Healthy lifestyle for dummies

I am an ex-Taekwondo player. For over 16 years it was my sport, I won national tournaments and joined the national team until I ruptured my ACL (elrobat el saleeby) I reconstructed it, made my rehab just fine and decided to quit. Taekwondo is a very intense sport on the knees and I wasn't willing to take that risk and undergo another operation. The key to me was staying healthy, or what I sometimes call improving the quality of life. That was to be done in other methods.

What I'm about to share here is nothing professional, it's what is commonly known in Egypt as "ask someone who tried" (es2al megarrab) It's my tried and tested, revised and revisited, taught and researched simple manual for staying fit and living healthy.

Leading a healthy lifestyle couldn't be simpler. Stick to the basics and prioritize the priorities.
The basics are: exercise and eat clean, I like to add rest well to the mix. Easy, right? But it's definitely easier said than done.
Here's the truth that you know too well but you're hiding it from yourself. You say you want to lead a healthy life and remain fit but you don't really want it, you just kind of want it. If you really want to do something you have to give some sacrifices for it, you have to challenge yourself a bit, get out of your comfort zone and just start making a difference in your life.
What is needed of you is nothing radical, nothing shocking. You only need to start making a gradual change, bit by bit, and the results on the long run will be of a scale that will make you stand proud. Just make for yourself a bit of a timed goal of increasing your physical activity and improving your eating habits and stick to it. After all what comes easily goes away as easy, and almost everything in life that is worth having is hard to get.
So here's my take on each factor (exercising, nutrition and resting) in a bit of a nutshell.

Exercising:

• Find a physical activity that you enjoy and just do it.
• Go an extra mile every now and then, it is there where improvement happens.
• 45 minutes 3-4 times a week is perfect to maintain your form.
• Over training is a myth.
• Gradually increase the length and intensity of your workout routine.
• diversify and change your routine every now and then.
• Stretch.

Here's what I do:
There's always the problem of finding time, and in our beloved Cairo and its traffic time comes even more scarce, I personally build my days around the avoidance of the most catastrophic driving times. So what I do is that I wake up early around 6 AM go to the gym work out and do cardio for an hour to 90 minutes total, shower and head to work fresh and at the peak of my output from minute one while everybody else is still reaching out for coffee to sober up. It was a bit tough for me to get used to that system but after the first week it was free sailing.
If your work location or gym timings wont help you with that then I suggest heading to work with your gym bag and head to the gym directly after work. Don't go home first you'll end up doing nothing.

Nutrition

• Eat smaller portions more meals. aim for 6 small to medium meals a day.
• Don't deprive yourself from anything. But generally, no soda or salty snacks and extra sweets.
• Drink water forcefully. Winter is coming and not feeling thirsty doesn't mean that your body doesn't need water.
• Fruits instead of deserts, baked better than fried, don't do fried food at all.
• loose the salt shaker.

Here's what I do

I always go for whole foods over processed ones. picture this: a tomato vs tomato paste. Read on the pack of the paste the ingredients you'll find plenty of stuff that you're body will have to process and sometimes it'll fail; where the tomato has only one ingredient, tomato. Same dilemma strikes me with soda and diet soda, I believe that the body is better equipped to process the sugar than the chemicals added to make for the sweet flavour.

One thing I never do is counting the calories, of course common sense dictates that if you burn more than you take in then you'll loose weight, nut not all calories are created equally. 500 calories obtained from a bar of chocolate isn't the same thing as 500 calories obtained from a spinach and grilled chicken meal. So instead I concentrate on eating clean, whole foods, I get the protein, carbohydrates and fats my body need in a balanced fashion (30, 40, 30 percent roughly) and keep off from the usual suspects in food.

Rest

Here's what I do
Don't plan your resting days, train everyday if you can, because at the end there will be days where you wont be able to train and these days will be your rest days. I do that and I find myself training 4-6 times a week, never more than that .

Finally, don't major in the minors, keep it simple and stick to what is more important, the recipe is easy just take it step-by-step and you'll get there. You'll be fit, healthy and happy.

