Dubai Is Bouncing Back

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Chatting with pal +Ashish Panjabi on Twitter... hang on a second. I just typed Ashish's twitter handle - @apanjabi - into the blogger CMS and it suggested his Google+ handle instead and replaced the text for me. That's getting way too spooky, Google - and surely in your bid to MAKE us love Google+ and adopt it over all other religions you're now crossing the 'do no evil' rubicon. When you use Gmail and write 'I've attached a photo of your bottom' and forget to attach anything, Goog comes back and asks you if you're sure you want to do that. It's part cutesy, part useful and part scary. But linking everyone I know's social profiles to Google+? That's just plain scary.

Anyway, back to the point. Ashish was complaining about the traffic on floating bridge on Twitter this morning and used a memorable phrase as we chatted about the situation: 'Dubai is bouncing back'. It's not really news as such, the signs are there for all to see. But in black and white, the text sort of hit me.

On the one hand, bouncing back is no bad thing. There's little doubt the UAE has been the best place in the world to be over the past few years - sure, it's been quieter around here, but there has still been opportunity and trade goes on. Modern Dubai was founded on trade and once we'd got rid of the estate agents, it was trade that saw the city through. You forget these things, but compiling blog posts for Fake Plastic Souks The Glory Years took me right back there to 2008 and the overheated Dubai that preceded the GFC.

You couldn't get a school for your kids. You couldn't move in the city, the roads were a constant jam of snarling, honking traffic. The sewage plants were so over-capacity they were digging holes in the desert to store the stuff and tanker drivers were pumping it into storm drains so the sea off Jumeirah was fouled with human sewage and people were getting sick. The power network was straining. You couldn't get into a hospital and the machine that goes ping had a waiting list. Rents were sky-high, Gulf News weighed 1.4Kg - most of which was adverts charging us to dare to dream and live to love - and the city was filled with pop-eyed yahoos getting drunk and boasting how much money they had. Anything that didn't move had a billboard tacked on it. Hotels made up insane lists of demands before taking a booking - including minimum stays and cash up front for event facilities - if you could get one beyond six months in advance. Taxis wouldn't stop for you or wouldn't take the fare if it didn't suit them. If you could find one. There was a constant miasma over the city, a yellow, sulphurous dust cloud you could see as you approached from inland, a great smudge across the horizon. This had become a really unpleasant place to live.

Now there's no doubt that Dubai's in better shape today, having continued to invest in infrastructure during the lean years. The Al Khail Road's been quietly finished, the new road network around Trade Centre Roundabout's well on the way, Defence Roundabout is an interchange, the metro's up and running and so on. Presumably (hopefully) similar investments in other key infrastructure have been taking place, allowing the city to expand once again but do so in a more prepared and planned way - a more sustainable, manageable growth. Because we've learned the lessons from the boom and bust - particularly from the bust - haven't we? If so, then all well and good. We can Bounce Back all we like.

But if we're talking a return to the excess and insanity of 2008, I fear. I fear for this little city I have come to call home - although it's not home and doesn't mind reminding me of the fact now and then. And the reappearance of daft real estate ads, the talk of 22% price rises and jams on Floating Bridge make me very skittish indeed.

Of course, Gulf News will never be 1.4Kg again. The Internet's seeing to that. So there's no point in using its weight to chart the economy's rise as was possible to chart its fall...

Hatta - The Track That Is No More. And Summer Rain.

We spent the weekend at the sublime Hatta Fort Hotel because we've been married 22 years and both of us needed to get away to overcome the feeling of utter shock.

The Ramoul Bar at the hotel is one of my favourite places on earth. Seriously. It has many fond memories dating back two decades and more - and it's one of the most wilfully retro experiences to be had in the UAE. Built in 1981, the bar is sheer '70s wonderfulness, all dark brown velour walls, a walnut ceiling dotted with the original spotlights, square glass lights and brown silkscreen prints on the wall. It's glorious. The original furnishings and leather bar edging were cream, they're red now and the Millbank speakers on the wall have been replaced by Bose units, but much of the original bar is as it was the day the hotel opened up in those faraway hills. It suits a Martini as well as anywhere suits a Martini. Lemon twist, no olive, thanks.

The Hatta Fort still does silver service. It's wonderful - food is revealed from beneath silver covers, caesar salads and crepes are made at your table. It doesn't get much better. The hotel runs like clockwork, it knows who it is. Its staff actually want to help. It has beautiful grounds, makes a brilliant breakfast and is more chilled out than a quantum hyper-chiller.

We took a turn up the Hatta track - as was. It was raining when we got up for breakfast, a fine, soft drizzle and a yellow cast to the sky, the mountains slowly enveloped in the encroaching mist. Breakfast looking out over Hatta watching the mountains fold into the meringue, then we set off.

There are few things finer than cool summer rain in the mountains.

Oh, my dears. Who remembers the Great Hatta Track? We first travelled it together, Sarah and I, the week we met during GITEX 1988 - 25 years ago. We hired a Corolla with a colleague of mine and Sarah's housemate and we took it out to find the Hatta Pools. We overshot. Four wheel drives passed us, staring. The girls got out and pushed at one point as the Corolla's little engine heaved to negotiate the rutted, vertiginous passes. We stopped at the village of Rayy (now spelled Rai for some reason) and asked directions at the mosque. It was a Friday. A wasp got into the car, cue the exit of two girls wearing shorts. Legs up to their bums. It's the only time I've ever felt intimidated in the Middle East, in the middle of nowhere, more callow than Callum the Callow Marshmallow and the locals furious at two prancing half-naked beauties decorating their Friday devotions. We beat a hasty retreat and ended up in the wadi at Shuwayah, playing with frogs in the glittering wadi waters that wove through the hot rocks.

