There are several factors that contribute to a good night's sleep: temperature, noise, stress levels, tiredness - and pillows. According to my mother, pillows are the key. Get the right pillow, she says, and pure, undisturbed, rejuvenating sleep will always be within your grasp.
For a while, pillows were all she could talk about. We'd come home for the weekend and before we'd even finished relaying the tedium of our week, she was yanking her newest acquisition down from the cupboard and ordering us all to try it. "Apparently, this one can cure all kinds of muscle pain," she would proudly announce. Pillow Science was becoming her new specialist subject. And she was spending a fortune on increasingly technical varieties. Every time you opened a cupboard, a pillow would burst out, like an air bag.
Of course, we humoured her, but she never succeeded in inspiring in us quite her level of pillow excitement. Some of it must have brushed off, though, because the first thing I always do now when I go to a hotel (after yanking off the eiderdown - who knows how often they wash those things?) is check the pillows. Are they soft enough for sleep? Supportive enough for reading?
So you can imagine my excitement when, on arriving at our hotel in Dubai this weekend, a quick prod of the pillows revealed that they were the among the softest and fluffiest I have ever experienced. Scores of geese mere hours old must have had to die to achieve such glorious bounciness. It was like lying in a sea of marshmallows, or clouds, or soufflé. I barely registered the news that night, so quickly was I enveloped in sleep.
Even my husband was smitten. "We simply must have these pillows," he announced as we mournfully packed up our things. But an obscure German brand name was all we had to go by.
A visit to the hotel shop for the newspaper revealed that we were not alone in our affection. There, in a soft downy pile, were pillows - our pillows - the very marshmallowy, cloudy ones that had ensured blissful slumber for the past two nights. We didn't bat an eyelid when were calmly informed that that particular model was Dh850. "You can't put a price on sleep," we both muttered at each other, simultaneously reaching for our credit cards. And then the words you never want to hear: "Oh, but that particular model is out of stock at the moment."
My husband doesn't often cry, but I swear I saw the tears welling. Our distress was greeted by that other wonderfully vague palm-off. "But we should be getting more in soon."
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
Formula Middle East Calendar (Formula Regional and Formula 4)
Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai
Round 4: February 14-16, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950