Cultural contrast

I needed extra time in bed this morning but didn't get much. Clare was cooking pancakes for breakfast by the time I got up. I finished work on next week's Morning Prayer after breakfast and uploaded the video to YouTube.

Media frenzy about tomorrow's Euro cup final dominates the news. So much so I thought it was tonight. Little coverage of the seventy people killed by another missile strike in Gaza. So many innocent lives destroyed, and still no end to this cruel conflict. The death toll is now said to be 38,000. In the post, a round robin from the 'Friends of the Holy Land' NGO, telling the story of a recent visit to Israel and the West Bank by one of its people. In Israel and the West Bank there are no tourists. Hotels are empty or shut. Palestinians and Israelis alike are suffering economically. With the Holy Land deeply defiled by this war, what will happen if or when peace and security are restored? Will visitors want to return, knowing the reality of all that has happened in the land of the Prince of Peace? The cruelty and injustice of it all could be a deterrent to tourists and pilgrims with a conscience.

I cooked a vegetable risotto with boil in a bag mussels in wine sauce for a late lunch. Sounds exotic, but simple and tasty to prepare. Then a siesta before a long walk. In the evening I enjoyed watching all the remaining episodes of 'The Turkish Detective' on BBC iPlayer. A high quality crimmie, for story lines that thread through all eight episodes, not only for its portrayal of stunning Istanbul cityscapes, but fine acting. 

It's a contrast to the dreary domestic police nuclear family drama embedded in Danish 'Sommerdahl Murders. The Turkish police family drama told in this story portrays a big happy family subjected to the same stresses and strains of a father who finds  the demands of investigating murders irresistible. His wise and loving wife somehow copes and gently holds the family together, without having an existential life crisis. Apart from her pre-menopausal pregnancy and birth, that is.  But it's not about a western European nuclear family, but a multi generational secular Muslim one in an equally modern city that's the gateway to Asia.