Eloi Brunelle is the man

EPSILONLAB
At the beginning of 2005, through a series of fortunate errors, I found myself in Valparaiso, Chile. After months of listening to pan pipes and mountain music I stumbled onto a magical oasis of electronic tech house. The nightclub was situated on a wharf that stretched way out into the harbour. The pure glass walls gave a spectacular view of the Valparaiso stretching up the hill side, lights blazing up to join the stars in holy unison. That was a night of new friends, smuggled rum and Montreal Tech House courtesy of man in the photo below

I have been an avid fan of the Epsilonlab for the last 18 months. Their deal: they are a free net label, publishing quality cutting edge house music. Mostly instrumental, slow, clean with lots of synth work. I can listen to this music for hours. It is the kind of music that is best in the background, and even better on repeat. They have joined together a unique bunch of producers to produce a fairly consistent sound. Eloi Brunelle is their champion, director and leader. The man with a vision of democratically selected music. If the songs are good enough then the people will listen and come along to the parties.

Eloi Brunelle: I salute you. Thankyou for making life interesting.


Miles Moore - Monocaine (from Tales from the Invisible Man)
This is a piece of slick music featuring samples from the movie 'The Invisible Man'. My current listening favourite.

The issue thickens...

Things are not getting better... I'm sure you can read your own online media, however I thought I would take the time to point out some other regional media sources, it gives you an idea of what people see as important:

Middle East Region: Arab News

Middle East Region: Al Jazeera (based in Qatar)

Bahrain: Gulf Daily News

Bahrain: Bahrain Post

Bahrain: Bahrain Tribune

Bahrain: Gulf Weekly

Iran: Iran Daily

Saudi Arabia: The Saudi

Syria: Champress

Syria: Syria Today

Qatar: The Peninsula Online

Lebanon: Lebanon Times

Jordan: Jordanian Times

Israel: The Jerusalem Post

Israel: Ynetnews

AIESEC Bahrain

The members of AIESEC Bahrain at our first national conference (July 21 and 22). 15-20 people have finished their Introduction to AIESEC and are now involved in researching the viability of projects around Education, Finance and Entrepreneurial themes. Goodluck.

Live updates from Lebanon and Israel

Live map of the Middle East

this is a site that Gara posted on the Nomadlife homepage. It looked interesting enough. This is an interactive map that identifies who is blogging out the conflict, and who is reporting it from official news channels. Very interesting.

Right now Israel and Lebanon feel miles away, as far away as they did when I was in Australia. When the situation reaches Syria, when the US become involved and if Iran become involved: that's when the hairs on the back of my neck will rise. At times it feels that if I stare hard enough out over the ocean I can see Iran.

My eye is firmly fixed on Iran. That's who is making me nervous.

You know you are Australian when:

1. You've impersonated Alf Stewart ("push off, ya flamin' drongo!").
2. You've had an argument with your mate over whether Ford or Holden makes the better car!
3. You've done the "hot sand" dance at the beach while running from the ocean back to your towel.
4. You know who Ray Martin is!
5. You start using words like "reckon" and call people "mate".
6. You stop greeting people with "hello" and go straight to the "how's it goin'?"
7. You own a pair of ugg boots.
8. You've seriously considered running down the shop in your pair of ugg boots.
9. You've been to a day-nighter cricket match and screamed out incomprehensibly until your throat went raw.
10. You kind of know the first verse to the national anthem, but don't know what "girt" means.
11. You have a story that somehow revolves around excess consumption of alcohol and a mate named "Davo".
12. You've risked attending an outdoor music festival on the hottest day of the year.
13. You've tried to hang off a clothesline while pretending you can fly.
14. You've had a visit to the emergency room after hanging off the clothesline pretending you can fly.
15. You own a pair of thongs for everyday use, and another pair of "dress thongs" for special occasions.
16. You don't know what's in a meat pie, and you don't care.
17. You pronounce Australia as "Straylya".
18. You call soccer soccer, not football.
19. You've squeezed Vegemite through vita wheat to make little Vegemite worms.
20. You suck your coffee through a Tim Tam.
21. You realise that lifesavers are the only people who can get away with wearing Speedos.
22. You pledge allegiance to Vegemite over Promite.
23. You understand the value of public holidays.
24. Your weekends are spent barracking for your favourite sports team.
25. You have a toilet dolly.
26. Your Mum or Nan made it.
27. You've played beach cricket with a tennis ball and a bat fashioned out of a fence post.
28. You firmly believe that in the end, everything will be ok, and have told a mate in tough times that "She'll be right, mate".
29. You use the phrase "no worries" at least once a day.
30. You've been on a beach holiday and have probably stayed in a caravan.
31. You constantly shorten words to "brekkie", "arvo" and "barbie".
32. You've adopted a local bar as yours.
33. You know the oath of mateship can never be limited by geographical distance.
34. You measure a journey in beer, not kilometres or time. ("That's a 3 beer trip, mate" ).

