A certain media organisation in Dubai has blocked its staff from using Facebook during working hours.
This is interesting.
I have spent quite a lot of time evangelising 'social media' and the proper use of these increasingly important tools in a professional context. If you want, incidentally, to learn more about social media and leading edge innovation in web-based technologies, do subscribe to partner in crime Carrington's Insane Web 2.0 Bonkers Twitter Feed.
Banning Facebook means that the journalists and researchers working for that organisation are just a little bit more disempowered than their peers. My colleagues use Facebook extensively as a social tool, but also as a business tool. Much as their relationships with media, analysts, consultants and clients often extend into social relationships (we work with people we like, right? We do business over lunch, drinks or shisha, right?), the boundary between work and social has never been more fuzzy. For instance, we had a suhour event last night where people stayed way into the early hours (PRs and journalists alike) because they wanted to. Because they wanted to catch up, share information, gossip, put the world to rights and all the rest of it.
No more or less, in fact, than we do on Facebook.
Last year we found ourselves needing to conduct a flash survey to get the picture on broadband adoption in the region. The guys sent out surveys to their Facebook contacts, result: 100 regional answers back that afternoon and a reasonable 'snapshot' sample of the situation we wanted to evaluate. A couple of weeks ago a journalist we wanted to contact wasn't in town and wasn't roaming on his mobile - but he was on Facebook. Result: we got through, had the conversation and did business. There are a large number of examples like this: Facebook is an extension of our 'analogue' social relationships in an age where social relationships are being complicated by the availability of new tools.
Consider this. You tell John that Peter is your good friend. 'Wow,' says John. 'That's lucky, because I really need to speak to him! Do you have his mobile number?'
And you don't. What's John's first inference about your friendship? Likely that you've been telling porkies and that you're not really good friends wiht Peter at all. You'd have a friend's mobile, right? Of course you would: although the tool itself has nothing to do with the depth or success of a relationship, it is a tool that we all use as part of the broad communications toolset we have today. It's almost inconceivable that you wouldn't be calling or texting friends - and the same is likely true of business contacts.
Facebook is not actually that interesting. It's just another communication tool. In any business where relationships are important, for instance in PR or in journalism, Facebook is an extension of our communications toolset - it adds another dimension to our ability to communicate effectively. And that is particuarly true if we are taking a role in a community of people that are using that tool themselves.
Banning Facebook in the workplace as policy is not only myopic and doomed to failure, it is disempowering. Better to encourage the use of Facebook and other, similar, networking tools in a working context to support better, smarter communications for your people. Banning it is, as Ammouni tells us, 'hiding behind your finger'.
Tuesday, 23 September 2008
Sunday, 21 September 2008
Taxis
So Sarah's been trying to find a taxi service in Sharjah that has taxis and a service. This is not easy. She stumbled across this site, which contains a number of pleas from lost voices out there on the Internet. They rather strike a chord for anyone who has to use the Sharjah (and, increasingly, Dubai) taxi services...
"Are there any Taxi's in Sharjah? They are either not visible or they refuse to take you to where you want to go because of the traffic problem in Sharjah. If the distance is too near, they lock their car's doors because it will mean that their income won't be enough. What is the purpose of the Taxi service then?"
"The driver behaved as if he is not aware of any roads. He asked us to get down from the taxi and walk to find out the hospital. I told him that I will pay you any amount that is shown on meter. Since he could not speak English or Hindi/Urudhu or any alngauge legibaly it was very painful to listen his abuses."
"i gave 50dirhams and he gave 20dirhams change, i thought at first that he was just mistaken that 10dirhams into 20dirhams so i said : my friend, this is only 20dirhams i need 10 dirhams more but the taxi driver said NO it's like this because i will go back to sharjah and then i said how can be like this everyday i came by taxi with the same fare but they never charge me more, then he really doesn't like to give my 10dirhams change then i said ok then if u dont want just stay here and i will call the police when he know that i'm very serious finally he ok shut up and he give me the 10 dirhams change. i'm making this complain because i don't want other people to be victimize of this greedy taxi driver."
