Tuesday, May 31, 2011

School's out for summer

School children in Sharjah are subject to shorter school days to account for the summer heat.  It's another example of that topsy turviness of life here.  It reminds me of when we used to get time off school during very heavy snow when various creaking central heating systems gave up the ghost.

There seems to be a row between the education authority and the Federal Government about whether or not this should go ahead.  The FG is quoted in today's National saying that any decision about shorter days at government schools has to be agreed at Federal level.  The education authority has probably quite correctly decided that term will be over before the FG gets round to making a decision, so the shorter days will start today with two fingers up to the FG.

Teachers have cited poor concentration and heat-related sickness among children as reasons why they want to activate the shorter day policy.

The ever reliable BBC weather website tells me that it's going to be 39 today in Sharjah before rising to a toasty 46degrees tomorrow. 

There's received knowledge here that 50degrees is the threshold at which work shuts down, ie, builders have to stop along with any other outdoor labour.  There are mutterings among ex-pats that the equivalent of the Met Office just tells everyone it's 49degrees even if it goes over 50, so they have to keep working.  So, the Federal Government would have an interest in keeping the kids doing their full day. If they admit it's too much for the kids to concentrate, it's probably too much for the workers to carry on in the heat and that will have an impact on the economy. 

There have also been rumblings in the papers that the summer working rules should be brought in.  The heat, when it's really hot, is so unbearable that they have to bring in conditions that manual labourers, particularly those that work outside, should only work 20 minutes out of one hour and enforce a one hour break for lunch as opposed to the usual half hour.  I wonder what lengths the authorities will go to in order to avoid that.

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Eye of the Cheetah

There's a story doing the rounds at the moment that there's a blimmin' cheetah been rounded up after it was seen wandering around Abu Dhabi. The city's name means father of the gazelle in Arabic so maybe the big cat was on the prowl for some tasty deer treats before being sadly disabused of the notion that there are any still hanging around. 

The authorities helpfully pointed out that there are no longer any wild cheetahs in the area so it stands to reason that it was someone's pet that got away.  The fact that it had a broken leash around its neck and a broken paw, presumably from jumping down from a wall, probably gave it away as well. 

Saturday, May 28, 2011

Happy as a sand witch

This photo probably tells you all you need to know about what a fun day I've had today:

That's right. I am, in fact, feeding a carrot to a camel.  "Awesome" doesn't even begin to cover my trip to Camelicious camel farm today.  More will doubtless follow later but, in the mean time, here is a cute picture of some baby camels.


I'm not quite sure where this camel obsession will end.  I am at the moment deciding whether it is sustainable to keep one on the terrace.  I think if we gave it plenty of Alfalfa it would be fine.  What do you reckon?

Thursday, May 26, 2011

The pumps run dry

There's one thing that you would think it would be difficult for us to run out of in this country, and that's petrol, thanks to our proximity to oil supplies.

However, that does rather seem to be the case in the neighbouring, and admittedly rather peculiar, emirate of Sharjah.

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle09.asp?xfile=data/theuae/2011/May/theuae_May788.xml&section=theuae

What the freak is going on?

There's no clue as to the cause in the glorious PR speak quoted in the above article.  Two pronged approach indeed.  It's comforting to know that PRs spout just as much flannel in the UAE as they do in the UK. I can surmise from the story that they're experiencing high demand at a time when they're trying to upgrade their petrol stations but there's no answer as to why they're experiencing high demand.

My speculation is that petrol, along with everything else, is probably cheaper in Sharjah than it is in Dubai and there's therefore a possibility that everyone is going there to fill up since the oil prices started rising significantly thanks to the Arab Spring.

As a Brit, it still seems unbelievably cheap in Dubai because it costs us the equivalent of between £12 and £14 to fill the tank of our dad-style Toyota Corolla which is nothing compared to the £38 it used to cost us to fill up Bob the titchy Nissan Micra in the UK. Therefore, saving money on petrol is not enough of a reason to negotiate the Sharjah roads which are narrower and haven't been developed to account for the weight of traffic as they have in Dubai.  Possibly it seems worth it if you have an enormous four-wheel-drive tank to fill.
 

