Alstom and the Saudi Rail Project Story

Image by michallon via Flickr

Gulf News' remarkable cover story today is that French rail company Alstom is coming under pressure from a range of advocacy groups lobbying Saudi authorities to withdraw from their award of the Makkah to Madinah railway project to the company. Those groups, including the PLO and the PA, are angered that Alstom is building a light rail network in occupied Jerusalem.

The page one lead story for some reason completely fails to mention that Alstom holds the contract for Dubai's Al Sufouh tramline. The contract, awarded by the RTA to the ABS consortium, is worth over $500 million, with Alstom claiming some $280 million of that value in the partnership with felow consortium members Besix and Serco (who, respectively, put the BS into ABS). In fact, it's one of a number of significant contracts that Alstom has won in Dubai and the Middle East region as a whole - Alstom is a major player in power generation, too.

The Dubai contract for the Citadis railway system is actually significant as it will trial a new air-conditioning system on platforms for the first time. Citadis has been installed in over 28 cities around the world, according to the company.

Gulf News merely mentions that the company is 'eyeing' business in Qatar, Abu Dhabi and Dubai. And yet the Alstom contract award, made in April 2008, is the first result you get by googling 'Alstom transport Dubai'.

How strange, is it not, that Gulf News' journalists missed that fact when researching such an important story?

(By the way, Alstom itself makes no secret of its work in Israel - in presentations such as this one, the company cites its work in Jerusalem as a case study. Like many other corporate companies around the world, Alstom works globally including projects in the Arab World and Israel. We do all know that hundreds, if not thousands, of corporates do this, don't we?)

The Palestine Festival of Literature

I have been following, wide-eyed, the progress of the Palestine Festival of Literature team as they have been blogging, Twit-picking and Tweeting their way across Palestine since the 21st March.

This brave, perhaps even foolhardy little band of authors and poets, including British comedian and intrepid maker of popular travelogues Michael Palin, has been travelling around Palestine, taking the Festival to Palestinians because the Palestinians aren't free enough to travel to any one location by themselves.

The aim, as one of the participants puts it, is "To confront the culture of power with the power of culture," - the official mission is to bring writers and artists from around the world to Palestinian audiences, to initiate and organise cultural festivals and workshops with students.

It has been compelling viewing - for the relatively small audiences following the blogs, Twitter feeds and other social media channels the Festival team has used have been treated to the sight of the Festival team squeezing through checkpoints, having their first night event banned by the Israeli military, being shut out from the Dome of the Mosque and other delights.

It's sort of close to my heart - my nasty little book-writing habit led me to pen a book called Olives that I guess has heightened my awareness of and feeling of connection with the people of Palestine, although it's always been a constant element in my 20-odd years mooching around the Middle East.

Today is the last day of the festival with an event taking place at The National Theatre in Jerusalem from 7pm. And then the team of weary artists will leave. But it's nice to think they'll leave something behind them that will perhaps inspire people, to build a heightened sense of expression and to find a voice, a response that will both help them to make sense of the future and to help the world understand that there's another side to this terrible story.

You can look at the team's photos on Flickr, unless you're in the UAE in which case that's not allowed. However you are allowed to connect to the Author blog, including a mesmerising post by Palin, look at the YouTube page or connect via Twitter - it's not too late to do so. There's a story told there that I think deserves a wider audience.

I realised yesterday, looking at the team being hassled as they passed through yet another checkpoint, that I would dearly love to go to Palfest next year.

Let's see what the year brings...

Association to Stand Behind "Good Bloggers"

Well, it's official. Bloggers facing legal action will be protected by the UAE Journalist's Association if they abide by the ethical code of the association, wash behind their ears and are kind to small furry animals.

Mohammed Yousuf, the head of the Association, told Emirates Business 24x7's Dimah Hamadeh:

"Bloggers and "virtual" journalists have the right to be protected by the Journalists' Association, provided they abide by the ethics code, including stating of facts and sources of information, avoiding defaming without tangible proof, or provoking hostility arising from religious, sectarian or race discriminations."

Yousuf, displaying a remarkable lack of understanding regarding the 'online world', goes on to tell Hamadeh that audiences still mistrust online media, a lack of credibility that leads to online often being perceived as a channel for spreading rumours and destroying reputations.

Tell that to Arabianbusiness.com, Zawya.com and maktoob.com, will you? Or to the many, many people that intelligently sift online sources to arrive at an informed and wider picture than is often available through the 'traditional' media that Yousuf freely admits in the piece are subject to a greater degree of censorship than online media.

Yousuf tells Hamadeh (who must have been struggling to hold a straight face) that the Association's mission is to "invite bloggers and online reporters to adopt professional standards."

All this on the sidelines of a two-day event that invited bloggers from the UAE and around the region to discuss the role of new media and journalism. I didn't see anyone Tweeting from the conference and I don't know of any bloggers that were there. I certainly didn't get an invite (snif) - did you?

Isn't it funny that the UAE's bloggers NEVER seem to get invited to events where online and 'new' media are being discussed in... err... the UAE?

But I think we're missing quite a big thing in all this talk of protecting bloggers who abide by the ethical code of the UAE Journalists' Association.

Bloggers. Are. Not. Journalists.

The BBC's eminent Hossam Sokkari rather confounded the Arab Media Forum's Token Blogger, Algerian Issam Hamoud, by asking him if he had always wanted to be a journalist - as if being a blogger is something that can only be explained by a frustrated urge to journalism.

I know some excellent journalists that have become bloggers and some excellent journalists who blog alongside their more traditional, more papery, roles. And I know many excellent bloggers that are not, don't want to be and wouldn't dream of being journalists.

I do wish they'd get this into their heads! Bloggers. Are. Not. Journalists.

This is a new thing, not another face of an old thing. It follows new rules - and raises ethical questions and questions of practice that are not touched by old codifications of good journalistic practice.

While I'm sure the UAE Journalists' Association's offer is kindly meant, it's barking up quite the wrong tree.

UPDATE
This story in Gulf News today, that Saudi Arabia is mulling putting an electronic publications law on the anvil, is another and slightly more worrying take on this very topic. Take a look here.

The Inconvenient Truth

Image via Wikipedia

‘Dark side of Dubai’ journalist Johann Hari made much of the reaction to his article in The Independent when he put up a piece on the influential Huffington Post recently, playing the ‘poor mouth’ and using the overblown language that caused Dubai blogger Chris Saul to coin the ‘transgression too far’ mini-meme that had so many of us howling with laughter at the pompous hack’s expense.

The Dubai authorities have decreed that the article must not be read says Hari in his post, written and placed carefully up on the Internet when he knew perfectly well that the ban was not a policy decision, was not total by any means and was clearly not an official act. All facts made clear in the blog post by The National’s Jen Gerson he links to as proof of his banning.