"I'm not sure whether anybody will read it or it can make any impact, but still I write it just to satisfy myself from the insult I felt when I tried to talk to your customer service no."
I wonder how indicative this is of consumer opinion in general? I rather think it is... no?
"Are there any Taxi's in Sharjah? They are either not visible or they refuse to take you to where you want to go because of the traffic problem in Sharjah. If the distance is too near, they lock their car's doors because it will mean that their income won't be enough. What is the purpose of the Taxi service then?"
"The driver behaved as if he is not aware of any roads. He asked us to get down from the taxi and walk to find out the hospital. I told him that I will pay you any amount that is shown on meter. Since he could not speak English or Hindi/Urudhu or any alngauge legibaly it was very painful to listen his abuses."
"i gave 50dirhams and he gave 20dirhams change, i thought at first that he was just mistaken that 10dirhams into 20dirhams so i said : my friend, this is only 20dirhams i need 10 dirhams more but the taxi driver said NO it's like this because i will go back to sharjah and then i said how can be like this everyday i came by taxi with the same fare but they never charge me more, then he really doesn't like to give my 10dirhams change then i said ok then if u dont want just stay here and i will call the police when he know that i'm very serious finally he ok shut up and he give me the 10 dirhams change. i'm making this complain because i don't want other people to be victimize of this greedy taxi driver."
"I'm not sure whether anybody will read it or it can make any impact, but still I write it just to satisfy myself from the insult I felt when I tried to talk to your customer service no."
I wonder how indicative this is of consumer opinion in general? I rather think it is... no?
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Saturday, 20 September 2008
Stobart
Eddie Stobart is something of a legend on the motorways of Britain. A haulage company that started in the far Northern wastes of Cumbria, Stobart's distinctive lorries introduced a number of revolutions in road transport. Stobart's drivers were responsible for the upkeep of the company's highly distinctive lorries and were also responsible for being ambassadors for the Stobart brand, 'knights of the road' if you like. They wore ties (and faced disciplinary action if they didn't) and always responded with a honk if you waved at them. The tractors all had female names. From a northern business, Stobart became national, a common sight on the rainy motorways of the UK.
The distinctive livery on the Stobart trucks always made them something of an event for kids on motorway journeys. And Sarah was no exception: seeing a Stobart lorry always gave rise to a delighted cry of 'Stobart'!
On our way back from a most enjoyable day stooging around what remains of the Hatta tracks and pools (the Oleander waterfall is unspoilt, thank God) with friends, we were completely blown away to be crossing the wadi plain of Wilayat Madha and find, coming the other way, an Eddie Stobart lorry. It was so utterly, completely incongruous in that desertscape that we had to pull over and share the laugh with the other car...
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Wednesday, 17 September 2008
Monday, 15 September 2008
Slushpile
The publishing game is a funny one. You’d have thought that writing a book was one of the hardest things you can do, but you’d be wrong. The really hard bit is getting it published.
Most UK publishers won’t even look at your book unless you’ve got a literary agent, although some authors have done it the other way around (Iain Banks, for instance). So you have to send off the first three chapters of your magnificent octopus* to literary agents along with a letter outlining why it’s interesting and a synopsis of the book itself. You also have to enclose an SAE (stamped addressed envelope). Agents are aggressively analogue and won’t respond by email. 98% of them won’t take submissions by email and they are really, really picky about people following the rules, Manuscripts should be double spaced, printed one side, loose bound. Letters should be straightforward and informative, not quirky or different. And so on. Agents make aspiring authors jump through an awful lot of hoops. In the right sequence, too, if you don’t mind.
The putative author is lucky to get any response at all beyond a photocopied rejection slip. Most agents don’t even bother reading the contents of their daily ‘slushpile’ – the 40-odd envelopes that land on the agency doorstep every day. I rather suspect many give the job of going through these submissions to the secretary or an intern.
