UAE Unblocks flikr?

Image via Wikipedia

There has been much confusion over this one: www.flickr.com remains blocked by the TRA, but you can access the site (well, you could at the time of writing) by using this link (thanks to Nagham!).

However, any attempt to click through to an image results in a block. I used 'trees' as my test subject, as I thought I might as well kick off with something subversive - and got the usual cheery message.

So flickr remains blocked, our little burst of optimism has petered out and life goes on as usual, without the ability to effectively do Yahoo! Image Searches.

Somehow, someone, somewhere (in a very big, secure, server farm in the States, I rather think) has missed a link. But they got the rest of it down pat, thank you very much.

Go home people. There's nothing to see here. Move along, move along...

JG Ballard

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JG Ballard has died, aged 78, following a long battle with cancer.

Ballard's work has long had sway over me. He skittered across styles and genres, producing some of the most compelling fantasy work, The Terminal Beach being one of the first things I came across - a book published in the year I was born and one which has, along with Vermillion Sands, The Drowned World and The Crystal World, stayed with me since I was a kid.

Ballard's world was one of almost frightening, inxplicable desertscapes, jungles and fractally twisted textures, of alternative realities and surreal thought. His worlds were terminal, unsustainable, post-cataclysmic, his human characters always surrounded by, challenged by the destruction wrought by erosion, change and altered states.

From the man that systematically blotted out everything around him, creating a comfortable whiteness (killing his wife in the process) to a man left alone as the only survivor, apart from a shadowy, uncreachable figure that wanders and dances out of his reach) in an earth that has been turned entirely crystalline, Ballard's work was fired by almost incredible imagination.

His work is sometimes, despite being set a million mental miles away from any right-minded person's reality, redolent of its era - try Crash, an early 1970s book that sexualises cars and an obsession with car crashes in a disturbing study of man and technology twisted together in the ultimate bond.

Empire of the Sun was an oddity - the story of his childhood incarceration after the invasion of Singapore, it's autobiographical and probably his only 'straight' work. The Spielberg film of it is awful. The Kindness of Women is another book that sits oddly on a bookshelf containing The Drowned World and Vermilion Sands.

Latterly, his writing shifted to dealing with themes of sex, drugs and death in suburban dystopia. Well, I mean, why not? Cocaine Nights, Super-Cannes and Millenium People would make compelling reading for anyone living in the Arabian Ranches (God, Ballard could have created the bloody Arabian Ranches for all we know) or Green Community, the Greens, Palms or whatevers in The Projects. These are the types of communities he created, populating them with suburban career people whose outward lives masked terrifying cabals of criminality and violence.

I always thought he'd come to Dubai. I'd have loved to have seen his face when he saw the perfect dystopia - somewhere so close to his writing that he'd have been sent into shock, Vermillion Sands and Cocaine Nights intertwined with Crash. I wonder if he'd have liked it, loathed it or just been stunned that we're all living in what was, ultimately, JG's reality.

Anyway, he's gone now. And we've lost an incredible, defining imagination and talent.

Obama's First UN Boycott

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The US government, the Obama administration that sparked such hope (and fear, possibly!) in the Middle East is boycotting the United Nations’ 2009 Durban Review Conference, being held in Geneva from the 20th-24th April because the document that is to form the basis of the conference debate, the Draft Outcome Document, reaffirms the 2001 Durban Declaration. The US together with Israel, is being joined in its boycott by a 'coalition of the willing' that includes Canada and Australia.

The Draft Outcome Document was the result of preparatory committees, meetings and conference proceedings involving the entire United Nations – including the US, which had already negotiated major changes to the DOD before it walked. It is based on the 2001 Declaration which resulted from the 2001 World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, that took place in Durban, South Africa. The US and Israel walked out of that conference, although an overwhelming consensus of world governments and NGOs remained and ratified the Declaration.

The 2009 Conference has the enthusiastic backing of the UN, as does the 2001 Declaration: “The outcome document of the 2001 World Conference, the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action (DDPA), which was adopted by consensus, is the most comprehensive and valuable framework for addressing racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.”

Many people, including Barbara Lee, who heads the black caucus in Congress, have huge reservations about the Obama administration’s decision. Lee has been widely quoted by media as being deeply dismayed: "This decision is inconsistent with the administration's policy of engaging with those we agree with and those we disagree with… The US is making it more difficult for it to play a leadership role on the UN Human Rights Council as it states it plans to do. This is a missed opportunity, plain and simple."