Monday, May 23, 2011

Sisters risk a whipping if they do it for themselves

Facebook is a wonderful thing. You can probably tell from my regular presence on there that I'm quite fond of it, particularly since I came to Dubai as it helps me carry on nosing into all your lives now that I'm thousands of miles away.  And, if it weren't for Facebook, bunches of horrible sexist men in Saudi Arabia wouldn't be able to threaten to whip women and men who took part in or supported the pro-women driving day planned for June 17th in Saudi Arabia. Thank goodness for Mark Zuckerberg.

http://www.emirates247.com/news/region/you-drive-i-whip-saudi-men-warn-women-2011-05-23-1.396159

Don't these men understand?  If they let the women drive, they may well be moving towards being a Westernised society, but they can join the great Western pastime of slagging off women drivers.  Every cloud has a silver lining.

There's no restriction on women driving in Dubai, although I sometimes get the impression that there are plenty of male drivers who would rather I wasn't on the road.  At least, I assume that's the case as they regularly try to kill me by pulling their enormous four-wheel-drives out in front of me without a hint of a glance in my direction and try to change lanes on top of my car without using those tedious indicators so I have to move over to avoid being crushed.

Driving is pretty scary here as I have already explained at length. But I'm way too bloody minded not to do it and let the Sand Warlock be master of the automobile.  I think if I did that, I may as well turn into a ex-pat zombie and walk around with my housewife visa stapled to my forehead. 

Sunday, May 22, 2011

I like driving in my car

It will be interesting to see whether these women of Saudi Arabia go ahead with their planned protest of getting into their cars and driving on June 17th.

http://www.thenational.ae/news/worldwide/middle-east/saudi-police-arrest-two-in-clampdown-on-protest-against-ban-on-women-drivers

This story has been cooking along for a few days now and it's been pointed out several times that there's no actual law against women driving in the Kingdom, it's just enforced by a conservative, religious mindset.  

Tax free my arse

One of the great lies that is perpetuated by those who would persuade you to move to this land of opportunity is that it is tax free.

It's one of those Dubai technicallys that I've talked about before in that technically, there is no income tax in that it's not deducted from your salary before you get the chance to spend it, but there are charges elsewhere that are simply tax by another name.  Booze is heavily taxed although cigarettes are clearly not because they're pretty cheap from what I've heard.  Groceries seem to be suspiciously expensive, although that could be due to the cost of importing everything but the camel meat, cucumbers and few other fruit and veg that are produced here.

My favourite charge by any other name that I've discovered so far is the housing fee.

Dubai Electricity and Water Authority or DEWA for short (pronounced doowah diddy diddy dum diddy dey in our house) gave us the gift of the knowledge of this marvellous fee when we received our first bill which seemed to relate to a time when we were technically the tenants of the flat but it was empty because we hadn't moved out of the old place yet.  There it was, a 667AED charge (£112 at the time of writing) for housing fee, nil charges for electricity or water as yet.

Shome mishtake shurely, we thought. Let's ring DEWA up or go and see them and find out what's going on. Or, at least, let's think about that doing that while we mentally psych ourselves up for the torment of communicating with Emirati officials and in the mean time, ask my new boss who has lived in the area for 18 years.

Bad news.  The housing fee is payable by everyone and is calculated as a percentage of the rent you pay. It pays for street lighting, street cleaning and maintenance, waste collection and "a host of other services".  Sound slightly familiar?  Sounds rather like the artist formerly known as poll tax formerly known as the community charge.  That's right. Council tax. The blighters!  Mustn't grumble really because the streets where we live, admittedly a prime tourist area, are extremely clean and I can't remember ever seeing any litter.  And I have never seen a non-working street light.  It also tickles me that that's almost exactly the same amount we used to pay to Hounslow Council for our flat in Ealing.  They definitely had a much better record on recycling there but I used to wade through piles of litter, dog shit and flytipping on my walk to the tube. I did have a lovely local councillor that I used to moan to about youths smoking drugs on the stairs outside my flat.  That's not really a problem we have here, obviously, as you would be bloody stupid to be seen smoking drugs in any public place here unless you had a strong desire to be sent to prison.

My second favourite hidden tax is the fee they charge you to join a library.  I am poor as a church mouse at the moment because although I'm reasonably ok for freelance work, it can take time to get paid here.  So, I thought: "I know, let's join a library so I can have plenty of things to read without shelling out on Amazon, (well, a bookshop because internet shopping is no go because of the insane postal system), and creating a personal library that I will some day have to get rid of or carry home to the UK.  So, I had a quick look on Mr Internet to find my nearest tome source.  "50AED to join and a 150AED refundable deposit." Blighters again!  £33 to join the library.  I've paid a few library fines in my time but getting charged to join?  Do me a favour.  So I have had to consign joining the library to the growing list of "things I will do when I get paid which will hopefully be early next month".