In a Corolla. We did it in a Corolla. The hire company was furious at the state of what was eventually returned to it. But what to do?

It's just a memory, now, that track. It's blacktop nearly all the way, the only exception one short section where the road has to cross a particularly fearsome stretch of wadi that spates with road-destroying force. They've blown up the mountains to make the passes (three of them) more passable, so they don't climb as steep or high. The biggest was a first-gear climb, especially when the track got rutted up and you were traversing as well as climbing. The swoops down into wadi beds with their stomach-churning bottoming outs have all gone. It's just, well, a road through the mountains.

But they are still glorious, arid, scalloped mountains that surge from the land with all of the enormous splendour of their volcanic uplifting from what was then the ocean bed. They fold and thrust, patinated by purple outcrops, ochre faces and grey-white striations. Shuwaya is a memory of a wadi pool now, drained by snaking black plastic piping - and the Oleander Waterfall is clearly no longer visited - the old track as it originally was, washed away and accessible only to the brave who knew it was home to a little waterfall and a welcoming campsite on the high ground above the temperamental wadi bed.

The rain petered out, the heat intensifying as we drove down onto the plain, still blacktop all the way where it had once been gatch track, a road through the Madam plain and then up into the mountains past the Omani check-point and then back up to Madam through Vilayat Madha.

I felt intensely sad at the passing of those tracks. But that, I am sure the architect of the new roads would tell us, is progress.

The UAE Sedition Trial - 94 Accused, 25 Acquitted

(Photo credit: saraab™)

It's in all the papers today, Gulf News in particular devoting an extraordinary amount of extent to its coverage of the verdict against the 94 Emiratis accused of plotting the overthrow of the UAE's government through the activities of an Islamic front organisation accused of having links to the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Islah.

I had a finger waved at me the other day, accusing me of being 'craven' in not joining in the chorus of voices questioning the trial, the treatment of the prisoners and so on. I thought it was quite an extraordinary thing for someone to do - demand that I take a stance on an issue because they had a viewpoint. I didn't see them taking to a blog in their own name to denounce it all. But it's okay for them to expect me to.

Truth be told, I know absolutely nothing about the trial beyond what our papers have told us - and much of that coverage has been through the national newswire of the UAE, WAM. I assume it's all been filtered, because there's no 'alternative voice' out there. Not from the UAE's media and certainly not from international media. Investigative journalism has either failed, been utterly indifferent or decided there's little enough here to investigate. I know very little indeed about the detail of the case as, I suspect, do we all.

Knowing so little, I find it hard to have a polarised opinion. The trial was conducted by a court constituted by the rulers of this country, under the law of the country. You might not like the country or its law, but that's the facts. It's as valid as a verdict handed down in the UK, Ecuador, China, Singapore or France. Different countries have different forms of rule, judicial systems and standards of what I suppose we should call probity. Some are aggressively open (hello, Scandinavia!) and some are aggressively secretive and intrusive (hello, America!). All limit opposition to the incumbent system of governance to the constituted organs of governance. Really. Ask Ed Snowden. That's our world.

The verdict of the court has been reached. And that, as far as I'm concerned, is that. Please do remember to use your real name and email when you use the comments to call me craven...

Salik Cap Doffed

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The RTA's been and gone and removed the daily cap on its popular Salik road toll, so now if you pass through more than six of the cheery little RFID-enabled gates, you're going to have to pay, baby. This has led to much wailing and gnashing of teeth in the local papers.

There are now three sets of Salik gates in Dubai - two placed on the arterial Sheikh Zayed Road at Safa and Barsha respectively, two on the Maktoum and Garhoud bridges and now two on the main roads to Sharjah at Al Mamzar (Ittihad Road, AKA 'Murder Mile') and the Airport Tunnel (Beirut Street).

There are actually two gates on the Ittihad Road, but they charge as one - as do the two gates on the Sheikh Zayed road IF you pass between them both within one hour (the one hour limitation doesn't apply on the Ittihad Road, so you can pass under one gate, camp overnight and then carry on without incurring an additional charge.).

Nevertheless, if you want to drive from Sharjah to, say, the Jumeirah Beach Residence and back, you're going to get hit for six tolls, currently by a huge coincidence the maximum Dhs24. Now the cap has been removed, any further Salik teasing will result in Dhs4 a time being deducted with a satanic giggle from your Salik account. The alternatives are, practically, the E311 and E611 bypass roads although with some fancy footwork you can get through Qusais and onto the Al Khail Road.

This route is massively congested during rush hours mainly because everybody and his uncle is trying to save Dhs8 each way (they gets you in the road in and they gets you again on the bridge). Caught up in that snarling traffic, cars cutting in, jostling and changing lanes as they cut you up, slumped listlessly over your steering wheel as you wait for the next creep forward and admire the shimmer of the heat on the metal tightly packed all around you, you could be forgiven for wondering what part of 'clear' does the Arabic word salik mean to the RTA.

