Sparkle Towers

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A press release went out on Business Wire yesterday announcing 'Sparkle Towers', the 'first ever crystal inspired residential haven'.

The developer is a company called Tebyan. In the release, its managing director, a Mr Naji Alia, says: 'Dubai is known worldwide as a haven of luxury where simply having a ‘good’ residence is just not good enough. Our style-sensitive residents seek nothing but the very best, and elegance is not only appreciated but demanded.'

The towers (one is G+29 and one G+14) are to be 'branded "space marveled by Swarovski', which would appear to mean that the interiors and a number of as yet unspecified architectural and interior features will be based around Swarovski crystal and glass products, or solutions as the release tells us they are known.

As Mr Alia says, 'To enhance Dubai’s global reputation, Tebyan has gone beyond luxury to perfection.'

A chap from Swarovski said the towers would be a 'beyond luxury living experience' and also pointed out Swarovski was delighted to be able to 'experience the joy of crystal through diverse sparkling applications.'

Tebyan says the Sparkle Towers is 'glorious in all the details'. The company's 'aggressive growth vision' makes it 'eager to break barriers of doubt'.

I am too exhausted to do more than present you with the facts.

Dubai Real Estate Boom Bubble Flashback

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

"Ah, there you are! Come in! Come in! Have a seat. Fancy a Fanta? Teem? Mirinda? Sprite?"
"I'll have a water please."
"Sure. Masafi do you? Sorry about the bottle, it's one of those annoying flimsy new ones that's worse than a paper bag. There, see? You've got water all over yourself now. Those skinny lids don't fit too well, I know."
"That's fine, thanks. Look, it's about this new Shiny you're selling."
"Oh, yes. Shiny 2.0! It's brilliant. You can dare to dream of a fulfilment of your desert lifestyle as you tantalise your ultimate desires with an abundance of urban satisfaction."
"Yes, that's the one. How is it different to the old Shiny?"
"Different? Oh, my dear boy, it's a leap - a quantum leap, I should say. We're back and it's official - there are crowds of people scuffling to get their hands on the new Shiny 2.0. Simply flocks of them. We've had to put pit bull terriers on our stand at Cityscape just to keep the masses in check. Shiny 2.0 has got what the market wants, no doubt about it. We've made a few changes along the way as we've refined the product for today's discerning buyer, of course."
"Like what?"
"Well, we've dropped the Falkirk Wheel and the life sized model of Mount Everest and the working volcano with real lava. It's a simpler, more effective product. And it's regulated, look."
"You've just put on a cap that says 'regulator' on it."
"That's the one. Your quality guarantee."
"So what about the bubble?"
"What bubble?"
"The one that burst in 2008 taking away the aspirations, hopes and dreams of thousands of unwary investors who rushed to buy something they didn't understand from people that weren't interested in helping them understand anything beyond how to write a blank cheque?"
"Hahaha! Oh, you're such a cynic and I do like that in you. There was a global financial crisis dear chap, not a bubble. There was no bubble. It never happened. Lalalalala. Anyway, moving on, how many Shiny 2.0s do you want?"
"Well I swore I'd never buy another one after the first one went dull and my kids got sick and you stopped me from watching my TV or planting red flowers in my garden..."
"Ah, those were the times, eh? All water under the bridge now. Shiny 2.0 is going up 50% in value year on year, you know. It's got a fingerprint sensor, too. You'll need to get in quick before you lose out to the rest of the market. Have you seen the skyline? Isn't it marvellous? The cranes are back!"
"But what about how it was before? The mad traffic, the groaning infrastructure?"
"It's all coming back! Isn't it just glorious? We're going to make fortunes! We're back at the brunch tables and they're simply groaning! Nomnomnom as they say. Here - have some Bolly! I'll get the hog saddled up."
"You learnt nothing didn't you? It's as if the past five years never happened."
"What five years? Here you go, just sign here. It's a perfect plot, right next to the lakes and near to the shopping centre we're building on top of that old monument thingy that had to go. We'll move the plot on you by the time it's built and it'll be a three bed instead of a five bed, but you know that this time around. You'll have so much less to complain about, in fact."
"Okay, I signed. What about my old Shiny?"
"Rent it! You'll be living off the rental income and then some the way things are going. Through the roof, rents are! Do you want us to tell you who you can rent it to, how much you can charge and what your tenants are allowed to do in their home?"
"No, not really."
"Shame, that. Because that's precisely what we're going to do. Have a nice Shiny!!!"

