound of clattering feet and the whiff of burning rubber. We found this on the cover of The Middle East.













Minds me of an excellent documentary I co-produced a few years back.

Hang 'em high

says Fox News, breaking the news that Barak Obama is a servant of the devil. Oh yeah! Seems Mr. Mixed Heritage forgot to mention his past in a terrorist training camp in Indonesia.

Coming hard on the heels of revelations that the guy’s middle name is “Hussein” this could be the final wind of the towel around this foreigner-loving bastard’s head.

Meanwhile “Look Out! Here come the nuclear-tipped Arabs!” says Scratch McClunky (seen here in a recent file photo) over at Timely Inc. Apparently the Bush regime has been “intensely focused on making the Greater Middle East a better place.” Apparently the Isrealies acquired their nukes “out of a sense of insecurity.” And apparently Rosie looks good in a little pink nightie.

Dirka Dirka Mohamed Jihad, and goodnight from Prague, where the beer tastes like wine and boiling oil is poured on invaders from the east.

Fuck you Pat

What the hell was that shit? This is supposed to be a respectable journal. You were brought on for your “steady hand at the tiller of a news department.” You remember that phrase from the interview, you drunken sot? You said you’ld quit drinking. “Learned your lessons” was the phrase we heard. You’re turning this whole project into joke with your obscene rambling.

And fuck you Hugh too, you lying bastard. Toilet paper and mascara? Where have we heard that one before? Where have you holed up this time you plagarizing bag of feces? The Four Seasons again? Blowing next year's hospitality budget on Manhattans, cocaine facials and handjobs, probably. You selfish bastard. Prison Diaries my ass.

Sandy’s the only professional in this organization.

I quit.

I woke up bruised

in this cell, the morning sun pouring in through the bars on the window, burning my retinas. I have no recollection of how I got here. The raw cement stinks of must and there is a bucket in the corner for a toilet. Fortunately I have made friends with the old man who empties it. He was the one who brought me the toilet paper and mascara pen that I’m using to write this. He has promised that he can smuggle out my writing and get it to HQ somehow.

If he does that, I can only pray that my colleagues, my friends, my brothers, with whom I have shared so much over the years will find out through their networks where I am being held and bust me out of this hole before I am eaten by the cockroaches or driven mad by the screaming.

Why can’t they turn that TV down?

Until that happens, these will be my prison diaries and when we—my brothers, my fellow-travelers—are safely established in our sea-fortress we shall learn my words by heart. And they shall shine like a lighthouse for all who come to dwell with us.

Stand by.

Total Confustication

PC Joyce got out of bed on the wrong side this morning. Considering his bed is a-next the wall, it was a considerable discombobulation for him. His post may be be somewhat confustulating.

NoP points with pleasure to The Patrician Today's analysis of The Agronomist's analysis of the state of freedom in the country. In a ho-hum piece, the worthy British journal says that Egyptians are, rather like one of those lovely Rubensesque ladies in a whalebone corset, feeling the pinch—and in more ways than one.

By virtue of Egyptian media reporting on Foreign media which has in turn being reporting on Egyptian media (satellite TV, etc), we half expected the world to explode with a resounding pop half-way through this piece. Such are the existential perils of globalisation, my chums.

In the latest item in our popular ""Blindingly Obvious" series", NoP brings your attention today to another snappy little number in The Patrician Today.

"CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS MERE WINDOW-DRESSING, SHRIEKS ROCKET-SCIENTIST"

Megabrain-At-Law Doktor Mohammed Nour Hardhat has said that the constitutional ammendments that General Toad and his stooges are currently ramming down the well-worn throat of the Egyptian state aren't worth a flying fuck and that if only he was younger he'd give that saucy little wench from layout a good seeing-to.

Or did he?

Europe's engulfed

in the nastiest weather in decades. Hurricane force winds have been smashing up the shrubbery, tossing children about and fucking up the cheese. The top got ripped off Berlin’s central train station, and the Dutch have been ordered off their bicycles.

It’s the end of the world, and of course the Swiss don’t give a shit. They were out there windsurfing while the rest of us were having tree branches shoved into our bottoms. Honest to God, it was like waking up in an Egyptian police station.

Anyway, you don’t have to look too far to see who’s to blame. While the rest of the world was scratching its navel trying to understand why the Iraqies can’t hang a guy without ripping his head off, or what Kim’s really going to do with those giant bunnies, the Chinese went and shot down a weather satellite.

Could it be any clearer?

Nation of Pearls is proud

to announce that it has been picked as the official media sponsor of the HONK campaign. We received their press release last week:

HONK is Raid-based pubic awareness NGO and campaigning for public awareness of pollution and noise pollution issues in the Muddle Eats. Our slogan “HONK for a cleaner and brighter future” encourage moronists in the region to HONK their hones to show their awareness. We are sure we are meating with grate successes from the response that we have been hearing. Thank you for considering causes.

Stay tuned for associated contests and giveaways in the near—cleaner and brighter—future!

All in the family

We at NoP get all crackly and grinful when we look through the Diplomatic Pages of the sordid newsheets, and find that the Turd World has thrown up another confederation of dunces for our amusement.

This morning, The Gonorrhoea Daily has at last confirmed what we've been overhearing in the gents at the Nadi Diplomati: that horny old goat Nursultan Nazarbeyev, President Eternal of the Glorious Republic of Kazakhstan, will be in town in March.

Now, I hate the red carpet faffing that takes place when the red carpet gets rolled out for some visiting tin pot bone-breaker (except when the Yanks are doing them – then there's plenty of skirt to [THIS HAS BEEN CENSORED - ed.] over). Apart from sitting sideways in a monstrous gold Louis Farouq furniture, smiling like a hyenas and blethering on about bilateral ties, we hear that the old toads will be comparing notes on how to run the family business.

We know here, of course, that Jimmy the Kid is the shoo-in for the Cairo hot-seat, but pay attention to the fact that Nazarbeyev's charming female offspring Dariga is also lining up to be the next CEO of Daddy's business. And Dariga may actually have the balls to do it. Unlike our home Nivea poster boy, she's actually been known to criticize the paterfamilias.

She's also appeared on Kazakhstani Pop Idol, and seems to be quite smart and formidable. We certainly wouldn't want to meet her in an alleyway on a dark night. Jimmy, on the other hand, has not to my knowledge appeared on anything but daddy's Gulfstream.

But it won't be long, dear readers, it won't be long.