Dubai Traffic

I’m a giant, lying on a bed of cars, thrashing in my nightmare and rolling over, crushing roofs, glass splintering. I’m staggering through the traffic, snaking lines of it spiralling into a smoking, choking infinity. Effed up on something: a nasty acid badness and a metallic taste in my mouth. Sudden awareness: you don’t taste in dreams. A fear rush, then; not good on acid. Calm down before things get really twisted, you’re centred. Think of trees, sitting under trees. Woodlands, birds singing; the hills and Julie Andrews.

Shit, that was a mistake. Julie Andrews has ripped me out of slomo and brought me in a rush back to realtime like a webcam taped to the front of the Kyoto Bullet train and I’m back, staggering in the grey smog, cars jostling around me.

It’s bumper to bumper and they’re aggressive: I can see one face snarling out of a window at me, blank-eyed, lycanthropic and dripping streams of saliva from the yellowed teeth revealed by its drawn back lips. I stumble backwards in fear, hit another car moving slowly behind me, a horn loud and piercing my ears as I start to lose my legs and drop to my knees. I can hear an insane keening, a banshee howl of pain and realise it’s my own voice, faltering now that I'm collapsing, choking on the thick, billowing fumes. I’m down on my belly trying to get up but I can’t move. I can feel it looming over me and the bumper nudges the back of my head as the wheel starts to roll up my leg. I can feel the slow, rolling pressure crushing my ankle, squeezing my calf muscle and veins popping...

It’s true, you know. Dubai’s traffic is a nightmare…

The Winds of Change Blow Forever Strong

Well, change IS afoot in the Middle East! The UAE moved to an official Friday/Saturday weekend last year, reversing an earlier decision that had explicitly laid down that government ministries and associated private sector organisations (such as schools) should follow a Thursday/Friday weekend. The move to enforce the 'traditional' weekend followed a long, slow de facto movement to a Friday/Saturday weekend by the private sector, principally led by media and ICT companies in the UAE.

The latest move to a Friday/Saturday weekend was very good news for those of us married to teachers. Now we have the same weekend and that's a nice thing.

Jordan and Egypt, lest we forget, have Friday/Saturday weekends, too (and Lebanon has Saturday/Sunday, just to be, euft, different). With Bahrain and Qatar having made the same move as the UAE last year, those following the 'old fashioned' Thursday/Friday weekend were in the minority.

So now comes the news that Kuwait has made the move, despite some localised opposition, to a Friday/Saturday weekend. And even business people in Saudi Arabia are, according to Gulf News' correspondent, pushing for the weekend to change.

Despite the assertion made by some that the change is pandering to the West (because, of course, the West gives a hoot what weekend we have) the new weekend preserves the Muslim Holy Day of Friday as well as giving the region an extra days' effective trading with partners in the US, Europe and Asia.

What's perhaps interesting is that the 'traditional' weekend that the new Friday/Saturday weekend replaces was in fact a 1 1/2 day one: Thursday afternoon and Friday. So, of course, many companies still continue to work the 'old' weekend - because they don't want to give their staff the extra half day off.

Update: Those Lucky Workers!

Here's the link to that wonderful story in Xpress about labour accommodation.

Dubai Workers Enjoy Five Star Lifestyle

This morning's Xpress, the weekly magapaper thingy from Al Nisr Media, carries a front cover story that had me feeling distinctly uneasy.

I'd link to the image splashed across the front page, of four workers 'unwinding in the gym', except the website doesn't have this week's issue on it yet. But believe me, it's there. Four wooden looking blokes who don't look at all like they've just been thrown in there for the photographer, using the latest in walking/pedalling/weight lifting machinery. I'm not quite sure why I find the image staged and unsettling. Perhaps it's because we all see these blokes labouring in the heat and humidity shifting wheelbarrows, blocks and rebar by the tonne. What more could you want after a hard day labouring in the sun than a smashing workout to really get those muscles toned, after all?

The story attached to this worrying image is even more fascinating. Apparently the ETA Ascon labour camp in the infamous Sonapur labour camp area is one of the leading 'top class' labour camps with facilities that 'rival those of the city's exclusive gated communities' according to the paper. While any improvement in labour standards has to be a good thing (and Dubai Municipality has moved to regulate for better standards), one would be forgiven for being rather taken aback at this absurd comparison.

Akbar Khan, executive director at ETA Ascon, dismisses a suggestion that improvements in labour accommodation are due to negative press about workers' living conditions. Surrounded by pictures of the awkward-looking labourers posed in their bunk beds or outside in the labour camp, the assertion somehow fails to make its mark.

The ETA Ascon camp not only has a gym, ATMs and other facilities. It also has 62 CCTV cameras according to Xpress. I think this fact alone speaks to my general sense of unease at the story.

It would be so much more impressive to see a more deftly communicated proposition from the companies involved, with less staged pictures and less obviously credulous journalism. Then the fact that improvements are taking place would carry infinitely more credibility.