Always strive to be the best person you can be.

Women....Why so complicated?!

This was meant to be published in the March issue of Campus magazine but it wasn't because of technical reasons. So there you go.

“This month’s theme is women” – said Wessam, Campus Magazine big kahuna by day, Cairo city Batman by night.

“How original” I thought in silence, since its March with Mother’s day and all.

So I started my monthly quest of picking up a topic to write about and compile a thousand to fifteen hundred words of eloquent coherent thought, incredible wit, being sexy but not trashy and with a potential to...oh wait! You get the point... A good piece that the reader would somehow enjoy reading.

The quest started and most cheesily my first thought was writing about strong women and portray in an indirect way how women are equal to men and even better. I even transcended the cheesiness of the notion and thought of writing about the greatest strongest woman I ever came across in my life, my Mother, that brave single Mother with her inspiring struggle story, uncompromising principals and the shining beacon that she is. That was until I sat down to write and realized the cliché den I was entering and how uninteresting it is for a magazine reader to read an article about a boy praising his mommy.

I then decided to call Wessam and ask him for topic suggestions. The conflict arose between the ever-asking for a topic suggestion that is me and the ever-so-generous to leave the topic selection liberty to the writer that is Wessam. This time I won and I got two suggestions and here’s my take on them.

First: Why are female superheroes such losers with a constant need to be saved?

Well, most of them do suck big time! I mean think of Faten driving Aphrodite in Mazinger. The awesomeness was about two rocket-boobs less effective on the bad guy than actual good old saggy boobs, matter of fact, boobs can be quite effective as a weapon (think that body guard in ‘the dictator’). Anyhow, Faten always ended up in need of saving which means that she is a constant liability, dead weight that mighty Mazinger desperately needed to get rid of!

Now I’m no expert on superheroes or comics in general, but all I know is that super-heroines are there to look sexy and sex sells!

Second: Teachers during our adolescence.

I was expected to write (matter of fact Wessam thought I was submitting an article about that) about teachers during mid and high school, how sexy they were and how we as guys/kids in that critical age dealt with them. The pranks the peeks the gibes the gabs. I told him that such a topic would end up obscene and belonging to Hugh Hefner’s Playboy magazine, his response was that coming from me it wouldn't be. Well, at one end I was a rather good boy, shy and polite, during my school days. However I do hardly remember one teacher, an employee in the school rather, who came across as a proper MILF, mind you the term wasn't coined by then; and it was her, and only her, who I ever dropped a pen to sneak a peek or stared at her cleavage during school days. Then again my experience at that wouldn't compile a thousand words for an article. I could definitely borrow a tale or two from a friend or make up one but still I had the problem with maintaining that fine line of becoming trashy so I passed.

Now that’s it. My ideas are unoriginal and Wessam’s are...well they’re cool and all but they didn't exactly work for me. And I’m stuck again with the deadline fast approaching where out of nowhere I stumbled upon a great article by Omar Taher, my favourite contemporary Egyptian writer, he wrote a short story/article about women in Islam and the style was beautiful; the idea I already shared, which was about the proper definition of a verse in the holy Qur’an that spoke of men’s superiority over women due to them being breadwinners and all, where in reality the interpretation of the verse spoke that men were merely considered servants or helpers rather and how that word or term interprets a divine trait that god described men with to exert on women which is a responsibility and a liability rather than superiority. So that inspired me write about women in Islam and how people look at it from a wrong angle and how women pre-Islam were in a terrible shape and the prophet came and freed them of the medieval life they led. But I got stumbled upon linguistic issues this time, Islam as it is complex to describe in its own rich language, and I’ll definitely need to interpret a lot of verses and research material and that just was not going to happen with the deadline looming in.

