Be My Guest

Image by Robb North via Flickr

As you may know, I have a number of friends dotted around the globe who are writers. Most of us are supplicants, although as I mentioned before a couple are revolutionary collectivists and suchlike. However, I have watched with delight as one of our number has been picked up by Australian publisher Hachette and slapped with a two book deal.

Phillipa Fioretti, for it is she, is having her first book published next year. The Book of Love is to be followed by a sequel which she is currently working on.

In a remarkable lapse of taste, she lent her blog to me today and I have repayed her hospitality by making a mess and confessing to a number of particularly bloody murders.

You can read the guest post here. On any other day, Pip's blog is a mixture of insightful and though-provoking stuff on art and writing and it's a great read and I do heartily recommend popping it on your reader.

SNAFU

It was all too good to be true. There was far too much sense being spoken about identity cards. No more than a few hours after I had coffee with a pal in the security business who had told me that he had no intention of getting an identity card (he doesn't trust the security being applied to protect all that sensitive data and biometric information) WAM issues a statement that the Ministry of the Interior is insisting on the presentation of a National ID card for any transaction after November 22nd, by nationals and expats alike.

If you haven't got a card yet, this means big trouble. The Ministry of Interior handles police and civil defence, so we're looking at stuff like needing a card to pay a traffic fine, register a car, file a complaint etc etc.

Except the announcement goes on to say that expats living in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah are exempted until 'a later date'.

So here we go again, another round of senseless announcements about this blasted card - can we expect each Ministry to now stipulate what dates it will offer what services to what category of person now?

At least I've got one of the things... just in case any of 'em are even half serious...

Win a Cow's Aorta! Now Extended!

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The Roads and Traffic Authority of Dubai has extended the deadline for entries to the Dubai Sustainable Transport Award. It would appear that not enough people want to win a silver-plated segment from a cow's aorta.

Perhaps interestingly, snuck in the very bottom of the press release issued by the RTA announcing the extension, there are two subsidiary awards this year, as well as the four key awards (I'm not going to list them, if you're interested more info is here).

The second subsidiary award is for 'Best Media Coverage'. According to the RTA, the award "relates to the media coverage of events, activities and news of the Award. This Award is designed for the government, semi-government and private media organizations."

So you get an award for covering the awards. Neat. I can't wait to see which journalist will step up to receive an award for the most slavish, extensive, praise-laden and blindly approving piece of witless, saccharine hagiography.

Oh, sorry. I meant 'most incisive and independent evaluation of the awards, their objectives and success in meeting those targets'.

It just came out wrong.

Touched and Humbled

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I’m touched and humbled by the number of people around the world that care about me and have me in mind. There are literally thousands of them, and many get in touch every day.

There are the people that want to help me improve my love life and also the many people who want to make me thicker (although I am already quite stupid); the people who want to give me money in any number of ways – I am always particularly touched by the Nigerian ladies repatriating money who want to share it with me, but also the former members of US forces in Iraq – war heroes who still have time to spare me a thought in their plans to exfiltrate gold. Then there are the people who want to help me to get cheap meds, I never seem to find the time to thank them but point out that I’m not actually ill right now – it’s nice of them to think of me though.

A lot of people want to make me harder, but I’m too old to start kickboxing lessons. As for those that want to make me stronger and longer, I feel like thanking them but pointing out that I’m quite pleased with my current shape, although I could do with losing a few pounds if I’m totally honest. Sadly, I don’t want a Rolex, although lots of people seem to think it would set me off really nicely. As for the many offers I get that will help me make women moan, I find that forgetting to call my mum works fine, as does keeping a paper tissue in my trousers when I pop them into the wash.

I actually feel a little guilty that so many people care and get in touch to share their thoughts, but I am really bad at getting back to them and saying thanks. Outlook puts many of them in a special folder so I can reply to them all, but I keep deleting it by mistake.

The people I really, really appreciate getting in touch, however, are those lovely chaps and chapesses at Telco Extraordinaire Etisalat. I love when they think of me and offer me things over my telephone. Especially when I get up and cross the room to see who has sent me an urgent message and am delighted, instead, to get a picture message telling me to get an iPhone or call Lanzarote between 4 and 6am for half price every Monday for the next cycle of the moon.