(Old Shiny posts linked here for your listening pleasure)

We Is Own Your House

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

"Umm, excuse me? What do you think you're doing?"
"I'm grilling smoked mackerel using a portable barbecue in your living room. I would have thought that's obvious."
"I can see what you're actually doing, I suppose what I meant was why are you doing it in my property? Get out!"
"Well, it's not actually your property."
"Yes it is, I rent it from you."
"So we have the right to nip in and make sure things are shipshape. If you read today's Gulf News, you'll see that Dubai Municipality has confirmed that developers are regarded as the owners of the buildings. So I have the right to conduct inspections to see if you're running a private business from it, such as offering tuition."
"Okay, but that doesn't give you the right to grill smoked mackerel in my living room at half past eight in the morning!"
"Not explicitly, but we're establishing a precedent, see?"
"Get out now or I'll clobber you!"
"Now now, no need for that. I found the mackerel in your freezer by the way."
"So theft, now? What's that another precedent?"
"Look, let's be fair about this. Here's Dhs50 for the mackerel."
"Thanks, but you can still get out."
"Actually, I'm repossessing your house. Come on, lads! Get the women and kids out before we start moving the furniture!"
"What the hell gives you the right to do that?"
"You were conducting a business in your house. You're not allowed to do that. I thought that was clear."
"What business?"
"Selling mackerel. That fish was priced at Dhs35 and you sold it to me for Dhs50 which is a Dhs15 profit, so it's a business transaction. Sorry, matey."
"That's outrageous!"
"Well, I'll tell you what, I'll let it go with a Dhs2,000 fine. Because you've got an honest face."
"A Dhs2,000 fine for accepting Dhs50 from a mackerel grilling bastard who invaded my home?"
"Sound grasp of the facts, I see. Cash or cheque?"

Nightmare Resurgent

(Photo credit: monkeyatlarge)

The plain stretches out around me, boundless and bare. There's a strange mewling sound coming from the box lying a few feet away from me. I'm not sure how I got here, or where I'm going. Every direction leads into endless emptiness, there's nothing beyond that box.

It's like a shoe box. Small and incongruous in that vast emptiness. It's green. I know the only thing for me to do is go to it and open it. My only other option is to turn away from it and walk into the infinity around me. For all I know it might be flat, it might stretch upwards like a crucible around me.

Panic rises in my throat, a quickening that threatens to be emetic until I force my mouth open to breathe the clean air. There is no breeze.

The mewling starts to nag at me. It's like an injured leveret, that animal sound so close to the call of a baby's cry. I walk to the box reluctantly, the squealing is louder. Sickened by inevitability, I bend to open the lid of the box. I recoil in horror from the thing inside, flinging the lid aside reflexively

It's sightless, green-skinned, those awful sounds coming from a small open mouth glistening with streamers of the slime it is threshing about in, semi-formed linbs paddling at the ooze. As the air rushes into the box, it stiffens. The noises become stronger, deeper. In front of my eyes it starts to thrash an urgent rhythm. It unpeels its eyelids painfully, casts around and focuses on me with its shining black orbs. It's growing in front of my horrified eyes, faster than I thought imaginable. It breaks out of the box, pushing itself to stand. it staggers, streamers of gleet anchoring it to the floor. It struggles against them, breaking the slimy bonds as its cries become roars, hair sprouting all over it. The mouth widens, great teeth snarl as me as I try to step back but I can't move. I'm trapped, immobile and helpless. Even if I could move, where would I run?

It's towering over me now, flexing scimitar claws at the end of its rippling arms, its savage animal face bisected by the roaring toothy maw. It lumbers towards me and the roaring forms into speech, indistinct to begin with but as it repeats its refrain it becomes horribly understandable.

"Millenium Estates - A Thoroughbred Lifestyle"*

I will myself awake, but it's no good. I realise this is no nightmare. This is reality.