Any honest man would have waited to see what the outcome of this clearly confused and idiotic situation was before screaming ban. But not Hari.

He links to Jen’s post as ‘one of many bloggers’ who have been discussing the ban. In fact, only two blogs have discussed the ban – mine and Jen's. If anyone knows of any others please do let me know. Mine, of course – the post that first exposed the daft Du block - is critical of The Great Hari and so wouldn't get linked to.

Hari also makes the assertion in his Huff post that he has also been told that he would be arrested or turned away at the airport if he came back to Dubai.

Who told him that? Does he really think he figures so large in the scheme of things that his name’s on every national immigration computer ready for the day that he comes back to save us once again? Is that an official response to him or a warning from a credible source? Or just another empty assertion intended to demonstrate how damaging The Great Man’s Truth has been to this evil and morally corrupt state?

It’s an example of the way that Johann Hari treats the truth – anything that doesn’t fit his purpose is quietly dropped from his skewed and distorted accounts. And that includes balance. The inconvenient truths, that his piece was not banned as a policy decision, that the ban was not called for, let alone authorised at any government level, that the Dubai authorities have decreed nothing of the sort and that it is highly unlikely that anyone could be arsed to arrest him, are missing from his Huffington assertions. As is the very likely scenario - that 'authority' here would have been mildly horrified at Du for trying to block the piece at all.

But then there’d be no piece to demonstrate to the world that Johann Hari, scourge of the unjust and bearer of the torch of truth, is important enough to ban, would there?

And that, one suspects, would be a transgression too far...

Wonderful Things

It's not often that I'm reduced to Sharing Hilarious Internet Things, but this is (I am sure you'll agree) very special indeed.

Oddee is one of my favourite blogs ever. It's a mad little collection of often bizarre things that pulls over a million readers a month because it collects the strange bits of fluff in life's sock drawer and presents them in lists that are convenient and rewarding to graze.

One such Oddee list, '15 Sexist Vintage Ads' is linked to the picture above. It brought tears of helpless laughter to my eyes and so I thought I might as well share it.

Normal service will be resumed shortly...

Mr Futurist

Image via Wikipedia

The way we talk to technology and the way we talk to each other is changing at a pace that I can only describe as frightening.

You understand, the ‘f’ word is coming from a life-long technocrat.

Right now, we type on mobile keypads to retrieve or dial a number. We sit, fingers crashing down on nasty, analogue keys or dragging mice around in order to instruct our machines to do stuff or to send text to each other. But innovations afoot today are going to change the entire nature of our relationship with enabling technologies.

The keyboard will be a thing of the past in a few years’ time – we’ll use voice and hand movements to manipulate systems and objects on screens, walls or other surfaces. We’ll be able to take our ‘stuff’ and deposit it wherever we want – on walls, products, bulletin boards or public places (‘digital graffiti’ will become a problem) or add stuff from those places to our stuff if we want. We’ll be able to interface to systems and query them about products in supermarkets or people, to send messages or update friends or special interest groups which we belong to with new information. We’ll get used to a world where everyone, potentially, knows everything – and where consumers can access peer reviews, scientific information, manufacturer claims and third party viewpoints at any time.

We’re going to share video and voice more than text – we’re going to become digitally tactile and our world is going to be based on streams of information served up to us through ‘real-world’ interfaces to information networks. We’ll likely access all of that through one ‘network device’ which will be camera, credit card, database access tool, megaphone and information system all in one.

It’ll be smaller than today’s mobile phones.

The totally empowered consumer will be a result – a process that is also evident in the way today’s markets are changing. The game is about putting the right information in people’s hands when they want it – reliable, believable, credible information. Even today, as we look at this brave new future world, consumers are increasingly information-centric.

And they’re already buying the steak, not the sizzle.

This piece originally appeared as one of the chucklesomely named 'A Moment with McNabb' columns in Campaign Middle East magazine. I have to put it here ‘cos they haven’t got a website yet and don’t post these on their own damn blog.

Momentary Lapse of Awe

My first HDR image. Catalin 'Momentary Awe' Marin's to blame. I have discovered the joys of HDR imaging and am now to be seen wandering around wildernesses lugging my red hot (and damn heavy) Manfrotto tripod.

I'm not saying the end result's any good, but it's amazing fun. If you want to see cool and frankly inspirational HDR imaging, take a look at Catalin's piccies here.

HDR stands for High Dynamic Range. It's a photo enhancemnt technique that uses three exposures (or more!) of the same shot - typically on neutral, one two stops down and one two stops up. The three images are then stitched together with a range of controls and filters that help you to create a range of effects from slightly jazzed up pictures to strange, ethereal images that go way beyond traditional photography.

It's a little like Marmite to photographers - you either love it or hate it. The hate it camp, as usual, is vocal. Me, I love it.

This image of a crashed car was, incidentally, taken in the mountains of Ras Al Khaimah, near Ajman and five minutes' drive from Sharjah. It's also two minutes out of Oman and a stone's throw from Dubai. Any guesses where, peeps?

The Gurkhas Have Won

Image by AFP/Getty Images via Daylife

The following was sent out by email from Joanna Lumley to everyone who'd signed up for the campaign to support the right of Gurkhas who had served in the British military to reside in the UK at the end of their service:

At midday today, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith made the announcement to the House of Commons that the Gurkha Justice Campaign have been fighting for for years. All ex-Gurkhas who have served more than 4 years in the British Army will have the right to settle in the UK if they wish.

After such a long fight, with huge ups and downs, this is a superb announcement.

We simply would not have won this fight without the massive, overwhelming support of all those who have supported our campaign. To the hundreds of thousands of people who have signed Gurkha Justice petitions, lobbied their MP, campaigned, attended rallies and marches - thank you so much to you all. This is your victory. It would not have happened without you.

The Government has now responded to that campaign after court cases, votes in Parliament, a huge media campaign and, most importantly, massive public support. I am delighted, and humbled, at what has been achieved by our remarkable team.

The whole campaign has been based on the belief that those who have fought and been prepared to die for our country should have the the right to live in our country. We owe them a debt of honour - a debt that will now be paid.

With warmest good wishes,

Joanna
www.gurkhajustice.org.uk

Independent Article Blocked by Du?

This screengrab by pal Catalin (who normally captures images of a much more artistic nature) shows what the UAE's Twitterers have been confirming today - that UAE telco Du does, indeed, appear to have instituted a block of Johann Hari's skewed Dubai-bashing article in The Independent.

Hari's piece, considered by a great number of the people that live and work here as unbalanced and even egregious, was hilariously taken off by blogger and Sun person Chris Saul.