So running out of ideas and running out of time I met a friend and started telling her my predicament and how it’s bloody hard to write about women so she suggested to me to write on relationships, we had a laugh since I mostly advise on the matter and almost always fail at it. But the topic was so last month! And while speaking with her I remembered Anis Mansour, the great writer, the very person who lured me into reading at the first place, and how he was so entertaining while sometimes speaking about nothing in specific, just like a friend chatting with you, albeit a very entertaining and rich-with-experiences friend. He also had a very complicated relationship with women. He adored and hated them, spent all his life with one woman but always spoke of his flings, always defamed them for their complications.

And with that I realised that my quest for a topic to write about was long enough to be put into words, and I decided to write about that.

If there’s anything to get out of this, and it wasn't meant to have an inspiring message, is that women are hard to get and rather complicated. I spent ten days trying to pin point a topic and keep it interesting and failed, whether that is down to my own incompetence or not is yet unclear, but checking my track-record I’ve never had that severe problem before. And my take on women generally is not exactly about equality, feminism power or else, it’s just that god created us differently, men have certain areas where they are naturally better at, and women as well have areas that comes more natural for them but these are not absolute rules, they are more like general elastic frames that bend easily with enough will power.

I finished writing the article and realised I missed mentioning that women can’t parallel park to save their lives. So there you go. Mischief managed. 

أنا الحق

"أنا أحتكر الحق.

دي حقيقة. أنا كلامي صح حتى لو كلكوا أجتمعتوا على عكسه، تبقوا خرفان."

لسان حال ناس كتير، الزهو و الغرور بيتوهوا العقول. مش شرط الناس دي تكون غلط، أكيد في كلامها شئ من الصحة، بس في المجمل غلط.

خلوني أحكيلكوا قصة قديمة شوية، أول مرة سمعتها كنت في مدرسة و عمري ما نسيتها. القصة أصلها هندي.

"كانوا ستة رجال عميان، اصطدموا بفيل. كل واحد برؤيته اقتنع باللي شافه.

الراجل الاول خبط في بطن الفيل و وقع، و اللي شافه انه خبط في حيطة.

الراجل التاني كان ماشي يحسس، لقى شئ مدبب و ناعم و قرر ان ناب الفيل اللي في ايده ده رمح.

الراجل التالت اتخض لأن الخرطوم كان بيتحرك فزعق و حذر أصحابه ان في تعبان كبير.

الراجل الرابع اتكعبل و سند على رجل الفيل شاف انه ساند على شجرة.

الخامس لقى ودن الفيل و استغرب، هو ليه قدامه دلوقت مروحة؟

الاخير مسك في ديل الفيل و قال يا جماعة احنا اللي قدامنا ده حبل.

الست رجال اتخانقوا، كل واحد مقتنع بوجهة نظرة و بيثبتها بكل ما أوت من حماسة. بس في حين ان كل واحد فيهم كان صح جزئيا صح، كلهم كانوا كليا خطأ"

كلنا في الحياة عميان، بنشوف بوجهة نظر ضيقة، كل فتره بيطلع لنا واحد ذو بصيرة بيقدر يترفع عن اللي هو شايفه و بيبتدي يسمع للباقيين و من رحابة صدره بيجمع الصورة و بيكتش الاجزاء المختلفة و بيتوصل للفيل، بمساعدة رؤى الناس الصحيحة نسبيا الخاطئة كليا دي. الراجل ده بيتغاضى عن اتهاماته بالخرف و الجنون و بيتغاضى عن العصبية للي شافه و عصبية الناس اللي قدامه.

حاولوا تقفوا كده، تبطلوا عصبية لأرائكوا، تشوفوا الصح الجزئي عند الناس التانيه و دوروا على الفيل.

و لو حد فيكوا عرف، ابقوا قولولي ازاي.

عن أصل الأشياء

مقالة منشورة لي في عدد شهر نوفمبر في مجلة احنا 

أجلس في حديقة هادئة، أذرع ضوضاء المدينة تتمادى من خلف السور.

أريد أن أكتب عن ظاهرة قضايا ازدراء الأديان و أن أتأمل في أصل ذلك اللغو.