* Gulf News saw a double page tabloid real estate ad running today with this very tagline. Dare to Dream! Live to Love! We're BACK, babies!

Al Boom to Bust?

Image via Wikipedia

Dubai real estate investment portfolio manager Abid Al Boom is in Dubai court being accused of frittering away something like Dhs900 million of his clients' money according to media reports today. Seven Days splashed the sorry tale with glee, after the prosecution yesterday told of Al Boom's spending - apparently he had racked up a collection of 53 top-end cars, a luxury yacht and two 'party boats'. Something like 3,700 people had invested money in Al Boom's 'portfolio' which, according to Khaleej Times, consisted of a plot that could hardly account for 10% of the funds deposited.

Oddly enough (and uniquely), Emirates Business 24x7 neglects to mention the story at all. Even more oddly, the defendant in this case is not only being named (you usually see 'the accused, AAB) but is being very publicly named indeed. Al Boom himself, facing a possible sentence of two years in jail - or even a jail term 'until his dues are settled', has already had two judgments against him, a year in prison for bouncing a Dhs1.2 million cheque and three years in prison for issuing two cheques totalling Dhs5.240 million.

Looking back on it, Dubai's meteoric property boom was really a market running as fast as it could towards a brick wall shouting 'That's not a brick wall, that's not a brick wall'. With all the confidence, certitude and arrogance that unlimited success could breed, the whole thing spiralled out of all control - and the lack of regulation in the UAE's financial and real estate markets meant that unfettered capitalism ('laissez faire' has long been one of Dubai's favourite words) could bask side by side with criminality and abuse of trust. And it did.

What I find heartening is that cases like this are being heard and reported on. What I wonder is how many more there are out there. And how many investors got hurt when, as is inevitably the case, the chain letter finally reached everyone in the country.

Kidding

Now, this is about as scientific a measure of the exodus as weighing Gulf News (640g) is a measure of real estate advertising revenue, but today was my first 'proper' day back at work this year and the drive to work was significantly eased by a marked decrease in the morning traffic queues. In fact, looking at the length of them, I'd say they were about 30% shorter than in December. And, unless I've missed something big, there's no particular reason why the roads should be light right now.

So we could speculate, perhaps, that the volume of people rushing off to school/work is around 30% down?

Which is partly what makes Damac Properties' ad in Gulf News today (about 2g in) so interesting. It's a desperate-sounding little thing, offering 2007 prices to the first 50 callers for some 'delivery in 2011' property, all headlined with the immortal words, "The property boom is back with a bang!"

They are, your humble correspondent submits, only kidding themselves...

Real

Help! I'm drowning in iconic luxury living!

Dubai's CityScape exhibition starts today and the normal background levels of iconic luxury living that reflects who you truly wish to be are now escalating to a dangerous degree. Gulf News came with a foil bag that screamed REALITY INSIDE, containing a bunch of deeply surreal leaflets.

The mindless hyperbole is incredible. You want to stick your fingers in your ears and cry lalalala until it all goes away. The radio's stacked with end to end soapy voices (why do agencies think the sound of some sarf London bird sounding like she's just taken in two bottles of Moet and a hard hit of amyl will make people believe the dream) and the press is pumped to bursting with insane, blissed out exhortations to dare to dream, live the life, love your dream, dream your dare.

Some examples for those of you unlucky enough not to be assailed by the constant high volume feelgood psychobabble today:

Let the love affair begin. Enter a sumptuous garden paradise that will invigorate the heart and the soul, and recapture the ultimate passion for life.

Unique lines and curves, terracotta roofs, warm colours and cobbled driveways...a stunning architectural concept in a background of perennial blue skies.

For as long as you refuse to compromise on your dreams, we will see eye to eye.

Sensual, expressive, opulent... all about living with a truly fashionable elegance.

Strategically cushioned on the iconic shoreline of Dubai...a home for the privileged few in refreshed luxury.

Prosper in life. Prosper in business. Prosper with one of the finest properties in Dubai. A place where prosperity beckons naturally.

the perfect destination where you can relax peacefully, bond with family, and enjoy life at its fullest.