It angered many people, certainly had an impact and was arguably the zenith of the Dubai bashing pieces that have broken out in international media over the past few months like a rash of irritating little surface lesions. Many of these pieces were awful examples of 'Drive-by journalism', but Hari's certainly appeared to have been well researched, even if many of us disagreed with its hysterically outraged tone, wilful lack of balance and insistence on portraying Dubai in the worst possible light.

But we all had views on it, expressed widely and with vim and wit. The vast majority of people I know who live and work here disagreed with Hari's piece and did so from a standpoint of great experience of Dubai and the wider Middle East - the context in which Dubai demands to be placed by anyone genuinely wishing to provide service to their readers.

We were able to have that discussion because we could see what we were discussing. Chris was able to lampoon it so brilliantly because he had the chance to read what he was lampooning. Public voice provided a balance to Hari's article and also provided many of the balancing comments that disagreed with it on The Independent's website. Because we could see the piece, make our minds up and provide our counterpoint to Hari's rant.

Now Du has apparently blocked the article (see the grab above), at least in part (some Du users say they can still access it, although the majority appear not to be able to). If so, we can only urge the telco to reconsider this unilateral decision (Etisalat customers can still access it, so presumably this means the block is not a TRA decision) and reverse it.

I can only assume that it was a decision taken in error by some jobsworth and does not truly reflect a policy of blocking all material that reflects an opinion or tone that does not meet some hidden 'standard' of what's acceptable. Or that it is a technical 'glitch' that can be remedied.

But if it is a block based on the content of the piece, that's really bad news. It would deny people the right to an opinion. It would deny the practice of journalism. And it would have the potential to create yet more negative sentiment on Dubai - negative sentiment that I, for one, really and truly do not want to see being so needlessly created.

Anyone from Du able to confirm that this is not a block by policy?

Update

The National's Tom Gara reports, via Twitter, that the du block is to be removed and seems possibly to have been the subject of a little confusion between du and the TRA.

Good news, then, at the end of the day.

Tree Hugger

Three things caught my eye yesterday and today and I thought I'd share them. Do bear in mind they come from someone that doesn't wear organic cotton, eat lentils or hug trees.

The evaporation of the Aral sea.
This image from NASA shows the evaporation of the Aral Sea. Not really a sea at all, but the fourth biggest lake in the world, the draining of the waters from the two rivers that lead to the Aral Sea in the 1960s has had a devastating and exponential effect on the surrounding environment, destroying the local fishing industry and rendering agriculture around the sea virtually impossible. Attempts to save the least polluted northern lake appear to have had some effect - this image appears to actually show a slight improvement on the situation a couple of years ago - but the damage has been done. Clouds of toxic dust from pesticides, biochemical research and industrial activity are swept throughout the barren area, the local population are being eaten away by poverty and sickness, including lung disease and cancers.

The declining polar cap
This time series of images from NASA shows the patterns of ice on the polar ice caps in September and March each year from 2000-2009. It will make you crap yourself.

The Story of Stuff
Someone (sorry, forgot who!) Tweeted a link to this impactful little video yesterday and I watched it. Getting the two links above from NASA the next morning did rather pull me up with a bump. I do highly recommend investing 20 minutes in taking a look at the video - you'll be the six million and somethingth to do so. It's entertaining, amusing and sobering. Not a bad mixture to manage!

It's been a tad controversial - one commentator called it 'Community college Marxism with a pony tail' - activist Annie Leonard certainly doesn't pull any punches. But you'll perhaps be pleased to know that Fox News, that famous left wing think tank and Voice of Reason, has quibbled with the facts presented in the video.

The list of quibbles with the film that Right Wing America trots out was the final, most scary thing of all. Because they don't question the substance of the presentation - just nitpick over facts such as whether the world's top 5 (Leonard) or 37 (Fox) economies are corporations. Wikipedia cites the sources for Leonard's figures, but I honestly don't care. 51 is a shocking number. 37 is a shocking number. And these are probably the least shocking numbers in the film.

Have a nice day!

The Du Fail

Image by Fenchurch! via Flickr

A wee while ago I posted a grumpy response to the campaign being run by the UAE’s second favourite telco, Du, which targeted ‘smart people’ using social media tools, including Twitter and Facebook.

As I said at the time, and yes I do know that quoting myself is dangerously close to bloganism, “The first problem with this whole thing is that you need to be UPFRONT if you're a company using Twitter and other social media. There's no point in being coy - and you're just going to annoy people if you hide your identity and purpose.”

There was quite a lot of negative comment generally about the campaign, particularly on Twitter.

The campaign didn’t actually last very long. In fact, it looked like this:

Smartpeople follower stats

31 March - FB 46 members (13 admins), Twitter 81 followers (following 192)

6 April FB 116 members (13 admins), Twitter 127 followers (following 226)

13 April FB 184 (15 admins), Twitter 138 (226)

14 May - Twitter 152 Facebook 250

18 May - Twitter 152 Facebook 252

Last Tweet from @smartpeople was 19 April

Last post on Facebook page by 'Albert Edison' was 12 April


One can only assume that at some stage, someone smart pulled the plug. But then if there were actually smart people at Du, you’d have thought they wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.

You’d be wrong.

Du’s new campaign, Be Heard, is similar to the last effort in that its ‘social media’ platforms are being heavily supported by traditional advertising spend. The drive to get you along to the beheard.ae website included emailers as well as muppies (the street advertising thingies).

When you get to beheard.ae you get asked to answer a load of questions of the ‘empowering’ nature: you know, ‘Do you want better value?’ ‘Do you want to save your time?’ ‘Do you want fries with that?’

The website is basically a ‘bait and switch’ advertising-led concept, getting you to visit a website ostensibly to ‘be heard’ when the objective is actually to position Du as cool and ‘with the kids’, to collect email addies and ‘profiles’ of people.

The site tells you how many people voted yes or no to each of the questions. With an attempt to build a Twitter following and an add to Facebook button, the whole thing could be termed an attempt at building ‘social media’ in that it fakes the egalitarianism of asking people’s opinions and letting them share the feedback.

You get the option of adding your own question for people to answer. Someone I know added ‘Don’t you think this whole dumb campaign is a waste of time?’ but I haven’t seen that one displayed on the site yet. So much for the democratisation of being heard.

The feeling of mildly frustrated emptiness that is the end result of going through this process is a little like going out for evening drinks with friends except you have to mime drinking instead of having real drinks and you have to bray like donkeys instead of actually talking.

There’s an ‘about’ button on the site. Once again, as with the failed Smartpeople campaign, that button doesn’t actually say that the campaign’s being run by Du.

