Nakba

Gulf News carried a series of spreads today marking 'Al Nakba', which is Arabic for 'the catastrophe', the Palestinian day of mourning for the loss of the land in which they lived. Al Nakba is generally marked on the 15th May, so it's slightly unusual for Gulf News to have gone so heavy on the 14th. They were alone: everyone else has been waiting for the day itself.

Nakba is marked on the 15th because it was the day that the British Mandate in Palestine expired. The declaration of the State of Israel was made on the 14th.

The tales of dispossession and loss contained in the paper are heart-rending - and I have been reading and hearing similar tales for something like 20 years now. They never lose their ability to make me profoundly sad. I am sure we will see a great deal more tomorrow as other newspapers publish pieces marking the day.

Al Nakba is particularly poignant this year, because this is the 60th year since the Palestinians were forced off their land. They left carrying their house keys because they thought they'd be back soon once the fuss died down: Robert Fisk's brilliant Pity the Nation starts with his attempts to understand and come to terms with the people in the Lebanese camps who still kept their keys. And people still keep them today, a symbol of the right to return to their land.

It's a strangely beautiful land, too. All around the Dead Sea, the stony soil is home to olive trees and the land is green in winter, dry and arid in the summer. Farming it manually must have been back-breaking work. But it gave birth to a people and culture that is vibrant and deep: today some 70% of Jordanians are originally Palestinian and their art, poetry and design are a huge part of Jordan's richness as a nation.

I think there will be a lot of grief around the Middle East tomorrow. I only hope that people can share their sorrow and are allowed at least to grieve in peace just for one day.

Ramble

The inevitable consequence of living in a place where every nationality of the world comes together is that the language used by the vast majority to try and at least communicate at a basic level, English, gets a good old mangling. The results are often delightful and frequently hysterical. I mean, I live in a place where bunnychow, falooda, string hoppers, longanisa, vadas, shawarmas and kucheree are all common types of food!

One particularly rich vein of amusement is ‘Hinglish’, which a term designed to be at least a partial excuse for the appalling mis-use of grammatical English. So if you can’t speak ‘standard’ English, just claim the resultant attempts as a dialect. Why, to be sure to be sure, don’t we have ‘Iringlish’ or, och aye the noo, ‘Sconglish’? Mind you, God knows, the English themselves can’t use the damn language properly, either. I have long wanted to speak at considerable length to the British Greengrocers’ Annual Conference on the topic of apostrophes.

I am doing the needful. I am wanting to raise the matter with the concerned authorities. I am putting my car in your backside. If it is not working, then what to do? Please be telling the gentleman the train is leaving yesterday. I am not understanding. One piece three Dirhams only. He is out of station only. Mr Mukherjee has expired. You ‘go down’ from the car when you leave it, but a ‘godown’ is also a shed or storage space. This is the sort of stuff that underpins the lovely, apocryphal, tale of the annoyed Emirates passenger complaining to the purser after his repeated use of the crew call button had been ignored: “I am fingering one of your girls for thirty minutes and she is not coming!”

These little linguistic differences can sit at the centre of some marvellous misunderstandings and incomprehensions, but clarity can often be tantalisingly close. Many moons ago, having just arrived here and started work with my entertainingly maverick colleague Matt The Ad Manager, we were in the habit of ordering lunchtime burgers from the burger joint (called Hot Burger or Tasty Burger or something) below our office which was, at the time, in deeply fashionable Ajman. The burgers were always pink in the middle, which Matt could not abide and his efforts to correct the problem got more and more frustrated with each passing day:

Burgers well done please!

Can you cook the burger a lot?

Fry the burger for a long time!

Cook the burger more, yes?

WELL DONE! YOU UNDERSTAND WELL DONE?

Finally we drafted in Mohan the office boy and, after a great deal of explaining, he did that lovely dawning comprehension look that Manuel does in Fawlty Towers when the penny drops.

Mohan called in the order: “Doay burger. Cookie cookie!”

Perfection was subsequently delivered.

Inflation

I know inflation's spiralling, but what's the world coming to when even truck drivers like Ali have to resort to such practices in order to make ends meet?

(I am weak minded and too easily amused, I know)

Sorry

Firstly, an apology to New Light Publishers of New Delhi: I have previously attributed the incorrect number of contents to that most compendious collection of letters for every occasion, 1111 Letters for Every Occasion. I had previously referred to the book as '111 letters' and I am sorry. To err is human, but to do so by a factor of 10 is regrettably all too human.

Many businesses need to advertise themselves and one popular way of doing so is by issuing a circular. It is upon this very subject that I wish to regale you today by presenting some more extracts from that guide to life, 1111 Letters for Every Occasion. This section, be warned, gets pretty strange.

Mechanical Educational Toys
Dear Sirs
We are manufacturers of mechanical educational toys that are the rage of the younger folk all over the world.
Catalogue and trade terms enclosed herewith.
Yours faithfully...