Argh! Refreshed luxury? What the HELL is 'refreshed luxury'? Let alone a 'strategic cushion', an 'iconic shoreline' and we're not even going down the road of prosperity beckoning naturally!

Rather brilliantly, one developer is offering, in huge type across the page, "A lifestyle of excesses."

I quite like the sound of that one...

Alas

Talking about new lows in advertising, as we were last week, today's soaraway, sizzling slab of superlatives, Gulf News, carries an advertisement for a rather unremarkable little development called, as far as I can see, 'Sundance'.

Buckingham Palace, Mysore Palace, Palace of Versailles...

Trumpets the ad, getting my attention for a start. What new Dubai Lalaland superlative awfulness are we in for next?

ALAS!

Screams the copy.

None are commercial towers!

Oh, alas indeed! I'm sure Liz is bemoaning that very fact as she gets tucked into her tupperware full of Frosties this morning! The copy goes on to warble about how this humdrum little building is to be 'a business space fit for the emperors of the business world' and how 'if you ever feel the need for a space befitting your empire' you need search no more.

It's not often that something cuts through the constant background buzz of Dubai's prozac laced, hyperbolic real-estate promotion and actively manages to provoke irritation. The idiotic comparison between this drab little square of low-rent office space and great works of architecture shouldn't really get my goat. There's even some merit to the scheme. The idea that Buck Palace would be better utilised as commercial tower space would, I know, dovetail very neatly with my Irish and staunchly Republican wife's view that the British Royal family should be fed to the nearest available carnivore.

It must be me. I must be due leave...

Ra Ra Rera!!!

It's a strange, almost guilty feeling to be complimentary about a government agency when we all spend so much time snarling and bitching about the likes of the RTA and the 'responsible authorities' in general. But Rera, Dubai's Real Estate Regulatory Agency, really does seem to be doing a remarkable job of tidying up what was a very messy area indeed.

Dubai has long been in the habit of making a virtue of its 'laissez faire' attitude. In this case, laissez faire usually meant 'we can't be bothered doing anything about it' or 'this threatens some vested interest or another so let's just pretend it's not there'. These days you start to feel that there's a great big spring clean going on out there - and Rera's certainly cleaning up the real estate market.

Today's news is that owners of leases in jointly owned buildings such as flats will be able to set up an owner's association and take joint responsibility for the maintenance of the property and lands. This means that developers can no longer charge the sometimes amazing maintenance fees that they have been leveraging in the past and also gives people the right to pick their own choice of contractors. However, the developer still gets to charge a fee to cover infrastructure maintenance and this may mean the overall cost stays high. That's a wait and see situation. But the right to association is a very important principle indeed to have established.

BTW - another screwed up website (the RTA site is up today): the Rera site's homepage will display a delightful 'Coming soon' splashscreen, so go to this link to actually browse the contents. Judging from the spelling and formatting, it's still very much under construction. Which is rather ironic, isn't it?

Rera has also (to my absolute delight) announced it is to regulate the real estate advertising market to ensure that developers only promote their schemes truthfully. Developers have to submit their advertisements to Rera before they can run. I do believe that government regulation of any form of media is a very bad thing, but I am highly amused at the idea of a room full of harrassed Rera staff trying to find any grain or shred of truth in the tide of insanely hyperbolic real estate advertising that is currently swamping every white space in Dubai. It must be like fighting a path through an enormous cloud of prozac-laced candyfloss using nothing more than a cocktail stick.

Or something like that.

Someone's Put Acid in the Water

I swear it's finally happened: someone's dumped kilos of high quality acid in the water. It was only a matter of time before some wag thought of it. And the drugs have started to bite deep and hard just in time for Dubai's 'CityScape' real estate exhibition - 45,000 people are expected to wander around the sprawling ten-hall World Trade Center and visit this megalopolis of megalopolises.

The advertising around the event is proof positive that there is a twisted dose of California Sunshine in the public supplies: 'Find your home in a cultural palette' screams the wraparound to the Gulf News business section today from developers Dheeraj & East Coast. No thank you. I have no desire to live in a cultural palette. Whatever a cultural palette is. The ad goes on to gush 'Discover the roots of civilisation that flourished by the creek/Find contentment where life moves according to your own beat.'

