arm thyself well

My consolation prize for having to endure another ten weeks in bloody Libya is a... Well, what should one call it? It's not an iPod because that's a different make. It's not really an MP3 player because it plays .wma files too. It's a Creative Zen thingummy and it's also the dog's bollocks. It's a Libya-survival device: the big problem out there is the sense of cultural isolation - one's in a society which is very alien to Europeans. Carrying around this thingummy means I've got a whole load of my culture, so far as it can be condensed into audio form, with me. The Smiths, Tom Waits, A Clockwork Orange, Under Milk Wood, Mozart... Psychic defence.

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