Fear

I stole this idea from Gianni. This is the Google Trends chart for Internet traffic from the UAE over the past year containing the word Hope plotted against the word Fear.

Lookity there! That's when we discovered the MEANING of the word fear!!!!!!!!!!!!

Was it that we finally recognised we were in a recession? That the UAE would cop for it as well?

Or is it that fear started the day that Barack Obama was confirmed as the new President of the United States of America - November 5th or point E on the graph above. Did we really start fearing as he brought his message of hope?

Play Nice!

OK, so it's not quite Momentary Awe, but I thought this image of a Snicketeer coming through was much nicer with a touch of equalisation - he's driving past one of two JCBs that reappeared on the snicket yesterday, clearing a wide open strip of sand to the Dubai side of the concrete barrier and reblocking the openings we've been using. The resources that the RTA is willing to put behind this strange and inexplicable action are really quite impressive.

If this were the Berlin wall, it'd be the firing zone. And, you know, it all does look increasingly ugly and Berlinesque.

I'd kept quiet about the fact that we were still getting through in the hope that the RTA would play nice and just ignore the few of us intrepid enough to take the more adventurous crossings that remained, but no, they just couldn't let it go.

So yes, we have still been getting through the snicket and yes, the spirit of desert freedom that is in the soul of the people of the UAE is still in them and they persist in taking this little drive in the sand. And some of it must have rubbed off on me, because I've been out there with them slipping through the barriers and skipping off to work with a little song in my heart at another days' little act of defiance.

And you know what? I don't think this is one they'll win, to be honest...

The Klazart Exploit

You'll have probably read my post on the 'Klazart Exploit', the gaming of Harper Collins' authonomy peer-review writers' site by Starcraft commentating YouTube uber-geek Vineet Bhalla.

If not, it's here.

The most excellent Lauri Shaw, a princess amongst women, has now interviewed Vineet about who he is, why he did it, what he thinks about it all and where he thought it would take him.

The interview's here and I do recommend it as a Web 2.0 case study, a piece of interest to anyone who has a view on authonomy or writing and as just a neat adventure story.

Cheers!

The Man Who Wasn't There

"A source said that Russian TV reported yesterday that Dubai Police had arrested Madov's killer."

So reports Gulf News today, a statement that, for me, shows neatly how reporting of the Jumeirah Beach Residence shooting has descended into something of a fiasco.

I'd quote yesterday's Reuters file that claimed the man wasn't dead, but it's been updated now - one danger of t'Internet being that when someone goofs, even someone as trusted and respected as Reuters, they can correct it instantly. Reuters now has a file stating that the dead man is Chechen army officer Sulim Yamadayev and another saying that the Russian Consul has confirmed his identity but hasn't seen a passport.

Gulf News yesterday reported that the dead man was called Sulaiman Madov. And today's front page story (the source of that marvellous quote above) continues in that assertion, based on the discovery of Madov's passport on the body by Dubai police. However, GN illustrates its story with pictures of Yamadayev and does refer to 'some media reports' that have identified the man as Yamadayev.

You can tell that GN is caught between a rock and a hard place, having to go with the 'official' identity Madov while (I guess) firmly believing the widespread media reports that Madov was actually Yamadayev. It must have been frustrating for their journalists.

KT's report, meanwhile, says that a Dubai Police spokesperson had confirmed there had 'been an error' about the Madov identity - KT goes with Yamadayev and includes some good background, including a game attempt to get the Austrian embassy to confirm that Yamadayev had been on a Chechen exiles 'death list' that the Austrian government had previously talked about.

The National, which was always firmly in the Yamadayev camp, was able today to feature a good background piece on Yamadayev. The strength of the journalism here is quite apparent - free to go with its own sources and tie together the different streams of information (embassies, wire reports, eye witnesses and so on), The National made up its own mind about the identity of the man and had more time to play with, which meant that it was able to focus on the 'back story' and produce a stronger and more emphatic piece today that focused not only on the facts of the killing, but the complex and often violent background to it.

I'm left with the feeling that yesterday was a race against the clock to try and find out what on earth was happening, a day of speculation and guesswork, intransigent 'official' sources and frustration. It must have been frenetic. But I do think The National came out on top because of its journalism and its ability to practice that journalism without worrying about contradicting an official source and having to wait until the 'error' was made official.

With the recent news that government ministries will have an 'official spokesperson', there is room for some doubt whether that will remain the case in the future.

One can only hope that it will.

Scoundrel

A second weather post in a week! What a scoundrel!

I'm a sucker for reminiscences about the Middle East - there are some great stories told by the people that were here throughout the breakneck and often scary period of change that has transformed this part of the world over the past century.

Some of my favourite pieces of recent history come from the people that have lived and worked in the Gulf over the past 30 years or so - not just expatriates, either - although expat rememberences appear to be easier to access. BTW, Khalid Kanoo's book about his own life in Bahrain is a fascinating read.