Some are better than this. But they are in the minority.
So it’s a soul-destroying process. You send off batches your manuscript (or MS as it’s called in the trade) and get batches of copied rejections back for your efforts. If you’re really lucky – and everyone involved will tell you how lucky you are to get this – you’ll get some feedback, a few lines of encouragement and perhaps even a tip or two on improving the book. Writers buffeted by constant rejection receive these occasional flashes of light with an almost pathetic gratitude. And all this, mind you, to get someone to agree to bother representing you and therefore take 10-15% of your earnings.
Enter a bit of Web 2.0 thinking: publisher HarperCollins has launched a brilliant new website called Authonomy. Writers can post their work up on Authonomy, anything from 10,000 words to a complete book, and people can visit the site and read their books. If people like a book, they can put it on their virtual bookshelves, which increases the book’s ranking. Every month, HarperCollins’ editors skim the top 5 books off the pile and take them off to read. Getting an HC editor to read your book is, particularly if you’ve been drowning in the shitty stench and mush of the slushpiles for a while, probably worth a finger or so.
So, new talent gets a chance and the slushpile gets disintermediated. And it will, if others follow this example. On Authonomy, new authors can support each other, read each other’s work and comment, as can readers in general. People can be as critical as they like or as supportive as they like. And, the theory goes, over time good work will get recognised and make its way to the top of the tree. There are also forums on the site where people can discuss writing and publishing in general, plug their books or make recommendations. Not bad, huh?
There are question marks, of course. Isn’t this all a bit demeaning, a sort of literary ‘Big Brother’ where people are scrabbling over each other, all pretending to be nice to each other as they seek out that top five slot? Yes, there are elements of that. Does it replace the slushpile? No, it doesn’t – but it’s a first step for a business that has remained maddeningly crusty, dusty and analogue.
Why do I know all this stuff about writing or even give a damn? Because my book’s up there with over 1,000 others. It’s called ‘Space’ and I wrote it a few years back because voices in my head told me to do it. It’s a wilfully self-destructive and scabrous little thing, intended to make you laugh and to generally behave as badly as a book could behave. It’s also been rejected by pretty much every agent in the UK. Irritatingly, it made all those that read it laugh, but many felt it was too different. I do hate that.
Anyway, do feel free to wander over to Authonomy and have a read of Space. If it makes you laugh, feel free to put it on your bookshelf and help propel me closer to getting an HC editor to read the damn thing.
Similarly, feel free to have a look at Keefieboy’s book, ‘Travels in Xanadu-du’, which is also up there!
* Magnum opus. It’s a Black Addder joke...
Most UK publishers won’t even look at your book unless you’ve got a literary agent, although some authors have done it the other way around (Iain Banks, for instance). So you have to send off the first three chapters of your magnificent octopus* to literary agents along with a letter outlining why it’s interesting and a synopsis of the book itself. You also have to enclose an SAE (stamped addressed envelope). Agents are aggressively analogue and won’t respond by email. 98% of them won’t take submissions by email and they are really, really picky about people following the rules, Manuscripts should be double spaced, printed one side, loose bound. Letters should be straightforward and informative, not quirky or different. And so on. Agents make aspiring authors jump through an awful lot of hoops. In the right sequence, too, if you don’t mind.
The putative author is lucky to get any response at all beyond a photocopied rejection slip. Most agents don’t even bother reading the contents of their daily ‘slushpile’ – the 40-odd envelopes that land on the agency doorstep every day. I rather suspect many give the job of going through these submissions to the secretary or an intern.
Some are better than this. But they are in the minority.
So it’s a soul-destroying process. You send off batches your manuscript (or MS as it’s called in the trade) and get batches of copied rejections back for your efforts. If you’re really lucky – and everyone involved will tell you how lucky you are to get this – you’ll get some feedback, a few lines of encouragement and perhaps even a tip or two on improving the book. Writers buffeted by constant rejection receive these occasional flashes of light with an almost pathetic gratitude. And all this, mind you, to get someone to agree to bother representing you and therefore take 10-15% of your earnings.
