Terminal

You saw it here first. This is Emirates' new Terminal 3 building, opening on October 14th and featuring lots of lights and steel and things. The Terminal includes Concourse 2, an area of lounges, spas and retail outlets that is equivalent to 120 football fields. How DO those pesky PRs do their football field calculations? It's always so many football fields of this or swimming pools of that!

At least it'll see an end to the misery and chaos that currently greets weary travellers at the over-packed and construction-riddled terminal one.

Be interested to see if this release from EK cuts through tomorrow's slew of iconic lifestyle enhancing dare to dream announcements... Any bets?

Real

Help! I'm drowning in iconic luxury living!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I quite like the sound of that one...

Siam

There was a wonderful little moment during my stint with Brandy Scott on the Business Breakfast last Thursday: we were talking about the US presidential candidates and their public relations and communications strategies, particularly in the light of the excruciating McCain/Letterman affair. John McCain blew Letterman out claiming that he had to fly to Washington to focus on the financial crisis and then Letterman cut live, during the McCain-less show, to the same McCain being made up for an interview he’d granted to CBS’ Katie Couric. An infuriated Letterman let rip throughout the show and, in fact, has been doing so since.

So we talked about this, about interview management and planning communications strategies on the theme of what we can learn from the US presidential candidates’ management of their communications.

At one point, the delectable Brandy asked me what I thought about Sarah Palin and my response was something along the lines of “I know! I mean, here you’ve got this mooseburger eating, hunting shooting fishing NRA-head who believes that polar bears aren’t under threat and that global warming isn’t a product of human activity and she’s come from being the mayor of some village and suddenly she’s potentially the most important person in America!”

And then Brandy, who is (unlike your correspondent) really rather good at her job, looks across the mikes at me and deadpans, “I meant her PR.”

My father once taught me the Siamese national anthem. You sing “O” then “my watan” and then “a’s Siam”. Put them together in one fluid chant and repeat. It’s the kind of thing that my father used to do to me, a traumatic childhood.

Nowadays I occasionally have cause to remember it and chant it to myself...

Gig

There were glaring, pumped-up thugs walking bad-temperedly through the crowd last night at The Stranglers’ gig at Dubai’s Irish Village. And they were the security team, not the punters. In fact, probably the most genuine ‘70s touch to the evening was the good old fashioned ‘in your face’ heavy-handed security. This was quite amusing, given that the vast majority of the crowd was far too middle aged and well-heeled to even think about causing trouble. But the evening’s only stage diver seemed to get a really tough time of it from the security boys.

The Irish Village was selling hooch in glass bottles, an amazing thing to see at a Stranglers gig. Bet they don't do that in the UK venues!!!

At about 8.45, a complete dunderhead from Coast FM took to the stage and managed to alienate the entire crowd in a matter of seconds. Babbling excitedly about The Stranglers being an ‘80s band (which they most certainly are not) and trying to organise crowd cheering games, he managed to destroy much of the atmosphere of joyful excitement in the packed venue and provoke mass irritation instead. Finally, to jeers of ‘off off off’, the goon slunk off the stage and a gig organising type announced the departure of the ‘face for radio’ and the imminent arrival of the band.

At the last minute, word went round the crowd that drummer Jet Black (who is, incidentally, in his ‘70s now) was ill and his drum tech would be playing in his place. So the idiot and the bad news didn’t really set this all up well.

Taking to the stage to the sound of ‘Meninblack’, the group launched straight into a pumping ‘Toiler on the Sea’, and suddenly all was right with the world. We were in for a wonderful evening of high energy, brilliant music and I spent the next two hours grinning like a maniac in a sea of moving, dancing, happy people. The group did a brilliant run through a serious back catalogue, ‘Grip’, ‘Peaches’ (“Oh no, I’ve missed the charabanc! I’m gonna be stuck here the whole summer, well what a bummer! I can think of a lot worse places to be, like being stuck in a back room at the Irish Village waiting for some fat twat to get off the stage” got singer Baz Warne a huge cheer); Golden Brown (not my favourite track by any means, but a massive crowd pleaser), Nice and Sleazy and Tank through to Always the Sun. In all they only played one new track, which surprised me: I’d been expecting Norfolk Coast at least.

