Ancient Monument

No, not me - don't be cheeky. I posted the other day about UAE attitudes toward personal privacy and included an anecdote about the day I was nicked for snapping puddles (a bonus anecdote always adds such value to the 'standard' post one finds) in Sharjah. A late spring clean the other day took us to our old photo box and lo and behold, didn't I find the very film I was nicked for clicking? So here's Sharjah's Ramla area neatly underwater:

You'll note the lack of women in the shot. In its day, before the big drainage program was put in place, Sharjah used to look like this all over - particularly at that time when the rains were very heavy and even Al Wahda street sank without trace into the looming puddle that covered the city. Only four wheel drives had unfettered access, the mortals in their cars had to hug the central reservations and even then many didn't make it and conked out, leaving their owners to strike out for dry land and wait for assistance. It was all rather fun, hence the urge to record the whole thing for posterity!

Another old piccie we unearthed is this one. I didn't take it (I could not, for the life of me, tell you who did), I blagged it from a newspaper archive for some project or another I was working on way back when. It's Flame Roundabout, the eternal flame which used to burn in front of what is now the intersection between DNATA and Deira City Centre. Flame, together with 'Clock' and 'Fish', formed the city's  complement of decorative roundabouts. Clock had a clock on it and I'll leave you to fill in the final blank.

I don't even have a precise date for this snap, although it would likely have been the very early 1990s. I can only tell you that Flame was constructed, judging by the dumper truck in the picture, by big UAE construction company Khansaheb, which translates rather prosaically as 'Mr Khan' after its founder, Mr Khan.

Flame is no longer a roundabout, but the monument has been preserved and moved and the eternal flame still flickers in the vee of land as the airport road splits to take weary commuters to either Garhoud or the Floating Bridge.

We also dug up loads of pictures of us being young and silly and, if I have to confess, painfully gawky. It was all great fun to wade around in for a while. And no, I'm not sharing the gawky stuff. If youth today lives its life online that's youth today's choice. I, for one, am rather glad I can keep my memories of being younger and considerably more stupid (I know it's a stretch, but you'll have to just take my word for it) in a box to enjoy in private.

Sad Day

Today precisely five years ago, suicide bombers detonated their ball-bearing packed bomb belts in the Grand Hyatt Amman. In simultaneous attacks, the Radisson and Days Inn hotels were attacked. I have always thought the Days Inn attack was a terrible piece of black humour - I think they were supposed to attack the Holiday Inn and got it wrong. The Days Inn is hardly high profile...

The lobby and all-day dining area of the Hyatt were completely decimated. Our offices at the time were in the Zara Center, part of the Hyatt complex - and a friend was standing at reception when the bombs detonated, the concussion wave tearing out the front glass panels and doors of the hotel and miraculously leaving her unscathed. Sixty others weren't so lucky - they lost their lives.

A week after the bombing I flew to Amman in support of an art exhibition to protest the bombing and remember the victims, 'Into the Light' - two of the pieces from that exhibition still decorate my house, fantastic, clever black and white calligraphies of the names of the victims. I felt very brave coming out and then very silly for feeling brave, but it was a time of great trepidation.

I'm sitting in the new Hyatt lobby typing this just before I head for the airport. It's a  wonderful act of continuance and defiance. All the waiters are different, many of the chaps I knew for so long before didn't make it through that night. But the lobby's funky, enlarged, the restaurant's bustling and stylish and the bombing is so far behind us that I was shocked to see its anniversary in today's Jordan times and stand looking out of the back of the lobby feeling sad for all those poor people.

X Marks The Spot

Sheikh Zayed Road, Circa 1991

It used to be called GITE, you know. It was a one-hall show, dwarfed by the much more serious Saudi Computer. Carrington, of Spot On fame, used to run the thing and swore it would grow to  be bigger than Saudi Computer, which always had me hooting gleefully in disbelief. He got the last laugh, of course.