Enter a bit of Web 2.0 thinking: publisher HarperCollins has launched a brilliant new website called Authonomy. Writers can post their work up on Authonomy, anything from 10,000 words to a complete book, and people can visit the site and read their books. If people like a book, they can put it on their virtual bookshelves, which increases the book’s ranking. Every month, HarperCollins’ editors skim the top 5 books off the pile and take them off to read. Getting an HC editor to read your book is, particularly if you’ve been drowning in the shitty stench and mush of the slushpiles for a while, probably worth a finger or so.
So, new talent gets a chance and the slushpile gets disintermediated. And it will, if others follow this example. On Authonomy, new authors can support each other, read each other’s work and comment, as can readers in general. People can be as critical as they like or as supportive as they like. And, the theory goes, over time good work will get recognised and make its way to the top of the tree. There are also forums on the site where people can discuss writing and publishing in general, plug their books or make recommendations. Not bad, huh?
There are question marks, of course. Isn’t this all a bit demeaning, a sort of literary ‘Big Brother’ where people are scrabbling over each other, all pretending to be nice to each other as they seek out that top five slot? Yes, there are elements of that. Does it replace the slushpile? No, it doesn’t – but it’s a first step for a business that has remained maddeningly crusty, dusty and analogue.
Why do I know all this stuff about writing or even give a damn? Because my book’s up there with over 1,000 others. It’s called ‘Space’ and I wrote it a few years back because voices in my head told me to do it. It’s a wilfully self-destructive and scabrous little thing, intended to make you laugh and to generally behave as badly as a book could behave. It’s also been rejected by pretty much every agent in the UK. Irritatingly, it made all those that read it laugh, but many felt it was too different. I do hate that.
Anyway, do feel free to wander over to Authonomy and have a read of Space. If it makes you laugh, feel free to put it on your bookshelf and help propel me closer to getting an HC editor to read the damn thing.
Similarly, feel free to have a look at Keefieboy’s book, ‘Travels in Xanadu-du’, which is also up there!
* Magnum opus. It’s a Black Addder joke...
Send to Kindle
Saturday, 13 September 2008
Glass
I’m raising a glass as I write this. It’s a very sad glass, but I’m smiling through that nasty prickly feeling you get in the corners of your eyes.
Thousands of pupils at the Lycée Français Georges Pompidou, known in Sharjah as ‘The French School’ will remember Ginny Taylor. And, actually, if you know anyone that works there, let them know that Ginny lost her 7-year battle against cancer last week. They’ll remember her: you’d find it hard to forget that rogueish smile, instant friendliness and, behind it, a thoroughly devil-may-care attitude to life, fun and laughter. Ginny was about as Irish as you’d want to get: an instinctive dislike for formality a lust for life and a woman never more than a step away from the next smile.
The family moved from Dubai to France, to the beautiful village of Larroque in the Tarn Valley, a tumble of terracotta and whitewashed walls that clings to the valley-side, with forests where you can hear the dogs hunting boar as you sit on the patio overlooking the village and wonder at the majestic vista down the valley punctuated by medieval bastide villages. It had long been their dream to live there: the family spent every summer there working on the house and so when Paul announced he was intending to retire from his job as communications director at Dubai Petroleum and that the Taylors were going to decamp to Larroque, it seemed like a dream end to an expat stint.
The news that Ginny had breast cancer came hot on the heels of that decision.
Ginny did what we expected she’d do. Behind that constant smile and dancing eyes was a wiry, tough character you wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of. She beat it.
And then it came back, in her head. Thankfully Paul says at no stage was she in pain: miraculously, the most they had to give her for the pain was paracetamol. Unlike in the UK, where they’re still making an awful mess of the decision, the French gave Ginny Herceptin, the wonder drug which helped her make it through to see their two girls, Niamh and Roisin well into their teens.