A cheering, dancing crowd was the most animated audience I’ve ever seen at a Dubai gig, but then they were in seasoned hands as the group played a tight, driving high energy, set. They’re a great live act, singer and guitarist Baz Warne is energetic, good-natured and very bald. Burnel, the near-legendary karate kid bassist, prowls the stage, always a powerful, brooding presence (although he was.. gasp... smiling a lot) pumping out those punching, rolling basslines supported by spot on drumming from the drum tech doing a masterful job of filling in for Black. And, of course, the oddly Asiatic face of a Dave Greenfield pokes up behind a trio of massive swelling organs: the keyboards that have always been so central to The Stranglers’ sound swirling and driving the pace throughout the night.

I couldn’t have asked for more, except perhaps for them to keep going all night. I wanted Genetix, Down in the Sewer, Raven and... well, just more.

But I was a happy little bear and all the other little bears with me in the bear garden were happy too.

This date was the first in a long tour: November will see the band playing across the UK and then Australia in December, followed by a European tour in January and February. If you can, get to see them: The Stranglers are sounding better than they ever have before and you’ll have a brilliant night of it.

*PS. Yes, the picture was taken with my phone. In the old days, hippies and saddoes used to wave their lighters. Now we wave our phones.... *sigh*

Eid

Eid mubarak and the best wishes to you and your families.

Changes

So for the past couple of weekends, we’ve taken to wandering around some of our old haunts up in the mountains of the Northern Emirates.

It’s strange how life can overtake you: there are places we used to go to a lot which we simply haven’t bothered with in the past few years and we’re now finding they’ve changed out of all recognition when we revisit them.

The Hatta Track, for instance, which is now 95% blacktop from just beyond the pools all the way down to Al Ain, including the Mahda/Al Ain track. Last weekend we went wandering from Hatta (where we stayed at that slightly eccentric but rarely less than brilliant chill-out weekend bolt-hole, the Hatta Fort Hotel) to Tawi Mileha (Fossil Rock to you, mate). We took what used to be the Munay/Siji track which is now blacktop all the way up through to its connection with the Dhaid/Masafi Road. It also, for a stretch, combines with the new Mileha road, which leads from the infamous National Paints roundabout in Sharjah right the way through to Khor Kalba on the East coast. We can, literally, remember when it all used to be sand. Now it’s quarries and crushers, heavy trucks and truck stops and weighbridges: new roads blasted through the mountains and snaking across the sandy plains.

The graded mountain tracks that criss-crossed and even ran up wadi beds have given way to tarmac and remote villages have been transformed into new municipality housing projects. Whole mountains have disappeared, too. They’re blowing up and crushing down so much rock from these areas, that the very shape and form of the Hajjar mountains is starting to change.

Every few kilometres through the mountains, there’s a broken crash barrier and a pile of rocks by the roadside. We found ourselves wondering how many of those drivers had managed to walk away and concluding, from the often precipitous landscape around us, that there were a lot of grieving families we weren’t hearing about.

We also took to wondering what the sheer scale of quarrying that we saw is going to do to the flow of water from those mountainsides. The rainwater flows down the natural funnels of the rocky landscape, channelled by the wadis to drain down through the natural filters of the rock and gravel wadi beds into the underground aquifers that provide the UAE’s scant natural water.

Those aquifers are already dangerously depleted and becoming saline in places.

Of course, flattening a few mountains won’t make any difference. But we’re looking at more than a few mountains. The scale of the operation is massive. Give it a few years of unplanned, unchecked exploitation and you’re going to be looking at some very unpredictable changes to the flow of the seasonal waters in those mountains: seasonal waters that can flow with unstoppable, punishing force. But also seasonal waters that feed the great desert wadis of Dhaid, Falaj Al Moalla and Mahda and sustain the many farms and date plantations that surround them.

