The Joy Of Summer

"Modhesh", Arabic for amazing, is the mascot of Dubai Summer Surprises. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

You know it's summer in the Emirates when:

• Hot water comes out of the cold tap. 

• Gulf News runs pictures of pigeons drinking from a standpipe in a public park. Alternatively, people shading themselves from the harsh summer sun or labourers sleeping in the shade.

• You can't seem to get dry when you get out of the shower.

• Everybody you've ever done business with needs to meet face to face for no particularly good reason.

• Your shirt's stuck to you by the time you've made the walk to the car. The car's baking hot when you get to it.  

• The back of your shirt in contact with the car seat never quite dries out.

• By the time the car has finally cooled down you've arrived at the next meeting.

• The walk from the car to meeting sticks your shirt to you. 

• By the end of the meeting you've cooled down just in time to walk to the baking hot car with your shirt stuck to you. The first blast of air from the AC through the hot dashboard makes it worse. You're better off opening the windows initially to bring the car down to ambient temperature.

• When you forget to put up the sunshade you have to hold tissues in your hands to protect from the super-heated steering wheel.

• Your electricity meter starts to defy the rules of physics and proves the theory E=M$2.
  

• You see strange, yellow sprung maggots with evil, leering grins start to appear. You know this is not a hallucination, but a strange annual manifestation of that cargo cult known as Dubai Summer Surprises. 

• Somehow, you're not surprised.

Argh! Modhesh! The Return of the Yellow Fiend!

Sorry. Meant friend, not fiend. The return of the yellow friend.

Every year we see the smiling little dear trotted out to decorate the roundabouts and meeting places of Dubai and every year I feel the need to mark my first sighting with a little celebration of the infinite-eyed tide of grinning evil. It's become something of a ritual, to the point where the gnarled, bitter old man that is Dubai Radio DJ Catboy (@Catboy_Dubai) accused me of doing the manic yellow spring's PR!

As the piece of string said to the barman, I'm a frayed knot. I will always be on the other side of the divide where the squeaky voiced scion of scintillating summer surprises is concerned. Eyeing him askance, distrustful of those open arms and that Bolivian neck-tie smile, I'll carry on crossing to the other side of the road in case by some strange quirk, the anthropomorphism goes too far and he comes to life, joined by his fellow Modheshes in a spine-chilling tide of Zombie Modheshes, tearing flesh and consuming all in their path.

It is officially summer, folks...

Update
It struck me this morning that the Modheshes that sparked my alarm are cunningly located around the approaches to the Arabian Travel Market show, so these might just be pre-summer promotional Modheshes.

Summer Bargains for Brummies

Image via Wikipedia

Dubai is embarking on a bargain basement bonanza as the summer kicks in, flogging off package tour deals that beggar belief. There’s no doubt that chaps over at the Dubai Tourism Promotion Board have been busy little bees.

Local residents could perhaps be forgiven a sigh of frustration at just how much better off the out-of-towners are going to be – the rates on offer to UK residents, for instance, smash the rates we’re quoted locally into a cocked hat. In fact, not only do the Great British Public get a better deal on hotel rooms than we do, they get a better deal on flights too!

The Metropolitan Hotel, Dubai is offering three nights of four star luxury, including flights to and from Birmingham, for £399 from August 11 to September 18th. Now, for a couple, that works out to a total flight, hotel and breakfast deal of Dhs4,788.

At locally quoted rack rates, three nights in the Metropolitan (inc b/fast and tax) in that same period will set you back a cool Dhs1,350. So when you add the cost of two flights to Birmingham (cheapest EK return rate for two DXB-BIR is Dhs7,050), you’re looking at locals paying an equivalent package deal bargain of just Dhs8,400 – nearly double what the tourists will pay!

Book in UK deal - £798 for two (Dhs4,788)
Book in UAE deal - £1,400 for two (Dhs 8,400)

The Atlantis Hotel, Dubai is offering three nights of five star whale shark endangered species-teasing luxury for just £549, including Birmingham connections. Now locally, a three night booking in August will set you back Dhs2,880 including taxes and note that’s a weekday – weekends aren’t available. So we’re already talking £480 for the hotel, before we add in that Dhs7,050 flight cost – a couple of Dubai residents could fly to Birmingham and back, staying at the Atlantis for three nights for a mere £1,655 compared to the cool £1,098 package being offered to travellers coming the other way – so living in Birmingham means a saving of £557 on living in Dubai when you holiday in the sun – enough for a third package!