Pure Drinks
We are the manufacturers of pure drinks from fresh fruits in Kulu orchards.
Enclosed herewith is a catalogue and our trade terms.
Yours faithfully...

Dolls for Daddies
Dear Sirs
We produce easily digestible dolls for daddies in colourful wrappers, suitable for presentation to old folk on their birthdays.
Details and trade terms enclosed herewith.
Yours faithfully...

Pocket Computer
We are the manufacturers of pocket computers that solve all your day-to-day problems wherever you are.
You find herewith a catalogue and trade terms.
Yours faithfully...

Speak to Your Beloved Dead
We are the inventors of an eerie telephone that can put you in touch with your dead friends and kinsmen. Enclosed you will find the illustrated catalogue and trade terms.
Yours faithfully...


As always, I must point out that I have not changed a word from the original and that this is not my invention but an extract from an honest to goodness book. Honestly. I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried. If anybody out there knows that a doll for daddies is something other than the unthinkable, I would dearly like to know...

Next week: diplomatic correspondence...

Tax

Blithered on the radio again this morning: was on after an excellent segment with a straightforward and helpful Abdul Rahman Al Saleh, executive director of Dubai customs being interviewed by Brands and Malcs.

Driving away from the studio, I started thinking about all the very many aspects of this we hadn't talked about. The introduction of the 'T' word to the UAE is an immense move in so many ways. We're supposed to be living in a tax free environment, dammit! We're looking at (according to Abdul Rahman) 'under 5%' tax. But even a 3% tax will be added on to every single transaction in every supply chain. Every time a transaction takes place, there'll be a 3% loading: from importer to distributor, from distributor to vendor, from vendor to service provider, from service provider to customer: every one of those transactions will presumably attract a 3% charge. To paraphrase: 3% here, 3% there; pretty soon you're talking about real money.

It will also, presumably, mean that locally produced goods will also be taxed, which they weren't before. And fresh foods, which didn't used to be dutied under the old customs regime, will now attract that 3% charge. As will school fees. I'd be interested to see what the costs of infrastructure and implementation by retailers and government alike will be: there's currently no tax collection mechanism, particularly not a transactional one. Will we see the introduction of tax returns for businesses? Perish the thought!!!

The talk is that the tax is set to be introduced in 2009. On top of spiralling rents, a dollar-linked currency weakness and a wicked burst of inflation across every area of the market, these are indeed taxing times!

Rotters

I've moaned about the radar rotters on the Academic City road before. They're a real pest: an unfair speed limit of 80kph on a two-lane stretch of unencumbered blacktop means it's littered with cops and their radar cameras. It used to be just the one of them, but now there are several and they're almost always there - it's got to the point where traffic slows down near anything stopped on the hard shoulder.

You could argue that we should all be observing the speed limit, but it's such a silly speed limit - it's actually hard to drive through a desert highway at under 100kph. And I found out why today. A five-year study by the American Federal Highways Authority "found that the 85th percentile speed-or the speed under which 85 percent of drivers travel-changed no more than 1 to 2 mph even when the speed limit changed 15 mph." In other words, the average driver calculates the safe speed of a road and drives at that speed, almost irrespective of the speed limit. So an unnaturally low limit (the Academic City road, for instance) results in making otherwise safe and responsible drivers technical violators.

This, of course, doesn't concern the radar rotters - they're making loadsamoney! These cameras can notch up some serious money, babba! And watch out for the new fines - they can get really high - particularly when you're catching people doing 120kph in an 80 limit because they're driving down an open desert road with nothing but sand dunes all around them. That's Dhs500 a time!

Which must explain why I am exposed to wide-pattern squidges of radar anything up to ten times on my way to work every day - and never less than five. That's up to twenty exposures to a 200m spread beam of radar every working day. There's no proof this is bad for you. But there's no proof it's good for you, either.

And there is a great deal of evidence that radars aren't the solution to bad driving, that accident figures don't reduce with the use of radar and that, in fact, radars can contribute to higher rates of certain types of accident.

And no, just in case you're wondering, he didn't catch me. I slowed down in time.

WEF

The World Economic Forum is to host a 'Summit on The Global Agenda' in Dubai in November. The event, set to be addressed by leading thinkers and thinking leaders, will propose ten breakthrough ideas for improving the state of the world. 700 high minded achievers from business, government and academia will attend.

I'm sure that there are better ways to find ten ideas for improving the world... another laproscopy for George would be a start...

Dosh

Many years ago I had occasion to interview Andrew Hearn, then the boss of Bahrain Telecommunications Company (Batelco to you, mate). He was a great interview, speaking precisely and pretty much laying it on the line.

One thing he said that really stuck in my mind, and has done up until the present day, was: "Alexander, you have to understand. Only a complete fool can lose money in telecommunications."

Someone hasn't told this lot that...