Meme

Alright, alright. Here you go...

A disease caught from Jayne with a why...

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.

2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.

3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.

I don't know how to score out text so you'll have to put up with a * instead.

1. Venison
Lovely. Especially in the pub at Corfe with a blue vinney cheese sauce.

2. Nettle tea

3. Huevos rancheros

4. Steak tartare

5. Crocodile
At Key West, the Californian cocktail joint that used to be at the Bustan Rotana. It was far too successful and enjoyable a place so they closed it and turned into a skanky TGI Friday’s.

6. Black pudding
Topped with apple and pine nuts. Must post the recipe over at The Fat Expat one of the days.

7. Cheese fondue

8. Carp

9. Borscht

10. Baba ghanoush
Ghanoush? Yanks! Gannoug or ghanouj in Khaleeji!

11. Calamari
Oddly enough, the Irish Village calamari isn't bad...

12. Pho
Yum

* 13. PB&J (peanut butter & jelly) sandwich
Have not, will not. This is just wrong.

14. Aloo gobi

15. Hot dog from a street cart

16. Epoisses
It’s a cheese, Keefie. And it’s smelly.

17. Black truffle

18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
My dad always made shockingly bad elderflower wine. One year it fermented in the bottle and turned into amazingly good elderflower champagne.

19. Steamed pork buns

20. Pistachio ice cream

21. Heirloom tomatoes
(Non-hybrid toms)

22. Fresh wild berries
Only an American could consider eating something that hadn't been tinned, frozen, preserved or mixed with artificial ingredients as unusual!

23. Foie gras

24. Rice and beans

25. Brawn, or head cheese

26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
I once put them into a duck soup made from the bones of a particularly fiery bebek batutu I'd cooked. A thankfully rare occasion - a total dinner party disaster. Guests clutching at throats and everything. I try not to remember it.

27. Dulce de leche

28. Oysters
Don’t like ‘em.

29. Baklava

30. Bagna cauda

31. Wasabi peas
HMHB and I were actually nibbling ‘em at the Fairmont Cigar Bar the other night at The Fat Expat Birthday before the evening kicked off and the exotic dancers appeared.

32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl

33. Salted lassi

34. Sauerkraut

* 35. Root beer float
I’ve done root beer and it was gross. Ice cream on it? Are you MAD?

36. Cognac with a fat cigar
Before I gave up cigars, aye. Thankfully haven’t given up cognac!

37. Clotted cream tea
Ooh matron!

38. Vodka jelly

39. Gumbo

40. Oxtail

41. Curried goat

* 42. Whole insects
Can’t really see the appeal...

43. Phaal
Fal or phall to you mate. Hotter than vindaloo and a mad thing to eat.

44. Goat’s milk

45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more

46. Fugu
Nope. Not really tempted, either, despite a mad foodie’s curiosity.

47. Chicken tikka masala

48. Eel

49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
To my eternal shame, it’s a yes.

50. Sea urchin
Yes.And jelly fish. Both once only experiences, I’m afraid...

51. Prickly pear
Discovered this, cactus fruit, in Jordan. Nice.

52. Umeboshi

53. Abalone

54. Paneer

55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
Blush

56. Spaetzle

57. Dirty gin martini
A major favourite.

58. Beer above 8% ABV
Obviously. The last one I had was the excellent Chalky’s Ale, brewed to commemorate Rich Stein’s dog!

59. Poutine
Chips, cheese and gravy? Too North American for me...

60. Carob chips

61. S’mores
See poutine

62. Sweetbreads
Borrocks

63. Kaolin

64. Currywurst

65. Durian
I first had it as a Durian Dunkin’ Donut in Bali, believe it or not! The actual fruit tastes pretty good if you can get past the smell! Carrefour sells it...