I'm not clever enough to work out if all these little charges that you pay, including things like 1,000AED deposit to get your electricity and water connected, add up to what you would pay in income tax back home.  I doubt it. But I have a sneaking suspicion that it's a lot closer to it than the authorities here would like you to think.

Saturday, May 21, 2011

Vertigo

I came across these chaps doing some fancy work with ropes the other day.


Unfortunately I missed it but they were doing something which involved climing up this building:


I would like to think there is some kind of specialist training for all the people that need to climb up the outside of various skyscrapers but knowing Dubai, there probably isn't. They probably just factor the cost of people plunging to their deaths into their construction budgets.  Rather them than me as living in this forest of skyscrapers has taught me that I have quite bad vertigo.  I never really had that much cause to be more than five floors up before so it's not something I thought about. Despite the vertigo, I have started to become a connoisseur of skyscrapers.

This one that was being climbed is actually one of my favourites because it looks like a big vertical boat half buried in the ground:



There really are some bonkers looking ones with random spherical features, ones that look a bit twisty, ones that look like cheese graters, ones that look like transformers and ones with shards of glass apparently shooting off them at regular intervals.  These big glass towers are obviously totally impractical in this climate because they are effectively giant greenhouses that the air con has to work much harder to keep cool, but this is the land of penis envy so the taller and shinier the better.



Thursday, May 19, 2011

Better lay off the magic

It's occurred to me that should I ever get my wish to go to Saudi Arabia, I probably shouldn't mention my Sand Witch alter ego in case I end up in jail.

http://www.emirates247.com/news/region/maid-held-for-alleged-sorcery-2011-02-15-1.356630

That's settled, if we do go there, we will have to go in Kevin the Toyota rather than on the tandem broomstick so we don't get accused of sorcery.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

It *do* matter if they're black or white

You may remember that I've explained that driving in Dubai seems to be a pursuit mainly carried about by lunatics who are escaping from a hurricane.

Cutting up, undertaking, tailgating, non-existent lane discipline, jumping red lights, driving with your baby or small child sitting on your lap and many other idiotic driving behaviours seem to be not only accepted but positively encouraged by the transport authorities here.  So much so that I have been told that trainee drivers here are taught: "If someone is in front of you and you want to get past them, pull up behind them and flash your lights so that they will know you want them to get out of the way."  It makes driving a pretty daunting experience.  I know plenty of people who just don't bother at all, choosing to rely on taxis, buses and the Metro.  I tend to drive only when I know exactly where I'm going as the one way systems here were designed by the same lunatic that does most of the driving, or, if I have the chief navigator in the passenger seat.

There are speed cameras which are set to go off if you are doing 20km per hour above the speed limit. If you're involved in a crash, if no one's seriously injured, the decision about whose fault it is and whether you're given a penalty is usually decided at the road side by the police.  If you get given a green bit of paper, it's not your fault, if you get a pink bit, it is, and you usually have to pay a fine and get black points put on your licence which are similar to penalty points in the UK except it would appear that they stay on your record for ever rather than being wiped off after three years. You seem to be able to accrue a huge amount of these black points without losing your licence. I haven't worked out how many it is yet but it's safe to say I think the Sand Warlock and I are safe from ever losing our licences in this way.

So now, they're introducing white points which means that if you don't commit any traffic violations during the year, they go towards wiping off your black points.  This has been roundly hailed as ingenious by the authorities and condemned as assinine by road safety campaigners and residents alike.

I can't help but think that effort that went to thinking up this initiative, which lets face it will benefit bad, unsafe drivers who are on sabbatical from motoring lunacy, rather than people who habitually obey the traffic laws.

I hate to bang on about it but the driving really is genuinely insane in Dubai.  I'm getting used to it after four months here and can now be a passenger who keeps her eyes open during car journeys.  There's a saying on the You Know You're In Dubai Facebook page which states that You know you're in Dubai when you think: "Sorry I'm late, I crashed on the way here" is an every day excuse for turning up late for a meeting.  That genuinely is no exaggeration, such is the extent to which driving randomly and insanely is the expected norm here.

