Talk like an Egyptian

Few of us understand what is going on at the dusty end of the Med. There may be a few chinstrokers who cup, in their wizened palms, a concise comprehension of the Cairo crisis — see pages 14 to 18 — but the rest of us struggle for something to say.

Vivid reporting has been sparse. The Today programme produced an English-speaking dentist in Cairo but he let the side down by saying, before Thought for the Day, how ‘pissed off’ the protesters were. Use some of your mouthwash, mister! The Times resorted to a photograph of Omar Sharif. On Monday Penelope Keith was wheeled out on Radio 4 to describe how the protestors were sitting in deck chairs, holding earnest discussions about mathematical problems. We were then told it wasn’t Penelope, after all, but some Egyptian intellectual. A member of the Cairo branch of the Old Roedeanians, by the sound of her.