The RTA has been quick to point out that the change to the cap will only affect some 5% of drivers, but couriers and logistics providers have been most unamused at the scheme. Probably because that 5% of drivers include them - and they will very easily knock up tens of journeys through those gates a day.

You waitses, preciousss, just you waitses for the outcry when they sneaks in a raise to Dhs5 per gate. Oh noes, you might say, they'd never be mad enough to do that!!! I leave you, then, with this parting thought from super-duper tabloid-tastic newspaper 7Days' report on the whole shemoozle:

"The RTA declined to comment when asked by 7DAYS for more information on why the move is being implemented - and whether there are plans to introduce any more Salik charges in the near future."

Emirates ID. One Card To Rule Them All...

Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This is going to be interesting to watch in October. Apparently, by then, the Emirates ID National Identity Card will be used to access all Dubai government services. That's according to a report in Gulf News. The first phase of the MyID initiative will open up 20 government departments to the use of an Emirates ID rather than individual logons and passwords for each government entity.

Which is a good thing, right? Rather than having 20-odd IDs and passwords, you can just whip out your trusty deicer  National ID card and proudly cry, "This is me! Open up your services to me, government department!"

Except that most of us don't need to access 20 government departments. I guess RTA for Salik payments, Dubai Police for registration and naturalisation and immigration for labour cards, visas and Emirates ID cards is probably about my lot. I suppose the NMC and Ministry of Youth and Culture when I'm publishing books. Oh, Ministry of Health for the biennial blood test.

And if they get just that lot together, functional and inter-operating seamlessly with the National ID that in itself will be an achivement. If they get all 20 working by October? I shall be sore amazed.

I'm not saying Dubai can't do it. You should never say Dubai can't do something, because you'll more often as not lose your shirt on it. But then the Emirates ID has amassed considerable form in the "announce now clarify tomorrow" stakes.

We can only wait and see...

Godolphin Doping Scandal "Unacceptable"

(Photo credit: BANAMINE)

The National carries the story that was splashed in aghast tones all over the UK's media yesterday and today - Godolphin trainer Mahmoud Al Zarooni, one of Godolphin's seven trainers, is in the spotlight after eleven of 45 horses in his care tested came up positive for anabolic steroids.

It's perhaps fair to say the news has shaken horse racing in general and Godolphin in particular.

The National's story is linked here. Gulf News also covered the news, devoting 222 words in its print edition to a cut down version of the story it has posted online. The text-only print story is nestled quietly in the gutter of page three of the sports section and not referred to elsewhere in the paper.

Amusingly, the lead picture story on that GN page carries the headline, "Dubai pair to be tested in trial for Epsom Derby" but that story, of course, refers to horses being tested in the field as opposed to being tested for drugs.

Chatting about it with pals, I got the reaction that this was the sort of thing you'd expect and I do confess to disagreeing strongly with that. Godolphin has a ferocious reputation in horse-racing. It's a remarkably successful stable - and a very big operation indeed. It burst onto the scene with a winning formula - its horses are wintered in Dubai and then start the UK racing season in April in top form. The stable's first win was at Dubais' Nad Al Sheba racetrack in 1992 - since then its horses have won over 200 group one and 2,000 other races globally.

Godolphin has handled the news impeccably, making a sensible statement available promptly and announcing  a complete internal review in conjunction with the sport's authority, the BHA.

Godolphin is the Victory Team of horse-racing - it's a contender in a high profile international sport that has become about Brand Dubai in the same way as the Victory Team did - and in the same fashion. Godolphin doesn't need to cheat - the stables' manager Simon Crisford referred to Sheikh Mohammed as finding the news "completely unacceptable" and "being appalled" in his statement and I truly believe he would be. The last thing in the world Godolphin and its owner wants or needs is this because it's actually about a reputation and a brand that are respectively much greater than any horse racing prize.

One thing's certain, though. Zarooni's for the high jump...

ArabNet's Coming To Dubai!

It's not often you find me parroting one of Spot On's announcements on the blog, but that's just what I'm about to do. The ArabNet Digital Summit, the regional digital conference forum event thingy, is coming to Dubai. The Beirut-based event has already spawned offshoots in Cairo and Riyadh, as well as a number of roadshows and other regional events. Now organiser Omar Christidis has decided to split ArabNet, recognising the diverse roles played by different parts of the region - Dubai, pretty much by default the Middle East's shop front for all things digital and media, is to host the conference component of ArabNet. The event will take place on the 24th-26th June if you want to mark your calendar.

That's a pretty smart move in my humble opinion*. It's long been a great truth that while the Levant is the cradle of IP creation and innovation, the GCC is the big market prize and the UAE, Dubai in particular, is where the sales operations belong - and, of course, where pretty much every regional ICT company is headquartered. Not only that, but Dubai is also home to many of the publishers and broadcasters who make up our regional media.

The event will be a three-day summit, with days devoted to start-ups, vertical industry content and developers respectively. Given that ArabNet Beirut has grown over the past three years to become easily the preeminent digital event in the region - and yes, I admit to having been originally surprised that an event of such quality took place in Beirut - putting the same thinking, strong content and agenda and organisational skills into a Dubai based event should result in something pretty special.

I have always been a strident ArabNet fan and the company wot I works for, the stellar digital communications agency Spot On Public Communications, is the event's PR partner - just so's you know and don't think I'm shilling you or anything sneaky like that...

