Exactly 54 years ago, 3 Aug 1968, Portugal's authoritarian prime minister, António de Oliveira Salazar, 79, slipped over in the bath & hit his head.

He seemed to be ok, but then complained of feeling ill.

In hospital he lapsed into a coma. It looked like he was about to die 1/4 Portugal's president appointed a new prime minister to replace Salazar, who had been in office since 1932

But Salazar woke up.

Rather than break the news to the dictator that he had been dismissed, his aides set up an elaborate scheme to fool him that he was still in charge 2/4

A short thread about colonialism, and how reality can never match up to idealised fantasy.

150 years ago there was a revolution in time-keeping—in the 'East' as in the railway-dense 'West'. Civil authorities began wresting control of public time out of clerical hands.
1/11 2/ Municipal clocktowers went up across the Ottoman-ruled Middle East. They were a symbol of change & modernity. They made calling the five-times-daily prayer more accurate. They projected the sultan's power & benevolence

⬆️ Jaffa

↙️ Istanbul
↙️ ↙️ Aleppo

↘️ Izmir
↘️ ↘️ Nablus

Do you know how many posh, well-educated, white English-speaking men have written books about Jerusalem?

Hundreds. Thousands. A few are even worth reading.

So why have I—a (relatively) posh, well-educated, white English-speaking man—written another one?

Here's why.

1/29 2/ I've been coming to Jerusalem more than 40 years. I first set foot in Jerusalem's Old City as a kid on Dec 24th 1980. I know because I typed a diary about it, with lots of !!! ⬇️

Since then I've lived, worked, visited, explored, over 4 decades.

But one thing bugged me

Jerusalem is full of stories. Here's one that was unknown when I first visited, but is now everywhere

If you look up at the facade of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre—the place (probably!) where Jesus Christ was crucified, aka Church of the Resurrection—you'll see a ladder 1/20 2/ It's a strange kind of ladder - wooden, short (only five rungs), wide and rickety-looking, standing on an upper ledge above the church entrance and leaning against the right-hand window.

Perhaps somebody cleaning the windows yesterday forgot to bring it back in.

Like any tourist city, Jerusalem is full of misinformation. Stories about people and places pass through so many hands, and are filtered through so many minds or adapted for so many audiences, the truth of them can get lost.

Here's a story about a place.

1/16 2/ There are many, many stories to tell about Jerusalem's Jaffa Gate. It's where the Roman army camped 2000 yrs ago. It's where in 1898 the Ottoman sultan punched a gap in the encircling city wall, already 360 years old, so the German Kaiser could ride through on his white horse

A retraction. Not long ago I wrote this ⤵️ thread about a meme featuring a suspiciously jazzed-up quote by Abdallah al-Tal, and the self-referential chain of citation surrounding it that has gone years unchallenged 1/6

https://twitter.com/matthewteller/status/1394290628285149190

Al-Tal’s memoirs were published in Cairo in 1959, translated into Hebrew in 1960, but have never been translated into English 2/6