So I really enjoyed this piece in The National by Clive Stevens (I'd have missed it but for a link left on a comment to my recent weather-man spanking weather post: commenter The Wiley Weatherman claims Clive's the nicest man in aviation, and let us grant that, but I still think they goofed the forecasts over this week.), a forecaster at the Dubai Met Office, which talks about the wacky weather he's seen over the years. Clive's short memoir is well worth a read.

In case you're interested in these kinds of things, I do heartily recommend a visit to Len Chapman's excellent Dubai as it used to be site, which has lovingly archived rememberences, images and other paraphenalia gathered from the many people who have lived and worked here over the years.

And finally, just to finish off my most rambling and shambolic ever post (cue for some bright spark to try and find a worse one, but you won't), here's a link to an amazing picture, the image of the week for me. Sure the lightning piccies in Gulf News (down to 450g today, BTW) are pretty enough, but Catalin Marin's stormy HDR Burj Al Arab image is a stunner. It's here over at Momentary Awe.

How smart are you?

How smart are you?

An idle click on a new Twitter follower message as I contemplated the second coffee of the morning led me to this Tweet:

"We launched the project site http://www.smartpeople.ae this is going to be revolutionary!"

There was something familiar about this. Maybe it was the over-excited tone, maybe the the lack of punctuation. Maybe the over-promising - 'this is going to be revolutionary'?

Really?

And then we have the Twitter ID - 'Albert Edison'. I smell ad agency.

The site's borderline slick, copywriter schtick with smart graphical treatment, some neat ideas, a Twitter feed and even a link to 'Our Facebook Page' that doesn't work. And yes, it's an 'integrated social media campaign' from someone. Ths is undoubtedly a company and a site driven by an ad agency - the 'feel' is unmistakeable.

But who?

You see, the first problem with this whole thing is that you need to be UPFRONT if you're a company using Twitter and other social media. There's no point in being coy - and you're just going to annoy people if you hide your identity and purpose.

And that's precisely what UAE telco Du has done with this campaign. 'About us' on the website doesn't say, 'Hi, we're du and this is our new campaign site'. In fact, nowhere on the site says 'Hi, we're du and this is our new campaign site'.

So no, I didn't think your idea was smart - I was mildly annoyed that you'd wasted my time and misrepresented yourselves to me, actually - and that you're crashing around 'social media' having learned none of the lessons of Wal-Mart et al.

Wise up, people.

THIS IS NOT A ONE WAY COMMUNICATION ANY MORE!

Update. The Facebook page is now working.

Just in case anyone out there doesn't know this, you can look up any UAE registered (any .ae domain) website and find out who owns it by using the UAE NIC WHOIS tool.

You can do the same with .com sites by using whois.com.

AdWomen

Austyn Allison is the editor of Middle East advertising and marketing magazine Communicate and he's looking distinctly nervous, beads of sweat breaking out on his upper lip as his shifty eyes cast around the white-walled warehouse. Those walls are decorated with insane pieces of highly complex black and white spirograph-inspired artwork, the sparse floor littered with industrial grade cream beanbags. Dotted around the room are groups of women, new entrants slowly building up to a crowd and Allison and I have clustered together for safety, a cocktail table between us and most of the attendees to the first ever 'TrendTalks' event held by Dubai's newly founded AdWomen group.

There are brightly coloured cupcakes and pizza at hand, a welcome diversion. I'm the first speaker, I've got 25 minutes on Social Media but everyone's on the cake course. There's a growing wind outside, a sandstorm that makes everyone a little nervous and I catch the outbreak of laughter as a gust batters the steel walls of the warehouse.

The sound of female laughter. I start to sweat.

Allison's laughing nastily under his breath as the group's numbers swell and it's clear that I'll be talking to well over 50 highly intelligent, creative, capable and empowered women. He's snarfing vegetarian pizza as fast as he can - in case the scene turns ugly and he has to bolt, I know it. He knows what's going down - I'll get it wrong, stumble and they'll be on me, tearing into me like a pack of ravenous terriers. He's glancing around now, his nervous, calculating journalist's eyes darting between seemingly happy groups of women. It's too friendly here, too collegiate. We know it can become twisted and boil up into a paranoid, howling frenzy on a moment and Allison is giggling under his breath like Beavis and Butthead at the prospect of me going down.

And then it's time, organiser Preethi introducing me as 'prolific', I take the microphone in a sweaty hand - I can't believe she called me a media slut in front of these women, we all know what 'prolific' means. Maybe they missed it - I scan the room quickly, trying to take the temperature of the place. They're all over the room, sitting encased in beanbags, standing at cocktail tables.

