Sherwood’s pedicure & other harrowing tales from the Tweet Life of a Guardian Blogger in Gaza

A guest post by AKUS

After a long day blogging in Gaza for the Guardian’s Gaza Live Blog what’s a girl to do to relax in the world’s largest open air prison?

Well, Harriet Sherwood found a way to reduce the strain of reporting on students studying, factories working, fishermen selling fish, kids relaxing at the seaside:

On her way back, perhaps from the luxury hotel she reported about last year:

She was upset to see that Israel does not simply allow people to walk in from Gaza (perhaps as she waltzed past with her UK Passport and press pass?)

(Note to Harriet: Can you meet me at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport next week and rush me through the Zionist checkpoint that will no doubt keep me and my wife, despite our Israeli citizenship, in line for at least a half-hour before we squeeze past the immigration check?)

Harriet forgot the first rule for the foreign traveler – never drink the water and brush your teeth, assuming you do, with bottled water even if you stay at the Gaza al-Mashtal:

(Note to Harriett: I spent 18 months working in Mexico and never had a problem with Montezuma’s revenge because I scrupulously obeyed the first rule).

But of course, if the water is bad, it’s not because the stuff that is smuggled in from Egypt is luxury goods, food, cement used to build five-star hotels and malls, or pipes that are converted to Kassams instead of being used to fix the sewage and water systems. It’s all Israel’s fault, as Tricky Dicky Silverman, now reinstated at the Guardian, makes haste to point out (and polish his credentials as a bona fide Israel hater):

Yes, it’s tough being a Guardian Middle East reporter, shuttling between 5 star hotels in Jerusalem and Gaza. But someone has to do it.  Even a tweeting idiot like Sherwood can do it, even if she loses the plot now and then and points out that things are not as bad on the ground (Pedicures! Royal suites in 5 star hotels! Beaches! Luxury restaurants!  Traffic jams! Fresh fruit and vegetables!) as they appear from London. 

But it does make me want to resurrect Evelyn Waugh. He would undoubtedly update “Scoop” to satirize the Guardian and its ace reporter in the Middle East if he were alive to see them today.

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