Cartoon courtesy, of course, the ever so talented Maya Zankoul.

*BinMugahid nagged about the lack of the word 'opinion'. I gave in. In the good old days, you'd have seen that in Comments, but of course now it's debated on Twitter and Google+. *sigh*

UAE Local Produce Is "Toxic" - Gulf News

(Photo credit: Masako 川o'-')♪)

I'll admit it, I'm confused.

For years now, Gulf News has gone on about how wonderful and safe local produce is. So much assurance has been offered, the cynic might even be inclined to wonder where, given all this smoke, the fire is...

For instance this piece linked right here is pretty typical of the very many examples of the genre, "Locally produced vegetables guarantee against food risks like E. coli".

The deadly E. coli outbreak that rocked world food markets once again confirms the importance and urgency of turning to local vegetables and fruits for consumption, Abu Dhabi Food Control Authority (ADFCA), said in a statement.

Well, that's alright then. I've no need to worry. If I might be inclined to have the odd wobble, worrying for instance if the unrestricted use of pesticides in local farming might be harmful, or perhaps the impact of the oil and diesel leaking out from those filthy, weeping pumps they use to extract the water from those fast-depleting aquifers, I just need to keep reading GN for stuff like this to keep me on the straight and narrow. Yes, "Nothing beats fresh taste of local produce"

Row upon row of succulent dates greet the eye while a few steps away fresh potatoes, onions and lettuce varieties are displayed for sale. For the erstwhile customer, finding the freshest produce has become even easier at the Al Mina Fruit and Vegetable Market ever since Abu Dhabi Municipality began implementing a range of measures to promote local produce.

I will not presume to cavil at the misuse of the word 'erstwhile', unless the customer in question had, indeed, passed away or otherwise become a customer no more. Safe to say, the assurances regarding locally grown produce stretch back over the years, this one from 2001 for instance.

Whatever, we are assured that "E. coli poses no threat to consumers in the UAE" and we know we can trust our media to properly filter and investigate any empty statements or baseless claims, whether they come from business or government. That's what the media is for, right?

So it was slightly disconcerting to read in yesterday's edition of The Newspaper That Seeks Only Truth that local salad greens are 'toxic'. Their word, not mine. The piece, linked here for your convenience, quotes academics whose research over the past five years (in the face of all those assurances) found 100% of samples of locally grown girgir (that's rocket to you an' me) contaminated by E. coli and salmonella. The bacterial infection is embedded in leaves and cannot be washed out, according to Dr Dennis Russell of the American University of Sharjah.

Dr Russell on leaves. Love it.

The good doktor points to unsanitary farming practices such as using raw manure as fertiliser and the bacterial contamination of the water supply (43% of wells here were found to be contaminated GN tells us in another story).

Gulf News' advice is "Do not eat jareer and other vegetables grown or stored with it in stores". The produce continues to be sold by supermarkets here.

So is it toxic, or not? For what it's worth, I've always gone on the assumption that it is and tend to avoid it at every opportunity or wash it to death. Blame all that reassurance...

ADNOC Mixes Up Diesel And Petrol. Woopsie.

إلى العين وعودة (Photo credit: Abdulla Al Muhairi)

Some companies will do anything to get behind a trending topic these days, which means we're all confronted with the awful spectacle of Mike and Bob down the local hardware shop doing their really amazing and totally funny version of the Harlem Shake. Two weeks too late. Do click on that link, BTW. It's worth it...

But ADNOC (Abu Dhabi National Distribution Company) has gone for it in a big way. Clearly stunned by the amount of coverage the recent horsemeat in beef scandal has created (let alone donkey in South Africa and then pork in Waitrose Essentials meatballs and poo bacteria in Ikea's cakes), they've tried to get in on the act.

They've been filling petrol engined cars with diesel. This, as any fule kno, breaks them. Apparently someone filled the wrong reservoir at Al Ain's Al Yaher petrol station, resulting in the pump attendants blithely filling fifteen cars with the black stuff instead of the green stuff. You can only imagine they just kept going until the line of broken cars tailed back and blocked the forecourt so much they had to stop...

Abu Dhabi paper The National is a great deal more terse on the story than Gulf News, which rather appears to revel in it. ADNOC has offered to repair the damaged cars and pay for care hire in the meantime, which is fair enough I suppose. The station's been closed, presumably as they empty and clean the affected tank and pump.

Mind you, it's getting harder and harder to get the right thing in the right thing around here these days, isn't it? I think I might start slipping copies of Olives in Beirut covers and see if I can't drum up some coverage myself...

Scratch An Al Fahidi Cultural Neighbourhood, Find A Bastakiya

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There's been a rash of renamings over the past couple of years. Satwa's Al Diyafah Street has been renamed December 2nd Street (December 2nd being the UAE's National Day, marking the establishment of the Emirates, formerly British protectorate the Trucial States, in 1971), the Emirates Road has been redubbed the Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Road. And Bastakiya is no more.

Changing nomenclature is part of the scenery around here. Business Bay Bridge was originally called the Ras Al Khor Crossing and, of course, the Burj Khalifa was long intended to be the Burj Dubai.