The conversation about this campaign on Twitter has either been breathless endorsement (by the people behind it) or irritated commentary. Few managed to voice their irritation as well as advertising website AdNation:

“This one actually manages to be worse than Smart People – at least that had some kind of gimmick. Beheard.ae seems to just be a rather fatuous series of questions, which offer no real insight into anything.”

So again, we have an anonymous site that pretends to be social media and simply isn’t – it’s a company behaving dishonestly and completely misreading the sentiment of the target audience it’s addressing. It’s a company trying to use ‘social media’ but from an old school advertising standpoint, informed by the belief that the job of an advertiser is to shout slogans at people and the role of the consumer is to be the helpless victim of the sloganeering.

The site asks a range of questions, but that’s as far as it goes. They’re not discussed, they’re not part of a serious feedback scheme or the basis for a conversation. I can’t wait for the press release which I am sure, with a crushing sense of inevitability, will be sent out with the ‘results of the survey’.

The result of all this money and effort is that consumers (particularly the Twittering ones) have been actively sniping at the campaign, mildly irritated by it or simply untouched by it.

I believe passionately that we should all make mistakes. Like some geezer said, ‘If you’re not making mistakes, you’re not innovating’. But repeating dumb mistakes, particularly when people actually explained the mistake and why it was a mistake, is a worry.

These two campaigns have arguably done more damage than good to the Du brand.

What's next? Will it be strike three?

Be honest with consumers.

Talk with people, not at them.

Stop shouting and start listening.

Get the message, Du?

(Thanks to CJ for obsessive monitoring & input)

My City. My Metro. My !!!

Your humble correspondent was somewhat disconcerted yesterday to pass a number of advertisements along Dubai's Sheikh Zayed Road, multiply proclaiming 'My City. My Metro.'.

I can only assume this is 'awareness building'. In fact, according to the RTA's own press release, chucklesomely headlined 'RTA Embarks on Massive Metro Marketing Camapaign:

"This marketing campaign runs for one year and comprises three phases to cover the project comprehensively. Phase I focuses on the project introduction in terms of launch timing, shape design and message selection i.e. (My Metro). Phase II is the basic stage comprising all information related to the metro operation, fare, public services, station services, multi-modal integration, and security & safety means. Phase III is the preparatory phase that sets the stage for the launch day on 09/09/2009; also incorporating a supplement to Phase II."

Now don't for a second think that I'm being snarky about this, but the World's Largest Rollercoaster(TM) runs all the way along the Sheikh Zayed Road, occluding much of one's view to the left of said road when travelling in a Southerly direction and the view to the right when travelling in a Northerly direction. *

For well over a year now, we've been watching those pillars supporting massive yellow machines that have been slotting the whole massive Lego kit together, we've seen the armadillo stations take shape and exclaimed with childish delight and wonder when we've all seen our first train moving. We've been talking about it, we've been living with it - including the diversions and traffic jams that have inevitably accompanied a project of such scale.

WE KNOW THERE'S A BLOODY METRO THERE!

Now that we've established that, can we all please save some of the money that's being wasted and get down to the job of actually communicating information of value to people so that we can all start to make our minds up about the most crucial question that is begged by this stunning piece of engineering: will any of us actually want to use it?

*Forgive me, but I have been Irish since my health test.

Technofear

“Inventions reached their limit long ago, and I see no hope for further development.”
Julius Frontinus
Engineer
C1st A.D.

“That any general system on conveying passengers would go at a velocity exceeding ten miles an hour is extremely improbable”
Thomas Tredgold
Civil engineer & writer
1835

“This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.”
Western Union, internal memo
1876

"I have not the smallest molecule of faith in aerial navigation other than ballooning or of the expectation of good results from any of the trials we hear of ... I would not care to be a member of the Aeronautical Society."
Lord Kelvin
President, Royal Society
1895

“Everything that can be invented has been invented.”
Charles H. Duell
Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents
1899

“Aeroplanes are interesting toys but of no military value.”
Marechal Ferdinand Foch
Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre
1911

“Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?”
H. M. Warner, Founder, Warner Brothers
1927


“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”
Thomas Watson
Chairman of IBM
1943

“With over 50 foreign cars already on sale here, the Japanese auto industry isn't likely to carve out a big slice of the U.S. market.”
Business Week
1968

“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.”
Ken Olson
Founder, Digital Equipment Corp.,
1977

“If our language, our programs, our creations are not strongly present in the new media, the young generation of our country will be economically and culturally marginalized.”
Jacques Chirac

UAE Health Test

Image via Wikipedia

I did my health test. It’s got to be my top ‘most dehumanising expat experience’, shuffling around trying to find out what to do next in the warm, fuggy semi-portakabin rooms of the laughingly named Satwa Health Clinic, clasping my piece of paperwork and my passport and waiting for the inevitable grunting electric-chair-arm-strap experience to be followed by a nasty little blue-purple spreading bruise.

When I first did a health test here, they actually tested my health. Now it’s just a blood test for HIV antigens. It even says so on the label of the sample bottle they give you to clutch as you hop from warm seat to warm seat in the great Waiting Caterpillar Game. Just before you do the clutch cotton wool to your inner elbow by giving the international ‘Wooargh, wouldn’t you like to give ‘er one, eh?’ thing.

The nice security chap at the health centre, responding to my confused “What do I do?” question as there’s, as usual, no signage, information or any other hint as to what is expected of one, sent me to the typing centre where for a mere 20Dhs a chap in a hat typed my application for me. Then I went back to the health centre and paid my 260Dhs for the test. You can pay more these days if you want a fast result, including a 1-hour 'VIP' service.

I was amazed at how analogue the whole process still was until, waiting for my name to be called out by a Bangladeshi robot tannoy announcer, I noticed a line on the form, “Thank you for using DOHMS online medical fitness request service”.

I checked online when I got back to the office and, sure enough, the cheeky sods in the typing centre had charged me 20Dhs for the pleasure of typing an online form for me!

It’s simple, peeps – you got to www.dohms.gov.ae and register for a ‘temporary health card number’ and then use that to fill out the health test form and print it out – you can also pay online for the service fees.

The site’s basic and could be more flexible (for instance, no option to edit your profile information once it’s entered) but it seems to work just fine. Why the staff at the health centre don’t tell you it’s online, I don’t know.

The actual, on the day experience is still awful, of course. But now you know. I paid 20Dhs so you won’t have to...

The Journalist and the Machine

Image by bunky's pickle via Flickr

Nigel is a journalist on a weekly magazine. He’s good at his job, which means filing two or three incisive and highly readable features a week plus a good handful of news stories. For these, he relies on a mixture of good contacts, a lot of Google alerts, the local papers and a quick scan of each days’ inbox full of press releases, most of which are dross but some of which can be followed up. On a bad week he might even use one or two with no follow-up, purely because time has a habit of running out now and then.

