I received this message from my friend Atle in Cairo…

Not surprisingly it is the taxi drivers that are really pissed off with the recent price hikes. When I get into a taxi they politely raise the issue of petrol being expensive, probably to warn me that the old khawagat [foreigners'] fares have gone up. When I agree with them that it is expensive they get on a roll about how shit the government is, how nothing will change if Gamal takes over and generally how bad it is in Egypt. A taxi driver today told me that he needs to spend LE50 per day on petrol! This guy also ranted for my entire trip about how shit the government was, how they’re thieves and how it is the poor that suffers from the price increases (he pointed out BMWs and Mercedes cars and said that for people like that it’s not such a big deal) etc. and probably lots of goodies that I simply didn’t understand. He needed to vent I guess.
A taxi driver yesterday spat on the street when I mentioned [NDP crony and steel/construction tycoon] Ahmad Ezz and the Maglis [parliament]. In general Cairo just feels much more tense nowadays, a quality that is hard to pinpoint but is present.
The whole price increase is such a fucking insult. Give 30 percent to people one day, take back more the next day. How do you think these days compare to the months and weeks leading up to the 77 riots?