From offroading on the old Masafi rally route to hilarious dinners together, swimming in the lido and drinking wine as the sun set on Larroque (a sight that would make Terence Conran weep), to barbecues, parties and celebrations (any excuse), birthdays and even helping out with the Bac oral over at the school, we shared an awful lot of laughs with Ginny. We also shared a love of Bali, where the family would go pretty much every year on leave; of camping out in the sands and of the ‘old’ UAE. But our abiding memory of Ginny will be her laughter.
She’s over my shoulder now telling me to stop being bloody stupid. It’s her wake today. So, although we can't be in Larroque with everyone else, we're raising a glass here instead.
Bye kid.
Thousands of pupils at the Lycée Français Georges Pompidou, known in Sharjah as ‘The French School’ will remember Ginny Taylor. And, actually, if you know anyone that works there, let them know that Ginny lost her 7-year battle against cancer last week. They’ll remember her: you’d find it hard to forget that rogueish smile, instant friendliness and, behind it, a thoroughly devil-may-care attitude to life, fun and laughter. Ginny was about as Irish as you’d want to get: an instinctive dislike for formality a lust for life and a woman never more than a step away from the next smile.
The family moved from Dubai to France, to the beautiful village of Larroque in the Tarn Valley, a tumble of terracotta and whitewashed walls that clings to the valley-side, with forests where you can hear the dogs hunting boar as you sit on the patio overlooking the village and wonder at the majestic vista down the valley punctuated by medieval bastide villages. It had long been their dream to live there: the family spent every summer there working on the house and so when Paul announced he was intending to retire from his job as communications director at Dubai Petroleum and that the Taylors were going to decamp to Larroque, it seemed like a dream end to an expat stint.
The news that Ginny had breast cancer came hot on the heels of that decision.
Ginny did what we expected she’d do. Behind that constant smile and dancing eyes was a wiry, tough character you wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of. She beat it.
And then it came back, in her head. Thankfully Paul says at no stage was she in pain: miraculously, the most they had to give her for the pain was paracetamol. Unlike in the UK, where they’re still making an awful mess of the decision, the French gave Ginny Herceptin, the wonder drug which helped her make it through to see their two girls, Niamh and Roisin well into their teens.
From offroading on the old Masafi rally route to hilarious dinners together, swimming in the lido and drinking wine as the sun set on Larroque (a sight that would make Terence Conran weep), to barbecues, parties and celebrations (any excuse), birthdays and even helping out with the Bac oral over at the school, we shared an awful lot of laughs with Ginny. We also shared a love of Bali, where the family would go pretty much every year on leave; of camping out in the sands and of the ‘old’ UAE. But our abiding memory of Ginny will be her laughter.
She’s over my shoulder now telling me to stop being bloody stupid. It’s her wake today. So, although we can't be in Larroque with everyone else, we're raising a glass here instead.
Bye kid.
Send to Kindle
Thursday, 11 September 2008
SiteMeter
I posted a strange searches post the other day and a few people have asked, on and offline, how I found out what search words had led people to this dim and far-flung cupboard somewher at the back of the dazzling global repository that is the Web. The answer is a little 'widget' called SiteMeter.
SiteMeter is a neat little utility used by many bloggers. It comes in two flavours, a free to use version and a more 'functionally rich' paid for version.
SiteMeter tracks visitors to blogs, reporting on the number of visitors to a blog per day and reports on traffic by day, month and year. It also evaluates the number of page views a blog is achieving and tracks visitors to the blog.
SiteMeter lets you see who's visiting, when and from where - how long they spent on the blog and what things interested them most.
Few people appear to realise that bloggers using SiteMeter can also obtain a lot more information about visitors. Their IP address, for instance - as well as the browser, operating system, language, Java version and even the screen resolution their system supports.