The features take up most of his time, often requiring a number of interviews and meetings for background as well as more for opinions and quotes. He’ll crack some of these features off quite quickly, others can be on the boil for a few weeks.

Bob is a busy executive with a major US security company and he’s visiting the Middle East to review the company’s 60-strong and growing operation. Security systems for corporates are a big and growing business in the region and Bob’s company has taken the region seriously enough to send him in: he’s global VP of a $3 billion company. The Middle East reports through London and the local GM and marketing manager have already had several conference calls with the slightly panicky communications team in London. They have never had Bob in the EMEA region before and they want to make sure nothing goes wrong. And the corporate team have already let London know that this is a big one for them. The team in Dubai, as a consequence, have really been feeling the heat about Bob’s visit.

Nigel takes a call from a local PR company offering an interview with a real hot-shot executive who’s visiting called Bob Bobbus. Apparently he’s a player in the security market and is here to talk about opening regional operations for a really big security company. Nigel agrees to take the interview with Bob as it sounds interesting. The PR guy is slightly more annoying than usual, asking him about his background and intended story angle.

The symptoms of big executive fear are always the same: it’s the fifth time this particular PR company has asked him for his background and, what’s more, Nigel does feel the request for his story angle in the same call as the interview’s being sold on is hardly reasonable. A subsequent call, three days before the interview is due to happen, confirms that Bob can only meet Nigel at 7pm in Jebel Ali. Nigel lives in Mirdif and won’t be home to see his young son until way past 9pm. Dinner will be in the dog. Again. Nigel considers canning the whole thing, but he’s got an issue to put to press and nothing else in the bag right now.

The PR company is asking about his story angle again: the exec actually asks him for a copy of his questions. Nigel is polite, but firm: that’s not happening.

The PR company hasn’t actually had any meaningful dialogue with Nigel before, let alone about Bob, his company or its market and so has no idea of what Nigel’s views, interests or approach are likely to be. This is now turning into a problem as London is insisting on full information about the journalist, the publication and a market briefing for Bob.

The Dubai office gives the PR company a hard time and they finally deliver the documents the day before Bob Bobbus flies in. They’re sketchy and London is concerned as a result: they insist that the Dubai GM and his marketing manager sit in on the interview.

The day of Bob’s visit dawns and everything goes pretty well: a customer event in the morning, a number of customer meetings following and a visit to a major site in the afternoon. The major site, a very sensitive customer, is a significant account to Bob’s company and the customer is really interested in some of the new things that the company is bringing out and so Bob and the group are delayed.

Nigel, who arrived a little early, waits at the hotel they’ve arranged to meet at – he’s joined by the PR guy, who arrived a little late. The PR guy tries to be friendly, but Nigel’s irritated and concerned about getting home now and just stares into his coffee.

Bob arrives 35 minutes late. He’s got his GM and marketing manager in tow and they all file into a meeting room together with the PR. Nigel waits outside, checking his skin for signs of leprosy.

After another ten minutes, Nigel is called in to the room for his audience with Bob. He’s sat at a boardroom table facing four people in suits. A normally relatively mild-mannered man, Nigel is really quite irritated by now, but is professional enough to put this to one side and get on with the interview. It quickly becomes obvious that Bob knows nothing about the Middle East and precious little about the world outside the continental USA. He is evasive regarding any financial information, future plans or disclosing details of any large deals or customers.

Nigel knows a little bit about Bob’s company and asks about the big customer that Bob visited that afternoon. Bob denies the meeting. Nigel’s wife works for the company and so he continues to probe regarding the relationship between Bob and his customer.

The local GM interrupts Nigel to tell him that it would probably be better to drop this line of questioning. Nigel points out that he’s perfectly entitled to pursue the line of questioning. The PR guy steps in and suggests a change of topic.

Nigel disagrees. He wants to know why Bob is lying about the customer site visit. The atmosphere is by now quite electric. And then Nigel asks about the Saudi bank that’s filing a case against Bob’s company in London. It’s common knowledge in the regional market and has even popped up on a couple of websites. However, it’s news to Bob and all hell quietly breaks loose. Bob handles the question badly, his GM steps in and makes it worse and the marketing manager jumps in, too, and refers to the Saudi incident as merely one of a number of issues that security companies have to deal with in a difficult region like the Middle East. Nigel, who is taping the interview, is told that this comment was off the record when he asks follow up questions.

Nigel’s wife calls to ask where he is. In the circumstances, he takes the call, leaving the room briefly. He returns and finishes the interview as quickly as possible. It hasn’t been an enjoyable experience.

The next day, Nigel has the tape transcribed. It contains Bob and his team complaining about Nigel as he was out of the room and also the whispered briefing that Bob was given by his team on the four lawsuits that had been filed by unhappy customers in the region, totalling millions of dollars.

Does he use the material in his subsequent feature?

(I'd completely forgotten about this feature wot I wrote for ArabianBusiness.com until Shufflegazine's Magnus commented on it, which lead to me re-reading it. Having done so, I thought I'd post it here, because I think, in hindsight, it's actually an interesting question!)

Sentiment on the The Arab Tweet

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

I didn’t attend the ‘New Media’ session of The Arab Media Forum yesterday ( I served my time in the morning, alright?), but then I didn’t need to. Several people I respect were in the audience and were Tweeting highlights throughout the session. One of them was a colleague, one was another PR person I chat to and two were media people I know well.

I can wait for further analysis of the session, I can take my time. I got the high points, the headlines, as they happened – and from several different sources and viewpoints at that.

The people whose commentary on the proceedings was influencing hundreds, in fact going into the thousands, of people were not the ones on the stage talking at the Forum, they were in the audience. Between them, the Tweeters were talking to an audience of more people than the guys onstage with the microphones. Sure, the BBC will broadcast the session in a while – but we’ve already discussed it, deliberated it, shared it ‘on the record’ with the entire Internet and moved on.

And if that doesn’t give you pause for thought, I give up.

Incidentally, the Twitter users were likely the only people in the room full of hundreds of media people that knew, as they sat down to the session, that Roxanne Saberi had been released from the terrible, feared Evin prison in Tehran – that her father was actually on the way to pick her up at that very moment. The breaking news was flying around Twitter as the conference session started. Oh! And also the news that not only had the Pope called for a two-state solution in Palestine but that the Palestinian Authority press centre had been forced to shut down by the Israelis.

And it doesn’t take a newsroom of hundreds to do that. Or a ‘publishing house’. Or a ‘printing press’. Or an ‘editor in chief’.