Book in UK deal - £1.098 for two (Dhs 6,588)
Book in UAE deal £1,655 for two (Dhs 9,930)

But it gets better! Let’s start to book a room at Le Royal Meridien Beach Resort and Spa, whose cheapest local B&B deal is Dhs 3,458 for the three nights. Add in our Brummie flight at Dubai prices and you’re looking at paying Dhs10,508 for three nights of Dubai bliss for two – the package price for your sun-seeking Brummie would be £499 each, or a total of Dhs5,988 – Dhs4520 (or £753) LESS than a Dubai resident would pay at locally quoted rack rates !

Book in UK deal - £998 for two (Dhs 5,988)
Book in UAE deal - £1,751 for two (Dhs 10,508)

If you buy your EK tickets in Birmingham rather than Dubai, BTW, they’ll cost as little as Dhs 6,100 - £1,017. So a Brummie based Brummie is instantly Dhs950, or £158 better off than a Dubai based Brummie flying the same sector – let alone the more expensive local hotel rates.

Never mind. Don't forget The Oceanic's doing Dhs199 a night for a double! :)

Oh NOES! Modhesh is BACK!

Golly! Has it really been ten long years?

He's started to pop up around the city again, little splashes of yellow now adorn every street sign and grassy verges carry life-sized statues of the infinite-eyed one. Soon we'll be inundated with the little swine (sorry, 'beloved icon') and his unique brand of fun. And somehow I think we're going to see more of him than usual as Dubai kicks into uber-promotional mode to counter the slowdown.

Membership of that naughty Facebook group has started to rise again. I wouldn't mind taking anyone's money that it'll be over the 1,000 mark by the weekend.

We can only be grateful that they left it so late to get everything going - it's only three days until the Dubai Summer Surprises shopping festival starts and he's only just starting to pop up everywhere.

Apparently Modhesh Fun City is to become Modhesh World this year. The slightly muckle-headed announcement fails to give a location, but we can only assume the Airport Expo. This will be home, the announcement gushes, to over 37,000 square metres of fun.

I can't wait.

The My Modhesh website is currently crashing when you click on any of the tabs to the left of the home page, which is quite fun. And the DSF Website is still carrying January dates on its page heads and a January release on its home page, despite all the over-excited claptrap on there about how Modhesh is a harbinger of cheer for small children everywhere. Mind you, it could be worse. It could be 'Under Construction' like the Dubai Summer Surprises website!

They'll need to spruce those up in the next day or two, won't they?

Credit

Gulf News had its day today with the news that UAE businessman Abid Al Boom had his assets frozen. The paper first ran the story last week (on the 27th June, in fact) that Al Boom was in schtuck, pipping the other English stories to the post, although its angle on the story was perhaps a little interesting.

The GN story from last week, "Lawyers flay newspaper for slandering Al Boom company" took the angle of 'the astonishment expressed' by lawyers and the 'anger' expressed by Al Boom himself at the news reported by an Arabic newspaper, the name of which GN refused to give on the grounds of the UAE Journalism Code of Ethics.

Today GN's reporting pretty much vindicates said Arabic newspaper (which I can, in an exclusive shock horror revelation, tell you was Dubai government-owned Emarat Al Youm) , although nowhere does Gulf News' coverage today say that. The National also ran the story, crediting 'a local Arabic newspaper' and even Emirates Business 24x7 ran the piece front page but didn't credit its sister title with the scoop.

Which does rather strike me as denying credit where it's due. EAY broke the story, but was never given that credit in the English press. Citing the Code of Ethics is all very well, but I for one couldn't find the relevant part of the code that stops a newspaper crediting its fellow paper for publishing a story.

BTW - that code (linked above) is well worth a read for anyone in, or dealing with, UAE media!

Evil

I don't know what it is with people and Modhesh. Last year one grumpy blogger even went so far as to refer to our cheery little yellow friend as a relentless tide of infinite-eyed, grinning evil! Some people have no sense of fun!

But the time is upon us again as Modhesh statues start to appear around Dubai. The endearing little chap is the mascot of Dubai's Summer Surprises shopping festival, although his ubiquity appears to annoy certain groups of irritable expatriates. Shame on them for being so grumpy!