So many people to thank. I only wish I could do it in person...

Gormenghast and the Future of Publishing

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Longer-suffering readers of this silly little blog will know about Harper Collins’ authonomy website and my opinion of it. For those that weren’t around, this post pretty much explains things. The post was something of a bombshell in its time, BTW.

Authonomy was Harper Collins’ attempt to harness the process of change that the Internet is undoubtedly going to bring to publishing in a similar fashion to the change it is bringing the music industry. Although the company scrupulously avoided outlining any strategy, it is my opinion that the overall gameplan was to create a website that would attract authors and encourage them to put their books online (Authonomy), a website for readers (Book Army) and then allow the authors to ‘self publish’ for the readers by using a POD (print on demand) supplier. Today’s POD systems can create high quality single books at near-market prices.

The Authonomy deal was this: if you made it to the top five books each month on Authonomy, a Harper Collins editor would read and critique your manuscript, or MS. Getting an MS in front of a Harper Collins editor is a bit like getting ten minutes with Warren Buffet to chat about your new business proposal – and just as difficult. So it’s no wonder that the site soon attracted something in the region of 6,000 writers. You’d be surprised how many carvers there are living around Castle Gormenghast.

My ‘generation’ on Authonomy (before anyone starts squealing ‘sour grapes’, I made it to the top five and got a ‘gold star’ as well as a crit from an HC editor. You’ll have to read the ‘backstory’ linked above to see what I thought of it) was pretty much the first ‘wave’ of writers to discover the site and consisted of a heck of a lot of really talented people. With all the energy of a group of kids in a huge playground, we invested a huge amount of time and effort on the site, vying to get to the top and using fair means and foul to do so. At the core of it, though, was a sincere belief in quality – the majority of users adhered to a principle that they’d only ‘back’ books that they would genuinely buy in a bookshop. Although there was a huge element of popularity and ‘plugging’ of books, we reasoned that if you could market yourself on Authonomy, it just proved you could market yourself in the real world too, so was fair game as part of the mix that makes a book.

It looked very much as if HC had created a site that was intended to do what the Internet does best – improve access and disintermediate the gatekeepers, in this case the agenting system that means that only books with obvious mass market commercial potential get through to publishers. Now it looked as if readers could actually vote for the type of book they’d like to see in bookshops – and if HC was to add authonomy winners to its lists, there’d be a new and wonderful outbreak of crowdsourced work to choose from. I can honestly say, BTW, that I read more work that I would buy on Authonomy than I have seen in bookshops all year. Really.

Of course, it was not to be. The POD plan lurked and I ‘outed’ HC when they sent a private email to some of us offering us beta list status. I accused the company of being insincere, in offering a clear ‘get published’ carrot when in fact it only ever intended to create a POD site to hedge against the tide of innovation. It is still my humble opinion that this was the case.

But something else has happened as a result of authonomy, something rather wonderful. In fact several things.

One thing is that I have stayed in touch with a relatively close-knit group of writers I admire and respect, and we’re just as much in touch a year after we all wandered away from Authonomy muttering darkly (A huge number of people have left the site, disaffected with the whole game and the way HC has chosen to play it).

A much more important thing is that the disaffection and annoyance at the ‘traditional’ publishing industry and the way it treats writers has resulted in two groups of writers from authonomy creating real, truly important (IMHO) initiatives that I believe are much more about the true future of publishing than Authonomy.

Year Zero Writers

Dan Holloway is a lecturer by day and maverick by night. Actually, he’s probably pretty maverick by day, too, but we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.

The author of the evocative and hauntingly beautiful Songs From the Other Side of the Wall, Dan founded the Year Zero Writers group as a collective designed to pool resources and talent in a way that would enable writers to reach out to audiences with their books. You can find out more about Year Zero here. Dan’s Year Zero projects include Free-e-day (see the BookBuzzr link below) and (to my knowledge) the first ‘FaceBook book’ (The Man Who Stole Agnieszka’s Shoes was written in weekly instalments on a FaceBook group, taking the input of readers to mould the plot). has seen Year Zero growing in popularity, attracting readers and participants and spawning a vibrant writers’ blog that is attracting readers in a most satisfactory manner.