Oddly, our little band of Twitterers probably represented the few people in the room that actually, genuinely cared about news like Roxanne Saberi and the PA media centre. Freedom is an Internet thing – the ‘old world’ is more reconciled to its lack.

So what did happen in the ‘new media’ session?

The 'traditional' media, debated their credibility and asked The Lone Blogger why he blogged ("Did you always want to be a journalist?"), comforting themselves with the fact that 'citizen journalism' wasn't as reliable as a 'real journalist'.

They, and Seymour Hersh, appear to have missed the point. The world is changing - it's not about bloggers wanting to be journalists. It's much, much bigger than that and it's time that many of our media woke up to the smell of coffee.

BTW, a Gulf News (600g) survey today, commissioned from IPSOS of some 2,000 people, showed that 76.2 of respondents strongly agreed with the statement 'The Internet helps me to keep up to date with the latest news'. GN's headline for the piece?

"Gulf News Stays Ahead of the Pack"

Which is fine, as long as your pack's not heading for the edge of a cliff...

The Arab Media Forum

Image by madmonk via Flickr

Today marked the start of the 8th Arab Media Forum. I'm quite fond of said forum, if only because it marked the start of this blog, back with this post which has always made me smile when I read it.

So I'm a simpleton. Get over it.

The keynote address at this year's gig was given by the Secretary General of the Arab League, Amr Moussa. He said a number of interesting things and, thanks to the simultaneous translation, a couple of slightly strange ones. There was one passage about dark oceans and creatures feeding on each other that had me slightly bewildered, but we soon found the track again.

(Offtopic, Moussa said that he was impressed by the life and verve he found in Dubai after having read so many negative reports in international media. He got a laugh out of his host, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid, which was nice to see to be honest.)

Moussa set the scene for the rest of the forum, making the point that the Arab World faced challenges in the evolution of its media, particularly with the transition taking place between online and print media, "The Arab World is still launching newspapers while elsewhere in the world, newspapers are failing" he said, talking about the movement of paper to electronic media.

Its funny that this thinking persists - that we're going to stop using paper and just move into being nicely regulateable and licensable entities, identifieable online media houses. It denies the very real atomisation that is taking place as a result of the boom in consumer generated media and content. The concept of media ownership is being redefined.

Just before Moussa came onstage, a panel session had taken place with, among distinguished others, Abdul Hamid Ahmad, Editor in Chief of Gulf News (540g), who pointed out that venerable, 150-year-old institutions like the great American newspapers were shutting down and wondered what would take their place.

As if the process of their decline wasn't being driven by their replacement.

Portentous statements will be made, great declarations will be delivered, many issues will be debated. But the winds of change sweeping around the world, the process of disintermediation and the tools that are driving new ways of sharing information, thoughts, collaboration and innovation are not going to be among the many things the Forum considers seriously. The Middle East media, remember, is still launching newspapers.

It's as if we're making a virtue of being behind the curve - a curve we continue to lag ever more as we fail to teach online skills in schools and retard adoption through protectionism, mad pricing and content blocking.

I get the feeling that this is going to be something of a theme for this forum which features just a single session on online media, tucked in at the end of day one's proceedings. This panel (led by the BBC's Hossam Al Sokkari) will feature Google's regional manager and is the reason the forum will get to hear from its one, lone, blogger - an Algerian called Issam Hamoud.

One social media figure among all those media glitterati in this two-day media-fest. One 'public voice'. One ambassador for the 'new media'.

It reminds me a little of Michael Moorcock's excellent Brothel In Rosenstrasse (The book is, incidentally, most certainly NSFW, part of its quirky charm). The enemy army is on the borders of the city, but life goes on inside the brothel, unchallenged for the moment by the changes taking place outside, a bright burning of licentiousness in negation of the great and inevitable truth that's all around.

Until, suddenly, everything is rapidly, inevitably swept away along with the world that existed before it.

Legacy media is not going to be killed by social media, despite the much-publicised declines and closures. But it is being transformed by it - and those who are not driving that change are likely going to be swept aside by it.

The Arab Media Forum has, IMHO, missed a trick. So, arguably, has the Arab Media.

But Amr Moussa knows what's going on, at least...

Donkeys and The Media

Image via Wikipedia

Gulf News makes donkeys of us all today.

Back up to 640g after some recent disastrous forays into the 500s and even 400s, your favourite newspaper trumpets 'Awards Muled for English Media' on its front page earpiece.

Something being muled is certainly a change from 'on the anvil', the favourite phrase among GN sub-editors for 'not ready yet'. So what is taking so much muling?

The answer is to be found in a page 7 interview with Mariam Bin Fahed, the Director of Dubai Press Club. Apart from confirming some Great Truths:

"There are some issues we don't want to discuss."

"If we see that the x-marks are higher, we avoid discussing the subject."

"There was an article that was too sensitive in 2006 and it was scored number one by the judges When it came to the senior panel members, they had to hold it back and the award went to the second candidate."

"You don't want to encourage negative acts."

The interview also contains the suprising assertion that "journalists are even writing articles specifically for the award now."

Needless to say, with many journalists in Egypt, for example, holding down two jobs to make ends meet, many of the region's vastly under-paid press would write articles about the pleasures of keeping bunny rabbits and making daisy chains if you offered them $15,000.

They'd probably write about bloody Modhesh for that much money.

Anyway, in the interview Mariam Bin Fahd didn't rule out an award for English language media that serve the region, hence the claim that the Press Club is muling an award.

It'll be interesting to see what wins this years Arabic awards given the clear signal in the piece that anything controversial, the result of great, ground-breaking journalism for instance, likely won't be muled at all...

Weird Phish

Everyone’s favourite telco sent me an email. PHISHING WARNING! Hollered the subject line.

Lovely. I opened it. I mean, at least it wasn't a blasted text at midnight...

Phishing emails are them what pretends to be from a bank or someone and that get you to give up personal information so that the evil phishers can steal your identity, children, things and money.

“Etisalat will never email links” said the mail in reassuring green as it warned me of the dangers of phishing emails in stentorian, warning tones.

There then followed a series of six pointers for those wishing to improve their internet security.

You guessed it – item six contained... a link.

A Comment for Tala al Ramahi

As a journalist I always disliked PRs intensely. They were all too frequently dumb, annoying and often tried, in some way, to manipulate me. I do so hate being manipulated, too. But I rarely, if ever, refused to listen.

Listening is so important to journalism, I always thought.

I'd like to think that the experience and attitude I gained from working as a writer and editor informs my work today as a PR practitioner. I like working with people, journalists, whom I respect. I enjoy working with people, journalists, who respect me in turn. It's often something won, on both sides, but can only be won where someone is open to talking to people, not closed to them, to start with.