Yesterday saw the official press conference to inaugurate this years' festivities and they're sure to include loads of wonderful Modhesh fun. And who could complain at the little chap's cheery ways as the thermometer hits 50C and we sweat our way through a summer of stop start traffic and construction-related mayhem?

Oddly, the press event appears to have generated less than stunning coverage: this government story didn't even make it to Emirates Business 24x7, which is simply amazing. But I'm sure it'll pick up soon enough.

He's got his own website, you know, although all the links appear to be broken...

Whatever, he'll be with us for the next couple of months... everywhere, everyday and in every way... Happy summer, friends!

Out of Control

Oh dear. I don't seem to be able to stop myself! All sorts of naughty 'Modhesh is Evil' scenarios are unfolding in front of me!!!

It's deep in mid-summer and I need a holiday. That's my only excuse your honour...

Proof that it IS Evil!

In celebration of the 1000th member of the chucklesome Facebook Group: proof that he is, indeed, evil.

Hmmm... I can feel a meme coming on...

PARTY PARTY PARTY PARTY

Like many other people who write blogs, I started this so that I could be witty, frothy and generally entertaining. There's little doubt that blogging is, indeed, an adult version of that horrible urge that precocious children have to play the piano or show off your ability to do break dancing in the middle of mum and dad's dinner party.

But I have to hold up my hands and admit that today's post comes to you from a narrative, comedic and linguistic talent that so far eclipses my own pathetic efforts that I bring it to you unedited, unexpurgated (and un-spellchecked!). It was shared with me, for which I thank him deeply and humbly, by pal Sherif The Killer of Yellow Things... It was sent to him, genuinely, as an email...

Dear Sirs and Madams,

Who doesn’t like to celebrate! All moments can be JOYFUL moments … YOU ONLY NEED THE RIGHT TEAM TO HELP YOU CELEBRATE!!!

Summer is here and the heat has drained everyone … But why not find the time to have some fun? Enjoyment & Pleasure is what we can supply you with… from the food to lights & music … from the simplest to the most sophisticated detail … we can plan and deliver all…

- Are you preparing for your WEDDING??? With all your wedding stress do you have the time to plan??? Why not enjoy and relax, while we plan for your wedding?

- From your BACHELOR or BACHELORETTE party … to the smallest and refine detail … we are pleased to do it all for you… To make your night a memorable evening !!!

- Your wife is PREGNANT and doesn’t feel like outing, the heat, the loud music, the cigarette smoke all would be things that bother her… why not do something SPEICAL for her just because you love her… but with a clean environment… and let us take care of the simplest details for you…

- You had a FIGHT with your lover… and you think everything is collapsing around you … why go for a cliché dinner??? Wouldn’t that be something you will expect ??? why not do something extraordinary… forget about the details just have the day to re-fresh and prepare yourself for the makeup night… and we will do it all for you…

- Are you getting a DIVORCE??? Why feel sorry about it??? Enjoy it and celebrate your new beginning??? We can plan your divorce party in way that you will enjoy it even better than your wedding…

- Your wife left for the summer vacation but you are still here working and feeling LONLEY missing her HOMEMADE FOOD… why feel lonely when you can have it all even if you are left alone??? Invite a couple of friends and lets us cook for you and celebrate your loneliness …

- Your best friend doesn’t feel like celebrating his/her BIRTHDAY??? Why not to come with the right plan to make him/her enjoy what was thought it would be a boring night??? We can come up with the idea and the plan and make your friends night a memorable one…

You just past your EXAMS and you think that’s something simple??? No its not !!! its another reason to celebrate… Let us organize it for you…

We at Cateriya Catering Services do it all… from your HAPPY MOMENTS to UNFORGETABLE MEMORIES … From your WORSE DAYS to days that will only be kept as HAPPY reminiscences … We make you forget that you even went through the stress… contact us and we will take care of everything … cause you deserve to be treated like a QUEEN / KING at all times and all occasions…

If non of the above exist and IS part of your life… Than for sure you need us … we will add the spices to your life with planning an unforgettable event for you…

Rendered speechless, for once, I have no comment...