Four books have been ‘published’ by Year Zero and more are planned - one compilation of short stories (Brief Objects of Beauty and Despair) and three novels. You can go to the Year Zero site, interact with the authors, find out more about their work (it is excellent) and then either download a PDF (free - in other formats here) or order a printed copy (paid for) of those books (the links are to Dan's 'Songs'). Although not the most active member of Year Zero, I am deeply proud to be associated with it.

Dragon International Independent Arts

Diiarts is a small independent imprint founded by writer Sarah Jane Heckscher-Marquis, which on November 14th will ‘conventionally’ publish four books that were hugely popular on authonomy and that represent, along with the three books that Year Zero has announced, some of the first books to have been published as a result of the authonomy project.
SJ has taken the highly unusual step of getting so frustrated at seeing great fiction (and I would personally, having read large amounts of all of them, commend them most highly to you, particularly Paul House’s stunning work, Harbour) mouldering on the slushpile and being overlooked by the Groans that she has put up her own money to publish some of her favourite work from the site. With the avowed intent of creating and maintaining her own small list of high quality fiction, she has had the pick of the best stuff on authonomy and has, I believe, chosen wisely.

As SJ says in the diiarts.com launch press release, “We believe there is a great deal of high quality, distinctive writing out there, which the larger publishers are just not picking up. Not only are readers missing out, but we’re losing something of the richness and diversity of the English language. We’re in danger of losing the spirit of innovation and thoughtfulness that’s been the hallmark of the English novel since we invented it. What we’ve seen is that more and more authors are expected to compromise on their vision, their voice and their artistic values, to cut their work down at whatever cost to fit supermarket display racks. We believe—passionately—that our authors should be in control of their own work. When they are, great books are the result.”

What has me chuckling evilly is the fact that both of these initiatives came about as a result of Authonomy. And, of course, I believe they both represent different facets of the change that will eventually lead to the flooding of Gormenghast - 'e-books' and small, independent publishers who are passionate about books, not shareholders, together will forge what I believe to be the future of publishing.

The Souk

We did something we haven't done for years over the weekend - went for a wander through the Bur Dubai souk, the 'Cosmos Alley' part of it.

I'd forgotten about it, to be honest. Sometimes you just get stuck in your routine and stop appreciating the things around you and this was most definitely our feeling as we wandered, entranced, through the swathes of brightly decorated cloth and windows packed with dummies, displays and stacks of samples. We flapped through entrances covered with thick plastic sheeting into shops filled with the pungent sweet floral smells of dhoop, dodged past people on the narrow pavements and managed to avoid the drips from the AC units lining the streets above us. The other danger is, of course, the pigeons that sit on them (and shit on you).

The only thing that has changed down there is the car parking (Dhs 10 for the 'private' car parks is a tad stiff). Everything else is timeless, immutable. This is the Dubai I first visited back in the '80s, the Dubai of traders and bustling streets, diversity and adventures down the sunny alleys where men push hand-carts stacked with boxes past groups of animated, henna'd women shouting to each other, the air ringing with the calls of shopkeepers trying to entice punters in to view their unparalleled collection of the world's finest cloths. This one from Japan, very good cotton. This one very beautiful, madam. This finest quality and my very best price.

We've got too used to joining in with the shuffling masses grazing the malls, dumbly wandering past those rows of generic, aseptic stores with their sparse piles of globalised brand name clothes and 'lifestyle choices'.

Now the weather's cooling, I think we'll be making an effort to put in more souk-time. It's remarkably good for the soul...

GeekFest 2.0 - The Morning After

W00t!

Thanks, everyone!

Sexy Tweets

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How can you sex up your Tweets?

It can be hard sometimes getting what you want said into 140 characters – particularly when you bear in mind that you’re actually closer to 120 characters if you want to get retweeted and 110 characters if you’re tweeting a link to something (which is the purpose of a great many Tweets). So how can you not only get your point across but also get it across so that people actually take notice of what you're sharing?

