A salute to Abu Fares

For some months now, I have had the pleasure of following a most enjoyable and engaging blog, maintained by Abu Fares (abufares said...the world according to a tartoussi)..
Now, isn't the Internet just amazing!?...
I have never met the man, but through reading the posts in his blog, full of delicate, charming and sincere images of himself, his likes and dislikes, and 'the world according to a taroussi', I feel that I have really come to know, and like, Abu Fares... Not more so than after reading his latest offering...
As the title suggests, his latest post 'what I like', lists a number of things Abu Fares likes.. He then promises to list things he doesn't like in a subsequent post.. I eagerly await that...
In a comment in a previous post, Abu Fares mentioned that reading a post on my blog was for him like 'looking in the mirror..'.. Well, his latest post made me realise exactly what he meant!.. There are quite a few similarities between what I like and what Abu Fares likes (thinkers vs. talkers, good food, walking in the rain, good food, sports, good food, reading, good food, Syria, good food, beautiful intelligent women, good food, 'trains, planes and automobiles'... and did I mention good food??..), However, I must point out that there are one or two things on his list that I do not like..
For one, I am a tea-total.. not on religious grounds, I reluctantly admit, but more because of personal convictions, that were later underpinned by professional experiences (you only need to see once the consequences of a drunken rage on some poor helpless victim, or the humiliation and self-destruction that alcoholics degenerate into, to be put off the stuff for life.. even 'in moderation'...)..

While I like most things mechanical, I loathe motorbikes.. with a passion.. Again, that is probably a reflection of my professional experiences.. I guess it is not surprising, since I spend a sizable proportion of my working day trying to mend, often with frustrating futility, victims of motorcycle crashes!..

The next item on the list is more of a 'can't do' rather that a 'don't like'.. and that is cooking!.. I am absolutely useless as a cook.. In fact, only I can eat what I cook!.. I blame it on the fact that I am blessed with a wife who is, without any shadow of a doubt, the best cook in the entire Galaxy.. One of my English colleagues, having tasted my wife's cooking, often introduces me as 'the best-fed man in Lancashire', to which I reply: 'In the Western hemisphere, my friend!..'

Nevertheless, the similarities far outnumber the differences.. M*A*S*H.. the private space (now, a room in my house that I built to use as a gym.. in years gone by, it was my photography darkroom in my parents' house).. and most importantly, the privilege of being part of a phenomenon called 'blogosphere'..

So, my friend Abu Fares, I am honoured and privileged to have met you in cyberspace.. I am delighted to discover that, despite our differences, we have so much in common.. Who knows?.. Perhaps one day we will meet, be it in your beloved Tartous, in my beloved Damascus, or even in this 'Green and Pleasant Land' that I now call 'home'...

(Photo by SB: The Red Arrows, Royal International Air Tattoo 2002, RAF Fairford)