لماذا أعده لغوا؟ هل المقاضون على حق؟ هل هذا هو التصرف السليم؟

شغلت بالي الغير قادر على التركيز في موضوع واحد لفترات طويلة، و بشيء من الارتجال ذهبت إلى النبات، لماذا نبت نبات معين هنا أو هناك؟ كيف تكيف و كيف بدأ؟

كيف بدأت مصر؟ صحراء جرداء شقها نهر، بنا الإنسان مجتمعه حول هذا النهر، الإنسان المصري مرتبط بالأرض حول نهر النيل في الأصل....هكذا بُنيت مصر و من هنا تطورت.

ماهية الدين. إيمان بالله و رسله ثم عبادات و أخلاق. العبادات من الأركان و الأخلاق...ما أدراك ما الأخلاق...ما سما منها بطن، و ظهر منها ما كان أقل سموا.

الرسول (ص) قال (ما بعثت إلا لأتمم مكارم الأخلاق)

مكارم الأخلاق كانت موجودة قبل الرسول (ص). هو أتمها، و كانت السبب الرئيس لبعثته. أي أن بلا مكارم أخلاق لا يعد لما بقى من الدين قيمة. ربما. حديث يستحق تأمل آخر.

ثم تذكرت (خياركم في الجاهلية خياركم في الإسلام) أي أن صفة الخير هنا ليست حكرا على المسلم. الإسلام يعز صاحبه و لكن الأصل و النشأة الطيبة لهم فضل وجب التأمل فيه.

أشرد تارة أخرى و أتعجب من اختياري للفصحى في الكتابة الآن بدلا من العربية السلسة المائلة للعامية.

العلم مهم و الحكمة أهم. (من أوتي الحكمة فقد أوتي خيرا كثيرا) البقرة 269

قد تنول ارفع الجوائز العلمية و تفشل في اتخاذ قرار حكيم. لنا في دكتور أحمد زويل عبرة.

قد تكون بسيط و تتخذ من القرارات ما ينتج و يدبر العظمة.

حماية الدين واجبة و لكن من أنا لأحميه و له رب يعلو ولا يعلى عليه؟

متى يكون فضل قتل كلب عاو خير من تجاهله؟ هل تفهمت سبب العواء؟ هل تبينت إذ كنت قد أذيته قبل أن يؤذيني بعواءه؟ هل أوذيت فعلا من العواء؟ لا أعتقد.

لماذا الكِبَر؟

في تكويني إيمان بأن ديني هو الحق. هل بكون انتمائي لدين هو الحق أصبحت أفضل من غيري المنتمي لدين آخر، أو بلا انتماء؟ ما أصل الفضل هنا؟

التقوى.

هل رافعي تلك القضايا يرون في فعلهم هذا فضل على العالمين؟

هل تؤيدهم أنت؟

أما علمتم أن تفضيل الناس عند الله بالتقوى

و أن التقوى محلها القلوب

و لا يتطلع على القلوب إلا الله؟

فكيف إذا تزايدون و تفصلون، و بازدراء تكفرون؟

أما لكم اله تتقون؟

أتذكر قول الرسول الكريم (هلك المتنطعون)

فلا أكراه في الدين

يطمئن قلبي و لا يهدأ عقلي

ضوضاء المدينة تمادت من خلف السور، ابحث عن هدوء الحديقة

انغمس في جمال ما خلق الله.

و كفى. 

18 يوم

دي مقالة ليا منشورة في مجلة احنا. عدد شهر أكتوبر 2012 

18 يوم

التاريخ هو الخميس، العشرون من سبتمبر من العام الثاني عشر بعد الالفين منذ ميلاد المسيح عليه السلام. تاريخ كتابة هذه المقالة.

قد يبدو للوهلة الاولى أن هذا التاريخ لا يعني اي شئ ولكن الحقيقة مختلفة تماما يا سيدي الفاضل. فهذا التاريخ يعني انه قد مر اثنان و ثمانون يوما على نشأة الجمهورية المصرية الثانية و القاء سيادة الرئيس محمد مرسي العياط القسم أمام المحكمة الدستورية العليا و توليه رسميا مقاليد الحكم، هذا و بدأ العد لتحقيق ما وعد به الرجل الكريم.

