It is astonishing to think that in the year 2009 a woman can receive 40 lashes from a whip-wielding police officer for any offence. It is even more astounding when you realise her “crime” was to wear a pair of trousers.

This is what may happen to the Sudanese journalist Lubna Hussein who was arrested on July 3rd for wearing trousers, along with 13 other women in a cafe. Instead of submitting to a lesser amount of lashes straight away as some of the others did, she opted to stand trial for her crime. In addition she resigned from her job at the UN which would have afforded her immunity so she could challenge the ruling.

“This is not a case about me wearing pants.This is a case about annulling the article that addresses women’s dress code, under the title of indecent acts. This is my battle. This article is against the constitution and even against Islamic law itself,” she said.

I agree that a lot abuses of human rights are carried out under the auspices of religious law which is not, I imagine, how it was intended. Nowhere in the Koran does it say that women cannot wear trousers. It just says they should dress modestly. Some have interpreted this to mean they should be covered from head to foot.

I am living in a thankfully far more modern Islamic state than the Sudan, but even here the penalty under Sharia law for sex outside marriage is death by stoning. Death by stoning? Surely such a barbaric and base method of punishment has no place in any society, especially one that prides itself on tolerance and kindness, as Islamic society does?

Also today send a prayer, spare a thought, whatever it is you believe in, for Aung San Suu-Kyi, another female victim of a nonsense “crime” who welcomed an (uninvited) stranger into her house and now faces five years in prison. Her sentecing is today. How she manages to remain one of the most elegant, serene and beautiful women in the world is a miracle.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2009

….Leonardo and er, some girl at summer camp. Yes, he is a little sketchy on the details but, he is in love and engaged.

“Why?” I asked him.

“Mummy, you know I’m going to have dark hair when I grow up. She’s got dark curly hair. That’s the thing,” he explained.

“Lovely. What’s her name?”

“She’s called…er, I have no idea.”

He explained that she is one of a family of five children. And furthermore one of triplets. “You got the ones in the middle what’s this size,” he demonstrated to me. “Well she’s one of those.”

He is very sweet, talks about her all the time and calls her his girlfriend (mainly I am guessing because he can’t remember her name). She apparently calls him “cute boy” and loves his hair going to one side. He is very worried that he won’t see her when camp finishes tomorrow, but I have promised to get her number.

I feel bad for Miranda, but she did go to Venezuela for the summer. What’s a boy to do….?
Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2009

It was a scene you seldom see. We got back last night from five heavenly days in Lebanon and I had actually LOST a kilo. When did you last lose weight on holiday (unless it was deepest India)? Exactly. Well I have the answer. You go on holiday with my friend Ghada.

Our holiday was not only lovely, but life-changing. The world according to Ghada is very simple. You eat almost exclusively things that are good for you. And you don’t drink. Also, in the same was as you do on the Viva Mayr Diet, you eat a huge breakfast (masses of fruit, cereals, seeds, tomatoes, even heavenly Lebanese bread things stuffed with cheese) a big lunch and you don’t even have dinner. You have a snack around 6pm.

It is the most amazing system. You sleep better, you feel better and you lose weight.

Ghada also uses only natural products on her skin. And when I say natural, I mean things we would normally eat. In other words while I was reaching for my Clarins night cream, she was busy putting mango skin on her face. I have to say her skin looks great; she looks great. But I am too attached to my products to give them up. Having said that I had the BEST exfoliation I have ever had on the beach, using nothing but sand. Here we are (Ghada, me and Leo in a row) rubbing our legs with nature’s own exfoliator.

So this evening I am going home and I don’t even have to think about what to cook for dinner. What a relief. And tomorrow I will wake up slim and energised. What’s not to like?
Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2009

I have just read a story on the BBC website that makes me want to throw up. An eight year old Liberian girl in Arizona was lured into a shed, attacked and gang-raped by four Liberian boys aged nine to 14. Her parents have disowned her, saying she has brought shame on the family.

She is in the care of the local authorities who say they have had several offers of help and even adoption. That’s great. But the one person a traumatised eight-year-old girl really needs is her mother. I cannot believe that any mother, whatever her misguided social or religious convictions might be, would be this cruel. I can only assume it is the men in the family forcing her to reject her child.

I can’t stop thinking about the poor girl. What a tragedy. The boys have been arrested and will be punished. I suppose we should be thankful they live in a society where the law is thus. But surely it is time for people like this girl’s family to realise that in a case of rape it is the rapist who should be shunned, and not the victim.

Societies like ours have an obligation to force those who move to our shores to adopt our laws and moral guidelines. Forget being politically correct. Forget about trying not to upset them. This is about what is so obviously wrong against what is right. If they are too ignorant to see it, we have to educate them, for the sake of this little girl and thousands of victims of “honour” crimes across the world.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2009

We are staying with our friend Ghada on top of a mountain. I am writing this on the terrace of her parent’s house looking out over rocks, trees and, in the distance, the sea. Around us the countryside is like the Languedoc, we went for a walk and for the first time in months I felt a terribly longing for Sainte Cecile.

This is such a complicated, beautiful, chaotic, busy, wonderful, tragic place. I am beginning to really love it. I suppose the closest thing I have seen to it is southern Italy. But very different. On our first day we drove through Beirut on the way to the mountains. “The only problem is,” concluded Leo, “is they got bullet holes everywhere.”

It is incredible that a country that is so clearly Mediterranean and so familiar was at war for a large part of my life.