The offending text from the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action, 2001, is not being quoted in any of the news coverage I’ve seen of the US government decision, particularly not outlets such as CNN. So I thought it might be worth finding out what it actually says that is so objectionable that it would spark a walk-out from a major UN conference. The two extracts below neatly sum it up:

Relevant Extracts from the 2001 Durban Declaration

62. We are conscious that humanity’s history is replete with terrible wrongs inflicted through lack of respect for the equality of human beings and note with alarm the increase of such practices in various parts of the world, and we urge people, particularly in conflict situations, to desist from racist incitement, derogatory language and negative stereotyping;

63. We are concerned about the plight of the Palestinian people under foreign occupation. We recognize the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and to the establishment of an independent State and we recognize the right to security for all States in the region, including Israel, and call upon all States to support the peace process and bring it to an early conclusion;

64. We call for a just, comprehensive and lasting peace in the region in which all peoples shall co-exist and enjoy equality, justice and internationally recognized human rights, and security;

65. We recognize the right of refugees to return voluntarily to their homes and properties in dignity and safety, and urge all States to facilitate such return;


150. Calls upon States, in opposing all forms of racism, to recognize the need to counter anti-Semitism, anti-Arabism and Islamophobia world-wide, and urges all States to take effective measures to prevent the emergence of movements based on racism and discriminatory ideas concerning these communities;

151. As for the situation in the Middle East, calls for the end of violence and the swift resumption of negotiations, respect for international human rights and humanitarian law, respect for the principle of self-determination and the end of all suffering, thus allowing Israel and the Palestinians to resume the peace process, and to develop and prosper in security and freedom;


The DOD is the document negotiated in preliminary committees and meetings that will set the agenda for the UN Durban Review Conference debate. It’s perhaps interesting that the Obama administration is sending the clear signal that this stuff is not only considered to be alien to its policies and views, but that it’s not even up for debate.

Terror Alert

Image by Paul Keller via Flickr

So our man, let’s call him Paddy, buys a replica AK47, one of those welded ones that trade in the UK across the counter, openly, for around £80 - the Lord alone knows why, but he does.

Paddy takes the gun to work to show his mates on the construction site (in London) that they're working on and colleague Moikey uses Paddy's mobile to take a snap of yer man goofing around with the gun. Fun had, the fake shooter's pushed under a desk somewhere in the site office and everyone forgets all about it.

Paddy, a strangely avid AC/DC fan, manages to lose his mobile down at the pub one night, about three weeks ago, but thinks no more about it as he's busy at work and has to somehow fit in a hectic schedule of AC/DC gigs. In fact, over the next three weeks he travels to Barcelona and Amsterdam to AC/DC concerts and then goes to New York travelling for work.

Unknown to Paddy, there’s trouble afoot. For Paddy's mobile has been handed in to the polis when it was found down at the pub and they've discovered a photo on it of the owner hefting the world's favourite terror/mafia/mad Afghani Taliban gun - the simple, efficacious and eminently reliable Automat Kalashnikova Model 47. And, to their delight, the owner is... IRISH!

Woken up at 5am yesterday morning by an Armed Response Unit storming his house, torches strapped on guns and all, Paddy was, perhaps a little understandably, bemused. But not as bemused as the (mostly Irish) lads at the site were when another bunch of flak-jacketed, gun-toting heavies pitched up at work today in squad of jam sandwiches demanding that the puzzled team ‘Show them the gun’.

Once everything had been made clear, the temperature dropping to something approaching normal and the orange boiler suits and cable ties put away, one of the coppers who had been ‘looking after’ Paddy during his short arrest did admit that Paddy had been a hell of an expensive guy to follow.

Because for the past three weeks Paddy, the happy AC/DC-mad building lad, has been followed around the UK and across Europe by an increasingly puzzled crack squad of Her Majesty's Finest, intent on uncovering the link to Mr. Big, the Real IRA, the rag-heads or whoever else was behind Paddy, the gun-toting heavy from Dublin, Fair City.

They must have been killing themselves tracking a pissed and cheering Paddy through the crowds at those AC/DC gigs in case he was making contact with the rest of his cell, let alone having to chase him on his inexplicable jaunts across Europe and the States. You can almost see Plod getting all excited as Paddy drives through the grey, damp morning on his way to the ferry, his death's-head cutoff with studded bits and faded denims packed safely in the boot and Highway to Hell booming in the car.

"He's on the move, Sarge! He's off ter Amsterbloodydam!"

The whole stupid incident has all been an incredible waste of time, effort and public money. And all this on the day that a German tourist in London was forced by police to delete the pictures on his camera in case they breached security. The tourist, a former professional news photographer, avers the snaps were not only all completely innocuous, many were of his young son.

We’ve all gone mad, people. Quite, quite mad

Radar Speed Traps. Fail.

Image by hugovk via Flickr

The UK is the radar camera capital of Europe with 4,309 speed traps in the country by 2007 – up from 1,571 in 2001. There are over 430 speed traps in London alone. By comparison, Germany has some 3,000 cameras and France has under 1,000.

UK media report that despite the massive rise in fixed radars, the decline in road deaths in the UK has been slower than in other European countries, with the government conceding that speeding is a contributory factor in only 6% of road accidents and a causatory factor in some 13% of fatal crashes.

At the same time, papers like the Daily Mail (recommended reading for people who lean to the extreme right of politics, by the way) report that speeding fines are generating over $200 million per annum.

The UK’s Institute of Advanced Motorists believes that there is too much dependence on radars in road safety – ‘Speed cameras are not the be-all-and-end-all of road safety’, their spokesperson told the Mail.