Salik Surprises

So much has been written about Dubai’s congestion charge, Salik, that it’s difficult to contemplate adding to what’s already out there without a certain sense of resignation and perhaps a touch of fear that it’s just going to be a repetition of the considerable volume of incredulity, indignation, anger and exasperated invective that has peppered so many blogs over the past couple of months. Even the media, ever-aware of the burden of governmental disapproval, has tried to reflect the broad public dislike of the scheme. Strangely, few of the people who have complained appear to have been motivated to do so by the financial impact: it has been the apparent lack of a clear objective or a well-communicated plan of any sort that has drawn much of the negative comment in both on and off-line media. The response of the RTA, to the broad public concern has, at its least helpful, been to tell the public to stow it because they’re ‘not traffic experts’. The flow of information regarding the scheme and the ‘traffic management objectives’ that we’re told about as we hold for the Salik call centre to finish ‘helping’ other callers has hardly ever been more than a grudging trickle.

I am one of those people whose mobile numbers were ‘given wrongly’: I still have the copy of the form in which my mobile number is given with perfect clarity. I corrected the error over the ‘phone last week when I got through to their call centre. Today I got an SMS telling me that my balance of Dhs 2 was insufficient and that I should top up or face a fine. Now, forgive me, but I thought that one of the ideas was that you’d get an SMS warning you that your balance was low. Apparently not.

So I went to top up. I have to confess I was a little annoyed at having to do this on the spur of the moment rather than with a couple of crossings’ notice, but never mind. The Emarat station just prior to the Garhoud toll only has one till that can take Salik top-ups because they only have one pad of Salik top up forms – a rather analogue, multipart book of slips.

I can pay my phone bill using online and telephone banking, as well as my electricity and water bill. I can pay my traffic fines and I can even renew my PO box online.

But I have to top up my Salik account by filling in a cloakroom slip? So be it. I aimed to top up with a nice Dhs250 so that I wouldn't have to do it again for a good while. So I gave the girl my Visa card. Which is when I discovered you can only pay for Salik by cash.

What a muckle-headed slice of totally incompetent daftness.

But I’m not finished by a long chalk. You see, I then drove over Garhoud to hit the tailback immediately after the bridge. Because it’s gridlocked over Maktoum and the new Floating Bridge through City Centre and up the Ittihad Road to Sharjah. Because the traffic that’s crossed Business Bay to avoid Salik joins Garhoud a couple of hundred meters after the very bridge that this Salik scheme was meant to keep clear. It’s caused worse traffic congestion in the whole Deira area than we have every seen before and THIS IS SUMMER TRAFFIC – the number of cars on the road is something like 25% less than normal.

I thought I’d get a few laughs out of Salik but I, along with a lot of other people, have stopped laughing. Come September, when the traffic levels ramp back up to their usual heaving stock car race levels, there’ll be a whole lot more people not laughing.

Someone should really start doing some explaining.

Shopper's Paradise

Today's Emarat Al Youm has a news story blaring the great news that retail sales in Dubai have gone through the roof this summer, obviously thanks to the Dubai Summer Surprises festival which is headed, as over 900 Facebook Group joining (it's going to hit the 1,000 by the weekend) people know, by the infinite-eyed grinning yellow evil that is Modhesh Al Modhesh.

25% increase in shoppers shrills the page 18 headline, backed up by the picture caption, Boutiques and accessory shops had the highest share of Festival sales.

Delightfully, the huge image used to illustrate the story is that of an completely empty shop.

One can only conjecture that they had been scared away temporarily by the appearance of a hungry, ravening Modhesh...

Road Runner and the Radar Rotters

One of the things that’s kept me so long in the UAE is the fact that it’s such a very paradoxical place: there’s never one simple answer or one simple fact, a single explanation or a unitary truth. Even better, the variety of complexities are usually deliciously oppositional.

For instance, we enjoy one of the world’s lowest crime rates and live in one of the safest environments the globe has to offer. And at the same time the number of deaths on our roads is remarkably high – traffic accidents are an everyday commonplace, so much so that, with humanity’s remarkable penchant for adaptability, we tend to accept driving past the blood-chilling wreckage of interlocked cars as a mere fact of life. Many actually slow down for a good old peek, an Eastern morbid fascination that irritates those from the West, who fidget and moan at the delays caused by the rubberneckers.

The response to a number of high profile road tragedies and the consequent growing howl of outrage from media and public was to introduce a huge number of new speed cameras. I don’t know how much radar the human body can cope with, but many of us are now being multiply irradiated daily (as well as being RFIDed by the glorious Salik system!) as the vast network of fixed and mobile radars grows. They’re springing up everywhere, particularly the mobile ones.

And the mobile ones are most fun.