66. Frogs’ legs
A friend used to have ‘em flown in from Beirut. Lovely!

67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake

68. Haggis

69. Fried plantain

* 70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
Pig anus. Probably not.

71. Gazpacho

72. Caviar and blini

73. Louche absinthe

74. Gjetost, or brunost
Never come across it.

75. Roadkill
Not knowingly, at least...

76. Baijiu

* 77. Hostess Fruit Pie
You must be mad.

78. Snail

79. Lapsang souchong

80. Bellini

81. Tom yum

82. Eggs Benedict

83. Pocky

84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant
Strangely enough, no

85. Kobe beef

86. Hare

87. Goulash

88. Flowers

89. Horse

90. Criollo chocolate

91. Spam

92. Soft shell crab

93. Rose harissa

94. Catfish

95. Mole poblano

96. Bagel and lox
Does gravadlax count?

97. Lobster Thermidor

98. Polenta

99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee

100. Snake
No. Probably would, but it's never appeared on a menu in my hands...

* 101. Deep-fried Mars Bar
I don’t think I could, Keefie!

Email

Got this in the mail. Thought I'd share it. If the originator wants to claim responsibility, please do just email me...


Dear Excellent Friend:

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.

I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion USD. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.

I am working with Mr. Phil Gramm, lobbyist for UBS, who (God willing) will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a former U.S. congressional leader and the architect of the PALIN / McCain Financial Doctrine, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. As such, you can be assured that this transaction is 100% safe.

This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.

Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.

Yours Faithfully,
Henry Paulson
Minister of Treasury
Department of the Treasury
1500 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20220

Share

Share and share alike...

The Dubai Municipality crackdown on sharing accommodation is set to start, sparking widespread alarm and panic in many of the various communities that make up Dubai. And I can't quite make out why.

The initiative has been pretty clearly outlined: Dubai Municipality has long made it plain that it takes a dim view of sub-partitioning rented property. Presumably in response to a recent spate of tragic fire incidents, it has been publicising a crackdown and clearly wants to stop people partitioning villas and apartments in order to sub-let or share with other families/people. So if you've got a three bed villa with six living spaces created in it, then they're going to vacate the premises and issue fines.

It's not about sharing accommodation in the normal sense, where for instance four people share a four-bed villa. That's pretty clear from reporting, including this Gulf News report today.

"The rule does not apply to one person-per-room accommodation, as per building regulations"

A lot of people have been really spooked by the rumour mill going into warp drive on this one. It seems pretty clear that they're worrying needlessly. Unless you know something that I don't...

PS: It could be that a lot of the confusion has been caused by some pretty woeful communications work from DM. SeaBee makes some good comments here!

Snake

Lovely story in today's The National: a keen sailor in Ras Al Khaimah (yes, yes, it rhymes) discovered a highly poisonous saw-scaled viper in a storeroom. He obviously hadn't been to the Sharjah Natural History museum, where these highly poisonous snakes are on display. Because he tried to chuck it into a bucket as he believed there were no poisonous snakes in the UAE.

WTF? The UAE has several poisonous snakes, spiders, scorpions and fish species. Why on earth would you make that assumption???

Having been bitten, Mr Reg Furlong found it hard to get appropriate treatment. This is not the bit that amused me, of course - apparently he was quite ill as a result of the bite and I am geniunely sorry for him. It must be unpleasant/painful.

No, what got my giggle gland going was the fact that the police finally killed the snake (which Mr Furlong's wife had brought along for identification) using a fire extinguisher. To quote The National story:

"Mrs Furlong brought the snake with her to the hospital, trapped in a covered bucket, so it could be identified. A spokesman for Civil Defence said officers killed it with a fire extinguisher."

How in the name of all that is holy do you kill a small, agile and highly poisonous snake with a fire extinguisher? Can you IMAGINE the scenes? It makes me break out laughing even to start thinking about the absolute chaos that must have broken out!