SiteMeter tracks the time of visits and the visit 'path', letting you see which pages a visitor entered on and which ones they visited, left comments on and exited from. It lets you see where they came from (hence the ability to 'track back' Google searches) and where they went to on the way out.
SiteMeter also lets you analyse traffic by search engines, referring sites and so on.
It can be a slightly invasive tool in the wrong hands, but it's generally a useful and interesting way to get a snapshot of what's happening with your blog. It's also how bloggers can work out when people from corporate companies leave 'anonymous' comments on their blogs!
SiteMeter is a neat little utility used by many bloggers. It comes in two flavours, a free to use version and a more 'functionally rich' paid for version.
SiteMeter tracks visitors to blogs, reporting on the number of visitors to a blog per day and reports on traffic by day, month and year. It also evaluates the number of page views a blog is achieving and tracks visitors to the blog.
SiteMeter lets you see who's visiting, when and from where - how long they spent on the blog and what things interested them most.
Few people appear to realise that bloggers using SiteMeter can also obtain a lot more information about visitors. Their IP address, for instance - as well as the browser, operating system, language, Java version and even the screen resolution their system supports.
SiteMeter tracks the time of visits and the visit 'path', letting you see which pages a visitor entered on and which ones they visited, left comments on and exited from. It lets you see where they came from (hence the ability to 'track back' Google searches) and where they went to on the way out.
SiteMeter also lets you analyse traffic by search engines, referring sites and so on.
It can be a slightly invasive tool in the wrong hands, but it's generally a useful and interesting way to get a snapshot of what's happening with your blog. It's also how bloggers can work out when people from corporate companies leave 'anonymous' comments on their blogs!
Send to Kindle
Wednesday, 10 September 2008
Ha!
Delighted to note that UK environmental blog Climate Change Corp picked up on my holiday rant about the Marks and Spencers 5p bag greenwash. The CCC piece was derived from a wee piece in Ethical Corporation Magazine.
Slightly unsettled to note, from the same piece, my back-of-the-envelope calculation of costs etc passing into the record, but never mind!
I do sincerely hope this is the start of a backlash against retailers such as M&S gouging customers for 'green' initiatives that are purely in the financial interest of... errr... the retailers.
You never know. But isn't it funny how a (marginal) Dubai blog can start a niggle at a UK retailer!!!!
The cost of this negative publicity so far? 5 pence sterling!!!
Slightly unsettled to note, from the same piece, my back-of-the-envelope calculation of costs etc passing into the record, but never mind!
I do sincerely hope this is the start of a backlash against retailers such as M&S gouging customers for 'green' initiatives that are purely in the financial interest of... errr... the retailers.
You never know. But isn't it funny how a (marginal) Dubai blog can start a niggle at a UK retailer!!!!
The cost of this negative publicity so far? 5 pence sterling!!!
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Search
As you may be aware, I (like many other people with blogs) do like to occasionally amuse myself by taking a peek at the strange searches that led various people to swing by this dank and cobwebby corner of the Internet.
People do search for such very strange things. Thanks to the arcane and mysterious illuminati of Google, some of the strangest searches rank this silly little blog as a world leading authority on some very random things indeed. But then people are looking for some wacky things, too...
Fake windscreen crack
There really are some pranksters out there, aren’t there? What a hoot, eh? Just add this simple plastic crack decal to your friend’s windshield and then watch his horrified face as he contemplates the $500 bill to replace it! Good grief. Not available here...
The Stranglers in Dubai
Yayyy! October 3rd! Not a strange search, but certainly a result!
Twisted chicken
This was a picture search. Strange people! I do like ‘twisted chicken’, though – a chicken rendered cynical and vengeful by a lifetime of failure and frustration or a fowl smashed on an insane cocktail of Bacardi Breezers, amyl nitrate and veterinary strength Quaaludes?
Fakhreddine restaurant Amman
I remain amazed that searches for this most revered and excellent of Arabic restaurants, famed throughout Jordan and, indeed, the whole region still lead to Mr Daft’s Blog. Damn!
