Papa Rashid

Sarah used to teach a small and, although he didn't know it at the time, important little boy called Rashid, who lived in Umm Al Qawain.

She really liked Rashid. He was, as she would say, a howl. Every now and then he'd come out with some new insight into his life as a really rather special little boy. And then one day he piped up that he liked going to visit his gramps, Papa Rashid, over at the 'big house', particularly because Mama Samsa used to give him ten dirhams.

Papa Rashid, known to most as Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Umm Al-Qawain, His Highness Sheikh Rashid bin Ahmed Al-Mualla, was a well-loved ruler who had the genuine respect and devotion of his people. I've heard a number of stories about his plain-speaking humour, wit and wisdom. He died in London today.

Now Mama Samsa will be mourning him and so, as a result of our time spent in Umm Al Qawain where Sarah taught at a mad and quixotic little school for two years, are we.

Dosh

Having tourists in town don't half change the things you get to see. For instance, I wouldn't normally go near a money changers at City Centre.

So get this. According to Al Ghurair Exchange, the English and Scottish pounds have different exchange rates!!!

If anyone could explain, I would be deeply indebted. If the explanation is something along the lines of 'It's because we all live in a madhouse', then don't bother - I've been there myself.

I'm looking for something beyond that... like a real explanation of why the same currency trades at two rates... I'm sure there must be a way to make a killing out of this...

Spies

Ladies and gentlemen, I can reveal this for the first time: the ugly face of modern industrial espionage in the Middle East. It's going on all around you and yet you barely know about it, cushioned as you are from the harsh realities of life at the hard end of commercial enterprise.

As you will know, the London Irish are out on their hols, carrying with them The Niece From Hell. We decided to take a yomp up to Carrefour in Ajman to pick up a few bits and pieces when we were stopped, to our immense surprise, by security on our way in. Now, we know that Carrefour is funny about taking bags into their shop but none of us was carrying a bag beyond a ladies' handbag. None of us was wearing a stripey sweater and eye mask and a quick check of the party also ascertained that none of us was sporting a balaclava and sawn-off shotgun.

But one of us was *gasp* carrying a camera.

"Not allowed, this!" said the man from security.

"Why not?" we asked.

"Security," said the man from security with the certitude that only comes when people are given clipboards and flat-top hats with shiny peaky bits.

And then, I have to confess, the red mist descended. "What security? Are we threatening the lives of other shoppers? Do you think we'll be taking snaps of the joint so's we can guide in the 747's?" I asked, with some asperity and, given the times in which we live, probably unwisely.

In a trice it got twisted. About ten other men in epaulettes appeared from nowhere and stood around. A more senior person arrived. He was wearing a stripey tie. So we knew he was the real thing.

"It is not allowed, this," he told us, clarifying the matter.

"Why?" I asked, because by now I was keenly and gleefully committed to being an asshole. "Because you are hiding something? Your prices are fixed? Your goods are smuggled? Perhaps you are selling illegal things? You are breaking regulations? What are you hiding, please?"

"It is because of our policy, sir," he stated with a nervous giggle. "It is a problem with competitors, taking these pictures. They come and they take pictures. For competition."

And then, taking advantage of my open-mouthed silence, he smiled and, in a spirit of conciliation, he swiftly heat-sealed a plastic bag around the offending Canon 450D (IMHO a truly great camera, BTW) and allowed us to continue on our way, espionage threat averted and the free world saved - at least for the moment.

For the record, I took the above photo of the secured, no longer offending, item of photographic equipment using my 2 Megapixel camera phone...

Kids

So I haven't posted for days. Sue me.

The Niece From Hell arrived with her parents in tow on the 18th and we've been sight-seeing and shopping and generally doing family-type stuff. My Web 2.0 life has suffered as a conseqence...

One of the neat things about TNFH is that you get a ten year-old's perspective on things and that's always welcome input. This year's big phrase is OhMiGod. It must be used in every other sentence. There! I feel hipper and more 'street' already! Club Penguin is evil and makes Second Life look like a Cub Scouts' outing. Massively Online Multi-Media Games filled with 10 year-olds are bloody dangerous places, I can tell you.

