Pack of Cards

2000 WAVES good-bye, dears, leaving good and bad behind, and noisily heralding a new age. Well -- perhaps not as noisily as Jean-Michel Jarre's Twelve Dreams of the Sun, which opened the millennium with a (culturally varied, internationally proportioned and socially sophisticated) bang: this year, by contrast, simpler but no less joyful celebrations rule.

Party hats, café outings and private apartment or hotel celebrations were by far the most widespread signs of festivity in evidence on New Year's eve, an occasion that engaged the hearts and minds of all the Muslims and Christians whose feast days more or less coincided with the advent of 2001. And indeed, celebratory preparations underway, that very special evening was party and performance galore, dears, often not for the faint hearted. Balloons, laser lights, season's greetings and endless, endless music: even strolling down the Corniche to enjoy the chilly night air between parties was pleasant enough. Cars swooshed by, and it was like being in a beautiful romantic film of not so long ago, fireworks in the background.
But perhaps the most absorbing part of the evening was when my treasured friend George Bahgory, who has a predilection for sketching as he goes along, took me along on his annual tour of the city. Neither the older popular districts nor the newer swish ones were very far from our minds as we skipped in and out of venues, sharing in people's seasonal pleasures, indulging our capacity for participating and observing at one and the same time and taking note of the fun going on in the streets. We were carefree and full of hope for the future, dears. So when Bahgory decided to depict the occasion, it was with an eye on the future, an ear for fun-loving pandemonium and a heart of gold.

In 1926, this theatre was known as the Royal Cinema; it is here that King Fouad attended the première of Mohamed Abdel-Wahab's blockbuster The White Rose. It is only in 1961 that it was converted into a theatre and renamed Al-Gomhouriya

The Association's board members honoured Zahi for his devotion to the protection and preservation of Ancient Egyptian monuments as well as his major discoveries in Alexandria and Abu Simbel. The most momentous among these, of course, is the Valley of the Golden Mummies in Bahariya Oasis, and the Pyramid Builders' cemetery in Giza. I am sure that you must be familiar with his latest books, Silent Image (women in Ancient Egypt) and Valley of the Golden Mummies.

The AEAS banquet took place at the Diplomatic Club on 30 December, and the ceremony was enriched by a slide show of some of Zahi's finds.

Ahmed Zuweil, Farouq El-Baz and Ismail Serag El-Din are the only three Egyptians to have won the AEAS award. This is the second time that Zahi has been honoured this year. You may remember that a few months ago he was granted the American Academy of Achievements' Golden Plate, one of the most prestigious international awards.