Sign of the Times (Redux)

I can't even begin to match Seabee's world-straddling picture story scoop. But I did think that this was yet another sign of the times, albeit perhaps a little more creative. And it did make us grin when we got it in the office...

Delighted to extend the reach of the campaign!!!

Harsh

As another round of writers pass the authonomy 'top five' test, one of the books that passed out last month received an unusually harsh spanking from Harper Collins' editor.

Remember one of my points was 'respect'? That I was annoyed at HC's 'one way' communication and its faceless editors? Well, imagine how you'd feel having put your work in front of 4,000 people so that an anonymous jerk with the backing of a major corporation could write:

"...stands out from the crowd of Authonomy proposals; not necessarily through its content or writing, however, but through the high status its author is held in within the Authonomy community."

So it only got there through the writer's popularity? That starts the girl off well, doesn't it? And then we go on:

"I don’t honestly believe that Seeing Red is a great work of science fiction."

At least that's honest, if a tad brutal. But then you can't really get into the writing thing unless you're up for a bit of brutality. I mean, all editors are brutes, no?

"Seeing Red’s take on science fiction is naïve and simplistic..."

Oh hang on. Aren't we being a bit, well, unnecessary here?

"The world of SF...has moved far on from cheesy concepts expressed in this book"

Note the missing definite article. The editor can't spell 'found', either.

"...the settings are straight from central casting."

Our hero goes on to have a right old go. Get this - and do imagine this was your hard work, voted to the top by something like 500 people on the site who have said, essentially, that they would buy it if it were on sale:

"Of course, there is nothing wrong at all with referencing the styles of older pulp novels – they may be the equivalent of B-movies but at their best can have a tremendous joi de vivre and embrace some truly mind-boggling concepts. But I do not believe that the intention here was to deliberately pastiche that sort of science fiction to make a particular point or create a specific effect."

And this from a patronising, condescending goon that can't even spell 'Joie de vivre'!

But the real kick in the head comes last. Remember, this is supposedly from an editor at one of the world's largest and most powerful publishing houses, so carries unusual weight:

"I cannot see any science fiction imprint picking this one up for publication."

This is Patty's reaction to it. I don't think she's gone far enough, but there you go: Patty’s blog…

Snicket Watch 2

OK, it's a bad photo. But then my damn Nokia N73 has slowed to an unusable crawl when you try and do anything with the thing. It's EOL and going soon, BTW.

If you click on the image, you can just see the logo on the car. Yup, an RTA type trying to get through the snicket. I'm delighted to tell you that he failed - he drove past the spot to the left of the concrete barriers that was tonight's 'through' after another round of blocking today.

We're still beating 'em - UAE nationals, Brits, Indians, the lot of us. One tribe united against the unseen prats who are inefectually dumping massive piles of concrete and building up barriers across the sandy shortcuts.

A message. Lads, you can't block a desert.

We're still getting through! Yahoo!

(PS: If you're interested in the history of the snicket, just use the search bar on the blog header to look up 'snicket' - we've been winning The Battle of the Snicket for months now!)

Compassion

The Waterford Wedgewood factory in Kilbarry, Co. Waterford in Ireland, is to shut down.

Some 480 of the plant's workers were told they would lose their jobs by receiver Deloitte Ireland. According to the UK's Telegraph (as well as Sky News and others), the news was received by the workers in a text message.

Hang on. WTF?

Yup. The receiver sent a text. I wonder what it said? 'Could all those with jobs please take one step forward? Where are you going, mate?' or perhaps, 'For you, Paddy, ze work is over.' or maybe, 'Now lads, look here, dere's no point beatin' about de bush. Ye's laid off good an' proper and there's not a ting ye can do about it, like.'?

The workers have occupied the plant in protest and scuffles broke out yesterday with private security guards.

One commentator on the Sky News website put it quite nicely: "I'm disgusted and sickened to see how the workers were treated. It was such a sneaky and underhand way to treat people. The tv coverage of the security guards using such force bashing a worker's head through the toughened glass doors that the glass broke while another security guard tried to block the tv camera from showing it was sickening to watch."

The irony of smacking a redundant glass blower's head through a window is considerable.

I have been through a company receivership: many years ago, the first publishing company I ever worked for went bust. The memory of the scrubbed, shiny and self-satisfied face of the receiver poking out of his too-small collar as he smugly talked down to us all is still with me. I still have the cheque from the Royal Bank of Scotland for £0.69 in full settlement of my £800 outstanding expenses bill at the time of the closure.

But at least the bastard couldn't dismiss us all by text message. A new generation of bastards can, though. The very people that are behind the problem, that are clapping themselves on the back with $18.4 billion in bonuses as they ask for $700 billion to bail out the sector, are the people cutting off credit lines, winding up companies and clamping down on outstandings. Gulf News (700g) reports Obama's excellent reaction to the bonus news, BTW.

They have learned nothing from this and likely will learn nothing. Because the pain is being felt by other people.

I'd like to think that companies like Deloitte will be held accountable for their lack of respect and compassion. I suspect that I am being naive, but leave me to my naivete. Strangely, I take comfort from it.

Piers Morgan on Dubai

I sat at a table in Jumeirah's Lime Tree Café, two anxious looking chaps from the production company facing me.

"So. Will you do it?"

"Look, I know Piers. I've worked with him on his media relations here. He'd burn me for thirty seconds' good TV. I do recognise that."

"No, no, no. You don't understand! Piers has changed!"

That made me belly laugh. I've been laughing about it since.