تأتي دلالة التاريخ بسبب أنه بالنظر للأمام فالمتبقي بالضبط ثمانية عشر يوما على انقضاء ال 100 يوم. و المصري كما قال لنا محمد هنيدي مرارا و تكرارا أنه معروف بجبروته و قوته، و سبق ان حقق ما خيل للجميع انه المستحيل في ثمانية عشر يوما في الماضي القريب جدا، فمن هنا ادشن ما تبقى من المائة يوم كأيام في روعة تلك الأيام الرائعة الأولى في ما عرف سابقا بثورة المصريين "ثورة الاخوان بس دلوقت".

الرئيس محمد مرسي يطلق على نفسه لقب "الاسلامي" فمن الطبيعي ان اتوقع من اخلاقه و اساليب عمله ما يتماشى و هذا اللقب. فالمسلم المؤمن اذا حدث صدق، و اذا وعد اوفى ما عاهد عليه، فمثلما قال عمر رضي الله عنه انه لا يجب النظر الى صلاة فلان، ولا الى صيامه، بل اذا ما حدث فصدق و اذا ما أؤتمن ادى. فالاكيد ان الاداة الارقى للقياس هي الاخلاق ما سما منها، ما يفسر ان "خياركم في الجاهليه خياركم في الاسلام". و أيضا لأنه معروف في المجتمع المصري أن الراجل بيتعرف بكلمتة اللي تبقى مصيبة لو نزلت الأرض، و أنا واثق أن السيد الرئيس هو سيد الرجالة.

 لكل ما سلف ذكره فأنا انتوي ان انصف في تقييم اداء السيد الرئيس و أحاسبه كما اعتقد انه يحب أن يحاسب بأن اتمسك بكل حرف وعد به انه سيفعله ولا غيره. و لأني أثق في "اسلامه" فأنا متوقع ثمانية عشر يوما من نار  لتنفيذ ما وعد به في برنامجه لأن حتى كتابة هذه الكلمات تم تنفيذ أربعة وعود فقط من اربع و ستون حسب موقع Morsi Meter الاخواني لمتابعة عمله (أنا معترض على اتنين من الأربعة بس هعديها عشان مش ناقصة). ملحوظة: متوقع تقدم كبير في البرنامج وقت قرائتك هذه الكلمات، سيدي القارئ، عن وقت الكتابه. سدد الله خطى الرئيس.

من باب الانصاف، و قبل هجوم جماعة "والله أنا مش أخوان"، أود توضيح أني أخذ في الاعتبار انجازات الرئيس الغير مذكورة في البرنامج مثل دحر خصومه السياسيين و القضاء عليهم بسلاسة يحسد عليها وتمكنه من الاستفراد بكل الصلاحيات الممكنه و الغير ممكنه و التي لم تتوفر لفرعون شخصيا...كل هذا لتمكينه...تمكينه من تحقيق البرناج طبعا الذي وعد به و انتخب على أساسه، و أيضا تمكنه من صلاة الجمعة في مكان مختلف كل أسبوع حتى أنه تمكن من أقامة صلاة الجمعة في روما نفسها!! التى تحتضن الفاتيكان موطن البابا. و لكني انتمي الى الجماعة "الموضه القديمة" التى تعتقد أن "الراجل بيتربط من لسانه".

أخيرا انا اعلم أني أستبق الأحداث هنا، و ان في الثمانية عشر يوما سيثبت لي الرئيس صدق وعده و طهارة ايمانه و تنفيذه جميع وعوده. و أعتبر هذه المقالة مجرد سبق صحفي أو مقالي اذا جاز التعبير و محاولة الى استغلال لفظ "تمنتاشر يوم".

أخيرا: ابقوا ابعتولي طمنوني و انتوا بتقرأوا بقى كده أن وعوده تحققت.