Ships of the Desert

According to Time Middle East's Scott MacLeod, a mystery ailment has killed almost 2,000 Saudi camels: tainted feed is suspected. In his piece MacLeod attempts to underline the importance of camels to the Saudis: there are apparently just under a million of them in the Kingdom.

It all brought to mind a story I was told many years ago by an experienced Middle East lawyer from a British law firm. His firm had been called in to defend a major oil company against an angry Bedouin tribe which had lost one of its prize racing camels in a tar pit owned by the company.

Getting to court, our man was surprised to find himself up against the tribal poet, who apparently waxed most lyrical and at considerable length on the grace, beauty and sheer delightfulness of the deceased beast, leaving not a dry eye in the house. Of course, the highly esteemed (and as highly paid) counsel flown in from London didn't stand a chance and lost the case hands down.

Back to Life: Back to Unreality

Watched Chaos on the plane back. Jason Statham. I can’t quite believe that I’ve an appetite for Jason Statham films but I do: even the mad, badly scripted Transporter in which Statham does a strange mid-Atlantic accent that doesn’t quite patch over his Cockney roots. I only ever watch films on the ‘plane (bar the occasional DVD buy): I’d be furious if I’d paid to see most of the crap I’ve watched. If I’d paid to see Shrek III, for instance, I’d have been at the box office demanding a refund with threats.
Talking of threats: why do UK immigration and security have those signs that say their staff have the right to work in a safe environment and if they’re presented with foul or abusive language and threatening behaviour you’ll be in for the high jump? I’m suffering from the deep seated need to enter the UK next time wearing a sign that says: “I have the right not to have to deal with overbearing, officious, brusque, superior and downright rude tossers and to react negatively if I am presented with such situations.”
I wonder if anyone would bother reading it…
Back to airline movies. I caught the end of the Nicholas Cage one about him being able to tell the future. It wasn’t great, but I’m a little biased: I still haven’t forgiven Cage for fronting the Hollywood sanitised Captain Corelli’s Mandolin. I can’t believe that Louis De Bernières, an author I have so much respect for, let that happen, but then he’s minted and I’m not and if I think he sold out his integrity over a sorry adaptation and a horribly mutilated ending that negated the entire purpose of a great book, then I’m quite, quite sure he don’t care.
BTW: De Bernières Little Birds buys forgiveness for all sins: a terrible, beautiful book that tells the story of the Anatolian massacres with heart-breaking skill and panache. He paints with words like Durrell when he wants to.
Back to airline movies. I enjoyed all of the Pirates of the Caribbean films. I think only because Johnny Depp is so fundamentally mesmerising. Someone mad and dangerous enough to have Hunter Thompson confer the honorific ‘Dr’ upon him must be a man apart, though. I wonder if Depp ever met Steadman?
There was a waiter in Italy (at the Irish Society Wedding of the Year) that looked a bit Deppish. He was convinced that his curly-haired good looks had Sarah in a tizz. Sad for him: it was because he was in charge of doling out the (excellent quality) Prosecco and our girl is a devil for da bubbles. She'd flirt with a tramp if he was toting a frosty bottle of DP rosé...
Anyway. We’re back here now. Buckle in for at least a week’s worth of black and snarly posts as the reality of life back in Lalaland bites…

Gosh! Blighty!

Off to The Berkeley for a couple of nights to attend the nuptials of pals Jo and Carl. The Maktoums have taken the top floor. Knightsbridge is so Arab we feel totally at home. Breakfasts at Harvey Nicks are great: the organic cafe on the 5th floor with food that explodes after our normal diet of greenhouse-reared, air-freighted food. A spin over to Wales to Casa McNabb Senior. Awful weather predicted for the journey back tomorrow. Everything's green and terribly well off.
It's strange, this going home. Everyone's pleased to see you, you've saved up and you've got cash in pocket. You do things you normally wouldn't do, blow money you wouldn't normally blow: live it up a little. Home's home comforts abound. And then you start thinking you'd like to move back, a few dangerous moments before you realise that life back down home on the farm would be perhaps a little bit different if it were the stuff of everyday life. If you were ripping yourself out of bed every driecht winter morning to plod down to the tube: just another number in the jostling crowds of pale-faced anonydrones swaying with the movements of the train, staring up at the tube map, counting rivets. Anything to avoid eye contact.
Back to lotus eating, then...

Aquafina - Artificially Mineralised Water, Anyone?

Aquafina is a bottled water that's sold in the UAE. It's one of a couple of strange sidelines operated by Pepsico, the people that bring you carbonated water, sugar, phosphoric acid and caramel under the brand Pepsi Cola. They also produce a brand of basmati rice sold in the UAE, for some bizarre reason.

