History Rises! Earth Bedecked With Jewel! Hyperbole Rules!

The Emirates Today did three things today that amused me. The newspaper's front cover story, which shrieks, tabloid style, 'One more step for the UAE, a giant leap for mankind!' is, of course, about the increasing height of the world's tallest building, the Burj Dubai.

Although cynics would perhaps remark that this is overselling the whole thing in an embarrassingly conformist way, there's no doubt as to the scale of this engineering feat. Whether it is, indeed, a giant leap for mankind (the last one was man reaching the moon, just so that you have a comparative scale to work with) would perhaps be something for debate.

Inside, the story continues under the chucklesome headline: 'History is rising into skies bit by bit and day by day'. We can only assume that ET's sub didn't get to write this one because of the missing definite article, something commonly associated with Arabic speakers writing English. One suspects the intervening hand of something darker and more senior than a sub. But it might just be that the sub was overwhelmed by the content and just lost the run of himself...

And then, on page 26, we have a double page feature on former stripper and 'burlesque' Dita Von Tees, a dubious subject for such a conformist organ to run in Ramadan, but rendered at least visually acceptable by the lovely black t-shirt super-imposed on the young lady's upper body (as usual, squeezed by whalebone into that 'two ice creams held in one hand' shape). I haven't seen that type of gloriously cack-handed image editing since Sarah's tailor in Karama used to import Malaysian fashion magazines for use as inspiration by his customers.

Thanks, ET, for starting my day with so many smiles!

School bus leaves girl home alone

A school bus yesterday dropped off a child at her home, but her mother wasn't in so the girl knocked on neighbours' doors until the watchman took her in and called her mother. The mother hadn't known the child would be back early because it is exam week here in the Emirates.

This was Emirates Today's front page splash today. Honest. See for yourself here.