Letter from Beirut: It's a night at the movies with a difference. The cinema is one of those plush multiplexes in the Lebanese capital and the big picture is Steven Spielberg's Munich.
There is real life and then there's Hollywood, but this film purports to tell the story of the Israeli hit-squad assigned to wipe out the Palestinians responsible for the horrific attack on Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
Having missed it back home, the chance of seeing Munich in the unique atmosphere of Beirut with sub-titles in Arabic and French was too good to miss. For those who haven't seen the film, the Lebanese capital features in one especially dramatic sequence based on "Operation Spring of Youth". This was an attack launched on April 9th, 1973, during which an Israeli strike-force landed in the harbour and killed three leaders of the Palestine Liberation Organisation.
The most interesting reaction to the film came from a Lebanese friend who said afterwards that when he saw the Olympic athletes getting shot it made him feel sorry for the Israelis, for the first time ever. A poster in the foyer invited us to another movie next week: Paradise Now: 24 Hours in the Mind of a Suicide-Bomber.
Beirut was traditionally known as "The Paris of the Middle East" but its reputation took a knock during the catastrophic violence of the 1970s and 1980s when the city was reduced to ruins. Humanity's resilience should never be underestimated and the city has been miraculously reconstructed, although there are still some bullet-pocked skeletons of buildings around, if you look hard enough.
The super-cool, ultra-stylish fashionistas who parade their languid elegance through the sun-washed streets, or spend hours laughing and flirting over a cafe latte at Starbuck's, do not seem to be losing sleep over the traumas of the past. But a more recent event has left a shadow on people's minds. Former prime minister Rafiq Hariri was blown up in his car on the city seafront on Valentine's Day, February 14th, 2005, along with 20 other dead and scores of injured, probably including some of the fashionable young people who are such an adornment to the city.
A shrine to Hariri is located in a huge marquee in downtown Beirut, with enough flowers and wreaths to carpet the Sahara. A memorial in the shape of a pyramid has been constructed out of school textbooks - biology, physics, chemistry - doubtless indicating the former maths teacher's passion for education.
There are pictures and posters of Hariri all over the city and several electronic billboards show his face and a digital clock enumerates the number of days that have elapsed since his brutal killing.
Hariri had accumulated wealth beyond the wildest dreams of the greediest Irish politician and a well-informed source said he was playing power games in the Middle East, resulting in a decision by someone in Damascus that he had to be "taken out".
Lebanon is fertile soil for conspiracy theories and you can mull over all these matters in Paddy's Bar, since it is an unwritten rule of modern civilisation that no city is complete without at least one Irish pub. Beirut is a free and easy place and garners substantial income from citizens of more restrictive and puritanical Arab countries in the region who come to the city to spend their petrodollars on the pleasures and delights forbidden them at home. One wishes the people didn't smoke so much. The cigarette ban in Ireland may have made us unfit for world travel.
Arab men seem to puff away endlessly: how are they still breathing? The subtly pernicious Marlboro Cowboy posters are everywhere, linking the idea of clean air and open spaces with the nicotine weed. Who will save the lungs of the Lebanese? But they have their own ways of doing things in this country.
Critics complain about the practice of using explosives instead of nets for "blast fishing". I was told that sometimes the fisherman holds the pack of explosives for a little too long, leading to the loss of an arm.
A friend had an appalling and grisly tale of an unfortunate dog who was inadvertently sent to fetch the deadly item after it was thrown into the water. The loyal animal started swimming back towards the boat with the unexploded package in its mouth.
His masters beat a hasty and ultimately successful retreat, but you don't want to hear what happened to man's best friend.
I was driven through Beirut every day for a week and survived: this is no idle boast, because we did not stop at any red lights. Traffic signals are a new phenomenon in this great city, apparently. The real worry is the driver coming in another direction who meets a green light because he or she might take it literally and keep going, crashing into your car which has just ignored the red light.
But if you stop at the red light you may well cause a collision. Travel advisory: walk or stay at home.
