1 week ago
4
Jaw-dropping news footage of the prisoner freed from his freezing windowless cell, deep in the bowels of Bashar al-Assad’s vile prison complex, was the most haunting image to emerge from Syria this week.
Did you see it? It was truly biblical. The man had been abandoned to die in what amounted to a concrete coffin. Searchers only found it by chance, and had to blow the locks off the steel door.
There the wretched man lay, beneath a filthy blanket. He’d been rotting there for months. He had no idea the Assad regime had collapsed, and was initially terrified. Was this yet another brutal interrogation?
No. It was CNN reporter Clarissa Ward and her team. Gently, they persuaded the man to come with them. “God... there is light! There is LIGHT!” he gasped as he was led outside. It was like something out of the famous dungeon scene in the movie Ben Hur, where a prisoner incarcerated for decades in the darkness is at last set free.
But the thought that ran through my mind like a dark river was the contrast between what I was watching, and the style in which Assad and his wife, Asma, had been living until their downfall just a few short days ago. Barely two miles away from this stinking hellhole, they woke each morning in their luxurious palace to the scent of fresh flowers and waiting breakfast.
Asma – once dubbed “a rose in the desert” by a gushing Vogue magazine – would take her pick of designer outfits (the Chanel suit this morning? Maybe that new Dior... decisions, decisions) while her husband might inspect his vast collection of luxury cars. Surely room for one more Lambo?
But behind her chic image, Asma was a crook. She siphoned off millions of charity aid meant for Syria’s suffering people. All donations had to come through her. She smilingly took her cut, while her husband butchered his fellow citizens.
Now the pair are in a gilded cage, probably one of the many luxury Moscow flats they bought with their stolen millions. They surely feel safe there, sheltered by fellow-monster Vladimir Putin. But what if Putin falls too?
The Assads could be extradited back to Damascus, where they would surely be executed. So that foul cell should be kept exactly as it is, ragged blanket and all. It would be the perfect homecoming for one of the most evil couples alive.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I’ve always rather enjoyed my so-called “landmark birthdays” (and, er, I’ve had a few of them now). For my 60th I threw a very jolly family party which I still remember with huge affection.
For my 70th, Richard took me to LA for some late spring sunshine. Not so successful, that one. Unbeknown to us, Los Angeles locals have an expression for their weather at that time of year: “May-grey, June-gloom.” Which is how it turned out. Seven days without a single ray of sunshine. Chilly, too. (And of course, the weather was glorious all the while back home. Hey-ho.)
This week I was fascinated to read that we all have three “ageing peaks” in our brains – at 57, 70 and 78. Scientists have discovered that 13 proteins strongly associated with brain ageing “spike” in those years.
What this means in practical terms is that, forewarned, we can do all sorts of things to limit the ageing effect – take up exercise, start learning a language, find a challenging hobby...
...or throw a great party! So look out 78 (though not for a while yet) – here I come!
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Coleen Rooney may have come second in this year’s I’m A Celebrity… but she was unquestionably Queen of the Jungle.
Her warmth, wit, down-to-earth Scouse common sense and feistiness turned her into the nation’s sweetheart in a few short weeks. Coleen, left, had entered camp very much a two-dimensional figure.
Most people only really knew her from her profile in the tabloids: the “Wagatha Christie” who’d vanquished Rebekah Vardy in court and was Wayne Rooney’s wife. Now we see the whole woman.
And we like her. Expect to see much more of Coleen on TV in the New Year.
English (US) · 