Mafsoum

Mafsoum is a great Arabic word. It’s something of a meme in the company wot I work for, made popular by the Jordanians and a word all of us use frequently, and amusingly, in conversation. It’s very useful, one of a few compelling additions to Ten Word Arabic and, when used judiciously, it will scatter your enemies like shouting ‘I’ve got a cobalt bomb in this briefcase!’ would scatter a WEF Plenary. Because mafsoum means ‘schizophrenic’.

Isn’t that cool? Just slip it into conversation: “Enta mafsoum!” (you’re a schizo!) if you’re feeling like risking a black eye, or a sly “Howi mafsoum!” (he’s a schizo).

Why am I babbling about schizophrenia? (‘ere listen to ‘im: ‘es ‘avin’ a go at ver bleedin’ schizowotnots now!)

The fact that Etisalat is promoting a service, on its Weyak mobile services platform, that lets mobile users take pictures and upload them to their Facebook page surely is evidence of a most fundamental schizophrenia. On the one hand they’re blocking social sites like Orkut, Flikr and Twitter and even lumps of Facebook itself, on the other they’re trying to drive the adoption of these services!

Rather cack-handedly, if I’m professionally honest: a blunderbuss of SMS spam is probably not the best communications tool to use in driving adoption of a Facebook related service. Perhaps they'd have been better using... errr.. Facebook?

Is this evidence of an internal battle between conservatism and free thinking radicals? Is it a cross-company integrated strategy to build adoption to the point where the block is untenable? Perhaps it’s just good old fashioned addle-pated organisational idiocy?

Or just simply that they’re mafaseem!...

Reason

21 Ways To Tell You’ve Been Living In The Middle East Too Long

• You go home to the UK and stand waiting for someone to pack your bag in Sainsbury’s until Someone In Management has to ask you what the problem is.

• Speed bumps are not a signal to slow down, they’re a signal to overtake the traffic that’s slowed down and get 20 cars ahead by nipping in just ahead of the lorry coming the other way.

• The doctor prescribes a broad spectrum antibiotic and you tell him that’s no use because you’re already taking Augmentin for your snuffly nose.

• You automatically insert ‘inshallah’ into any future prediction or agreement to act in any way.

• They come out to you on holiday but you go home to them on a tour of duty.

• There’s a screw loose in a door handle in your house and not only isn’t it the end of the world and a major domestic crisis but it doesn’t actually get fixed for months.

• The sight of girls wearing short skirts makes you want to go up to them and have a go about dressing properly.

• Self service petrol stations are a treat.

• When you hear “Panchos” it makes you think of a dwarf in a sombrero.

• You run out of toilet paper but use tissues instead because you can’t be bothered to make the trip for some bog paper.

• You and your partner don’t hold hands in public when you’re in the Middle East, but you do at home.

• You ask the waiter at The Berkeley in London for ‘Masafi’.

• He brings it and you don’t notice.

• The bloke that answers the ‘phone at your Lebanese takeaway knows your voice, name, address and your order off by heart and calls you ‘habibi’.

• You keep putting things in the wrong bins when you go back home to stay with friends/relatives in the UK.

• You don’t know what an Oyster card is, you haven’t got an Oyster card, you can’t see why you should be expected to have one and what’s more you have a row with the bus driver because he can’t work out why an English person would be trying to put a pound coin in the slot the ticket comes out of.

• It makes your blood boil when people talk about how visionary Dubai Internet City is because it attracted the global IT industry to Dubai. Because you can remember when the entire IT industry was already here and had to drag their sorry asses up the road to some zone because it was announced by the government and they felt they had no choice but to comply and move in.

• Undertaking is perfectly acceptable and any short cut is a ‘witty’ thing to do, not a ‘wrong’ thing to do.

• You read the words “Freehold! Live Your Dreams!” and they translate as “No Federal Legal Right of Tenure, Leasehold With a Lunatic Developer as Your Landlord in Law!”

• You can remember when x was ‘just sand’, where x is any given area of Dubai outside Bastakia and Deira souk; any old bit of Sharjah; Riyadh beyond Airport Road, Pepsi Cola and Sitteeen Street; Doha; anything outside Muscat; beyond the Bab Al Bahrain; anything outside the Kuwait City Inner Ring; Amman’s Third Circle and Cairo outside the city centre. Similarly when the Abu Dhabi highway was one lane with no camel fencing and the world’s most dangerous night drive, the Trade Center the tallest building, Garhoud didn’t have a bridge and on and on and on and on...

