Tide - when we have to rely on advertising to light up the streets

The other day I had to go from Sassine square to Monot - a trip normally that takes 20 mins on foot. It took around 105 minutes for me to get there. Why? Because Achrafieh was - post ABC mall - completely plunged in the dark. What's with government electricity coming at barely an hour a day, and generators only covering apartments (with exhorbitant prices so the residents pick and chose which rooms to light), I almost tripped twice, thankfully found a hair salon still open to at least "see" something in a dark street.

All this is to tell you that Tide has actually instigated billboards that light up - and if this is not a sore need in Beirut at this point I have no idea what else is. So the billboards which alternate other ads during the day became exclusive to Tide starting 7 PM - an idea which came about from our friends at Leo Burnett Beirut.

Of course, when advertising brings lights to streets in Beirut it basically tells you of how things are lacking on all respects.

Lebanon: Forget washing machines, laundry is done by hand

Image: Marcel Marlier (Martine en Voyage - Castermann)

Am writing this post as fast as I can as I know not if the electricity (generator not state electricity) will last or not. But here goes - last time I said it took 3 days for the laundry to be done (but that was when electricity was sporadic) - this time with the electricity being dispatched by stacks of 10 or 30 minutes I was not going to take my chances so the house help and myself did the laundry by hand and hung it to dry (sun is free you know!). I mean last time I did laundry by hand was ages ago but the other day I wore a lovely shirt from Depot Vente Beirut for the Assumption mass and when I got home I washed it by hand immediately. So when the time came to do the proper laundry, mother, the house help and myself had a mini summit and decided we were not going to do the washing machine route. So here it is, laundry was done by hand all the way - you wash it, stack it in a differ bowl, clean the original washing bowl, rinse them again, and flatten then to dry under the sun. Thankfully, ever since I moved to black undies, black t-shirts, or black house polos several years back, the whole thing takes much faster than the white things (smart move Tarek!). OK, so over and out.

Disclaimer: I am not responsible for the racist undertones in the image above. It is simply an illustration from a book I read as a child. And it seemed fitting.