Absolute Random Nonsense

Ambitious Londoner Elica Le Bon wears all the hats here and gives us a novel R&B/Pop/Hip-Hop hybrid, one that roils with dark, tightly wound, psychodramatic overtones. On “Crown,” Le Bon’s sexy, sinuous phrasing complements the music’s snakey, quasi-MidEastern vibe, where she’s a woman scorned, spitting fire at an ex.  "I’m a Daughter of Iran. Under the Shah's regime, my father was sent to Oxford for his PhD but had to drop out when his bursary was cut off. I often marvel at how miraculous my own existence is. It wasn’t just one time that my mother narrowly escaped death; it happened three times." - Elica Le Bon  

Mr. Shabnam would often times call upon me to go to the board and demonstrate the homework solutions for the rest of the class. As luck had it one such time I had minimal preparation and had to heavily rely on Nima to pass the answers on to me. While Nima infrequently did so but was more focused on cracking jokes with Putra. As I struggled through the problems on the board, getting some right and some wrong, Nima and Putra continued their antics. With Mr. Shabnam focusing on me and correcting me when necessary, the two did not think they were also under his radar. So when Mr. Shabnam finally pounced on them it completely caught them off guard. With Putra sitting on the closer side of the bench, Mr. Shabnam lunged towards him, grabbed him by the hair and pulled him to the front of the class. He pushed him against the wall and administered a severe beating before finally practically shouting, “Why have you been laughing?” Paralyzed with fear, Putra struggled to get a few words out before...

The Halifax Wanderers announced Friday that Patrice Gheisar will not return as head coach for the 2026 Canadian Premier League season. “I would like to thank Patrice for his significant contributions to the Halifax Wanderers over the past three seasons,” Halifax Wanderers Founder and President Derek Martin said. “Patrice brought a tireless work ethic and infectious energy to our club and our community while leading us to some memorable victories and a number of record-setting achievements on the pitch.” Gheisar was named the second head coach in club history on November 30, 2022. In his first season, he led the Wanderers to their first-ever appearance in the CPL playoffs while setting a club record for most wins in a season, most points, and fewest goals conceded. The Wanderers then extended Gheisar’s contract through the end of 2025. This past season, Halifax returned to the playoffs, setting a club record for goals scored and away points. “When I arrived here three years ago, I spoke...

The three of us didn’t always go to soccer games. We also spent many weekends going to movies or plays before finally settling into a regular routine of going hiking early Friday mornings at Tochal. The fact that Tochal was only a short walking distance from our house made it convenient for all of us as they would come over in the morning and by the end of the hike as we were all exhausted I would drive them back. On the way back on one occasion that Kamyar had also brought his cousin Nima along, as we reached our house Kamyar asked for a glass of water before we took off. Ardi and I went upstairs to get it for him but as we entered the kitchen found my mom preparing kalleh pacheh. As we began nibbling away at it we completely forgot about Kamyar and Nima. A good half-hour later we finally brought a pitcher of water downstairs to which Kamyar snapped at us, “Did you guys go and combine hydrogen and oxygen together to make the water for it to take this long?”  

Born in 1998 in London to an Iranian father and a French mother, Annahita Zamanian Bakhtiari moved to Sweden with her family when she was four years old. Her older brother was a footballer and Annahita started playing football very early on. At the age of just six she joined her first club, and when she grew older she wore the shirt of the prestigious Gothenburg team, which every footballing Swede aspires to join. Zamanian made her debut on the pitch in the Swedish Women’s League in April 2016, when she was just 18 years old, against Örebro. She played three seasons for Gothenburg, appearing 34 times and scoring two goals. During this time she turned down offers to play for Sweden's national youth teams. After playing for Gothenburg Zamanian decided to take on a bigger challenge. The Swedish league was too small for her. She went to France and now wore a Paris Saint-Germain shirt instead. Her presence in Paris was not very successful: she played in the Champions League five times b...

Andy Taylor, head full of chopsticks, commenting on the Power Station: "I don't think any of us could have known at the time that this little venture would lead to the breakup of Duran Duran but it did or at least it exposed the cracks in the pavement." The inner struggles at parties caused freak outs resulting in paranoiacs taking long walks home in the dark.

The Rt Rev Guli Dr Francis-Dehqani, the Bishop of Chelmsford, who arrived in the UK as a refugee in the wake of the Islamic Revolution of 1979, is among the candidates being considered to be the new Archbishop of Canterbury. She was born in Isfahan, Iran, in 1966. Her father Hassan Dehqani-Tafti (1920–2008) was the Anglican Bishop in Iran from 1961 until his retirement in 1990 who married Margaret Thompson, the Persian-born granddaughter of missionaries and daughter of Hassan’s predecessor as bishop. The couple had four children. Guli, the youngest, remembers a hospitable home and a happy if, in her words, unusual childhood. Their former house is to be turned into a museum, according to the state-funded Mehr News Agency. As Article18 reported last year, the house was confiscated by order of an Islamic Revolutionary Court judge in November 1979 and stood empty for decades until it was taken over by a state organization in the past couple of years, and restored. Mehr says the museum ...

In addition to soccer I also began riding my bike outside with increased frequency. From the time that Alireza had stayed with us I remembered one particular incident in which he excitedly told me how he bounced in and out of a pothole at the beginning of our street and still managed to keep complete control of the bike. I rode my bike up to the beginning of the street, passing the pothole on my way and turned around. I let the bike pick up speed and without any hint of applying the breaks rode right into the pothole. My results were significantly different that Alireza’s. I flew off my bike, over the handlebars and landed on the rough pavement, scraping myself all over my body. I walked my bike home, and as I looked over the many spots on my body that were oozing blood, I concluded that this must have been another one of Alireza’s fibs.

Saeid Baghvardani is a retired Iranian soccer player who played for Taj (currently Esteghlal) in Iran and in the North American Soccer League, United Soccer League and SISL. One of his heroic performances was against Aboomoslem in 1354 in Mashad where he scored the first goal for Taj in the 4th minute. Turmoil and fighting started after Aboomoslem equalized and Hejazi, Baghvardani,and Mazloumi were sent off. Later Aboumoslem was announced the winner with a score of 3-0. At  Cistercian Preparatory School are  memories of Coach Saeid Baghvardani (known affectionately as “Coach Saeid”), an excellent soccer coach who was also tasked with directing the cross-country program. Chris Stewart ’91 remembers that Coach Saied’s daily remarks to his players, made in his thick Iranian accent, always began with “beer at 2:45” which always got his runners’ hopes up. “To this day,” Stewart said, “if someone says ‘be here,’ I hear it in Coach Saeid’s voice.”