It’ll be interesting to see where that leaves motorists in Dubai and Sharjah, where the proliferation of both fixed and mobile radar cameras has reached epic proportions. I rather suspect that we’re going to see the innovation eulogised by those responsible for it in a blitz of publicity based on non-independently derived statistics – but that would fly in the face of the clear statistics from Europe which clearly tell us that revenue-generating though they may be, radars are not the solution to road safety.

Fractal Khasab

Geek snap alert! Amazingly fractal image of the Musandam peninsula, including the remote town of Khasab, taken by NASA...

The Falls of Dochart

Image by snappybex via Flickr

At the end of Loch Tay, nestled in the roaring, freezing spring melt-waters of the Falls of Dochart, is the island of Innis Bhuie (inchbhui or any other spelling you fancy). This is where you will find a mausoleum containing the remains of various old Chieftans of the Clan MacNab - it's the last remnant of the swathes of Clan MacNab land around Loch Tay.

To take a walk onto the island, which is protected by an iron gate, you used to have to pick up the key from the sweetshop in the village of Killin. Nowadays there's a visitor centre and you get the key to the island from there.

Not today. The village was filled with fire engines - one of the white pebble-dashed semi-detached houses in the village was spewing smoke from its ruined roof, the blackened spars jabbing up from the top floor as firemen sprayed great coronas of water over the house, spraying the smoking roof of the house next door as they tried to bring the fire under control and at least preserve the other house.

The visitor centre was closed - we were told that the burning house belonged to the lady that runs it. We climbed the wall onto the island instead and stood, looking through the trees and over the roaring green-brown waters to her burning house, feeling terribly sorry for her loss.

Advertising Agencies Tell The Truth

The excellent AdNation website carries the story, based in parts on quotes surfaced by Gulf News on Friday, that now another client is disowning the work submitted to the Dubai Lynx awards by large Middle East agency group Fortune Promoseven - in fact by the group's Qatari operation, FP7 Doha.

If you haven't been following the Lynx story, you can catch up with it on AdNation or Campaign Middle East's blog. Basically it turns out that agency FP7 Doha entered award-winning work that turns out not to have been commissioned by Samsung, which was embarrassed by the work (Depicting, amongst others, a scene of Jesus photographing nuns that resulted in a national outcry in election-tense Lebanon) - from an agency that wasn't even the company's agency!

The Lynx jury is now widening its investigation into the disastrous 2009 awards to look at other agencies' submitted work.

A massive embarrassment for the advertising industry as a whole, this year's awards have made the widespread practice of entering 'fake' work for awards excrutiatingly public. By 'fake' I mean entering advertising campaigns that have not been created for clients, approved by clients or even run in media that clients have paid for.

It all boils down to the advertising industry's unhealthy obsession with awarding 'creativity' rather than real-world campaigns that achieve results for clients. I don't know whether that is a Middle East phenomenon or a global thing, but I can tell you that watching UK advertising over the past couple of days has hit home to me just how 'creativity' is totally lacking in the Middle East's advertising. I'm looking at truly creative, clever advertising that connects with people and is entertaining, challenging and clever - and it's made me appreciate how bad the advertising I see back in the UAE every day truly is. (This point was actually made by a high profile Dubai Lynx judge on his blog - and subsequently sadly retracted).

Of course, it's only FP7 Doha to blame. The rest of the Lynx awards entries will be cleared by the investigating judges because no other agency would have entered work that hasn't run, hasn't been comissioned by clients, approved by clients or even produced for clients that are clients.

Carry on working as usual. There's nothing to be concerned about. As long as agencies have been honest about their entries and put forward 'real' - valid - work.

You have all been honest now haven't you, chaps?

YooKay

Travelling around the UK for the next couple of weeks, I can predict that the service will be erratic for a while blogwise and the content, if any, may become a little UK-centric.

On which theme, if you should find yourself travelling from Dubai to London Heathrow, I'd like to take this opportunity to recommend EK029. It departs at 9:50am, so with a sneaky online check-in, you're looking at avoiding any of those nasty early morning risings to make the airport. Arriving just past 2pm in the UK, you've still got the 'best of the day' ahead of you.

That is the sum total of wisdom and insight I have for you today. You may well want to cancel your subscription...

Hooters

I have wanted to share this for some considerable time now. It's one of my favourite press clippings ever. It's not just that former Hooters waitress Jodee Berry is suing her employer because she was promised a new Toyota for winning the beer sales contest and was blindfolded and led to the car park where they had put a Toy Yoda.

No, it's the look of cold, vengeful fury on her bilked little face that I love. That and the Yoda in her life...

It still makes me smile when I read it...

UPDATE

Thanks to former Alainite Brn, I can now share this link to the invaluable Snopes, which reports that Jodee settled on the matter for a sum that according to counsel would allow her to go to a Toyota dealership and "pick out whatever type of Toyota she wants."

Which is a hoot indeed, no?