Sometimes the name changes mark new futures or obliterated pasts - Jumeirah Beach was long known as Chicago Beach after the Chigaco Construction Company, which had its compound there - and Sharjah's Mothercat Roundabout was similarly named after a company compound, although the usage has largely lapsed. Naming places after nearby landmarks is part of the tradition of directing people by sending them from landmark to landmark, a habit born of the lack of early street names. National Paints, for instance, has lent its name to the infamous roundabout/interchange much as Staples Mattresses lent their name to London's Staples Corner. There's less and less need for that kind of thing these days as we use our mobiles to search for places and get directions from dispassionate avatar voices. Which is a shame, it was all part of, well, the colour of living here.

Now Bastakiya, with its crumbling barjeels now restored to their former glory, has been renamed the Al Fahidi Historical and Cultural Area. Home to the Emirates Literature Festival's Dar Al Adab, the area is a little warren of adobe buildings and paved walkways, barasti roofs and cool rooms lined with cushioned diwan seating, funky little hotels, tea shops and galleries. In this weather, it's a delightful place for a stroll in the sun or a cold fruit juice in the shade.

Shame about the name, but then that's progress, isn't it? Or something like that...

HSBC Dubai - More Trouble On The Cards?

ATM (Photo credit: Modern Relics)

I am very proud to be the owner of a school report, penned by my harried teacher back when I was eight years of age, which contains the immortal words, "Alexander's cynicism can sometimes be extremely annoying."

I can only say the intervening forty years have intensified that youthful trait, although I do try and preserve some form of occasional blind optimism, just so I can prove I would have been better off sticking to expecting the worst from those around me.

This is rarely more so the case than in my dealings with the bank that has managed to in some way fail in the provision of every banking service I have ever required of it. I'm serious. You name something a bank might do for you and I can recount a tale of how they have at least once goofed it up for me in the past two decades they have been enlivening my life.

So you can only imagine the look of dark suspicion I gave the new sparkly red card that landed on my doorstep some months ago. It has a chip thingy embedded in it and the comforting words HSBC Advance Platinum Debit Visa Paywave printed on its front. This card replaces my ATM card and also acts as a debit card - and will support 'touchless' transactions. You just wave the card at a terminal like a modern Gandalf and smiling retailers are recompensed for the good or service they are providing you.

Huzzah!

I refused to use it. Something's bound to be wrong with it. I just didn't want the inevitable headlong descent into The Call Centre after some transaction had debited the Chilean national debt from my account or given all my money to an oran utan sanctuary in Sarawak. I carried on with my battered old 'analogue' ATM card.

And then comes a missive from the bank. The old ATM cards are on the way out, mate, you'll have to use your new HSBC Advance Platinum Debit Visa Paywave card. They've got an 800 number to change or reset your PIN and so I called it (fear and loathing in my black heart) only to find the process easy, seamless and brilliantly managed.

Gulp.

Then I went to an ATM and used the card. And it worked. Perfectly. First time. I was in a state of shock, I kid you not. A lady had to ask me to move aside as I had frozen in situ and was gibbering softly to myself.

And then I realised. The new card only gives me access to one of the three accounts I hold with them. The old card gave me access to all three accounts. So I now have a new sparkly chip and PIN HSBC Advance Platinum Debit Visa Paywave card that is 33% as functional as the old one in the main purpose I hold an ATM card for - accessing my accounts using an ATM.

That discovering this provoked in me a feeling of grim satisfaction is itself something of a worry...

A Thing About Lifts, Or In The UAE, Elevators.

(Photo credit: Jose R. Borras)

I try not to post too much about lifts (or elevators if you hail from the Land Of The Free And Home Of The Brave) just in case I start getting press releases from Express Lifts and the like, but they really are a unique symptom of the hyper-diverse melting pot that is the United Arab Emirates - that meeting place of the cultural tectonic plates of East and West.

A lot of people here, in the face of copious evidence to the contrary, believe that pressing the 'down' button brings a lift down to you. Not only is this not the case, it also results in you ending up in the basement when you actually wanted to scale the lofty heights of the upper floors. Not unnaturally, having predicted a different outcome to that achieved, you are puzzled. In your understandable disorientation, you neglect to notice that not only has the lift gone in an unexpected direction, it has reset itself. And so you shrug fatalistically and wait for the diversion to be over and the lift to do that which you had originally anticipated.

It is at this point that a second cultural trait plays an important role in proceedings. There is a certain vanity abroad that means any lift fitted with a mirror (and most are mirrored, for some reason. Presumably to alleviate claustrophobia) must immediately be used to admire, stroke and even, whipping out a back-pocketed comb, brush the hair.

And so you find that not only has your lift been diverted to the basement (where you have doubtlessly encountered a rather grumpy looking Englishman who might even, particularly when overdue leave and finding you and many others have actually filled the lift to capacity when it arrives in the basement, ask you quite why you are there) but it then takes you to a completely unexpected floor. You might at this point realise that something is amiss and if you don't take some sort of remedial action you might even die of thirst in there. And so you press the button of the floor you want to go to.

Sadly, however, you're already on the way down and someone else has pressed the 'down' button on the ground floor in order to call the lift. In the basement once more, you will begin - understandably - to be alarmed. You could be in there for days. You dash out and, with a sense of relief, take the stairs - shaking your head at the wonderment of encountering yet another badly programmed lift button.

And that, for the benefit of attendees to The Umbrella Series Writing and Publishing Workshops being held at The Archive in Safa Park, is an example of the second person point of view in writing. Ha.