Monday, May 16, 2011

Getting hot hot hot

Without wishing to state the bleedin' obvious, it's getting a bit toasty here.

I got in the car with my new boss today and her car themometer said 42degrees.  I think it's fair to say that that's fairly warm.

Our new flat is in an Arabian-style building so it's fairly sensibly built to withstand the heat. We don't really notice the heat until we go outside.  Even first thing in the morning or late at night it's like stepping out into a fan heater or a warm bath, depending on whether it's humid or not. 

This isn't officially summer, according to my new boss who's lived in Dubai for 18 years.  Officially summer is June onwards when it's unbearable to be outside at all.  We're going to a "last barbecue before summer" barbecue on Friday which seems a bit arse about face doesn't it?  Needs must I suppose.  I'm defiantly going out for little walks because I think I will go mad being inside all day although I'm already getting some fairly strange looks as I stride down Emaar Boulevard on the way to Dubai Mall.

I spotted a sprinkler on some improbably green grass the other day.  I really wanted to run through it as we used to on the lawn when we were little.  (Look, you made your own entertainment in rural Nottinghamshire).  I've since learned that there's a high instance of Legionnaires Disease here so perhaps it wasn't such a great idea anyway.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

I say tomato

I think it's safe to say this chain of trainer shops would have to change its name before moving into the UK market.

I can see their thinking: "Our job is to provide super shoes for athletes and all that so they can be dead good at sport, like, and we're dead dedicated to the part of the body we're dressing, The Athlete's Foot.  Let's call our shop that."  Unfortunately, no one told them that Athlete's Foot is an unpleasant fungal foot thing associated with excessively sweaty feet that you wouldn't necessarily want your shoes associated with.  Oh well.

What's a witch got to do to get a drink around here?

The short answer to this is one mounts one's broomstick and goes to a bar.  Actually, if one has any alcohol at all in one's blood and one is in charge of a broomstick, one gets burnt at the stake.  OK, that's a slight lie, one goes to prison, but I like to stretch the witch metaphor when ever I can.  In conclusion, it's best to get a taxi if you're going for beverages or nominate a designated driver.

But if you need alcohol for consumption at home and you are not yet in possession of a booze licence like the Sand household, you have to make the 54-mile drive to Ras al-Khaimah where there are alcohol shops that will sell you booze without a licence. Legally, I might add, as the laws are different in the northern Emirate of RAK. 

You're probably wondering why we, as a booze selling family, do not have an alcohol licence.  Well, the answer to that is that we were living in what was technically an illegal sub-let before we came to our current Bedouin tent, (ok, ok, it's a flat, but I like to preserve the illusion of Arab life) and you have to produce a tenancy agreement to show where you're living to apply for a booze licence, and obviously, we were not on the tenancy agreement.

The reason we were in an illegal sub-let was partly because our housemate couldn't be naffed to put us on the agreement and partly because it's technically illegal for people who are not related to each other or married to live together.  The law was brought in to stop over crowding and to crack down on large groups of young professionals who were sharing villas in posh areas and annoying the locals with noisy parties and general debauchery.  Many things are "technically" illegal in Dubai as you've probably gathered but the way to get away with them is to do them without annoying the locals.  I think it's fair to say that co-habiting and flatsharing in Dubai is nearly as widespread as it ever was.

Another "technically" is that if we were stopped by police on the way back from RAK to Dubai in the middle Emirate of Saudi-Arabian sponsored Sharjah, which is completely alcohol free (supposedly) they would have the power to confiscate all our booze and pour it out on the ground in front of us.  A bit like being caught by police boozing on a park when you're 15 but considerably more expensive. What a strange place I live in.  This didn't happen thankfully as the Sand Warlock assures me that the reason the booze shops in RAK are able to exist is from people coming from other Emirates who haven't got their licences.

Anyway, our booze licence application is under way but we recently found that our stocks of what the Sand Warlock calls "drinking wine" (ie wine that I'm allowed to knock back like lemonade while I'm stirring the spaghetti bolognese of an evening, not the posh stuff that's meant to actually be tasted) were depleted.  It got to the point where we were drinking vodka and tonic with our evening meal.  Most uncivilised.  So, we mounted the tandem broomstick, ok, I'll stop it now, we got in Kevin the Toyota, and went off to Ras al-Khaimah.

