That Toll Again

Well, as predicted, the papers were indeed filled with Salik yesterday. Every front page bar one had the story of the clear roads by the toll gates and the chaos everywhere else. Gulf News dared to be different and didn't put the Salik story on its front page at all, which was a nice change. And Emirates Today splashed with 'Salik Chaos' which was an even nicer change, although the tone of the story, perhaps rather predictably, didn't quite follow through from the headline.

Nobody's got a confirmation SMS. Nobody quite knows what's happening about that (although I refer you to my earlier mathematical sleight of hand) yet. Today's papers are still rumbling and grumbling but life is settling down back to its regular rhythm.

Wait 'till they try and sneak the next set of toll gates in, though. Look out for announcements regarding the success of the Salik pilot scheme and how that success has led to a review and subsequent decision to expand it to cover other routes...

My money's on Jebel Ali, Qusais and Business Bay. Because that's where there are 'Salik 2km' signs today, put up by someone who rather jumped the gun...

Salik - A Momentary Lapse of Reason

Well, the papers should be full of this lot tomorrow. Dubai's congestion charge cuts in and it's certainly true that there's been no congestion today at the two points in the city where the toll's RFID scanners span the road.

But oh, dearie me, the picture is far from pretty almost everywhere else. Pushing thousands of cars an hour off the arterial Sheikh Zayed Road meant that the city's streets were heaving: the traffic this evening backed up past the airport, Maktoum and Satwa were rammed with punters trying to find any which way but Salik.

Even the Emarat station before the Garhoud toll had its queues: application form-waving punters ten deep as they made that last minute application for the little orange sticker. Barsha and the area around the projects was apparently misery this morning and will have been again tonight.

Some of the day's best fun was to be had on Facebook, the new forum for the Middle East's chatterers: "It’s a car park! I can’t find the logic in this!!!" says a furious Suzy, while an astonished Alisha keys, "It was also the worst road rage I've ever seen in my life!"

"With the exception of one straight stretch of road starting at Al Barsha, going through Sheikh Zayed Road, towards Garhoud Bridge, the remaining streets of Dubai have successfully, overnight, been turned into one huge parking lot," says a shocked Sherif who goes on, one suspects with a touch of irony, to say: "So worry not residents, all you need to do to grab lunch is turn off your engines wherever you are, pop out for a bite, and odds are, traffic will be at a standstill upon your return!"

While my favourite contribution of the day, from a naughty Nadim, was: "Anyone fancy helping me to take out a half page ad in the newspapers thanking RTA?"

I predicted this would be fun. And yes, I am delighted to have told you so. And I don't think it's really started in earnest yet: the best is definitely yet to come.

What larks, Pip!!

Spiderman!

Talking of Al Maha, we found this bad boy in the room when we got back from dinner. With enormous regret, because he had more right to be there than we did, a life-long arachnophobia and a deeply unsettled wife resulted in a swift spider/sandal occlusion. The Birkenstock survived.

Showed the pre-two dimensional spider photo to our guide, who couldn't name it. He thought it was similar to a species of funnel-web he'd seen in the desert. It reminded me of the chap shown below, who was lurking in our outdoor bathroom in Sri Lanka one night. I can't find anything like it online...

Anyone got any ideas?


PS: I really, really hate spiders. I'm talking about the British garden variety, not these monsters - both had a legspan over 5cm.

Dubai: The Movie and Theme Park

It would appear that Paramount is to invest in a film about Dubai at the same time as Dubai is to invest in a theme park about Paramount.

Today's multi-kilo wadge of dead tree (Gulf News) carries the story that a Hollywood blockbuster is to focus on Lalaland. Brilliantly, it is to be called Dubai. GN blagged the story from Variety, the Tinseltown trade. Paramount has picked up the option on the script by Adam Cozad who is described by Variety as a 'tyro scribe', which appears to be Hollywoodese for 'unknown'...

Variety is amazing: it has a reporting language all of its own. Dubai is to be executive produced by Australian actor Eric Banna or, according to Variety: 'Thesp to produce'.

Dubai, Cozad's first script, is scheduled for a September shoot and centres around an American economist who is tricked into involvement in an Iranian plot to destroy the US economy, according to the various Hollywood mags. Producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura is apparently a hot shot at Paramount and someone to be taken seriously with current projects including Eddie Murphy's 'Nowhereland' as well as 'Stardust' and 'Transformers'.

From Nowhereland to Lalaland. Interesting.

Cozad has previously been involved in Middle East themed 'movies', with a co-director credit in Sidewalk Festival featured short 'Dust' in which 'Soldiers in Iraq must deal with the the tragedy of war'. Not to be confused, incidentally, with David Leeson's rather good personal film about being a journalist in Iraq, 'Dust to Dust'.

What is almost certain is that we can look forward to lots of fuss in September as the film team hits town, as well as the likelihood of yet another Hollywood blockbuster that over-simplifies and incorrectly characterises everything it touches. But then we're used to that by now, aren't we?