Fuel to the fire...

hmmm... not helping:

"The capturing of two Zionist soldiers by Hezbollah [to bargain] for the release of so many Palestinian and Lebanese imprisoned in Zionist jails is a legal, legitimate, conscientious, common and flawless act," said Ayatollah Emami Kashani (Tehran)

Full article

Mosques, people, parties and nation building

The evenings are a perfect time for walking around Manama. Mosques are a beautiful sight. I admire their tranquility. Of late I have tried to time my walks to coincide with the evening Call to Prayer. A religious experience regardless of whether you are a believer.


This is a local cafe. I have labelled it the 'French Indochina' cafe. It is old skooly and French. In the picture you have both Qatar and Bahrain teams coming together during planning. (L-R Eric, Gannat, John, Kristina, Claude, Mada and Adriana).


It was nearing two years since we last caught up. Jen, I had a great time during your whirlwind planning visit. Even though I am a relative newcomer to this island: I am glad you have been here, to see the kind of people we work with, the environment we are in and to share the excitement. There was something powerful about pooling together people from Haiti, Romania, the USA, Brazil, Egypt, Austria and Australia to engage around this issue of Middle East expansion.


Kristina, Fix and Terbo. One of our members put on a fantastic feast of Bahrani cuisine. Rice, fish, fried stuff, rice, lamb, rice, a million different kinds of deserts, coffee, tea. This is a photo of Fix playing the drums while people took turns dancing. In the foreground you can see a board game played by flicking pieces around like billiards. A truely memorable evening.


This is how it's done folks. You can literally see them pumping sand to build up a bank that will later become land. Over the course of three days that patch became shallower and shallower. The speed of development was a little unnerving. This is the view from our boardroom.

Hope lies in communication

Last night one of our new members asked me if there was AIESEC in Israel. I replied that we once were there (I think it was up until the early 90s). I also said that it could perhaps be better for us not to have a presence in Israel as it would have made it very difficult to operate in the other Arab states... Our discussion continued about the benefits of understanding foreign cultures. To paraphrase: 'how can there possibly be war in todays world, we have high levels of communications technology... couldn't they just pick up the phone'...

The conversation then moved on to the feeling one gets at an AIESEC global conference... 500 people, 95 countries, 10 days, coming together to discuss a relevant global issue. Lunch times are my favourite: here you see people eating, drinking and laughing together, comparing countries, laughing at cultural traits and generally just living it up.

This slight conversation last night demonstrated that there are people here that are thinking pro-actively about where their country should be. Now more than ever I know that expanding to these countries is a necessary step for AIESEC to have a truely global reach.

Sunsets and Saudis

This is the view from the rooftop of our apartment. We have grand plans for this place. The gentle heat of the evening is a great experience.


Ahhh the Saudis. A giant nation sitting just across the bridge from Bahrain. They are everywhere, roughly 50% of Bahraini business is done with these guys. They cruise around Manama in big SUVs, cashed up and doing a lot of things that might not be as acceptable back in their homeland.


This was a casual walk in the streets near our office. The sun is setting over the Persian gulf. The image of palm trees, heat and sand is a lot more real than you might imagine.


Dark wood, highback leather chairs, wireless internet. Kristina (MCP Qatar, ex Austria) on the left and Claude (MCP Bahrain, ex USA) on the right.