Here, in no particular order, are ten sexy Tweet tips.

1) Think like a newspaper – you’re writing a headline, so write in the present tense and in the language of urgency. Take out any waffle and stick to hard fact. Don’t do ‘man assaulted his dog by biting it’ but ‘man bites dog’. Tweets are great for practising headline writing!

2) Where possible and appropriate, use action words rather than passive ones, smashes, punches, kicks, breaks, shoots and that sort of thing.

3) Cut out prepositions (at, by, with, from, etc). You can always write around needing them, usually by re-forming the sentence in a more active way. ‘The Government has signed a big deal with the traffic authority’ becomes ‘Government signs traffic deal’. And so on.

4) Cut out articles, too – the definite (the) and indefinite (a, an) alike. ‘Durban to hold an ice skating championship for the first time’ becomes ‘Durban ice skating championship first’.

5) Adjectives are evil. Even the most awful sub knows that every time you use one in a headline, God kills a kitten. And it’s the same for Tweets, so avoid describing things (broad market, blue pony, ephemeral memory – the first word in each of these describes the thing it refers to and is unnecessary in the punchy language of headline or Tweet writing) unless it’s crucial to the meaning of your Tweet (which is, incidentally, highly unlikely).

6) Think about your followers and what they’re likely to be interested in. If you’re tweeting a link, you’ve already thought ‘the guys’ll be interested in this one’ but prioritise – what’s the over-riding biggie in there? Lead with that, the most colourful and impactful aspect of the link, not with an attempt to provide a deep analysis. The link will give the facts, you’re just looking to make sure people get why the link matters. A little extrapolation can help here – what will this move, fact or conclusion mean down the line, what will it lead to? You can do this by using a question, for instance, ‘MS Signs Bing Twitter Deal: Real Time Search a Reality?’

7) Do you need a hashtag? Hashtags make subjects easy to search and flags your Tweets as part of a conversation around a topic. I’m sure there’s a statistic somewhere for this, but the vast majority of Hashtags never get used beyond a few Tweets. If you do decide you need a hashtag, make it as short and yet unique as possible. One hashtag should do it - if you’re thinking of flagging a Tweet with two or more hashtags, take the hard road and drop the extras.

8) I’ve been interested by the evolution in the way we use emoticons and after a discussion around this with the team at Spot On Towers, I’ve started using emoticons as punctuation, rather than in addition to punctuation. It does rather go against the literary grain, but it cuts down on characters and ‘clutter’ too.

9) Use a link shortener. TweetDeck and other Twitter clients have automatic link shorteners, but my favourite is TweetBurner’s Twurls because it gives you statistics regarding how many people clicked through your link, when and so on. This means you can tell which Tweets are, in fact, most relevant to your followers – and if you’re Tweeting for work, gives you metrics.

10) Last but by no means least, apply the DIGAFF filter. (Do I Give A Flying) If you care about something you’re sharing, other people will. If you’re just passing something on that might be of interest to someone, it’s probably not worth passing it on. Also take a second to make sure that you’re not the 200th person to share that same fact! If you’re consistently sharing punchy, witty and relevant Tweets that link to cool stuff I, for one, want to follow you!

SEO and Strange Searches

Image via CrunchBase

It's an odd fact of life that Blogger blogs have brilliant 'SEO', which has led to some odd rumples in the space time continuum. Every now and then I like to share a few of the stranger or more interesting searches that have popped people through a wormhole to this dusty little corner of the Web - I've included a few that I think are strange because I don't think I deserve the attention.

SEO, search engine optimisation, is a set of techniques that are used to attract the attention of search engines as they 'crawl' the Web looking for the right content to present to you when you search for something. Vagaries in SEO can mean that search engines put some interesting stuff at the top of the pile sometimes. For instance, to search for the glorious and famous Fakhreddine Restaurant in Amman and get me rambling can be something of a let down.

