Saddam’s Scud legacy
QUESTION Did Saddam Hussein build a mosque with Scud missile-shaped minarets in Iraq?
The Umm al-Ma’arik (which means Mother of All Battles) mosque in Baghdad was built on the orders of Saddam hussein to commemorate the First Gulf War. Its eight minarets resemble weapons.
Despite the Iraqi government’s claims this is untrue, the four minarets around the central dome resemble Kalashnikov rifle barrels. The four on the perimeter look like Scud ballistic missiles.
Scud missiles were developed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War and sold to allies in the Middle east.
The Kalashnikov minarets are 43 m tall to signify the 43-day duration of Operation Desert Storm. The Scud minarets are 37 m, representing the year of Saddam’s birth, 1937. The most chilling item in the mosque is the Koran with 605 pages written in Saddam’s blood by a calligrapher. This document is locked in a vault.
The mosque’s name was changed to Umm al-Qura (Mother of All Cities).
QUESTION What are the best songs for each day of the week?
In The pop world, Monday is a pretty depressing day.
I Don’t Like Mondays, no 1 for The Boomtown Rats in 1979, was inspired by the Cleveland elementary School shooting.
When 16-year-old Brenda Spencer was asked why she killed the head teacher and a janitor, and wounded eight children and a police officer, she said: ‘I don’t like Mondays. This livens up the day.’
Monday Monday (no 3, 1966) had The Mamas and The Papas ‘cryin’ all of the time’. Manic Monday (no 2, 1986) saw The Bangles trying to get to work on time.
Duran Duran had a no 9 hit in 1984 with new Moon On Monday, but the best songs for this day of the week are The Carpenters’ Rainy Days And Mondays (no 2 in the U.S., 1971) and new Order’s
Blue Monday (no 9, 1983), famous for its pulsating Oberheim DMX drum beat and octave-leaping bass line.
The title Blue Monday doesn’t appear in the lyrics. It came from Kurt Vonnegut’s 1973 satirical novel Breakfast Of Champions, or Goodbye Blue Monday.
The best-known Tuesday song must be The Rolling Stones’s Ruby Tuesday, released as a double A- side with Let’s Spend The night Together (no 3, 1967). Melanie (no 9, 1970) and Rod Stewart (no 11, 1993) also had hits with the song.
I prefer the lush everything’s Tuesday by Detroit soul band Chairmen Of The Board (no 12, 1971) or The Pogues’s Tuesday Morning (no 18, 1993), which featured Spider Stacy on lead vocals, rather than Shane MacGowan.
The only Wednesday song to trouble the UK charts was Wednesday Week by The Undertones (no 11, 1980).
elvis Costello recorded a different song with this name as the B-side of his Talking In The Dark single in 1978. But the best known is Wednesday Morning, 3 A M, the title track from Simon and Garfunkel’s 1964 debut studio album.
Jess Glynne had a no 3 hit in 2018 with Thursday, about fame, written with ed Sheeran and Steve Mac. David Bowie had Thursday’s Child from his album hours ( no 16, 1999), a song about throwing off the veil of depression.
Friday spells the end of the working week, which even put Robert Smith of The Cure in good humour with the joyous Friday I’m In Love (no 6, 1992).
There’s also the rollicking Friday On My Mind (no 6, 1966) by The easybeats, Australia’s answer to The Beatles, and Will Young’s Friday’s Child (no 4, 2004).
Whigfield’s Saturday night was a huge hit across europe in 1994. There are some cracking Saturday night songs: Drive In Saturday by David Bowie (no 3, 1973); Saturday night’s Alright For Fighting, elton John (no 7, 1973); Saturday night, Suede ( no 6, 1997); and Saturday Superhouse, Biffy Clyro (no 13, 2007).
My favourite Saturday songs are Mott the hoople’s Saturday Gig (no 41, 1974) and Tom Waits’s The heart Of Saturday night, the title track of his 1974 album.
According to Morrissey, everyday Is Like Sunday (no 9, 1988). The Small Faces had a Lazy Sunday (no 2, 1968); Daniel Boone
had a Beautiful Sunday (no 21, 1972); and Tony Orlando & Dawn asked What Are You Doing Sunday? (no 3, 1971).
The biggest Sunday hit was Blondie’s Sunday Girl (no 1, 1979). My favourite was The Monkees’ song of suburbia Pleasant Valley Sunday (no 11, 1967).
Paul Davies, Skipton, N. Yorks.
QUESTION Why did Margaret Atwood call her totalitarian state Gilead?
ThIS name for the dystopian state in Margaret Atwood’s book The handmaid’s Tale was borrowed from the Bible.
Gilead is a mountainous region east of the River Jordan in the Bible. The Song of Solomon 6:5 has ‘goats leaping down the slopes of Gilead’.
When the Promised Land was divided between the 12 Tribes of Israel by Moses, the tribes of Reuben, Gad and Manasseh gained land in Gilead (Joshua 13:24-31).
The names Gad and Gilead are used interchangeably. The region is mentioned most notably in hosea 6:8-9: ‘Gilead is a city of evildoers, tracked with footprints of blood. Like raiders who lie in ambush, so does a band of priests; they murder on the way to Shechem; surely they have committed atrocities.’ Then in hosea 12:11: ‘Is there iniquity in Gilead? They will surely come to nothing.’
The area used to depict Gilead in the TV version is harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Atwood studied. The Widener Library serves as hQ for the Gilead Secret Service.