There's a particularly fine store there called the Al Hamra Cellar.  I have to admit some bias as it's owned by the same company that the Sand Warlock works for.  From the outside, it looks like an American liquor store and has a security guard posted on the gate.  Inside, it's a bit like coming home to the wine section at Waitrose.  Most reassuring.

The drive to get to the Emirate of RAK is very typical of the UAE.  Huge, six-lane motorways cutting through the desert with the occasional mega-sized billboard advertising a once planned but now forgotten housing development or huge poster of a Sheikh. Like all trips north towards Oman, you can see the sand getting gradually more orange-coloured as you move towards the mountains.

Unfortunately, I didn't take a camera but I did get some blurry shots using my phone camera.

My favourites include this one:



This bloke looks a bit like the Crown Prince of RAK.  I don't think it is him but the picture tickled me anyway.

Then there's this one, a rather dilapidated looking water park called Ice Land or something similar.

And finally, this one:



It's the desert seen from Kevin the Toyota!  OK, it's a bit blurry but I like the fact that you can pick out the orangeness of the sands and that as you can see, parts of the desert are actually pretty green with various bits of scrub. 

The town of RAK is quite a diverting place to be.  The outer edges of it feel a bit Wild West which I think is a common factor of many desert towns.  There are long rows of slightly dodgy looking shops and restaurants set back from the road.  One in particular, Al-Jazeera Refrigerators, caught my eye, as it appeared to be selling appliances that last saw active service in the 1970s.  I'm pretty certain that's where the landlord got the pre-historic fridge-freezer that resides in our kitchen.  These town outskirts always remind me of the scenes in Star Wars when Obi Wan and Qui-Gon go to find the young Anikan and recruit him to become a Jedi.  Obviously there aren't many flying aliens hovering about but there's something about the heat and dust and the need to barter. 

The finally "technically" in this post is the fact that it's "technically" illegal for Muslims to buy alcohol in the Emirates.  However, you will usually see at least one bloke in national dress, who is therefore very likely to be a local and a Muslim, drinking alcohol when you go into a bar.  The fact that they don't even bother putting on Western clothes to drink shows how little regard they have for that law.  They don't, as A A Gill claimed in his article on Dubai that so upset the magazine distributors here that they tore it out of Vanity Fair before selling it, even bother slipping into Western clothes, even though the bar owner could "technically" lose their licence for serving them.

Friday, May 13, 2011

Welcome to the Kingdom of Humanity

I'm probably not the first ex-pat with a slightly over active imagination to come and live in the UAE and develop a fascination with Saudi Arabia. I really, really want to go there to see what it's like. The reason for this slightly odd desire is probably because I'm not allowed in.

I can't go unless I'm sponsored by my husband, who has to have a reason to go there, ie work, which let's face it, is pretty unlikely in the Sand Warlock's line of work, ie booze.  Another way I can go is if I convert to Islam and go on Hajj.  This seems like a bad idea for two reasons 1. Overkill. 2. Offensive.
Or, I could go at the personal invitation of the King like my new boss did.  She ended up getting married accidentally which is entirely another story.

The reason I've got a bit Saudi obsessed again recently is because the Sand Warlock's birthday card which my parents posted from France arrived yesterday (about four weeks after it was posted, I think) and it was postmarked "Riyadh" and "The Kingdom of Humanity". Perhaps that's why it took so long, because it came via Saudi Arabia.  Or maybe, the usual demented postal system that operates at the husband's office was to blame.

But Kingdom of Humanity!  Are they havin' a bleedin' laugh?  A Kingdom where women can't come and go without the permission of their husband, can't drive, can't hold political office and have to have a male guardian (father or husband) who has control over many aspects of their life, where they're harrassed in the streets by religious police making sure they stick to the proper Saudi Islamic dress code of being covered at all times. 

It never really occurred to me to want to go there before I came here but now it's just a drive away, I really feel the urge to go and have a look.

There was also a story on the Emirates 24/7 website which really piqued my interest.  An American university professor was giving a lecture at Taif University in Saudi Arabia about the effect of climate change on desert animals when he showed a picture of a dog wearing Saudi head dress.  He was asked to leave the campus and the Kingdom immediately and said he was surprised by this because it was "only a picture".