Strange searches (the phrase itself belongs to the blog - if you Google it, this is what you get) include batty or worrying things - for instance "www.anemal faking wamen", I don't think he meant impersonating, or the perennial "russian girl face slash" which I honestly wish I didn't 'own' as the first search result. Here are a few notes on recent searches that piqued my curiosity, just in case they pique yours!

how to fake incompetence
I'm not sure how to take this one, but a Google search of this phrase takes you straight to your number one incompetence fakery blog! I almost feel I should write a post to at least help those brilliant minds who are trying to disguise their talents under a bumbling, shambolic and useless exterior. Or perhaps just redirect them to HSBC, who are capable of doign a pretty good job of it - although I'm not entirely sure they're faking.

my city my metro
It's baffling, but with all the millions that Dubai's Road and Transport Authority (or RTA as we lovingly call them) has invested on the campaign to let us know that the damn huge HotWheels set on stilts that snakes ubiquitously through our city is 'our' metro, you still get people like me when you search for the slogan they pumped so much money into. As young people today say, 'pwned'.

confidence in media
What's worrying is not just that you get to here by searching for it, but that I have a constant drizzle of searches doing just that!

Fake deoxyribonucleic acid
The more insanely esoteric your post titles, the oddest searches you'll land. Sadly for the international criminal looking to hedge against future DNA tests by faking his DNA, the best thing the internet can offer is me whining about DNA testing in the UAE...

air outpost
It's actually slightly tragic that when you search for the name of one of the most important early documentaries to use the format we recognise today as 'documentary', created by London Films under Alex Korda and featuring a score by respected C20th composer William Allwyn, you get led here. Surely someone more interesting or important has something more interesting or important to say about this little slice of film history?

fake plastic dubai
I have nothing to add.

Mafsoum
The post linked above explains all. I'm delighted to 'own' the Arabic for schizophrenic.

nmkl pjkl ftmch
My favourite of all time. Not only do people actually SEARCH for 'nmkl pjkl ftmch', I now own it. Official. Ha, Sherif Abaza! Ha!

TDS for Aquafina and Fake Pringles
I'm actually quite proud that thousands of consumers from around the world have landed here having googled questions about what's actually in Aquafina and Pringles. It does show how 'consumer voice' can really make a difference to people's choices. I actually feel a bit useful. Have to stop that before I start taking myself seriously...

Flash!

Lemmy Kilmister via last.fm

Since Dubai Police went on their radar rampage, I have taken to using cruise control most of the time and it has undoubtedly saved me thousands of Dirhams. It saved me another few hundred this morning, coming down the Awir road out of the desert and into Dubai and passing the evil, hunchbacked dwarf in a green uniform who’d set up his mobile speed camera behind the big blue road sign.

I’d barely passed him when I saw a Hiace van coming up behind me, parked on my tail and flashing me to pull over. I was travelling at a carefully calibrated 119km/h and the road’s speed limit at that point is 100km/h. It is customary for Dubai Police to set radars at 20km/h above the limit, wot they calls 'the cushion'. So if I was being a tad naughty, my good friend in the Hiace was being unusually naughty.

I hate minivans. I hate that maniacal morons with single digit brain-cell counts and Lemmy’s taste for speed drive them, let alone that they have a high centre of gravity and frequently add to that inherent instability by being packed to the gunwales with workers.

I’d like to see ‘em taken off the roads – they caused 21% of all traffic fatalities in Dubai this year, including the horrific accident in Lahbab, the desert truck stop further out towards Hatta on the very road I was on. At the least I’d like to see ‘em confined to the inside lane.

Meanwhile, matey boy was giving me the full ‘I’m a sheikh, move over’ treatment, literally within a couple of feet of my bumper, his lights pumping.

So I did a bad thing, people. I could see the fixed speed camera looming into sight ahead of us and I graciously pulled over to let Speedy Keen past. He was hunched over the wheel, his tongue out and drooling as he passed me by, his cargo looking down at me as they shot past.

Bam.

I watched his arms fly up in the universal ‘I don’t believe it! Why me? Of all the damn things!’ gesture.

And I was glad. And I did show him I was glad.

Sorry. Two traffic-related posts in one month is the sign of a rogue, but that's how the dice fall sometimes...