Loads of weekend fun plus some last-minute work to finish before Sunday morning have combined to put substantial blogging on hold for another day or two.

Despite the cold snap (single digits in Tel Aviv - both inside and outside my apartment) socializing was in full swing on Friday-Saturday. The highlight was Friday night, when a bunch of us celebrated a friend's birthday at Saloona , a relatively new lounge bar on Tirza street in Jaffa. Fantastic place - highly recommended: gorgeous decor, perfect lighting, excellent service and great music. The DJ had the entire clientele dancing - even me, although I tend to look like C3PO on acid when I try to groove to the beat. The friend who dragged me to my feet laughed and said that I "dance like an Ashkenazi." (!)

Meanwhile I was having my usual strange thoughts: like how weird it is that Arab pop music has become so cool on the Tel Aviv scene, and what would clubbers in Cairo and Beirut think if they could see a bunch of the infamous "others" rotating their hips in a sort of modern belly dance and shouting out the Arabic lyrics to their pop songs. (Yeah, I've been told that I think too much).

The DJ, Mauran Paz, will be playing a set called Maghrabeat (a play on the word Maghreb, which is Arabic for the region of North Africa that's comprised of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia) at Jah-Pan, starting at 11:00 PM this coming Thursday night. I'll be there, and so should you - if you're anywhere nearby.