I have to say it sounds extreme but I wasn't surprised.  Dogs are not thought well of in Islam and putting one in Saudi head dress would be considered an insult, I would have thought, and insulting Islam in a strict Muslim state = bad idea. 


Wednesday, May 11, 2011

A shorter fall

It now emerges that it was actually the 148th floor the man fell from and he landed on the 128th which is not very far in terms of the Burj but clearly enough to kill him.  It also turns out that At The Top, the viewing platform for those who make the ascent by lift up the building, was closed for a time yesterday but was due to be open today.

The Burj's owners are now also backpedaling on the "not allowed holiday" claim despite this being what the police said, and claim the man was "in a gloomy mood" after the death of his brother and his company was not going well.  He was a construction worker who had been working on the Burj  My spidey senses suggest to me that he had not been allowed compassionate leave after the death of his brother, but I could of course be wrong.

No inquests here so I imagine the truth about what happened will remain unclear.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

A long fall

Some poor blighter threw himself off the Burj Khalifa, Dubai's and the world's tallest building today.

The local newspapers are busy digging up the facts already.  It has emerged so far that the man was working in the Burj and had asked his boss for holiday but was refused.

He only fell 40 of the 140 odd floors before coming to rest on a projecting part of the building.

You can see from this picture that I took from a flat that we didn't rent a couple of months ago why that would have happened.



You would think as someone had died on the building today that there would be some mark of respect shown, perhaps a small section of it left in darkness, but no, it was still lit up like a Christmas tree as the Sand Warlock and I drove home from Carrefour in Deira (also known as the seventh circle of hell) this evening.

The great show of opulence in the Vegas of the Middle East doesn't stop for anyone.  Unless you're a Sheikh or a member of a Sheikh's family, that is.

It's quite worrying that it's possible to jump off the Burj.  We've been up there and there are 20ft high glass barriers that would appear to stop you doing so.

However, as someone who's sat through plenty of suicide-related inquests, I can tell you that although those left behind often feel guilt about failing to stop them, there's really nothing anyone can do when someone is really determined. They will find a way.

Monday, May 9, 2011

'Elf and Safety

You will have gathered already that I think Dubai is a pretty, damned strange place.  Strange in that it's strange to me rather than it's actually strange.  It's probably no stranger than Mumbai, Hong Kong, Mogadishu, Amsterdam or Glasgow, but it seems strange in that among other things, there seem to be pseudo-rituals that one must observe as part of one's every day life. Ie, when you meet a new person you automatically exchange information about where you're from and how long you've been in Dubai. Then if the person you meet has been here longer than a year they will suck their teeth and say: "Ooooh, so you haven't been here for summer yet. Just you wait.  It gets really hot." Thanks for that, everyone I've met in Dubai so far.  I realise that it will get really hot.  I had thought of this before I came here.  And, yes, I'm aware, that even though it's already hot enough that the terrace burns my bare feet when I walk out on to it in the heat of the day to bring my washing in, that I have, in fact, seen nothing yet.

I also found it strange last night that the men who took the fridge freezer away to be fixed had to do so twice because they didn't seem to believe it was actually broken the first time.  It was even stranger that they came back with it again at 11.30pm last night. And amid a lot of banging and what I think was Hindi swearing, fixed it back into its fitted kitchen cupboard.  Can you imagine that happening in the UK? Bringing it back at 11.30pm at night the day after it was taken away.  "Work outside 9-6 Monday to Friday. You'll be lucky if it's back in a week, love, and you have to take a day off work because we'll be bringing it some time between 9am and 4pm, no, can't be more specific" I think would be the response any such request.

One of the strangest things I have seen so far is an example of the lack of compensation culture here.
There is an employment lawyer that gives advice to workers in a weekly column in the Khaleej Times.  Such advice is pretty key here as an estimated 88 per cent of people who live here are ex-pats and the only reason you can come here as in ex-pat is if you're on a work visa or the spouse or child of someone who is.

One reader wrote in this week saying he had been seriously injured in his work at a factory and had had his right hand amputated.  Not only did he loose his job after the accident, the employer deducted 2,000AED (roughly £330) from his final salary cheque.  For damage to the machine which injured him.

I shit you not.

"You negligently damaged my machine with your severed hand", said the employer, or something similar, one presumes.