I can't remember when some bright spark added the X to make it GITEX, thereby saving the world from the awful SEO ramifications - everyone looking for French holiday homes being presented with a Dubai-based computer show rammed full of salesgeeks in suits.

GITEX is 30 years old this year, so it just begs for another 'I can remember when this was all sand' post. I didn't get to the show until 1988, although I had been travelling a lot to Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the region since 1986.

As I've said before, I met Mrs McNabb during that first GITEX trip. That weekend, we drove out together with friends into the depths of Wadi Hatta in our hire car, which was a reasonably crazy thing to do at the time (Honda Civics and steep, rutted gatch tracks aren't really matches made in heaven) although now, of course, the track is smooth black-top all the way. We got as far as Shuwaya and back, which is pretty mad.

I went on to Jordan from there, where my publisher was speaking at an IBM regional conference. The ad agency was presenting a new regional campaign which featured nighttime footage of the Dubai World Trade Centre with all its lights out except the IBM floor, and had the tag 'Because Machines Alone Are Not Enough'. This caused much distress among the assembled distributors as it had the word 'not' in it and everyone thought that was negative.

At the time, DWTC was a real icon - at 33 floors high it was the tallest building in the Middle East. Writer of 'fly-by' Middle East memoir Arabia through the looking glass Jonathan Raban once mistook it for the Hilton, which shows just how clueless tourists can be.

IBM's ad agency had spent tens of thousands of dollars using leading edge (ha!) digital technology to paint out the lights in the Trade Centre to leave just that one floor awake. I didn't make many friends by pointing out that next time they could pay me half what they'd blown on the digital stuff and I'd turn the lights off myself.
I had dealt with all of these disties for months as a journalist, listening to them bad-mouthing and generally doing each other down. In Jordan I watched, slack-jawed, as they all chummed up and socialised together, obviously the very best of pals. It taught me an important lesson about this strange part of the world that was already working itself under my skin so thoroughly that I'd end up making it my home.

For the gala dinner, we were bussed out to a remote castle (looking back on it, I think it must have been Ajloun) where old women were making koubiz in the light of blazing torches and we ate surrounded by ancient battlements.

I had taken lots of photos of this girl I had met, snapping away while we were in Hatta. I had them developed in Amman, only to find that I had loaded the film in the wrong way and the whole lot of them were blank. I was devastated.

A year later, again on a trip out from the UK for GITEX, I drove with her up to Sharjah gold souk where we bought the engagement ring.

I tell you, that show's got an awful lot to answer for...

Queen

Image via Wikipedia

It was my parents' 60th wedding anniversary yesterday - the reason we went on leave unseasonably early was to attend. We had contacted the relevant types to arrange a message from the Queen, which you qualify for with a diamond wedding or by passing 100 years of age.

The process is remarkably analogue - there are no online forms or stuff, you give your details over the phone and then they arrange a search of the Register of Births, Weddings and Deaths, forward the data to the Palace, who send you a note confirming that yes, you do qualify for a message and also confirming the details.

Saturday morning the postman came with an extra duty - he has to announce that he has a message from the Palace (and, incidentally, the relevant Post Office has to confirm it will make delivery prior 9.30am on the day in question or an Inquiry would be mounted by the Palace. I kid you not.). Inside the blue covering envelope is a beige one with a crest printed across it. And inside that is a card with a photo of HM, together with a congratulatory message signed by Elizabeth R. And some gold tassels. The gold tassels are an important element. The back of the envelope, rather cutely, says 'If Undelivered, Return to Buckingham Palace'.

My mum was over the moon, dancing about all over the place and just generally as delighted as someone who has found a million pounds worth of Roman coins in their garden. Brenda was popped onto the centre of the fireplace - from where I have to tell you her eyes follow you around the room - and the story of the whole thing was generally dined out on over the subsequent festivities.

It's nice that something daft like that can make people so very happy. Nice one, Buck Palace!