Eye eye! The Bluewaters Dubai Eye Ferris Wheel

The first Ferris wheel from the 1893 World Columbian Exposition in Chicago. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Funny thing to name a giant Ferris wheel after, a radio station, but there's no telling what folk will get up to these days.

National news agency WAM carries the news Dubai Ltd has announced another megaproject, the latest in a clearly signalled campaign of 'We're back' announcements. Braggadocio or bravado? You tell me. The Bluewaters plan will see a £1 billion island development off the beach by 'live the lifestyle' Jumeirah Beach Residence. On said island, developers Meeras are plonking an hotel (five star, natch), residences, a souq, an entertainment zone and the world's largest Ferris wheel.

Of course it couldn't just be a big Ferris wheel. It has to be a jaw-dropping, eye-popping 210 meter billion Dirham Ferris wheel. Ideally, scattered with hundreds and thousands and topped with glacé cherries.

It's all based on market studies that indicate the project can expect three million tourists a year to flock to its candy-floss stores and queue up to get a ride

Ferris wheel watchers will likely think this baby will be pipping the London Eye to the biggest Ferris wheel in the world post, but they'd be wrong. It's already been pipped twice - at a mere 135 metres, the London Eye is the mini-me of Ferris wheels (named after their inventor, a Mr. George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr) and was outstripped just six years after its opening by The Star Of Nanchang, a 160 metre behemoth. Just two years later, Singapore ripped the rug from under Nanchang's feet with the Singapore Flyer, which sneaked past the Star to take the Guinness Book entry with a mere five metres' lead.

The Flyer cost Dhs 876 million to build, so it looks like Meeras is getting a bargain from Hyundai Contracting, which will build the Dubai Eye wheel. If the Dubai Eye takes after the Star and the Flyer, it'll rotate once every 30 minutes, be in constant motion (no stopping to get on and off) and have gondolas with a capacity of 28 people.

Those with the memory span of a Higgs Boson will recall The Great Dubai Wheel, which was to have been built in DubaiLand by the Great Wheel Corporation. The project gained planning permission in 2006 and was officially announced as kaputski in 2012 after GWC had gone belly-up with a trail of failed Ferris wheel projects behind it. The Great Dubai Wheel was to have been a 185 metre wheel.

The fate of the Great Wheel Corporation is a fascinating one. It reeled from merger to acquisition to bankruptcy to collapse, through a number of iterations right up until 2012, when it finally folded. By then it was called Great City Attractions Global. GCAG's assets were acquired by Dubai-based Freij Entertainment International which operates GCAG's UK assets through its UK subsidiary Wheels Entertainments Ltd - including the controversial 53-metre York big wheel.

Freij bills itself as 'The world's biggest operator of Amusement Rides' although taking a look at www.freij.com you could also call it the world's biggest operator of a totally rubbish web presence.

Freij operates Dubai's Global Village, the site of the recent fatality when a part fell off the 60 metre Ferris wheel there - it was subsequently revealed this travelling wheel had been linked to the deaths of five people under previous ownership.

And in fact it was Freij CEO Freij Al Zein who first talked to media in April last year about a billion Dirham giant Ferris wheel to be called the Dubai Eye. Slated at the time to be a 170 metre wheel as part of a major 93,000 metre indoor amusement park complex, the project would appear to have finally come to fruition.

Quite whether Freij is still involved is pure speculation - developer Meeras hasn't updated a press release on its website since 2011, so any reliable information on the Bluewaters project beyond the WAM story is scant right now.

But it's interesting, isn't it, the way in which the Great Dubai Wheel dream never really went away but became a baton to be passed from hand to hand?

I wonder when the undersea hotel scheme will bob up to surface again...

PS - It seems to be a coincidence, as the WAM story doesn't mention it, but the story broke on George Ferris' birthday, as celebrated by today's Google doodle! Eerie!

The Burj Khalifa Pinnacle Panorama

Gerald Donovan's stunning 360 degree interactive panorama of Dubai taken from the top of the Burj Khalifa. I'm doing something I rarely/never do in mixing business with pleasure, as we worked together on the campaign to release this image to a select number of major international media outlets.

I do recommend a visit (it's linked here) - and particularly if you're able to go there from a tablet or smartphone. The fun of ducking, weaving and bobbing around a room like a lunatic as you fly through the sky 828 metres above Dubai is inestimable.

The image is being hosted by HIPA - His Highness Sheikh Hamdan Bin Rashid's International Photography Award. Promoters of all things photographic, they have been highly supportive throughout the whole process, from conception to sharing.

Being 'on the inside' of this one was almost unbearable. Mr D and I are both children at heart and so keeping a lid on this was totally alien to the geek in both of us which just wanted to share the fun. More so for Gerald - he's the one wot climbed the last 200 metres above the upper limit of the Burj's 10 metre per second lifts (the 160th floor) and then stood in the small 1.5 metre circular pit at the pinnacle of the world's tallest tower and snapped tens of shots to be stitched painstakingly together into this amazing interactive/experiential image/thing.

He earnestly assures me the whole experience brought no sense of vertigo whatsoever. I still don't believe him.