Again.  Can you imagine?  If such a thing happened in the UK, there would be lengthy court cases and the company would be investigated by various bodies for years on end with health and safety executive, if not criminal, charges laid against the employer.  The compensation would be in the thousands of pounds.

This incident makes our culture of risk assessements for stair climbing and fetching things from high cupboards look pretty barking.

Thankfully, the lawyer states that while the employer is within his right to sack him as he is no longer fit to do his job, he is entitled to compensation for the injury and he should not have been docked 2,000AED from his salary and he should therefore go to the Department of Labor for remedy. I think there is a culture of: "Let's see what we can get away with," which is pretty strong here as there is no lobbying ability or permission to protest thanks to the lack of democracy. It's that kind of thing that really brings you up short and makes you realise that you're a lot further away from home metaphorically than you are physically in this place.

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Bin Laden and gone and done it

The fridge has gone to the menders for the second time in the space of a week, there is something strange going on with both our stomachs, possibly something to do with not being able to keep food properly cold for about a month now, I am covered in mosquito bites which I am allergic to so they're swelling up like the plague, I walked into the screen door this morning and writing about Swiss watches may be fairly lucrative but it's a bit dull.

Still, it could be worse, I could have been Osama Bin Laden. Or Nick Clegg for that matter.

The English language newspapers are managing to tread a tight rope of not being too taken in by the maddest conspiracy theories about the death of the big boss of Al Qaeda.  It's fair to say there's a bit of anti-American stuff flying around but mainly in the readers' comments, not the editorial.  I don't think it's any particularly new anti-American feeling, just seething resentment that bubbles under the surface and appears when something like this happens.

I tend to find when someone dies suddenly or in violent circumstances, that's when you really learn about them because their obituaries which have been being prepared for years are published.
It's obviously big news here that he's died, but the name "Bin Laden" is both taboo and non-taboo here.

He had 50 or more half brothers and sisters and as Saudi Arabia isn't actually that far away, successful builder daddy Laden's building company is responsible for projects so it's not uncommon to see "Bin Laden Group" emblazoned on construction sites.  Takes some getting used to for your average Westerner who consciously or sub consciously associates the name with evil.  I also learned that Osama's Syrian mother was known as the "slave" among her husband's family and he was called "slave child" which is enough to give anyone a bit of a chip on their shoulder, although probably not a justifiable excuse for turning into a mass murdering psychopath.

However, I was working on a truly faskinating feature on watches used in aviation the other day and I came across a watchmaker called Yeslam which produces a really rather ostentatious, although not by Swiss watch standards, timepiece called The Aviator. 

Thunk I: "Who or what is Yeslam?" A quick trip around the internet yielded no cigar from the website. 
"That's odd," I thought.  "Maybe this Yeslam is the Middle Eastern watchmaking equivalent of Madonna or Sting and needs no other name. Still, it would be handy to know who he or she is as it addes the personal touch."

Further research proved, as you've probably guessed, that Yeslam is in fact Yeslam Bin Laden,  half brother of the recently deceased Osama.  Yeslam like many of the Bin Laden family is late of Saudi Arabia and now of Switzerland.  Mr Yeslam Bin Laden has given interviews in the past disassociating himself from his half-sibling and his terrormongering activities.  I checked with the boss and it's not really an angle for the magazine I've been working for.

No one bats an eyelid at the name Bin Laden here, she said.  It's a huge family, some of them are well known to many people in Dubai.  It's really not a big deal that he's related to him.  But I can't help but think that it's pretty telling that Mr Yeslam Bin Laden is less than keen on being known by the Bin Laden name.       

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Desert rose

It's looking a bit sorry for itself at this point but this is the desert rose we brought back from the Friday Market.

I had a temporary brain attack in which I deleted the word "desert" from this plant's name and watered it as if it were a European plant, ie, gave it loads because the weather's hot.  Within minutes, the leaves yellowed and started to fall. 

A quick trip to Mr Internet explained that you only water it if the soil is totally powder dry and it now seems a lot happier since I adopted this regime, ie, not watering it, and has three more blooms. 

It really is a curious plant.  It is not a cactus although its leaves and stems resemble a succulent of some kind and it has a bulbous growth at the base where it stores water.  The sap is also poisonous.

I was thinking of calling this blog Desert Rose but in retrospect, I think I'm more of a witch than a rose.

In other news, a shopkeeper asked me if I was German today.  Hate it when that happens.