And if that’s not bad enough, another top 20 search result is that pesky Fat Expat!
Look, I give up. It’s strictly against the rulebook of this blog, but I feel guilty about this one. Here’s some useful information:
Fakhreddine Restaurant
1st Circle
P.O.box 840524
Amman 11184
Jordan
Tel: 4652399 / fax: 4641792
Tel: 5515419 / fax: 5535170
Was Lawrence buggered by Turks?
How’s that for a result? Admittedly you have to search through five pages of sites that aren’t nearly as authoritative as this one, but someone not only did that but actually clicked on the link here, too! No answers here, of course, just some silliness. Damn!
Under the sink tap mineralisation
The winter nights must simply fly by, no?
Ramadan at Al Awir Central Jail
I still don't know how they got here...
Non-animal enzyme powdered cheese
Apparently this blog is the fourth most definitive place in the world for people searching for non-animal enzyme powdered cheese. Which I take as an enormous and deeply strange compliment!
du du du dah dah dah
Imagine – you think you’re about to get the lyrics of the Police’s slightly nonsensical single or even a sneaky MP3 or two and all you get is me whingeing about telephone companies in the UAE. Damn!
"All my thoughts and fancies are concentrated on you"
Isn’t that the oddest collection of words to search the Internet for? What’s more, all your search results are concentrated on this post, too – all one of them!!!
Less strange, but still possibly interesting:
Russian girls Dubai
A long time ago I wrote about a Russian girl called Alla Khrapovitskaya, who had been horrifically attacked in Satwa. Ever since, I’ve been picking up searches for all sorts of Slavic peccadilloes and some unpleasant searches which came here because of the description of the nature of the attack. And no, I’m not repeating the words again.
Chelmsford Club New Delhi
You want to become a member of the poshest, most ‘back in the Raj’ style club in new Delhi and so you look for it on the Internet. And all you get is me having a laugh. Damn!
Acer Gulf
Much to my delight, having slagged them off mildly last year for a daft promotional campaign that saw tens of thousands of puzzled Gulf News readers in receipt of a small, black and (as I subsequently proved) utterly useless stone, when you search ‘em you still get me hanging out of a tree, hooting and throwing nuts. Damn!
And finally... searches that actually worked!
5p bag m&s customer reaction
A top ten search result – this leads to my grumpy post complaining about Marks and Spencers’ £12 million greenwash. And I am glad.
For some reason people have actually been searching for the ‘Du test’, as well!
I’m delighted to say that if you search Aquafina UAE or Aquafina TDS or many other things Aquafina, you get to my less than complimentary posts about that insidiously augmented bottled water product. Added to that, a lot of people have searched for various things related to consumer concerns about Pringles and, I hope, found some pertinent information here. At least one should aspire to being occasionally useful rather than purely frivolous, no?
People do search for such very strange things. Thanks to the arcane and mysterious illuminati of Google, some of the strangest searches rank this silly little blog as a world leading authority on some very random things indeed. But then people are looking for some wacky things, too...
Fake windscreen crack
There really are some pranksters out there, aren’t there? What a hoot, eh? Just add this simple plastic crack decal to your friend’s windshield and then watch his horrified face as he contemplates the $500 bill to replace it! Good grief. Not available here...
The Stranglers in Dubai
Yayyy! October 3rd! Not a strange search, but certainly a result!
Twisted chicken
This was a picture search. Strange people! I do like ‘twisted chicken’, though – a chicken rendered cynical and vengeful by a lifetime of failure and frustration or a fowl smashed on an insane cocktail of Bacardi Breezers, amyl nitrate and veterinary strength Quaaludes?
Fakhreddine restaurant Amman
I remain amazed that searches for this most revered and excellent of Arabic restaurants, famed throughout Jordan and, indeed, the whole region still lead to Mr Daft’s Blog. Damn!