So they announced they've got 1.75 million users, of which 1.4 million are 'active'. This is the first we've seen the distinction made: certainly not a distinction made when they announced they'd crossed the million (which prompted me to invent The Du test, if you will recall). If you take the 1.4 million figure, that's a loss of Dhs 44 per subscriber in the quarter, or a little over 8%.

Given that Du reached 850,000 subscribers in September last year, Du's result in the last quarter of 2007, a revenue of some Dhs639mn, was achieved with half the number of subscribers. In other words, Du has achieved revenue growth of 18% on subscriber growth of 50%.

Interestingly, and to be fair to poor old Du, their ARPU (Average Revenue Per User, a telecom industry performance benchmark, although not the most accurate but certainly the first figure everyone looks at) would appear to be reasonable - dividing revenue by users, we're looking at an ARPU of something like $49, which ain't too bad - particularly not for a predominantly pre-paid user base.

But I still only know one person who uses a Du mobile...

Meanwhile, Gulf News has been spanking Etisalat over its customer service... and Dubai Sunshine has been spanking Du over theirs!!!

Birthday

I am a man of my word. I said I'd post more extracts from 1111 Letters For Every Occasion, that indispensable and encyclopaedic guide to every letter you will ever have to write. For anyone that missed earlier examples of the genius of this book, or the explanation of quite why New Light Publishers of Delhi came to be the proud promulgators of this peerless epistolic peregrination, the original post is here and more examples are here, here and here.

Today, we celebrate the boss's birthday. And then, just as a bonus, we seek a recommendation for a suitable groom. Both are of the usual high standard. Please do not forget, as you read them, that these have been earnestly suggested as templates for serious correspondence. For therein lies their charm...

Greetings to Boss

Dear Sir/Madam

Dear Honourable...

May I have the honour to send you my heartiest greetings on the celebration of your birthday this month? I know that you are far above these mundane matters and flowery tributes mean nothing to you but your birthday is a great and golden occasion for your friends and admirers who owe so much to you for your earnestness and sincerity in your crusade to promote public causes.

You have invested the better part of your life in selfless causes which the future generations cannot forget and the historians will write with genuine appreciation about the objectives you have realised against the heaviest odds in the most crucial days of history and a leader should be judged not merely by what he achieves but the circumstances in which he accomplishes the dim objectives beyond the blue horizon because he might well be sowing the seeds of better karma for a bumper harvest to be finally reaped by others who are not yet even born.

Congrulating you once again on your birthday,

Yours faithfully...

Confidential Report

What do you think of Mr. J.S. Stuart, the proprietor of Stuart Agriculture Company?

I am planning to marry my daughter with him.

Positive Reply

Mr. Stuart is an excellent young man belonging to a very respectable family of Hongkong.

I strongly recommend him for marriage.

Negative Reply

Mr. Stuart is a sharp-fingered man who has failed in business because of false pretence.

It is better to keep your daughter away from him.

Hunter

“This may be the year that we finally come face to face with ourselves; finally just lay back and say it – that we are really just a nation of 220 million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns, and no qualms at all about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable.”

Hunter S. Thompson

I’ve just finished re-reading ‘Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ‘72’ and I’d commend it most highly to all and sundry. It’s pretty much the ideal time to immerse yourself in Thompson’s masterful account of what it’s like to struggle through the primaries, the caucuses and the conventions before butting up against your opponent for the job of being The Most Powerful Man in the World. Or even Woman, for all that.

Thompson draws the power struggles, the backroom deals, the lust for it all that makes men put themselves through the agonising pressure, the insane, insincere grasping for primacy, for the people, for votes at any cost. Like his cartoonist friend Steadman, Thompson draws his scenarios savagely, imaginatively and incisively. It’s a roller-coaster read, a real road-trip through a drawn-out and wickedly cynical political power game.

He does so as America tries to manage its straggling, disastrous and bloody involvement in Vietnam, the conflict that wouldn’t go away and let Nixon pull out as quickly as he’d like to. And the White House is teetering on the edge of Watergate as Nixon, cynical and calculating, mashes the ‘decent’ Democratic hopeful George McGovern into smithereens ('hamburger' is a favourite Thompson phrase) as McGovern, trying to repair some of the damage done after the long and closely-run campaign for nomination tears the Democrats apart, makes the awful mistake of selecting a running mate who turns out to have had a history of serious mental illness.

Nixon, the foul-mouthed liar whose thugs carried out a midnight raid on the Democrat headquarters, wins the votes of the vast majority of America. It's an exercise in calculated political manipulation that includes leveraging the cosy, controlling relationship which the president has with a political media that Thompson exposes as utterly dependent on the President’s Men for the information, breaks and access that underpin their careers.

Like I say. It’s a timely re-read. Hunter Thompson wasn't necessarily a nice person, particularly as he got older and the bitterness started to eat away at him, but he was a truly great writer. And his voice remains the voice of American Reason.

Tragically, it's a voice that is no longer to be heard...