• When you see another British person, even in an otherwise empty room, your first instinct is not to stand behind them and form a queue.

• It doesn’t all seem quite as much fun any more...

Diplomat

It is often difficult to understand the thought processes behind the authors of the world’s greatest collection of letters since Samuel Johnson started a career in correspondence with a thank you note to his Gran for her Christmas gift of a jigsaw puzzle picturing a bear fight, 1111 Letters for Every Occasion. As I have said many times before, this most impressive volume comes to us by grace of the commercial acumen of New Light Publishers of Delhi.

As promised last week, today’s extract covers that most difficult of fields, diplomatic correspondence and we are all lucky that 1111 Letters’ author, the remarkable K. Malik, pursued a career in letters rather than diplomacy, otherwise his efforts to ensure the Pakistan issue was well managed would have doubtless have resulted in New Delhi being a radioactive hole by now.

Rather than omit advice that might be of help to those entrusted with preserving world peace and the brotherhood of man, I have reproduced the entire section.

A historical note here: it should be possible to date the original MSS of 1111 Letters from the reference below to the UAR, which was a union of Egypt and Syria under Nasser that lasted until 1961 – the name was subsequently kept by Nasser and was used until 1971, just after his death. The Shimla, or Simla, summit took place in 1972. The first Gulf War, between Iraq and Iran, broke out in 1980 – the Yom Kippur War of 1973 might be an explanation for the reference to ‘the Gulf war’. Alternatively, I might just be wasting my time because K. Malik is clearly in a different place to most of us and it is possible that this book comes to us from a parallel universe, in which case all these dates and references are subject to change.

Diplomatic Correspondence

Diplomatic correspondence between one country and another, one ambassador and another, is a rather tricky affair. All embarrassing commitments are made in vague words.

Egypt

Should we now presume that the UAR is going anti-Russian?

Reply to Above

It is best to presume nothing.

Pakistan

Will the President of Pakistan go against the spirit of Shimla Summit?

Reply to Above

Ask the President himself!

Israel

Has Israel attacked Egypt after the Gulf war?

Reply to Above

Israel has never attacked Egypt. It is Egypt which has always attacked Israel.

UAR

Is the UAR now anti-Russian?

Reply to Above

The UAR is not anti-anything.

USA

How long will USA bar Yugoslavia from the United Nations?

Reply to Above

I do not know.

Next week: Seeking Compensation...

Wrong

I’d never heard of a ‘CLM’ until a colleague disagreed with me during the meeting in front of a client and their partners in some initiative thingy or another. I had said something wise and befitting my advancing years and grey hair and my young colleague had brutally pointed out that I was talking complete rot.

The senior chap from the partner company was obviously impressed by this and said something along the lines of ‘Wooohooo, young lady! You just made a CLM!’

‘CLM?’

‘Why, yes! A Career Limiting Move! You know, disagreeing with the boss like that!’

Both myself and young colleague were open-mouthed.

Firstly I avoid at all times any use of words like ‘boss’. I hate the word and the concept behind it. One of the great scourges of the Arab World is the whole attitude summed up in the phrase ‘Ana mudhir’ or ‘I am the boss’. If the boss says black is white, then black is white. And everyone goes down that unproductive path together, falling over each other in the rush to tell the boss what a visionary he is.

It’s one of the most revolting sights in business and if you thought the Arab World was alone, try working with a few American corporates...

Secondly, since when does disagreeing with a colleague because you’re young and know better count as a career limitation? I was lucky enough as a young man to work for someone that let me get away with youthful murder and the least I can do is tread the same path. For no better reason than that I was frequently right and my mentor was therefore frequently right to back me. I was also frequently wrong, but he had the grace to let me do that, too, without making too much fuss about it. I like to think that the balance was in the company’s favour.

So I do feel very strongly that people should have the space to have alternative viewpoints and opinions: that great work is put together by people who are happy to work together with give and take, be open to consultation and have enough mutual respect to take each others’ views into account. I’d die within hours of having to work in a company where colleagues were scared to disagree because the boss brooks no disagreement.

That doesn’t mean the young and opinionated shouldn’t be beaten up and put in their place when they’re being muckleheaded, by any means. And it doesn’t mean that I don’t ultimately reserve the right to a veto. But when someone knows they’re right and has the courage and passion to state it, then you have every reason in the world to listen to them just in case, God forbid, they know more than you do…

In short, CLM my butt.

Here endeth the lecture. Normal service resumed Sunday...

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.