لم ينحسر

I didn't write that last week, and this is not based on a personal experience.
I'm known to lie and talk to the wind at oftentimes, like these.

يسألونني عن حالي

اصمت برهة....و أفكر

هل يعلمون؟

هل يبدو على ما تسببتي فيه، و فشل وجهي التنكري؟

أتحيز للحقيقة...و افضح عن أخباري

عن من ملكت أسرار قلبي

اجتثته و رحلت....هكذا.

أكذب

أكذب و أقول أني بأحسن حال

حزن بسيط...لا يستحق الذكر

و أن حالي لا يتماشى و أحلامي المهدرة

و صدمتي بقرارك

يعبرون عن صدمتهم

ابتسم....و أرحل قبل أن تفضحني الدموع

*****

في جوف الليل

أتصارع مع ذكرياتك و أُهزم

فالليل حليفك يقهرني بظلامه

لا مؤنس سوى دقات قلبي

و ألمه الساخر مني

انتصر لي و لحماقاتي

فأكذب و أقول أكرهك

و أن وحشتك شغفٌ أجوف

تفضحني دموعي

و أكتب تلك الكلمات

لعل ألم قلبي ينحسر

The road to hell is filled with good lemons

I haven't blogged in a long while. instead I've been writing some articles like this one which was published in Campus magazine in its September issue of 2012.

I love history. It’s a magical crystal ball that will enable you to read the future. Like crystal balls so is history, it takes a well-trained and seasoned reader to read into history correctly and know the future clearly. So allow me to utilize my love for history and wear my seer gown to extract a tiny chapter of a relatively near future.

Our tale starts some odd 33 years ago in a land once known as Persia, a beautiful country with beautiful youth calling for freedoms, social justice and justice to prevail in their lands. That was the backdrop for the following scene; an airplane landing in the airport of Tehran carrying a grand ayatollah coming home from exile, arriving with him on the self same flight his son and four other influential figures in Persia-soon-to-be-known-as-Iran.

The grand ayatollah is none other than El Khomeini the spiritual leader of the Iranian hijacked revolution, with his son Ahmed; the four influential figures are Ibrahim Yizdi, Abou el Hassan bani Sadr, Sadek Qutb and Dariush Frohu. Ibrahim Yizdi went on to become foreign minister, Abou el Hassan bani Sadr became the first president of Iran, Sadek Qutb Zada became a minister in the first republic and Dariush Forhu was an Iranian nationalist who didn’t get a formal position later but was a big enough public figure to be reckoned with.

El Khomeini formed an alliance with nationals, liberals and leftists, like the four gentlemen mentioned above, then later he didn’t quite need them, having already been crowned as supreme leader he started to see them as a surplus to the state being created and a dangerous one too, and thus he started eliminating them, each one met a different damned fate. Yizdi the once foreign minister served as a leader to the Freedom Movement of Iran, which is considered as an "illegal party" potentially terrorist by some factions within the Iranian government. Abou el Hassan Bani Sadr, the first president of Iran is now in exile inParis. Sadek Qutb Zada once a minister then executed after being prosecuted for being against the holy revolution. Dariush Forhu however was slaughtered in his house in Tehran with his wife on a cold evening in 1998.

My seer gown is suggesting that those who came off that plane in Tehran with president Morsy will meet a similar-but-not-so-bloody fate like those who came off that plane with grand Ayatollah el Khomeini. The not so bloody fate is only due to different circumstance between Iran then and Egypt now, different times and different cultures. But the ideology is similar and whoever isn’t with us is against us and “we” are representing a holy plan designed by god.

This article is not about history, it’s about the present and the future being formulated now by our activists, the activists who came off the plane with president Morsy having squeezed a record-breaking ton of lemon upon themselves (derived from the Egyptian idiom) to help him reach the presidential seat without having as much as a written promise or even "wasl amana" to guarantee that the president won’t throw them in the first thrash bin when his use for them is done.