Leo is getting slightly bored without the ferals who, when I spoke to my mother yesterday, were singing arias outside her house dressed in her finest evening dresses. My father maintains they have learnt Dante and Jacques Prevert off by heart. They will come back extremely cultured young ladies. But he has taken a shine to Ghada’s cousin Zena, pictured here.

Meanwhile we are all just enjoying being outside, breathing the fresh Lebanese air….and chatting to pretty Lebanese girls.
Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2009

Six years ago today Rupert was watching the final of the Open and I was giving birth to Leonardo. To be fair, he did manage to tear him away in time to see the little man come out.

My main memory is trying to remain elegant looking until a midwife told me to give up on that and just push as hard as I bloody well could. I also remember asking Rupert if we should really call him Leonardo and not opt for Thomas, his second name. Rupert, who was probably wondering what was happening in the Open, told me to stop fretting.
Today is an historic day in more ways than one. England has just beaten Australia at Lord’s for the first time in 75 years. Leo is unaware of the significance of this, but I hope he is not 81 before it happens again.

However old he is, I know this. He will still be the loveliest boy ever. At least to his mummy.
All in all a wonderful day.

Feral update: The girls are on their way to my mother’s house after a lovely stay with my aunt, uncle and father. Olivia got the autograph of “Mrs Butterfly” as she calls her and Bea managed to get my aunt to buy her a copy of Michael Jackson’s Thriller. So all is well. They sound so very grown up…..
Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2009

The murder of Natalia Estemirova, a human rights activist based in Chechnya, is so brazen and so appalling I can hardly believe it is true.

This is a woman who worked tirelessly to expose human rights abuses, to protect people and help them. Her kidnapping and subsequent murder is cruel beyond belief and almost certainly organised by those she sought to expose; among them the Russian sponsored Chechen president.

She was bundled into a car outside her home where she lives with her 15-year-old daughter. Someone heard her shout “I am being taken”. Next thing she was found dead on the notorious ‘Kidnap Highway’ with bullet wounds in her head and chest.

“I can’t imagine Mum won’t be around any more and that I won’t be making morning coffee for her,” said her daughter Lana who is now an orphan. Estemirova was a widow.

The international community has of course condemned the murder, but until someone actually says or does something concrete the Russians will carry on with impunity. Since 2000, 17 journalists have been killed including Anna Politkovskaya and many others involved in investigations that could harm those in power. Only one case has resulted in a conviction. Funny that.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2009

There are many reasons to have children. They make you laugh, they love you, you love them, they might look after you one day when you’re old and incapacitated and they are generally jolly lovely to have around.

But one reason not to have them is their ability to embarrass you. When my BF Iona was here a few weeks ago we went for lunch at the Shangri-La hotel. At one point I spotted the chef. “He’s cute,” I said to Iona. Unfortunately Olivia overheard me.
“The chef taught us cooking today,” she told me a few days later as I collected her from the Shangri-La summer camp. “I told him you thought he was cute. He wants to meet you.”

Of course I ignored her and thought no more of it. After all I would never see him again.

Or so I thought….this afternoon I show up to interview a kitchen artist (basically someone who makes food look nice) who works at the Shangri-La. And there is the chef. No matter I think, after I get over my initial shock. He doesn’t know who I am after all.

At the end of the interview a friend shows up with Leo.The chef looks at Leo, then at me.

“I know you, don’t I?” he says to Leo. “Is this your mum?” I can almost hear his brain adding things up. Leo nods.

The he looks at me. “And I know your sisters too….”

Busted….I make my excuses and leave.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2009

I have given up drinking. Not in the way I normally give up, for a few hours every New Year, but this will be my ninth alcohol-free evening. It all started when Rupert was told by a personal trainer that he had to stop for a couple of weeks.
“I’ll do it too,” I said, ever the supportive wife.
Nine days later I am, well, hooked. I feel great. I am sleeping better, have lost a kilo and my skin is clearer (less red-faced some might say). It has been a total revelation. I can’t believe I have spent so many years thinking I can’t manage without a drink. Because I can actually manage better.
Having said that I am looking forward to a glass of wine once I get to France. There is a time and a place for everything and the time and the place for a glass of wine is at the hotel by the lake I have been dreaming about for weeks.

Feral update – last night they went to see Madame Butterfly. Olivia loved it, especially the love scene during which she stood up to get a better look. Bea sat through the first act and slept through the rest. They had a great time in Venice and are now in Rimini with estranged aunt and uncle in my grandmother’s old house. I love the idea of them there looking at the view I used to look at when I was just a few years older than them. I am longing to hear what they think of the Italian family.
On Sunday they go to my mother’s so I will get the verdict then but so far the combination of opera and shopping is keeping them occupied. When they’re not asleep that is.
Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2009

As I write the girls are in a Gondola in Venice. My aunt has declared them “very elegant” and says they have a “frenetic timetable”. They are having a lovely time and Olivia can now say ‘che bello mare blu’ which will come in very useful. Or rather more useful than her father’s only phrase in German which is ‘the houses over there are covered with snow’. Especially if you live in Abu Dhabi.

Life in Abu Dhabi without the ‘ferals’ as the girls have been nicknamed by friends in England is extremely quiet. Leonardo always was an easy child. I find as long as you are willing to play cricket, tennis, catch or football with him he is perfectly happy with life. Yesterday I got slightly fed up with immitating Flintoff so recruited his friend Miranda to join us. This is a picture of them going to camp together this morning.

I am so happy the girls are having a nice time. I am less happy that I hear all their news second hand (my aunt no longer speaks to me because of my memoir Ciao Bella). But I am relieved that she has seen their elegant, rather than their feral, side…..

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2009