It’s like Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner out there, it really is. They set them up behind bushes, traffic signs, concrete blocks, dustbins or any other roadside impediment they can find. They park up on the roadside with the radar gun and flash unit in front of the bonnet, set up by the tailgate or snuck into the back of an estate car. There’s even one unit that’s a van with a circular and rectangular window cut into the back to accommodate the hardware. All it needs is a sign on the side saying 'ACME Radar Unit'...

They set up the cameras and park their, usually relatively distinctive (in the Khawaneej area you’ll find a silver estate and a sea-green metallic hatchback are the cars of choice) motors around the corner so you don’t spot ‘em. One of them has the delightful habit of parking his car on the hard shoulder and putting the camera 200 meters or so back up the road from it so that the radar catches you before you slow down in case the car is a radar unit. This is only averagely sneaky – there’s one bozo in Sharjah who likes to set up his mobile camera a hundred metres or so after one of the fixed cameras, so they get you as you speed up past the fixed one. Like I said, it’s Road Runner style stuff!

But the one that really fires me up is the joker who sets up on my way to work: the Academic City road between Khawaneej and the Al Ain road. This four-lane stretch of gently curving asphalt runs through 100% desert: there’s not a house, factory or other building on it. If ever there was a road that should carry a 120kph limit (the UAE maximum), this was it. And the limit, insanely, is 80. It’s almost impossible to drive that stretch of long desert road at 80kph. You’d go mad. They’d find you naked and running, gibbering, through the ghaf trees.

So it’s rich pickings for our evilly giggling little friend. Convention dictates that radar cameras in the UAE trigger at 20kph above the limit. So you do 101kph down the Academic City road and he’s nailed you with a Dhs200 fine.

But wickedness can bring out the best in people. UAE nationals, expats, Europeans, Indians, Pakistani truck drivers and all – I’ve watched as drivers warn others about the hidden camera, flashing hazard lights, brake lights or even putting arms out to flag down those jazzing it up in the fast lane. I have thanked and been thanked in my turn by others as people from around the world are brought together, for a few brief and human seconds, by the collective desire to save our fellow men from the predatory and unfair practices of the Radar Rotter.

The Flight From Hell

The bloke in front is a serial recliner and has knocked the bottle on my food tray over twice. The bloke next to me is a hairy-armed expansionist and eats with his elbow waving in my face or hitting me constantly. The bloke behind me spends three hours cleaning his teeth with a sloppy sucking noise every 1-3 minutes, intervals nicely randomised to create a truly Chinese (although he might have been Korean) water torture effect. It sounds like the noises naughty children make in cinemas during love scenes. It's, literally, maddening. The bloke next to him is a serial talking bore with a honking, loud, nasal voice that cuts across every other sound and constantly interrupts your reading with banalities about life in the Middle East. At one stage he actually says 'You have to understand the Arab Mentality', which is a phrase that I loathe profoundly.

But at least they don't play a Modhesh video as we start our descent to Dubai...

* Rule One: Anyone who says 'You have to understand the Arab Mentality' invariably does so in tones that suggest they do. Rule Two: They don't. There isn't one. It's just dumb racism.

Dubai Grumpy Surprises

How strange. This blog set out, at least in part, to be a good-natured celebration of the rich source of amusement to be derived from the quixotic and frequently barmy Emirates and as the summer gets truly underway it’s just becoming grumpy and generally arsey – the very thing I didn’t want it to be! Blame the weather. The car’s thermometer is reading anywhere from 40-48C in the sun, the humidity’s way up on the gloopy hot air scale, everyone seems to have gone home or be travelling the world except for a smattering of bachelors - and our own leave, booked around two long-anticipated weddings, is still almost a month away.

All you want to do is crawl away under a tree somewhere cool and green and read books or wander through soft, cool spring rain.

Rats.

It’s almost enough to make you complain about living in a tax-free, beach-infested sunny place with wall to wall five star hotels that’s one of the most secure places in the world, isn’t it?

Which reminds me of being at home a couple of years ago with Sarah, who was trying to explain to someone at a party or something that living in the Emirates isn't really all life in a bed of roses. For instance, you can’t just go to the restaurant down the road here and get a bottle of wine with your food, because only hotels can legally serve alcohol. “Look,” she said. “We can’t even buy a drink unless we’re in a five star hotel!”