Court Reporting Fun

gavel (Photo credit: SalFalko)

Covering the UAE's law courts must be the most coveted job at all the local papers. It's not only a chance to actually see some action - rather than sit at a desk subbing reports from national news agency WAM - but it also brings a pretty constant slew of oddball cases that range from the delightful to the downright worrying.

One of the many nice things about living in the UAE is that relatively petty crime makes it to the national dailies - whereas in the UK, for instance, anything less than a particularly gruesome and bloody murder would be lucky to make it to the local rag, let alone the nationals. That's not to say crime, including rape and murder, doesn't happen here. It's just that comparatively little of it goes on.

And so in today's paper we have a man jailed for three months for biting another's finger. The act was, apparently, not consensual - the two were involved in a brawl at Dubai's fruit and vegetable market. The biter was ordered to pay Dhs 21,000 compensation and will be deported once he completes his jail sentence.

Another non-consensual act was a man accused of inserting an industrial air line into his colleague's bottom, causing his stomach and face to inflate. Reporting on the story, Gulf News quotes the judge, displaying an admirable grasp of the essentials of the case in front of him, as asking: “Didn’t you put the hosepipe in his backside when the air was puffing out from it?”

Responding, the accused claimed, “I did so but from over his clothes. I did not mean to hurt him because it was supposed to be a joke.”

I'm not sure how it would make your face inflate, but then I lack the required experience of industrial airlines and human physiognomy. The case will come to judgement on January 30th, so I'm sure we'll all find out quite what went on.

But you see my point? These stories aren't relegated to the funny bit just before the sport on the six o'clock news, they're mainstream court reporting - which sort of speaks to the very low crime rate here. It'd be nice to credit the forces of law and order for that, but it's really because we're all on the hog's back - everyone here is better off than they would be at home and so very few are willing to rock the boat. And yes, that even includes the labourers.

In related news, Gulf News managed to repeat yesterday's 'Star Gazing' astrology column in today's paper, too. You'd have thought columnist Shelley Von Strunckel would have seen that coming, wouldn't you? But then it's always been sort of hard predicting what the Gulf News subs will get up to next...

The Archive - Dubai's Best Kept Secret?

If anyone knows how to create funky art/work spaces, it's the Shabib Brothers, the brilliant eccentrics behind The Shelter, Brown Book and The Pavilion among other things. The latest Bin Shabib creation is The Archive and it's a stunner.

I met with librarian Sarah Malki last week - we're planning a series of 'How to' workshops around writing and publishing books. I really didn't know what to expect, beyond 'we're in Safa Park, just go to Gate Five and you can't miss us'. Given that 'you can't miss us' is Abu Dhabi code for 'you'll die trying to find us', I had reservations.

Sure enough, you walk in through Gate 5 (it's the one facing the Sheikh Zayed Road), paying your Dhs3 entrance fee on the way in. And The Archive is straight ahead - a short walk through the green grass and palm trees of the park, a little oasis of tranquillity, birdsong and the sound of children playing.

The Archive is a single story building, an older concrete construction that has been artfully encased in glass and then lined with bookshelves - its primary purpose as a space is to house a collection of books on architecture, art, typography and design with a focus on the Middle East. It's also a workspace and meeting place with a café serving excellent contemporary food and drinks. The tables outside could hardly be a more delightful place to meet up for a chat or just sit back for a read in the dappled winter sunlight.

Sarah's building a wide-ranging program of events that's already getting pretty manic and no wonder - The Archive is a little treasure and the perfect place to hold smaller scale events with space, at this time of year at least, to get up to bigger scale stuff outdoors.

I'll post more on the workshops when we confirm dates and stuff. In the meantime, drop in there for a coffee - you'll be glad you did.

The Great Meltdown

I'm not sure what it is with me and technology right now, but following on from the recent Great HTC Self Destruct, my PC has now decided to pine for the fjords.

It all started yesterday with some strange behaviour over a hotel's WiFi network. Whether it was triggered by malicious software, a failed AVG update install or the Will Of The Gods will forever be a mystery, but the machine descended with great rapidity into a constant cycle of great meltdowns, gibbbering fits of tearing around the room pulling its hair out and screaming obscenities followed by curling up in the corner and wailing silently to the heavens before lapsing into long periods of insensibility. It is not, to boil the situation down to its essence, well.

I have long been a fan of IBM laptops, a product choice originally made because of the inevitable sound of indrawn breath through teeth that would accompany every presentation at my lovely client's premises. It got wearing eventually and I succumbed to the black keyboard with the little red button. The move was propitious - these babies are reliable, take a pounding without complaint and just, well, deliver. I have no reason to think that Lenovo has let quality go, but there's little doubt that my current machine, a T61, has for some time been End Of Life. Its hard disk is almost full, the keyboard's worn shiny and MacBook Air users titter when I pull the great slablike wodge of scratched matte black plastic with shiny edges from my enormous laptop bag.

It's a bit like breaking up with a girl you've come to dislike but can't quite muster the energy to go through with the scene. It's a huge relief when she takes the plunge before you. So it is with my PC - it actually feels good to be letting go. The pain has been considerably lessened by the agency's move to Google mail and Docs, although I hadn't quite managed to wean myself away from Office. Now I'm going to see how far I get using the iPad, although I know it's not going to deal with the heavy lifting terribly well - and especially not the video editing or book stuff.

The PC, in the meantime, is sitting curled up in the bathroom, occasionally spitting at passers-by but mostly just staring at the tiles with a lunatic fixaty. I've got the data off it, so I don't care any more.

