There is something in the water here which affects women’s potency.  Because the water is so soft and gentle, it makes loads of bubbles when mixed with soaps and this means women are unable to drive cars and can’t do jobs like taxi driver or tourist guide.   The salts in the aquafer are also highly olieagenous which makes the body and the skin elastic and sensitive.  Obviously, no government wants half tehir population to be disadvanatged in any way, so they have direted the greatest scientists to solve the challenge.  The universities have studied the water under the most powerful modern microscopes and analysed it in test tubes,and tested it for foreign bodies, but, thus far , it remains a “mystery bug”.

These unknown contaminants  in the water make women weak and indecisive when faced with lost tourists or vehicle breakdowns.  And due to this environmental factor, humans of the female type are no good at learning foreign languages, or memorising information about tourist attractions and historical sites and unsuitable for problem solving.  Through no fault of their own, the poor dear things are simply ineffective at reading maps to find their way to hotels or airports; they have very limited emotional intelligence to spot or understand any angry tourists and their interpersonal skills and professional networking skills just aren’t up to the necessary level for jobs facing tourists.  For these reasons we don’t see women tourist guides or taxi drivers, or coach drivers.

There is oil in the desert of Saudi, in North Kurdistan, & South Iraq, in Syria, in Iran, in the Libyan desert, in the Algerian desert, in the UAE Gulf states – Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain and Qatar & Abu Dhabi, , in Sudan, in the North Africa desert of Tunisia, but strangely no one knows of any oil in the centre of all these territories – in little old Jordan.  Despite it having  sand and rock and geological formations and being on the Rift Valley and earthquakes etc etc just all its neighbours  Some people suspect a giant conspiracy related to hegemonic power control  of this region, by certain global powers .  Stranger than fiction.

Surprisingly, it has been snowing quite heavily here in many parts of the country and in the El Hasar desert in particular for a while, and so Christiane borrowed equipment and went snowboarding today in the “poudreuse” , to try out the local conditions campared to Chamonix , while Rose and I tried more restrained and dignified sledging down some of  the steeper slopes with borrowed toboggans  – the picture shows the slope after we went past.

I was so pleased to find that I have lost none of my prowess and the après-ski was really awesome.

We were visiting a 5 star luxury establishment, known as Kerak this morning (with bedrooms for 1000, vast dining rooms & kitchens  and stables for 500 horses), when we became caught up in a very nasty battle between two rival  factions  and we had no part in it whatsoever.  A gang of fundamentalist evangelical Christians were up against a locally led liberation insurgency headed by someone called something like Aladdin.

The evangelists  claimed they were on a mission from God, to share the ultimate truth and modern technology with feckless Arabs, and  initially they had the upper hand and all the weapons.  But the insurgents had more popular and local support and, in the end, they carried the day.  We made a quick getaway via secret tunnel we discovered under the ancient castle walls, leading to caves in the village and made off with some steeds we stole from the stables.  It was very exciting but I became a bit breathless because they don’t maintain the disabled access ramps very well and the lifts are almost always ‘out-of-service’ or not working and waiting for a repair man.

Got a few quick pics of the caves where we came out.  I think it was Lot’s cave, but Lot was out at that time, I think he was looking for his wife, but I could wrong about all this.  Anyway we “done a runner” down the King’s Highway (see pics) which was the very same route Moses used, coming the other way.

The Edomites must have built the highway if it was there when Moses came through, and a very impressive wonder of civil engineering it is, through a glorious and majestic  landscape.  We didn’t see Moses going in either direction, but it was lunchtime, so he may have been eating.

Snippets and fag-ends and mix-ups:  could any readers help make sense of these incomplete bits and pieces which were mis-heard or mis-interpreted or mis-quoted today.  We would really like to get some of these issues straightened out:

“Now we hear that God told the soldiers to burn Abraham.  And they started a fire and couldn’t put him on it.  Then they tried to strap him to a board and catapult him but finally he was in the fire and Gabriel called to ask if he would like some angels but he said no thanks and afterwards he said he thought the fire and the cold were both things to be borne.

O the Sunni hate the Shia, and the Muslims hate the Zionists, and the Nabateans hate the Edomites, and the Hellenes hate the Romans, and the Ottomans hate the Mamluks and they all hate the gays, and mostly they hate the Brits ( but don’t like to admit it.

At Um Queis, there   is a grave stone called Gaddara which quotes thus to the passer-by: “ That which you are, I was.  That which I am, you will be.”   And at that time the desert was known as Hechboul. ”

Moses had two wives at the time – Helga and Heika and Noah had seventy wives.