Piers Morgan is the famous former Daily Mirror editor who was sacked after a splash he ran about British soldiers allegedly abusing Iraqi prisoners was rubbished by the authorities. One moment he was a successful editor and public figure who'd do tea with the Blairs, the next a jobless has-been; Morgan picked himself up from the floor and has built a new and highly successful career in TV. The whole story is documented in his excellent and frequently wickedly funny memoir, The Insider: The Private Diaries of a Scandalous Decade. Love him or hate him (and, like Marmite and Clarkson, he polarises opinion), Piers came through the experience stronger and with a definite sense that he's seen the worst they can do to him and to hell with them all. I quite like him for that.

I did, in the end, agree to appear in Piers Morgan on Dubai. Filmed in luscious HD, the program looks at the glamour and fun of life in Dubai. Why on earth they wanted to talk to me (unglamorous and unfun), I don't know, but I thought it would be a chance to balance some of the egregious erks they'd undoubtedly pick up on with something at least down to earth.

Anyway, I'm a tart like that.

We drove out into the desert, a mirror-mounted camera filming me responding to our man, sitting in the back, asking questions. As we drove up into the dunes, Piers teased me about wasting my time driving around in this big sandpit. And then, as we flipped neatly over the crest of the dune and sailed down the leeward side into a huge bowl, you should (depending on the caprices of the editing room floor) hear Piers saying something like 'Erk!'.

Having just recovered from the not inconsiderable injuries sustained when he fell off a Segway, Piers didn't take very well to offroading, I have to say. It was quite an effort to get him back into the car once we'd got out to film an interview in the dunes.

We talked about stuff like groaning infrastructure, media freedom and blogging. To be honest, all these weeks later, I can't quite remember what we talked about. But at the end, Piers pulled a trick in response to my assertion that I had never been 'yanked' by the authorities for blogging - he nodded behind me and told me to look at the two guys from the Ministry of Information coming over the dunes behind me. I didn't, so he repeated it. I turned round and thereby gave them the ideal shot to end the piece: cut well, it'll look like I'm turning around in fear.

That's TV, I'm afraid. If that's how they cut it, that's fine by me. But it ain't the 'truth', folks.

Anyway, if anyone sees it on ITV tonight, please do feel free not to tell me all about it. Oh! And the production company still owes me a quid...

Bookworm

If any of you have been at all interested in any way whatsoever about the stuff I've been posting regarding Harper Collins' authonomy, then you might be interested in this guest post on Eoin Purcell's blog.

Everyone else can just carry on as normal. There's nothing for you to see here. Move along, now. Move along.

Snicket Watch

Three new routes through the barriers open up over the past 72 hours, all three blocked by the unseen hands of evil during the day today. But some wag finds a weakness and we all get through again.

All your base are belong to us! Ha!

No Shit, Sherlock

Today's edition of The National carries the stunning headline, 'Property Adspend Plunges'.

WTF? OMG!

We all love a downturn story, right? But when you pass filler ads crying out for you to call the outdoor company as you drive down the Sheikh Zayed Road and spot gigantic billboards on the way up to Mirdif begging you to 'advertise here', you can maybe get the inkling that we may be onto a trend here.

Gulf News (700g) is down to almost half its 2008 pagination, while the (700g) refers to its weight today compared to the 1.3kg weight of GN and its regular advertising supplements in November last year. Al Nisr's 'Property Weekly' is down from a December 2008 156 pages and a 54% ad/ed ratio to 84 pages and a 41% ad/ed ratio. They're pulling in something like 49 pages less a week in advertising. And December was weak for the magazine, which was pushing higher paginations earlier in the year.

And you need a bloke from PARC to tell you that property advertising's on the way down? Do me a lemon, guv!

“Before, papers were more than 120 pages, with a lot of advertising, but now all of this is reduced,” PARC's Mr Jichi told The National's Keach Hagey, throwing caution to the winds and baring his soul in a mad, confessional moment.

Memories of 2008. The sound of air being sucked through teeth and quiet, confident laughter: "SZR circuit, mate? You alright to wait for six months? That's for the premium payers, like. If you want standard rate it could be a year or more. Of course, if you were feeling generous, if you know what I mean, we could maybe get it down to five months and a bit, you know?"

Today's Gulf News carries a supplement for the Abu Dhabi Real Estate and Investment Show, which will run from the 27-29 Jan at the Abu Dhabi NEC. It's all of 16 pages. Listening to real estate people talking up the market for the next three days is going to be interesting.

Blog Crazy

I'm going blogpost bonkers today, aren't I?

I just had to share this news. I posted about football coach David Nicholson back when they had the fun run at Safa Park to raise funds for him. Today's Gulf News (800g) carries the very welcome news that David's been able to return to the UK for treatment following the fundraising efforts that raised over Dhs200,000 to enable him to be treated. Thanks to a team of close friends, led tirelessly by Susie Kermanschahchi, he'll now get the best treatment without everyone having to worry about who's going to pay the bill.

David is in a coma and has been since he suffered a heart attack last November. He couldn't afford health insurance because of his ongoing medical condition: he had bad arthritis. All the very best to him for a recovery now he's back home.

Identity

I'd just like to say that the Emirates' Identity Card website thingy appears to be working and I've just used it to book two appointments for myself and Sarah. They're both at Rashidiya in April, because Sharjah is apparently booked all year, but I'm not complaining. They're both on different days, too, because there were no contiguous appointments, but I'm not complaining. And the system just wouldn't buy a family application for two people, but I'm not complaining.

Now we can go an use the new and enhanced application application.

It looks as if it might go right this time. The site's here. I even got a text from them confirming the appointment a few minutes after I'd completed the form.

Yayyy!!!