Everyone spent millions of dollars on her Christmas and the runaway hit present award belongs to me - an 'i-Dog'. Think about an iPod speaker in the shape of a cute uber-funky plastic doggie that taps its white plastic paws to the music and flashes happy lights when you play tunes through it. You also have to pet it, otherwise it whines and makes unhappy light patterns. It's the result of an illicit backstage liaison between a Marshall Stack and a Tamagochi. And it's now her constant companion. Human, shmuman...

Dad, TNFH and I went to Atlantis' Aqua-thingy, which was nice. It's incredibly expensive (Think Dhs 1,000 for a half day out for three - and at 10 years old (over 1.1 metres), TNFH is an Atlantis 'adult'. You wouldn't, of course, normally find me there dead. It made me giggle, which is a worry.

The signage at Atlantis is awful. The bus dumps you and you're supposed to know what to do and where to go by osmosis. The staff we met were worse than useless, leaving us feeling disorientated and pissed off. As two men accompanying a small girl, we couldn't be with her in the changing rooms and there were no female attendants on hand. For a family from the child-abuse rich UK, that was a really big deal. Thankfully a total stranger stepped in and took care of TNFH as she changed. An interesting cultural moment - I understand that children are cherished, venerated and generally safer than houses here, but people living in the UK are in constant fear for their kids' safety. And I do think that's sad.

Once you finally find an English speaking member of staff and get them to explain the procedure, you can get on with having fun - but I cannot understand for the life of me why there aren't leaflets, signs and other aids to explaining how you're supposed to get into it! The rides are, quite simply awesome. I don't normally 'do' aqua parks, you understand, but Atlantis was great - delighted hours of bobbing around on tidal waves while sitting on inner tubes.

I still think the hotel is decorated in the style of someone who has drunk bottles of primary school poster paint and gallons of rich bouillabaise then vomited it in a massive burst of uncontrollable projectile eructation but the water park is honestly good fun.

Arabia

I'm making a habit of this, I know, but I just wanted to sing Air Arabia's praises again. I've been doing a lot of work in Muscat recently and it just so happens that it suits me just fine to fly AA.

Last night I arrived back and cleared the airport in five minutes from walking off the bus from the plane.

I was punching air. Pleasant flight, no trays dumped on me by harrassed staff trying to get the airline's 'this is worth Dhs 2500' gesture out of the way. A nice, friendly (laughing!) crew, happy sounding captain on the tannoy, on time. Sharjah airport now has an e-gate. Pretty much everything you could want, a short flight that was more like a short bus journey - and I mean that in a good way.

Minimum hassle travel. I'd forgotten it existed...

Help

Around about now, a fund-raising run started at Dubai's Safa Park, opposite the co-op.

The training run is being led by blind runner Katie Newitt, the first blind person to complete the Dubai Marathon, and co-runner, Rebecca Janaway.

Proceeds from the run and activities around it will go to helping pay the rapidly escalating hospital bills of British expatriate David Nicholson, who remains in a coma in intensive care following his cardiac arrest three weeks ago.

David, father of five and loved by all who know him has dedicated much of his life to working with and helping children. He has lived in the Middle East for the last 26 years, formally in the Royal Marines and latterly as a freelance PE teacher.

Crippled by arthritis for the last eight years, he was unable to afford health insurance. He is now faced with huge medical bills. If you know David and want to make a contribution to cover the cost of his care there is also collecting box at the Bookworm bookshop in the Park n’ Shop car park, off Al Wasl Road. Anyone wishing to contribute in any way should please call Susie on 050 5595270, email: kmail@emirates.net.ae

Why is he not at Rashid Hospital where care is free? They do not have, and do not anticipate having, a bed for him.

Don't get sick, people. Don't get sick.

Playing

The majority of the online Arab World will play this game today.

Mark my words.

It's here.

(You have to be impressed at the sheer speed of this!)