Complete tosh.

But it gets worse. A lot worse. How about developer Iris Amber, which is offering 'A premium investment for those wishing to experience the warm tones of a cultivated life'?

The warm tones of a cultivated life? Really?

Or perhaps Qatari developer Qatari Diar (they must have hit the Qatari supply, too), which informs us: 'After all, there is only one Earth and there is only one you. It is our privilege to serve both.' An earnest promise, surely, and one to take seriously.

But this is my favourite from the rich crop of insane babble that is splashed across the double page spreads, four-page pullouts and wrap-arounds festooning today's UAE newspapers. How's this for acid-fuelled copywriting? "...a new kind of community, it provides all the comforts of upscale community living with one exception; smart value that does not come at the expense of ideal location, extensive community amenities, lush landscaping, spacious garden apartments, Moorish architecture and an uncompromising build quality"

Errr... wasn't that one exception?

Lush icons, peerless landscapes, unctuous vistas and scatological effulgence abound. A declamatory jumble of insanely positive assertion, semi-English verbiage and gushing torrents of epithet, plastered across the facade of an industry that only appears to understand facade.

Acer in Pointless Promo Shock Horror

I was mildly amused at the kind gift of a small, flat stone from Acer Computer attached to my Gulf News this morning. I was mildly irritated that the package was glued to the front page headline and tore the page when I tried to remove it as carefully as I could, but we'll put that down to early morning biorhythms.

There were many newsworthy things in today's papers, including the fantastic and most welcome news that Wadi Warraya (or Wurraya or Waraya or any other way you want to spell it) is to be, belatedly, declared a protected zone. This great news was not in Emirates Today which, you may remember, did launch a concerted one day campaign 'Save the Wadi Fish' that was based around an interview with a conservationist working in Waraya. A big bag of bite size Snickers Crunchers says that ET does a piece taking the credit tomorrow. For now, GN can sit back and enjoy that warm, fuzzy feeling that rewards those who get a decent scoop.

But it was Acer's stone that stayed with me. Disregarding the sage advice of French poet Alain Bosquet, I did not regard my stone so long, so long that it accepted to speak in my place. No, I looked for the invariable ad that explained the invitation attached to the stone: "Nature Shapes, Technology Creates. Individuality is yours alone to enjoy... find out more inside."

Any ad that accompanies such a slice of unremittingly daft and pointless pseudo-empowerment blather is, I thought, going to provide some mild entertainment value at least.

I finally found the ad, buried deeply in swathes of four-page spreads from real estate companies. If you take a minute to go through GN reading the headlines of the ads, you start to understand what Ken Kesey meant by recreating the acid experience without taking the drug:

Experience fine living...because attention to detail is not just a commitment, it's a way of life...; Once a year, the Cereus blooms in darkness; tycoon by day, connoisseur by night; Sea Side Living Starts Today; Your gateway to island living; Live and work in absolute grandeur; Your aspiration for a better tomorrow; Homes created around your lifestyle; Earth, sun, wind and water - the constituents of life, and the quintessence of being; not just another address in the making but a marvel with features extraordinaire...

It's a bewildering array of jumbled up words, sloganeering with no applied intelligence: declamatory, mindless blipverts of aspirational words slung at your psyche in a barrage of positivity and over-promising.

How, you may be starting to think, are our stone-wielding friends ever going to cut through? Answer: they're not. It took me three runs through the paper to find it. And I was looking for the daft thing. The ad was buried on the left hand page 20 and was made of the same old language as all the rest of it. 'Emotion, individuality and temptation at a glance' it starts. Hang on, this is a PC, isn't it? Just checking, thought it might be an apartment in Full Moon Bay. And then, for some strange reason, the next headline is 'Dolby surround sound speakers'! It's like being jerked from a page of Paulo Coelho to a supermarket flyer.

The other words in the ad are irrelevant, you can put them together in any order you like and they'll mean just as much. Print them, cut them out and try it.

Unrivalled | Empowered | Wonder | Style | Concept | Technological | Natural | Performance | Prestige

However, I now have a stone that I didn't have before and for this, like so many other small mercies, I am truly grateful.