Anyway, it never really understood me...

TrayGate - The Hidden Cost Of Little Foam Trays

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

They’re innocuous enough, the little foam trays that Spinneys likes to slip your food on before it’s weighed, but they can come at a sometimes remarkable price.

Take my purchase of a slice of ‘Cotto Paganini’, 100g requested and priced at Dhs 114 per kilo. Smashing, you think. Except it’s placed on a tray and then weighed. Dhs 10.95 for a single slice of meat weighing 0.96Kg was duly paid.

But the little foam tray thingy it came on weighed 12g. That’s over a Dirham (Dhs 1.38 to be precise) for a piece of foam I am simply going to throw away. If anyone can propose a secondary use for little black foam trays, I'm all ears.

So every time you buy a weighed food item, you pay for 12g of foam at the item's given 'per kilo' price. It's a pretty significant markup  on the cost of a foam tray. It must be the most profitable thing Spinneys sells.

A quick search of the internet reveals the Jiangyin Yikang Packing Products Co., Ltd. is willing to sell me food grade EPS foam trays for $0.02 - Or Dhs 0.073 per tray.

Which means Spinneys makes Dhs 1.307 on that tray - a markup of almost two thousand percent - and it'll make more on pricier food items.

 Not bad going, eh?

(And yes, I'm not getting out enough these days)

Are We Back On Track?

Port of Dubai Emirate, located on Jebel Ali district. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

You might have noticed the volume creeping up recently - apparently we're back in the game, the bad times they are behind us and the road ahead is green shoots all the way.

Emaar's apartment sales have tripled. Nakheel says confidence is back. Abu Dhabi's GDP is predicted to post solid growth while much of the rest of the world is struggling to baulk a tide of decline.

Which is, don't get me wrong, great. There has been little doubt that, even in the doldrums of the past four years, the UAE has been one of the best places in the world to be.

Lest we forget, in the years before that this was not a pleasant place for many of us. It filled with champagne-guzzling yahoos, realtors, financial advisors and other pond scum came flocking to the high life and easy money. The formula for boom was simple - the more stupid you were, the more money you made. The city was packed with dazzling promises and giddying dreams, advertising shrieking at us to Live The Life. The city's roads groaned under a layer of snarling traffic at a perma-standstill, the sewage farms were overflowing and they were digging holes in the desert to put the shit in while they worked out what to do with it. The guys in the orange trucks had a better idea - they just dumped their loads in the storm drains so Jumeirah's beaches were slowly invaded by a noxious brown tide.

You couldn't get to see a doctor. You couldn't get your kids into the schools. Landlords were turfing people out so they could drive the rent up yet again. The air was a haze of construction dust and pollution. The city became a nightmare symbol of excess and consumerism, the last great defining moment of the boom probably the Cristal-soaked firework freak-out of the Atlantis launch.

And then an awful silence. The hangover. Abandoned cars and fleeing investors. The British media queued up to point fingers and laugh at our disarray. The gold paving on the streets was just sand after all. For some of us, those who had lived here for more than two weeks, this was no surprise. It always was sand, it's just that you lot all came flying in here proclaiming it gold and so, for you, it was gold.

Dubai was founded on trade, not real estate booms. It was founded on entrepeneurialism and what 'the authorities' always liked to call a 'laissez faire' attitude to free market economics. It was opportunistic. And it will continue to succeed on trade, not selling implausible dreams. Its most successful and enduring assets, Jebel Ali, Emirates, Port Rashid and others, are built on trade.

Through the recession, Dubai has slowly but surely been investing in the infrastructure it was ramping up to try and meet the demands of the boom. It's in better shape now than ever it was to encompass expansion and growth with confidence and a new maturity.

The million dollar question is whether we, collectively, have learned our lesson. Whether we can build for the future without being pitched back into the nightmare of the boom.

@WeAreUAE

The Flag of the UAE (shown as artistically waving) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I've sort of been too busy with book posts over the long weekend to tell you, but the lovely people behind the co-curated '@WeAreUAE' Twitter account had a massive brain fit and lapse in judgement and handed the account over to me on late Wednesday night, lock stock and barrel. They even bust out with an Instagram account! It's mine, all mine precioussss, until next Wednesday!

What is @WeAreUAE? The idea is that someone new tweets from the account each week, opening up a kaleidoscope of different viewpoints, experiences and voices from the people who inhabit a given country. One of the world's more famous co-curated national Twitter accounts was @Sweden, which popped into instant notoriety when curator Sonja Abrahamsson used the account to ask a number of questions about what a Jew was. The questions were, as the New Yorker pointed out in its piece on her tenure, not so much anti-Semitic as childlike and born out of genuine curiosity. Nevertheless, she caused a storm that saw @Sweden draw followers like a follower drawing thing. Rather wonderfully, the Swedish Institute, one of the bodies behind the account, pointed out that Sonja was merely exercising the right to free speech that characterised Sweden - and apparently many of the people who arrived, drawn to the controversy, found Sonja actually quite charming and endearingly kooky.

I'm already having great fun with it all - and just in case you're waiting for me to do a Sonja, I'm actually taking the opportunity to celebrate the many things I enjoy and treasure about the country I have called home for the past  19 years.

See you at @WeAreUAE!