Aquafina has been outed by US based action group Corporate Accountability International, which has been making something of a song and dance about the fact that water from public sources is being bottled by companies branding what is effectively tap water masquerading as spring water. Their point, a fair one really, is that selling tap water under brands that reinforce a strong association with purity, freshness, mountains, green hillsides and all that sort of stuff is misleading. It has to be said that they're not really that worried about the stuff we buy here in the UAE - water under the Aquafina brand is sold in the USA and, we can safely assume, a rather larger volume of the stuff is shipping over there than here.

There is a fine distinction involved here. Water sold as spring water or mineral water must come from a natural source. But Aquafina is not sold as spring water. It is sold as 'pure drinking water'. I'd always assumed it was a by-product of purifying the water needed to produce the Middle East's favourite cola, 'Bebzi', but apparently not.

Pepsico's UAE franchisee, Dubai Refreshments, has moved swiftly in reaction to the 'Aquafina is tap water' charge by arranging a press trip to its facility in Dibba to show press that Aquafina is sourced from underground and is not tap water. The press duly turned up and were taken around the factory and the report is in today's media. They were shown 'two wooden boxes with pipes leading from them', assured by the manager that this was an underground source and handed a statement from the Dibba Municipality that asserts that the water is produced from an underground source inside the premises of the factory.

In a moment of magically skewed messaging, the manager of the factory assured media that "Even the water in our toilets is from the wells."

The end of Gulf News' report is, I think, the most telling part of the story. To quote GN, whose story is linked here (and which I highly recommend, just so you can read between any lines you might find in the carefully worded statement from the Municipality): "...the water's total dissolved solids (TDS) can be anything from 400 to 1200 parts per million (PPM) when it is first pumped but this is reduced to nil before salts and minerals, provided by Pepsico International, are injected in the water. The final TDS count in Aquafina is 120ppm." (My italics, BTW)

Funnily enough, the claimed TDS count on Aquafina's label is 110ppm. Putting that discrepancy aside, we have a water that is labelled, similarly to mineral waters, with its mineral content displayed on the label. But we now know that this mineral content is added by the bottler to water that has been treated to remove a high content of dissolved solids.

The question of source is almost irrelevant now: Gulf News' report makes it clear (although not as clear as some may have liked or expected) that Aquafina is treated water that has been artificially mineralised. But what interests me is that the media didn't do the one thing that would get to the bottom of the question of Aquafina's source and purity for once and for all: take it to a lab and have it analysed.

My pal Scott, a qualified chemist, worked in a testing lab here in the Emirates for a couple of years and would only ever drink Masafi. It was the only bottled water in the Emirates, he used to say, that contained what it said it contained on the label. I've tended to go with that advice myself...

Rabid Cool Web 2.0 Technology Widget Thing Plug Post

Talking, as we were a short while ago, of searching blogs - here's something that you might like to try out. A number of people are finding their way back to this little backwater by searching for posts they remember, which means (Sherlock, me) they’re not using RSS. I do have some sympathy: it’s really not quite the ‘push button, click and go’ technology that its name, ‘really simple syndication’ appears to claim and although feed readers do make this easier than managing a drop down tab of live bookmarks, I have found a number of those readers to be, well, gnarly really.

Let me introduce you to a rather superior solution which lets you keep on top of your blogs with incredible, elegant simplicity. Netvibes lets you build your own dashboard of blogs and other content sources – anything that has a feed, in fact (including a rather natty widget that lets you keep track of Facebook activity, too – if you’re into that sort of thing…). You can then move them about on the page as you like and you can also keep groups of feeds (Dubai blogs, global blogs, blogs about beards) in tabbed pages, so that everything’s up to date, tidily put away and kept spankingly up to date. You can add the Netvibes widget to your browser (Firefox compatible, which is cool) and that makes adding a feed as simple as hitting the Netvibes logo it installs on your toolbar.

No more typing the names of posts you remember to get back to blogs! No more forgetting the blog you liked the other day! No more missing things happening around you! No more fighting with texty screens of badly formatted information!

No, please. Don’t thank me. Just be nice to a small furry animal today… Or, if you can' find any furry animals, be nice to a Gianni, as it was 'im what turned me onto Netvibes in the first place...

Du Slapped Over Offensive Radio Ad

The news comes today that Dubai’s brightest and most exciting new telephone company, Du, has withdrawn its ‘fish and chips’ radio advertisement after complaints from some people that the spot, which featured a chap singing ‘I want some fish and chips’ to the tune of God Save the Queen, was offensive. I must clarify that we’re talking about the British national anthem, not the Sex Pistols’ version. If it had been the Sex Pistols’ version, it might have been a slightly more interesting creative, now I come to think of it.

My Arab colleagues are furious that the British community have had the advertisement withdrawn in this way, as they would very much like Du to also withdraw the Arabic one, which has some daft Egyptian bird extolling the virtues of ‘kusheri’ to a Lebanese waiter and which one colleague was convinced was actually going to be an advertisement for ghee or cooking oil until the end. They reckon the Arabic ad is even more irritating and mindless than the English one was.

Radio ads. You gotta love ‘em…