Our great activists are great people in fact; they are formed of the remaining of the Kefaya movement, whatever 6 April has become and some other similar civil movements. The ideologies of these activists are mostly leftists with some liberals to go with them and the reason I call them great is that they managed to make a historical breakthrough in the Egyptian political scene by starting the Jan25 revolution and leading the way for the Egyptian people to voice their opinion for the first time. This is where the greatness ends.

Activists in Egypt are the only faction with a true pure heart and honest intention. But like Madonna famously sang “The road to hell is paved with good intentions”. It is never enough to do your best in order to succeed; first you need to know what to do then do your best at it. Alas, activists were never sure of what they are supposed to do, always cornered in the ‘reaction’ corner ever since the 18 days were over, never taking a ‘proactive’ stand beating the lurking powers of the dark, catching them off guard; never uniting but always diving themselves as leftists, liberals and whatevers wanting to gain more spotlight, more Twitter followers, seeking a louder voice to reach more and affect less. They managed to define an enemy or two but keeping a blind eye on their foe-for-a-friend always echoing the witty thoughts coming out of that friend’s informal media beacons.

I can understand some of the reasons behind all that. First; the absence of a true leader to that revolution, someone who would unite the divided brothers. Second; the temptation of personal glory, a man walks this earth with a tag on his forehead yelling “recognize me”, a big fellowship on twitter, hundreds of retweets, opinion echoed many times and becoming mainstream is recognition that we all seek after, a temptation only a few of us can fight. Incorporate both reasons and you get a weak body that any organized entity can beat.

The outcome of our beloved activists has been a big fat zero. A shy representation in the dissolved parliament, a comical existence in the founding committee of the constitution and a lemonade parade in the presidential election, leaving the Egyptian population to choose between the two main enemies of the revolution of Jan25. The revolution that was kidnapped twice thus far, the last one to manage to take it all was with the aid of the activists infamously claiming to be choosing the one closer to the revolution and easier to oppose later.

The elections are done and dusted and the president won by more lemon consumed than that in all the Pril bottles ever sold and what is equivalent to all Egypt’s lemon production for the season leaving us with an ominous winter filled with antibiotics and influenza. His Excellency embarked on his mission to make sure his state is being correctly constructed, removing the real threat to his doctrine in abolishing the constitutional decree and performing a soft coupe in the army to castrate its ability to perform a coupe of its own.

Then came the role of the media and civil already weak opposition by closing a popular channel among the masses but with an unpleasant reputation among the activists in El Faraaen, jailing its owner and lead anchorman Tawfik-TheDuck-Okasha. Passing by a mediocre newspaper that is considered a darker shade of mustard-yellow, a newspaper that manages to give tabloids a bad name and closed it with its editor in chief now prosecuted for insulting his Excellency’s person. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know where the next mouth being shut or what is his Excellency’s stand on freedom of speech.

One would say that those who helped the president reach office will be rewarded in any form, that “one” is definitely just fresh here out of some Dr Seuss book. A prominent figure in his Excellency’s clan called Essam el Erian (literally translated into Essam the nude dude) came out with a Twitter scathing attack on the leftists of the country calling them as a group influenced by foreign enemies of the state, funded by foreign enemies of the state, dived, religion-hating and arrogance. Ironically all that could be directed towards El Erian’s clan but for being divided, which verily is the leftists’ biggest sin. The leftists as well are of a small number themselves but at the same time these radicals have the strongest mass mobilization ability among all the potential opposition of his Excellency’s new founded state. That step outraged many commentators on the middle east and even enraged the FAO’s representative in Egypt crying on the amount of lemon wasted during the elections not a month ago, saying it's all been squeezed in vain!

Lemon aside. The amount of challenges ahead is huge. The intention to turn this country in to something that is the opposite of what was called for during Jan25 is out there. And that requires a united opposition to lead the fight and form a front calling for preserving the identity of the state and the freedoms of the people. The ball is still in the field of the activists to undo what was done, and rewrite a history for them, a more glorious history than that is currently being stolen from them and tampered with.