Woopsie. That one came out wrong! They were crying for us, they really were…

Meanwhile, over 600 people have now discovered an outlet for those summer frustrations... >;0)

And on the Pedestal These Words Appear: 'Goodyear Inflate to 30psi'

Driving down a desert road the other day, deep into the dunes on a four-lane ribbon of blacktop snaking into the distance, I saw two men sitting by the roadside in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Between them, standing up on its tread, was a large truck tyre. All around, as Samuel Taylor tells us, the sands were boundless and bare. They weren't really lone and level, because it was dune country, but you get the picture.

I’d gone another 100 metres before I realised that I had witnessed a first grade incongruity. What the hell were they doing there? How did they get there? Where were they going? What was with the tyre? I don’t need to emphasise that there was no accompanying truck for miles either way along the roadside.

I started making up explanations for their seemingly inexplicable presence in the middle of nowhere, just to amuse myself.

• They were travelling to deliver a tyre. They were cousins, but being naturally argumentative people, had got into one of those interminable wrangles over something small and daft, like who had fancied the village beauty first. Finally, the driver had had enough of their constant bickering and had ditched them both, then and there.
  
• They’d gone to sleep and had woken up to find that they’d lost a truck. All they had left was the spare tyre. Knowing that they're in big trouble, they decided to wait for the thief to bring the truck back.
  
• They were with Al Qaeda and were waiting to blow something up. This was the best they could manage. All they need now is an air line.
  
• They were members of a strange Kashmiri cargo cult and had wheeled their prize from Sharjah in order to take part in a Gnostic desert tyre-worshipping ceremony. They were consequently trying to look innocent and inconspicuous until the rest of the tyre-worshippers turned up.
  

Whatever my craziest, desert-drive fuelled fantasy was, it probably wasn’t a patch on the truth. And that truth, dear reader, will never be known.

Salik and Thanks for all the Fish

Looking at visitors to this blog (thanks for dropping by: hope you had fun), it has to be said that many are people that have been searching Google for information related to Dubai's Salik toll gate system and have been ending up here instead. So I'd like to apologise.

Sorry.

I have frequently been frivolous and lobbed stones into the whole Salik debate but genuinely have little constructive to say. That's partly because there's so little to say that is constructive. I also have little useful to tell you other than that Dubai's Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) allegedly employs some 15 people in its public relations department and has apparently retained at least one, if not two or three PR agencies.

What they are all doing is a complete mystery to me. And no, it's not sour grapes because my agency’s not down home at the farm milking the RTA cash cow. The lack of information, engagement and transparency regarding the whole Salik congestion charge scheme has been remarkable by any standard.

Sure, the Salik system is working now. Sure, most of the major problems have been ironed out (well, apart from my registration SMS not appearing with my all-important account number without which I can't find out my balance or recharge my card, but we won't let that worry us, will we?). But it's the abiding sour taste that it's all left in people's mouths that I find interesting.

It honestly didn't have to be this way. A smarter, better planned and, above all, more transparent communications campaign could have resulted in a better informed public, more buy-in for the scheme (people tend to buy in to a well-put, sound argument that's been properly communicated) and less residual resentment. The investment, in care, time and money, was infinitesimal compared to the scale of the whole scheme.

I wonder if I’m the only person out there that thinks that the communications element of the whole Salik affair has been handled poorly? Somehow I don't think I am...

Laugh, and the World Punches You in the Face

You know you’re overdue leave when every small incident seems to bring that red mist down and you feel like you’re spending most of your day controlling your natural urge to strangle people. There are those among us for whom this is normal, everyday behaviour, of course. But for most of us, it comes in that last two or three weeks before flying off to pastures greener for a well-earned break being forced to eat stale Dundee cake by long-forgotten aunts.

Quick diversion to ask a perennial question. Why are you on duty when you go home, but they’re on holiday when they visit you out here?

So this time of year is a great time to catch one of those sights unique to the east-meets-west polyglot melting pot that is Dubai: that of a furious European shouting at an Indian guy who’s laughing at him.

It’s one of those facts of life here, where the world’s cultural tectonic plates rub, that different people react in different ways to different situations. The personal space of the average Brit is about three metres. For the average Malabari it’s about two millimetres. When Arab women see a cute baby, they like to fuss over it, squeeze its cheeks and give it sweets. Touch a European woman’s baby and she’ll mace you and leave you lying in the street in a heap, puking and crying. Northern Europeans queue. Nobody else bothers.

