This is a guest post by Abu Faris
A couple of commenters mentioned that I had written, in passing, that I liked a pint or two of the ice-cold-in-Alex falling-down potion here in Alexandria. “Oooooo,” they ominously hooted, “You won’t be allowed to do that soon. The religious police will get you. Oooooo.”
One commenter, differenced from the common herd by his very individual mental horizons, asserted that I would have to grow a big beard, lock up the wife and have her slaving over a hot pregnancy whilst I was down the mosque. “Ooooo. They will close all the pubs and bars. Ooooooo, it will be like Saudi.”
Well that sobered me up, because it does have a very large degree of truth to it. If the Muslim Brothers do take over in Egypt, it will be final orders at all my favourite drinking holes in this surprisingly regularly and widely sloshed Arab country. As a memorial to these soon to possibly vanish dives, dens, shacks in banana plantations and old-lags-out-for-a-walk-with-the-dog stop-over centres I present the following homage to the drinking holes of Cairo.
Since the dawn of civilisation, the Egyptian people have unsteadily swayed about looking for their keys in the dark, muttering to themselves and waking up the next morning on the kitchen floor with their head in a cupboard. The ancient Egyptians thought so highly of beer that they paid each other in it, gave it to their gods and buried the stuff with the dead should the departed ever get a thirst on.
Ancient Egyptian beer is still made, sort of. The Russian kvas (bread beer) is kind of the idea; but if you know it, think of it with much, much more alcohol. One word for the place this vile crap is sold, distributed or forced down the neck is bouza, which comes from the Arabic for mouth; and gives English the word “Boozer”. A term almost certainly bought back to Blighty by Tommies still having nightmares about the effects of such an evil, ancient potion as that they had foolishly drunk a lot of one night, on leave, in a Heliopolis still full of trams and long ago.
The fact is that this mix of spit, twigs, acid rain, rat shit and bread sits open to the air, malevolently bubbling, like some sort of private toxic waste dump, in its blue polythene recycled industrial barrel for days. This is disturbing, but livable with. That is what happens with cider too. However, reasoning departs as you are approached (as you exit the greengrocers through the back door) by a cackling, clearly cracked Egyptian, replete in filthy olive drab galabiyya with a t-shirt wrapped around his head. He innocently asks you what you want. You are terrified by this shambling loon sprung from the boxes of fruit and veg. This is perhaps not the best time to ask whether he can make cocktails.
You are presented with a plastic beaker full of something that is best described as foul and is definitely not under the scrutiny of Weights and Measures, nor the Department of Health. You drink it; you must. You know you must.
Verdict: It works, it is incredibly cheap. It is unimaginably nasty, a bit like the hard drinking equivalent of eating spiders. Owners of all religions, none and cults they have invented whilst out of their minds with ergot poisoning.
If worshiping Seth the God of the Wilderness and Wildness in back street dives full of mad people is not your tipple, bars are probably a safer bet. Bars come in a number of categories, from disreputable dive to hotel boredom with pretty waitresses and expensive bottles of stuff you can get dirt cheap elsewhere. Guess which ones I prefer.
I am passionately fond of one bar in Cairo, very close to Tahrir Square. If you do not know where it is, you will miss it. It is run by a formidable Greek Egyptian lady. Her daughter is often there too as the matriarch counts takings and flicks fag ash on the floor. It caters for all sorts beneath its non-functioning ceiling fans that may well have last rotated on VE Day. Old Armenians potter in for a quick one or two Egyptian lagers. Retired traders with family in Beirut or Syria.
The Greeks speak in what I later am informed is a Cypriot dialect. The daughter has bought pastries filled with soft, salty cheese and covered in oregano. She shares them amongst the customers. Even me, a stranger popped in, waiting for some documents to be authorised at the nearby Kafka-esque Mugamma, home of state bureaucracy. I am the stranger, so everyone talks to me. Who I am, what I do, where I am from… do I like Cairo? Yes, I will have more beer.
I get into a taxi to go home, entirely forgetting about the documents sitting with the Minstry of Stealth and Disinformation. My taxi driver is called Ali and he likes to play Umm Kulthum CDs very loud. He is passionate about the soulful grandmother of Egyptian music. He reaches over into the glove compartment and pulls out, then puts on an equally very loud and large pair of women’s sunglasses, very much of the order as worn by the great singer herself back in the day. He has reached a state of near mystical union with her voice. He is oblivious to all other traffic. He has his hand permanently pressed on the horn as we accelerate to speeds approaching that of sound. He suddenly snaps out of it. Funny, I thought I was screaming silently. He looks me in the eye, “You like this music? Oh, the sunglasses. These they belong to my sister.” So he likes to wear his sister’s clothes? Ok. I tip him too much. He winks and drives off maniacally, the sound of ’60s Arabic music pelting out the back of his Lada.
It is quite possible to live like Howard Hughes in Egypt. I do not mean you must mate with all the best Egyptian film starlets, run a huge airline or even try and build the world’s biggest aircraft in a shed down on the Nile. No. You can do the whole utterly batshit crazed, introverted to the point of agoraphobia, never go out ever routine. This is because you can get anything delivered to your front door in Cairo, at any time of day or night. You just have to know what number to dial and a bit later someone on a moped will deliver your things. Beer comes this way too. This is all very civilised and good.
Now these things (amongst others) I am afraid the grim-faced, bearded kill-joys of the Muslim Brotherhood think they know better than me about. Do they? Like fuck they do. When was the last time they got hepatitis as a result of drinking ‘araki made from ,scrap iron, socks, dates (allegedly) and clearly polluted Nile water? Never. They don’t drink. They have no idea the sacrifices I have made to keep the culture of drunk alive in Darkest Islamia. Will I get a medal? No. If they have their way they will drag me down the nearest Cop Shop and whip me to a pulp. I know this because this happened to a friend of mine in Khartoum, when he was found by the religious police chatting quite earnestly to himself by the roadside one evening.
I am going to a bar in Alexandria tomorrow. It opened in the 1890s. It is run by Muslims, the same family since the mid-’30s. They bought it from the first owners, Greeks. It sells ouzo and has proper crisps and everything. I want to talk to them about pickled eggs and how they see these delicacies fitting in to their scheme of things. These things give me hope as well as Dutch courage.