That respect, perhaps lacking in this piece if you don't mind me saying so, is something built on an understanding between us. I will endeavour to be useful, relevant and helpful wherever I can so be. I will even aspire to being insightful. I will at all times be truthful. But I work within constraints set by my status as being retained to work in my clients' best interests - as my client and I define them.

On the journalist's side, it's much simpler. It's simply to give me the chance to make a case for my client based on respecting my track record, experience and knowledge of the market and the role and restrictions of media enough to give me the time of day. I like to think that, where I am given that freedom, I can help to deliver useful results for the media I work with. If that is not the case, then of course I would expect to fail, in future, to have a similar opportunity to argue my case.

Where my clients' interests and those of the public combine, I can usually 'sell' a story quite easily. Sometimes I find myself encountering a journalist that knows better and isn't buying. Then it's my job to convince that journalist that I've actually got something of relevance, topicality and interest to that readership. This should be a pleasant process, not a mindless drone of shirt-tugging and nagging. I think we both recognise that.

I often find that I can do that with people, journalists, who are willing to listen to an alternative viewpoint. Typically, those are people that afford me enough respect not to just brush me off as an annoying flak or 'another PR' - those unwilling to fall prey to the sickness of generalisation that is the enemy of any 'seeker after truth'.

A touch of humility, you see, often makes a good journalist a rather brilliant one, IMHO. But an arrogant refusal to listen to someone on the grounds that they serve an organisation with a vested interest is blocking one side of the story.

An organisation promoting something new isn’t automatically irrelevant or worthy of your contempt, by the way. Every innovation around you today, everything that informs and empowers your life in this modern world, was created by an organisation that had to promote that innovation.

If you don’t mind, I’d like to offer you some advice from an old man. You have to keep your eyes and ears open if you want to serve the public with the truth. Closing yourself to those who are employed to help organisations communicate more effectively does not, in my humble opinion, advance that public service. More effective communication is in my interest, my client’s interest, the public’s interest and, yes, your interest.

I’m sure we would also recognise that I’d rather you took the information from me and used it as part of a broader story that presents the market in an informed, insightful and illuminating fashion. That I would rather see experience, insight and research going into stories that I work with media on. I have no issue with you taking what I provide, testing it, comparing it with competitors and using it as part of a larger story that talks to the issues and circumstances that surround and drive the market. I'd love to see great journalism that truly informs the reader. I’d personally like to see a great deal more of that than we see in much of our regional media today.

Incidentally, I am amazed at how many journalists have not the faintest idea of, or interest in, what professional PR practitioners actually do get up to with clients. I'll give you a clue - it's not actually about writing press releases and calling around media to make sure they've received them.

Perhaps a touch of humility and basic, human respect might serve you as well as it would serve the PRs you deride and hold in such obvious contempt.

Atishoo! Oink!

Image via Wikipedia

The celebrated SeaBee makes the excellent point over at 'Life in Dubai' that we now have a 'clarification' of the original announcement that the UAE was banning pork products as a result of concerns regarding Swine Flu.

As SeaBee reports, quoting ArabianBusiness.com : "There is no decision to ban pork meat products," said Majid Al Mansouri, secretary-general of the Environment Agency and member of a higher committee responsible for combating the flu.

Someone forgot to tell our local Spinneys. The Ajman branch has taken the whole damn lot off sale and closed the pork section.

Luckily I have already taken the precaution of buying several freezers worth of 'the special stuff' and installing a number of large industrial freezing units, some advanced cryogenics, a backup UPS and generator and a flat-packed nuclear shelter as well as a significant amount of stockpile-protecting firepower.

We're alright, Jack. But how long will it be before the original ban, the reversal of the ban, the decision to ban the ban and the unbanning of the ban will be is anyone's guess.

Meanwhile, the linkage between ze mal de cochon and the transport, handling, storage, processing and consumption of 'the special stuff' is of course denied strenuously by every health authority and expert in the world.

Life in the Gulf. I have always loved it. I suspect I always will...

Radio Gaga

Image by luc legay via Flickr

Radio is probably the most undervalued advertising/communication medium of the lot: something of a shame, it's one of my favourite 'legacy' media...

I had always thought of this as a Middle East problem, but apparently it’s the case worldwide. People just won't invest appropriately in creating compelling executions for radio.

I’ve also always believed that crappy radio advertising stemmed from the relative affordability of the airtime on a slot by slot basis, that it was the consequent underinvestment that lies behind the awful executions that we all know and loathe so well. Because, let's face it, Middle East radio advertising is mired in awfulness that is beyond simply bad - it's heroically bad.

However, the almost total lack of data on the reach and influence of radio is, I believe, a uniquely Middle East problem. It’s hard to actually define who’s listening to what, when. And that, of course, makes it difficult to justify investing in radio from a cost per listener point of view.

Taking the issue from the other end of the pipeline might help – what’s the value of radio if you look at results. For instance, if you promote an event in a public place, say a shopping mall, over radio do people actually pitch up? If you ask for a response, for instance a phone-in or an SMS, by radio, do people respond?

The answer is not only yes, but it can also be a resounding yes - depending on how well your message is put together and how it resonates with its audience. Radio can be a very targeted medium indeed – and one interesting piece of evidence for this is to be found in the growing relationship between radio and social media. Thousands of people are starting to follow Dubai DJ Catboy, for instance, on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter – and as that relationship matures and strengthens, new followers are being added hourly. And those followers are active participants – they respond to competitions, give opinions, take part in what has become, in a very real sense, the ‘conversation’ that every Web 2.0 proponent will gladly talk to you about until your ears bleed. (Incidentally, over 4,000 people are currently following Simon 'Catboy' Smedley on Twitter).

So I’d like to suggest perhaps a slightly different approach to radio – one that’s not based so much on ‘How many people are getting our message when we scream slogans and benefits at them’ but more on ‘What stuff can radio help us to encourage people to do and participate with them in doing’ – the action in itself being a symptom of a deeper understanding of, and relationship with, your audience.

This piece originally appeared as one of the chucklesomely named 'A Moment with McNabb' columns in Campaign Middle East magazine.

Ford Fiesta - Online Fail?

Not enough bloggers in region to drive campaign, says Ford

Do they, indeed?

The excellent Dima Hmadi in today's Emirates Business 24x7 reports on Ford's international campaign to launch its new Fiesta model by getting 100 bloggers to test drive the car that shares its name with one of the London Rubber Company's finest products.

According to Hmadi's story, young trendsetters will 'live' with the car for six months, travelling as 'agents' on 'special missions' who'll report on their experiences using a variety of social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Fiesta, says the story, has more than 300 fans on the Fiesta Movement Facebook page and over 600 followers on the @FordFiesta Twitter account.