However, it is perhaps interesting (serendipitous, even) that the news also comes, from Variety, that the UAE's Ruwaad, the company with the compelling outdoor promotional campaign, is to spend $2.5 billion on building a Paramount themed picture park in Dubai which will feature restaurants, resorts and retail and is likely to focus on Paramount properties such as Top Gun and Mission Impossible.

You never know. They might even have a Dubai display if this film takes off. I quite like the idea of going to a Dubai theme park attraction in Dubai and seeing what Hollywood makes of it. I suppose, whatever they get up to, it can't be as potty as the truth...

By the way, there's already a movie called Dubai - it's a Filipino film.

Death to Modhesh: Facebook Catches up With Our Little Yellow Fiend (Sorry, I meant Friend)

Yes, that most pernicious of social networks has kicked into action and there's now a Facebook Group 'Death to Modhesh'.

Oh dear, oh dear. What is it that these naughty people can't take about our cheerful little fiend?

Well, in the Group's own words:

I've decided to create a group that finally says what all the normal sane people (yes, all 5 of them) living in Dubai have repeatedly said: Modhesh is EVIL and should be abolished.

The yellow abomination is haunting me. I've never been in such constant close contact with a yellow Jack-in-the-box.

It's the result of a Banana and a Slinky having an affair. It also gives a whole new meaning to 'Bad Hair Day'

This of course not to mention the Nasal voice and annoying grin.

All In All...I raise my voice saying 'DEATH TO MODHESH'

Well, well, well. Some people have NO SENSE OF FUN AT ALL. Really.

Are Dubai's Businesses Ignoring the Salik Toll?

Most businesses I have spoken to about it haven’t got around to thinking about their policy regarding the Salik congestion charge yet. Which is possibly slightly strange.

Does your company intend to pay the Salik costs of business travel? Will you get an allowance? Or is the company simply ignoring the additional charges and expecting you to pay them out of your pocket?

If companies intend to pay it, it’s possible to envisage the charge contributing an additional cost to service businesses of anything up to 1%. In other words, Salik is a significant potential addition to the cost at the bottom line – and an inflationary contributor.

The costs soon mount up, by the way. And if, as I suspect, we will be seeing a lot more Salik Tollgates springing up, we’ll be looking at the potential for Dubai's busy business types to relatively easily rack up the full daily Dhs 24 per day charge (6 passes) with ease. At Dhs 24 for 5 working days and 11 months (say you spend your four week leave out of the country), that’s a cool annual Dhs 5,280 ($1,444).

So what is the policy? Pay reasonable business travel, pay an allowance to offset the effect on staff pockets or let them pay it themselves? Companies will undoubtedly find staff asking about it over the coming week.

Look on the bright side. One point of view is that it should at least cut down on the useless and frustratingly unnecessary meetings we all suffer from. :)

Salik Goes Ahead. Of Course.

The near-hysterical tone of the chatter surrounding Dubai's controversial Salik (Arabic for 'clear') congestion charge has been cranked up by a report from Zawya Dow Jones that the introduction of the toll may be delayed. The original Zawya story, that the RTA was meeting Sunday to discuss possibly delaying the scheme in the face of public reaction, was denied by the RTA and the denial story is front page 7Days, Gulf News and Gulf Today. Khaleej Times and the Arabics didn't go as big with it.

Zawya's sticking with the story it had, updated here, but is saying that the meeting was duly held and RTA decided to go ahead with the scheme. None of the stories add much information, of course.

We are terribly prone to this type of hysteria here in Lalaland. A few years ago a Shopping Festival stunt to bake the world's biggest cake (it stretched up Maktoum Street and down Muraqqabat or something like that, if my ageing memory serves me right) came to a messy end after a rumour went around that there were keys to a Toyota Lexus hidden in the cake: 'members of the public' lost no time in attacking the enormous sugary confection in search of a bonanza that was, sadly, not there.

Now we're getting hysterical at any opportunity to believe that we won't have to pay Dhs 100 for the damn tag and another Dhs4 every time we pass a toll gate. The level of speculation and gossip that's out there, of course, being the direct result of a flawed and unclear communications strategy. The great lesson here: news expands to fill a vacuum.

But what larks, Pip!

Salik. Who’s Buying the Taxi’s Tags, Then?

Mr. Ghulam the taxi driver is not at all happy about the Salik congestion charge (although, if we’re to believe Gulf News, neither’s anyone else except ‘traffic expert’ Mattar Al Tayer). Apart from anything else, he wants to know who’s going to pay the Dhs100 upfront cost of the Salik RFID tag itself. As a taxi driver, he’s pretty sure his Sharjah company isn’t going to spring for it. Although the TRA has been clear that passengers should pay the Dhs4 ($1) for the toll itself if they insist on passing a toll gate, nobody’s said who should pay for the tag itself. And Dhs100 is a lot of money to a taxi driver here in the city of dreams.

Meanwhile, signs for Salik gates are springing up on access roads to Dubai – spotted so far in Qusais and the Sheikh Zayed Road by Jebel Ali. Does that mean more Salik gates are on the way? Fans of early announcements remember promises of gates on every access road to Dubai and a figure of 70 gates was being bandied about at one stage.