Text

There's an increasing body of anecdotal evidence that many companies are cutting back on staffing, although they're not going around telling the papers and, from the coverage we're seeing, the papers aren't really asking that much. There seem to be an awful lot of low-profile tens and fifteens behind those few high profile five hundreds.

What I have found amazing are the stories of people who have been told by text that they don't have jobs any more. An SMS the night before, telling them not to bother turning up at the office.

Sacked by text message! It doesn't seem to be the kind of thing you'd find in the 'Good HR Handbook' does it?

Car

Let's just assume for a moment that someone you dislike intensely is humming 'Scarborough Fair' in a really, really annoying and insistent way. And that you react by shoving a broken child's plastic descant recorder up their nose with some considerable force so that it is stuck there. And that you then plug their mouth with a dead stoat.

Now let us postulate that you have recorded the subsequent attempt to continue humming that tune using a microphone without a pop-shield that is in turn fed through a fuzz-box. And that you crank up the amplified result of the whole wonderful set-up through a hundred-watt Marshall guitar amp.

You are starting to get an idea of just how unbelievably annoying Al Habtoor Motors' Sharjah Service Centre's music on hold is.

Once you get through the frantic parpings of Simon and Garfunkle's VL-Tone Greats, you get automatically routed to an extension that is permanently engaged. Dialling zero means being routed to a resentful-sounding individual who will then consign you, with no sign of having a guilty conscience, to whole minutes of Scarborough Hell. And then you get the service centre man. Which is where the fun really starts.

"Hello."
"Hello."
"Hello."
"Hello."
"Look, let's just take the hello as read, shall we?"
"Sorry?"
"Never mind. I want to book my car for a service."
"AC not working?"
"No. Service."
"Yes, this service centre."
"I know that. I want to book for service."
"You want for service?"
"YES!"
"OK. You must call to make booking."
"I AM CALLING TO MAKE A BOOKING!"
"Hello?"

You get the gist. But let me assure you that this conversation goes on for a long, long time. I do love it when service time comes around. Not.

Forgotten

I'd forgotten about my promise to make you all suffer from having to read my bi-weekly bibble in Campaign Middle East until pal CJ reminded me. So here y'all are:

Is the newspaper dead? And if not, when is it going to do the decent thing? The question is being posed with a frequency which reminds me of the assertion that we could look forward to a ‘paperless office’ back in the 1980s. It’s this year’s big prediction, but it’s also being accompanied by some amazing ‘nose dive’ statistics about falls in circulation, advertising revenue and even job cuts, with the UK’s The Independent slashing some 90 editorial jobs recently.

Now we’re mightily behind this particular curve here in the Middle East, without a doubt. I don’t think journalists will be looking over their shoulders quite yet. And the insane block on sites like Flikr remains, too, slowing adoption of the technologies that are supplanting newspapers in other markets. For instance, many people online followed the recent violence in Mumbai, mixing ‘traditional’ media sources online with extensive on the spot photojournalism from Joe Public in Mumbai (on Flikr, so you couldn’t see it in the UAE) with a wave of Twitter tweets, blogs and Facebook conversations. Wikipedia’s entry on the violence was up, being debated and updated, as the incident was ongoing. There was little to be known that wasn’t known on the spot – the next day’s newspaper has a hard job staying relevant in a multimedia news environment like that.

Even Rupert Murdoch has said the future of newspapers isn’t ‘printing on dead trees’ and, following the US’ ‘digital election’, the online presence of key media such as the UK’s Guardian and the US’ Christian Science Monitor is growing faster than their paper presence is declining.
Having said that we’re behind the curve, there are some interesting online plays in the region. From AME Info through Zawya, Bawaba and Maktoob through to ITP’s arabianbusiness.com, the region’s websites are a growing presence in people’s reading habits. Newspapers are jostling with websites to get the story ‘up’ first: websites that have far bigger regional reach and immediacy than any newspaper could possibly hope to compete with.

Does that mean that we should all ignore newspapers? No! Of course not!

Not yet, anyway...