Yellow Peril

It's summer and Paris Hilton's in Dubai. Yay.

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.

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?

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...

The Fear Returns

Like the commercial frenzy that is the Christmas season, Dubai's summer season seems to get earlier every year. It's only the second of May and already the infinite-eyed yellow menace has popped up, specifically in today's Arabic language Al Ittihad newspaper. Worse, one's been spotted on Trade Center Roundabout. And that means we'll soon be seeing a great deal more of the little sucker.

Yes, it's Modhesh, the yellow jack in the box crossed with a mutant maggot. And you can bet your bottom dollar that he'll be popping into our lives with his unique blend of relentless, manic zeal for the next five months. Modhesh grinning satanically at us from every roundabout and pavement, filling the business sections of our newspapers, playing in bouncy kiddy-castle style videos every time we fly or take a taxi, leering out at us from a million handbills, advertisements and photofeatures.

It's not fair. It's not even officially summer. As everyone knows, it's only truly summer when Gulf News publishes a photo of a pigeon drinking from a tap...