And if that’s not bad enough, another top 20 search result is that pesky Fat Expat!
Look, I give up. It’s strictly against the rulebook of this blog, but I feel guilty about this one. Here’s some useful information:
Fakhreddine Restaurant
1st Circle
P.O.box 840524
Amman 11184
Jordan
Tel: 4652399 / fax: 4641792
Tel: 5515419 / fax: 5535170
Was Lawrence buggered by Turks?
How’s that for a result? Admittedly you have to search through five pages of sites that aren’t nearly as authoritative as this one, but someone not only did that but actually clicked on the link here, too! No answers here, of course, just some silliness. Damn!
Under the sink tap mineralisation
The winter nights must simply fly by, no?
Ramadan at Al Awir Central Jail
I still don't know how they got here...
Non-animal enzyme powdered cheese
Apparently this blog is the fourth most definitive place in the world for people searching for non-animal enzyme powdered cheese. Which I take as an enormous and deeply strange compliment!
du du du dah dah dah
Imagine – you think you’re about to get the lyrics of the Police’s slightly nonsensical single or even a sneaky MP3 or two and all you get is me whingeing about telephone companies in the UAE. Damn!
"All my thoughts and fancies are concentrated on you"
Isn’t that the oddest collection of words to search the Internet for? What’s more, all your search results are concentrated on this post, too – all one of them!!!
Less strange, but still possibly interesting:
Russian girls Dubai
A long time ago I wrote about a Russian girl called Alla Khrapovitskaya, who had been horrifically attacked in Satwa. Ever since, I’ve been picking up searches for all sorts of Slavic peccadilloes and some unpleasant searches which came here because of the description of the nature of the attack. And no, I’m not repeating the words again.
Chelmsford Club New Delhi
You want to become a member of the poshest, most ‘back in the Raj’ style club in new Delhi and so you look for it on the Internet. And all you get is me having a laugh. Damn!
Acer Gulf
Much to my delight, having slagged them off mildly last year for a daft promotional campaign that saw tens of thousands of puzzled Gulf News readers in receipt of a small, black and (as I subsequently proved) utterly useless stone, when you search ‘em you still get me hanging out of a tree, hooting and throwing nuts. Damn!
And finally... searches that actually worked!
5p bag m&s customer reaction
A top ten search result – this leads to my grumpy post complaining about Marks and Spencers’ £12 million greenwash. And I am glad.
For some reason people have actually been searching for the ‘Du test’, as well!
I’m delighted to say that if you search Aquafina UAE or Aquafina TDS or many other things Aquafina, you get to my less than complimentary posts about that insidiously augmented bottled water product. Added to that, a lot of people have searched for various things related to consumer concerns about Pringles and, I hope, found some pertinent information here. At least one should aspire to being occasionally useful rather than purely frivolous, no?
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Tuesday, 9 September 2008
Dosh
An interesting piece in today's The National by Angela Giuffrida regarding the developers vs blogs debate. Apart from quoting that idiot McNabb, the piece does well. But the following quote is something I thought other people posting on blogs might find of interest...
While there are no defamation laws in Dubai specifically governing online content, an online author found guilty of making false accusations against an individual or company faces similar penalties to those charged with defamation using other forms of media. “The penalties for such crimes are imprisonment of between one and six months and/or a fine of up to Dh5,000,” said Miriam McGregor, an associate at the law firm Clyde & Co.
So I hope you've all got a spare Dhs 5,000, just in case. The full story's here. Sorry about the PR bloke in it...
While there are no defamation laws in Dubai specifically governing online content, an online author found guilty of making false accusations against an individual or company faces similar penalties to those charged with defamation using other forms of media. “The penalties for such crimes are imprisonment of between one and six months and/or a fine of up to Dh5,000,” said Miriam McGregor, an associate at the law firm Clyde & Co.
So I hope you've all got a spare Dhs 5,000, just in case. The full story's here. Sorry about the PR bloke in it...
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