Allison's at the back of the room: I can just see him, wearing a fixed, cheesy smile. He's got a camera, the bastard! He's going to catch it, my moment of undoing and the rage of the pack. His smile turns evil and the shadows catch his conniving head, horns seeming to spring up on his temples.

I'm talking now, too fast, the slideset boring me and irrelevant-seeming, even as I bring up the colourful foils. Ohmigod, I can't believe I started the story of the Internet at monastic scriptoria, it's too disconnected, too geeky. I'm away, scanning nervously for the frowns and raised hands that'll start the feeding frenzy but they're listening politely and I find that scaring me even more. They're giving my half-thoughts and mad reminscences consideration and I know this is the wrong thing to do.

And then the hail comes from the skies far above us, a sudden swelling of tiny battering rams, dinning down on the iron roof of The JamJar, the volume cranking up impossibly, drowning me out in a sound like mocking applause, ice smashing out of the sky to explode on the bouncing steel plates, the noise echoing around the warehouse like evil laughter.

I stop talking, deafened by the hail. People are getting up, milling around wondering how we can ever go on with the evening - so many people have invested so much in this, to bring it all together. And then it happens: one of the audience comes up to me, her finger outstretched and her voice loud.

"It's your fault! If you hadn't gone on about the weather in your damn blog, this would never have happened!"

I gasp a denial, but it's too late. They hear her and others take up the cry: 'Blogger! Blogger!'

Allison's taking photos as they start to advance on me, I turn to him for help but the swine's got the soul of a journalist - all he wants is his damn photos to stand up his story. As long as they're focused on me he's safe and I know he's going to skitter out of the fire exit like the journo rat he is as soon as he's got enough of a story for his damn rag.

I'm cornered now and they're onto me. I feel the first nails tearing into my flesh as they crowd around, reaching out to take their revenge. I go down, blackness reaching up to me as I reach for sobbing, gasping breaths.

My last memory was of a striking, red-headed lady in a black dress who looked remarkably like Tori Amos saying she enjoyed my Campaign column. That' s when I finally knew it was all a dream...

Where in the World is the Weather?

Yeah, I know. Blogging about the weather is as low as you can go. Bite me.

Forecasters told us that Dubai would be foggy yesterday morning (UK Met Office) followed by showers yesterday afternoon and evening. And then the real bad weather would kick in - thundery stormy things through to the weekend.

The radio news has been telling us for the past two days that massive enormous huge black gnarly snarly storms would envelop the UAE from yesterday and that we'd better start building arks if we knew what was good for us.

Dubai Eye Radio's delightful @Kimboid was heard this very morning prophesying doom, gloom and weather fronts that'd have you reaching for your galoshes like a passenger on the Titanic hearing a shout of 'Ice!'. 92 FM's Catboy has been more like Chicken Licken Boy, Tweeting of imminent weather that'd make A Perfect Storm look like Picnic on Hanging Rock.

It's 9.15am and it is sunny. The sky is blue. The birds, I swear, are singing.

Sack the weathermen, I say. Sack 'em all. Their job is easy - 363 days a year, 'tomorrow will be sunny and fine in Dubai'. 2 days a year 'a risk of some light showers'.

Klazart and Authonomy - Update

Harper Collins Publishers today published a statement on its authonomy book-review website concerning Vineet Bhalla ('Klazart') and the great voting debacle.

"48 hours ago none of us had heard of Starcraft. That was before Klazart posted his book on the site and started to invite support from the Starcraft community. His efforts were spectacularly successful and he has reaped the rewards of these newcomers’ support. We do not consider his actions to be breaching any site rules and his book will not be removed by us."

The statement goes on to say:

"We are willing to admit that the recent events have shown up real flaws in the algorithm behind the talent-spotter ranking. Some excellent suggestions have already been made and we’ll be considering these."

A number of writers have already left the site - a vast number have stayed but are grumbling away on the forums.

Meanwhile, the book's number 6 on authonomy with over 1200 votes. Some 2,000 new users joined the site over the weekend and have yet to vote for anything.

Is this most controversial of books any good? Will it get anywhere? See for yourself: it's here. What do YOU think?

Having a Chat

"The Conversation" is a blog that is developing quite nicely, thank you very much. It's an interesting read: two smart young Arab women, one based in London and one based in Dubai, just talking about the stuff that comes to mind, that engages them and happens around them.

I don't just like it because they're both friends but because it's an interesting read - a combination of opinions that spans the world and from two people whose common experience, culture, language and friendship ties them together as it finds them apart.

It's also interesting because both have native language English skills (I like to think enriched by some of my own additions to the old vocab) - Sarsour in particular suffering somewhat at the hands of her British colleagues as she works in London: “I would die if I thought you were correcting my English, I mean... You’re a foreigner!”

So this is a plug for that blog. It's here - do have a read and let me know what you think!