Gasp! 600 followers on Twitter? What an international runaway success! Er... not.

The story goes on to outline how Ford has been 'innovating' in the Middle East, with an auction of 24 specially painted Fiestas taking place on souq.com. The auction attracted an overwhelming 70 bids which, according to a 'well informed observer' was seen as a very good response.

70 bids for 24 cars? That's 2.9 bids per car. A good response? Er...not.

And then the story goes on to make the statement that got my little goat: "Bloggers invited to offer their inputs from around the region, however, generated no response."

The Ford spokesperson goes on to waffle dramatically about online media in a terribly authoritative way, including Ford's 'non-traditional approach' to online promotion. This included a Social Media Release (SMR) that "contained Special Edition Fiesta information, special video content, images and press releases targeted to key print and online media."

Wooooaaaah there! A "social media release" was targeted at "key print and online media"???

Aren't we missing something here, Ford?

"The SMR received extensive coverage within the online community" apparently, although I can't recall anyone posting about Ford Fiestas and, in fact, a Google Blog Search yields zilch from Middle East blogs. And so does a Technorati search...

The banner advertising generated 16.7 million impressions, though, prompting over 30,000 click-throughs for more information on their homepage - and the emailer campaign generated approximately 1,700 consumer responses and another 5,000 consumers were sent "racing" to souq.com.

So, Ford sent out some emailers, put up some banner ads, sent out an 'SMR' to the wrong people, generated a woeful response to an auction, a sad Facebook membership and a tiny Twitter following.

Did Ford or any of its representatives contact anyone out there about this campaign? Bloggers? Did you "fail to respond" or did they "fail to contact you"???

If they didn't, as I suspect, contact a single damn blogger, then it would be the final nail in this woeful and mendacious account of a campaign that wasn't a social media campaign or an innovative online campaign at all.

It was a fail.

Some US reaction, from the first page of Google blogsearch results, to the campaign, BTW - because I couldn't find any Middle East coverage online beyond AME Info. Perhaps someone from Ford could put me right...

http://blogs.edmunds.com
"Ford's idea for a video contest to pick the winners was brilliant, but the entertainment value of the videos, pics and tweets that will emerge over the next several months is questionable. I mean, as nice as the Fiesta may be, it's still just an entry-level economy car."

http://toughsledding.wordpress.com
"Fiesta Movement is, at its worst, payola. Or if you prefer, blogola. And it’s the same sort of blogola that’s created huge dust-ups back in ‘07. For some background, try here, here and here. Simply put, by offering a free car, free fuel and free insurance to the agents, Ford has co-opted its agents’ messages. The moment these “socially vibrant” influencers took Ford’s booty, they became paid shills."

Recession? What recession?

Image via Wikipedia

Gulf News is weighing in at something like (don't forget I'm using a Dhs19 scales from Lal's, so I can't really do the old atomic level measurements here) 540g these days, down from 1.3 Kg in November 2008 - and also down from the 640g-odd that it had sort of settled down to in February.

It peaks and troughs a bit, but it's been steadily trending down - the majority of the loss has, of course, been in the enormous volumes of clamorous and directive real estate advertising that last year was telling us to 'Live your dreams' and 'Dare to drivel' and whatnot.

At the same time, Al Nisr Publishing's Property Weekly (Al Nisr is GN's parent company) has dropped again from 72 pages to 66 - from a high of over 144 pages last year.

I take no pleasure in recording this. I have pals at Gulf News & PW and the newspaper has been my constant companion in over 15 years' living in the UAE. I'm rather fond of it, in a strange way.

But it's interesting, perhaps, for those who thought the worst was over in Jan/Feb and that we'd bottomed with the great Q1 shock, to see that the market's still losing value and that real estate advertising (and, arguably, advertising across the board) continues to shrink.

Disclaimer. This article is in no way intended to damage the economy or indeed to provoke any other economic affect beyond a mild look of passing interest between dunking the first and second Rich Tea biscuit in one's morning tea. No acarpi were harmed in the production of this post.

Yaytee

Image by pupski via Flickr

Every other morning (sadly) I buy petrol. I almost invariably use the same service station and invariably ask for the same thing. Dhs80 of ‘Special’. I have done since they built the damn place just down from my house – oh, apart from a brief phase last year when it went up to Dhs90 of Special.

“Hi. 80 Dirhams Special please”
Smile “Good morning”
“Yes, Good morning. 80 Dirhams Special please.”
Big smile “Good morning.”
“80 Dirhams special please”
“Full?”
“No. Eighty Dirhams of special please. 80. AT. Eyt zero. Aytee.”
“Sixty!”
“No. Eighty, AT, bandersnatch, argubuthon, ephaisto. Yayytee. Eeeteee.”
Huge smile as understanding dawns like the Midsummer sunrise over the stones on Salisbury Plain. “Yaytee!”
“Yes. 80.”
“Super?”
“NO, Special. Yaytee Special.”
“Open please.”

Now I am rather left wondering what it takes for a petrol pump attendant to understand an order for petrol. Let us assume that a working knowledge of Arabic, Hindi, English, Malayalam and Urdu is required. We need to learn:

10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70. 80. 90. 100. Full. Special. Super. Diesel. Change. Cash. Credit Card. Receipt. Clean window. Yes. No.

It’s not a hellish vocab to pick up, is it? Even a Nokia speech recognition system could probably do it, and could probably handle the words involved even if you had a heavy cold and had just yesterday been repeatedly punched hard on the nose by an irritated customer who had finally snapped and physically visited your call centre to let you know what he thought of your cheery ‘Anything else I can do for you today, sir?’

It’s not as if people frequently stop at the petrol pump and chat about movements in art or care to outline philosophical approaches to the socio-economic conundrums of the world today. Your average conversation consists of window down, ‘I want x amount of x petrol’.

In fact, this being true, you could pretty well anticipate what the chap in the car is saying, even if he’s green, has antennae and is driving a small spaceship. He’s saying [Amount] [Type of fuel] where [Amount] is one of ten numbers or the word ‘full’ 99.9999% of the time and where [Type of fuel] is one of three possible types.

Unless, of course, he’s saying ‘take me to your leader’, in which case pouring refined petroleum spirit into his Quantum Drive’s water tank may not be a smart move.

So where is the problem? I’m a regular, I always ask for the same thing and it is clearly differentiated in my language from any other reasonable thing that you could expect me to ask for in the circumstances. Leastways it is unless your petrol station forecourt supermarket is home to a world-class delicatessen that stocks weights of tea, Dee hams and special peas.

I have the sneaking suspicion that they all turn around and talk to each other about what a rum old customer I am in their impeccable, Etonian English the second I drive off, I really do...