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.

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. 

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.

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.

'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.

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.       

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.