Watch those spaces!!!

Dubai Summer Surprises - Lift Surprises

I am daily reminded of the joys of unfettered multiculturalism. I’m not sure if there are many places on earth that are quite so polyglot as Dubai, the city that, more than any other, sits on the cultural tectonic between East and West. It is here that cheap sub-continental and Asian labour rubs shoulders with Western White Collars, where retail staff earning $200 a month serve shoppers earning $200,000 a year and more and where Indian labourers working for Irish contractors build Australian designed towers for Arab companies to sell to Indian investors.

And, let us forget the important stuff that is the lifeblood of this odd multinational mixture, we’re all of us better off for being here. Tens of nationalities co-exist here, at times uncomfortably but at least in broad consensus. The oddities and differences, however, can provide fascinating anthropological material.

Take lifts. In this part of the world, lifts often have mirrored back panels. This can provide much amusement for the amusedly inclined.

If you are ever moved to touch a Balinese person on the head, restrain yourself. It’s the worst insult and you’ll end up, if you’re lucky, with a black eye. If you’re Dutch, you’ll likely end up with a rice sickle buried in your chest. A strong veneration for the head appears to be core to Bali’s animistic Hinduism, as well as forming something of a preoccupation for Hindus in general.

So, when in Dubai, do expect Indian chaps entering a lift to notice the mirror, admire themselves fleetingly and then whip out a comb and start to re-shape the super-cranial keratin (hair). Perhaps amusingly, this ritual grooming invariably takes precedence over selecting a destination floor, leaving one’s fleeting travelling companion impeccably groomed but unfloored.

For some reason, many people from the East see the process of calling a lift differently from Europeans. In Europe, and many parts of East Asia, one presses the ‘up’ button if one wishes to go up and the ‘down’ button if one wishes to go down. In Asia, particularly India, it seems that one presses the ‘up’ button to summon a lift up and the ‘down’ button to summon a lift down.

So, if on the ground floor of a 10 story building, many people in Dubai press the down button to call the lift down to them. If you’re on the 8^th story of a 10 story building and aiming to go down, the best thing to do is call the ‘up’ button on the grounds that the lifts are more likely to be below you than above. Often people press both ‘up’ and ‘down’ buttons as this increases the statistical likelihood of the lift coming more quickly. Because this is at odds with the way lifts are programmed, this results in many people being transported in the contrary vertical direction to that desired.

All of which explains why, occasionally, I call the lift from our basement carparking to find it already filled with people grinning out at me as I gape at them. Then the doors close again and they are taken away from me. Which, as summer has arrived and the humidity has rendered the air moist, thick and soupy (I swear I saw a wadi fish swimming past my head the other day), is lucky because people can become subject to violent irritability in these conditions.

Incidentally, I declare Summer upon us with some trepidation as Gulf News has not marked its official advent with a picture of a pigeon drinking from a standpipe or labourers resting in the shade. But I do feel I'm on the right lines and offical confirmation should come soon...

Warning! Swimming Pools Cause Premature Ageing!

Al Sharq Al Awsat today published a story on how swimming pools could be dangerous for children, an excellent piece of timing as the thermometers of the Middle East start their annual soar to the dizzy heights of the forties and fifties and everyone takes to the pools and aquaparks.

The piece, carried on page 11 of the healthcare section, is headlined 'Pools Dangerous For Kids' Lungs' and is neatly illustrated with a very large picture of a slightly portly, silver-haired man in his late fifties tripping up in a swimming pool.

A splash indeed. Woopsie!

Modhesh Delivers Dubai Summer Surprises

"Registrations for the exclusive DSS summer event, the Modhesh Friends' Club, take a hectic pace as a number of parents accompanied by their holidaying children are rushing to the DSS Office to grab the last few remaining seats available for the Club all set to start on June 24."

So, in tones of overwrought hysteria, goes the press release announcing that uptake has been a little slower than anticipated for the Modhesh Friends' Club summer kids' event. It's quite possible, of course, that demand has been reduced because parents simply don't believe they'd have a chance of getting their kid in because the demand would be so great. After all, as the press release (posted here on arabianbusiness.com) tells us, application forms are "fast flying off the shelves" so it must be popular.

If you'd like to learn more about Modhesh, you can go here. There's more information there than anybody in their right minds can take, all presented in a comforting palette of colours designed to trigger scary roller-coaster flashbacks from that time you dropped an experimental tab or two back at Uni. In fact, uncontrollable brain-skitter is a constant danger in Modhesh's online world, but I do recommend you pop in to enjoy, if nothing else, the relentless tone of the prose offered up to you.

Here's a sample:

"His popularity is truly inspiring, growing constantly over the years. As summer time approaches children anxiously wait for their favourite character to return and become a part of their lives. His yearly visits to Dubai win him friends and fans in huge numbers indicating to his popularity among children of all ages. Even grown-ups can’t help but join in the celebrations when Modhesh invites them to shop at the malls or be a part of the weekly themed events."

Quite.