And many people from India, particularly the south it would seem, giggle when they’re nervous. It’s a natural reaction for them, particularly when people are so rude as to raise their voices. And there’s no better way to send an upset European’s temper into the stratosphere than to laugh at them when they’re shouting at you.

It always reminds me of that classic piece of that classic comedy, Fawlty Towers. O’Reilly the Irish builder has just screwed up the interior of the hotel and Basil’s fire-breathing wife Sybil is having a go at him. He laughs her off as Basil can be heard saying through gritted teeth, “Don’t laugh O’Reilly, oh please don’t laugh” and then, of course, she beats the crap out of him with an umbrella.

And so when the watchman in our building told a furious colleague that the basement parking would remain shut for another week (consigning us to another week circling the building trying to find non-existent parking spaces and then walking hundreds of yards in the sticky, hot humidity) and she started to shout, I found myself thinking of Basil Fawlty’s “Please don’t laugh!” But it was too late.

He giggled and it got twisted.

Talk to the Hand

What is it with pronunciation around here? My office is above Lal’s Supermarket. Try and tell that to anyone calling to ‘Ask your location’.

Lal's. No. Lalz. No. Laaaalssseee. No. Lalze. No. Lalllllsssss. No. Lalllllzzzzzeeeeeuuuughhhh. Not understanding.

It’s invariably a game played down to the final, desperate variation that sounds nothing like the original: “Lalluss!”

And then… Ohhhh! Lals! Why you not say Lals?

It’s also played in Arabic. Burghul. No. Burrrrgul. No. Buuuukhhuuullll. And so on.

But revenge is sweet. Good morning. Pardon? Good morniiing! Pardon?

As they say in Dubai English, I’m overdue to go on leave...

Fast Company

Sharjah’s bottled gas companies still ply their trade, operating an instant callout service with their rickety orange trucks laden with rusty yellow 100lb bombs. They took a huge hit when SEWA, the acronymically amusing Sharjah Electricity and Water Authority decided to pipe gas to the Emirate’s houses. Some of us diehards still prefer to pay the bottled gas prices rather than the wickedly expensive cost of the piped stuff. So the bottled gas companies still slip their gaudy stickers under the door and I still keep them.

The newest one arrived this weekend and I was struck by the company’s name as I added their sticker to the back of the storeroom door alongside the others that have been pasted up there over the years. A few years ago we had ‘Fast Gas’, a company whose promise was ‘Fast Delivery’. Seems like fair enough positioning to me. Then we had ‘Super Fast Gas’ who differentiated themselves with ‘Neat and Clean Cylinders’. That obviously didn’t resonate so well, because the new lot have gone back to promising ‘Quick Delivery’. But the new name caught me: neatly trumping all before them, the new kids on the block are called ‘Fast and Fast’.

You can see ‘em sitting there over a chai panjesari, older brother Akbar smoking an evil-smelling fag: ‘Good to be calling it Fast and one more thing, but what thing? Fast and good? Fast and clean? Fast and well filling?’

And then Iftikar, the bright one, suddenly banging the table: ‘What else to do? We shall be calling it Fast and FAST! That will be bloody showing them!’

I’m waiting for the next lot. My bet is they’ll be called ‘Fast and Fastest’…

And then the gas runs out halfway through cooking dinner last night. So I put in a call to Fast and Fast. I swear to God, they’re at the house within ten minutes. I can’t believe it: the first time this year I’ve been truly delighted at a service and it’s a damn local gas company. And then I see the bloke and I start laughing. It’s the same man as used to come from Superfast Gas. And, just because I was curious and asked him, yes he used to run Fast Gas before that.

Fast Company indeed…

Are You Getting the Salik Message?

As predicted earlier, the SMS infrastructure that's underpinning the Salik road toll in Dubai has been providing some unscheduled summer surprises, with Gulf News reporting (one suspects a touch gleefully, if the truth be told) on the hapless punters whose mobiles have been flooded with huge quantities of SMSs originating from the Road and Transport Authority (RTA).

Now getting SMS spam is bad enough (it's still an occasional annoyance in the UAE, although nothing like the constant stream we used to get). But these people have been receiving over a hundred texts overnight! Can you imagine what it feels like to get a tsunami of SMS spam from the people behind the universally popular and well regarded road toll scheme?

I bet it had them hopping, I really do...

I still haven't got my activation message. I wonder how they're doing with that data entry? >;0)