Litrachure

Cover of Travels with a TangerineThey say you should never meet your heroes. I’d have agreed with you last year. I went to see William Dalrymple at the Emirates Festival of Literature and was disappointed that a man whom I had lionized through his writing should be so different to my expectations. Of course, it was my fault. I had loved his work, ‘From The Holy Mountain’, a journey through the decline of Levantine Christianity and Dalrymple had talked about Indian Gnosticism or some such. I wanted mezze, I got thali. I wanted reality, I got a slightly removed academic superiority. As a consequence, to be honest, when I review Dalrymple’s amusing little vignette of Robert Fisk as a war-crazed exploiter of curious visitors to Beirut, I’m with Fisk every step of the way. I would much rather stand our Bob a boozy lunch than listen to Willy again.

Yesterday, thanks to the miracle of radio, I got the chance to interview Tim Macintosh-Smith, whose fantastic ‘Travels with a Tangerine’ was such an enjoyable read – it had the same elements I have so much enjoyed in Dalrymple’s work, echoing the mixture of intelligence, historical reference and experiential joy that have made writers like Robert Byron so valuable to me. It was a likeable book – difference was, it comes from a likeable writer.

Tim is a lovely bloke. He’s lived in Sana’a for twenty five years, is a true ‘Arabist’ and is one of those people that thinks right there and then about every question, tasting it and weighing it up before answering. His responses to my clumsy pops were always deeper than the question, amusement never far from his eyes as he cast around for responses.

When we brought in cultural consultant Wael Al Sayegh, the conversation was almost magical. Here was an Arab who bridges the gulf of the Gulf and the West with a Westerner of fundamentally Arabian sensibility. As Wael said, ‘When you speak Arabic like this, you are an Arab.’

It all started an outside broadcast that was pure wall to wall fun. It must have been mildly irritating radio to listen to – the constant susurration of hundreds of kids around us (the OB was brilliantly located in the book sales area) will have grated after a while. But writers such as Atemis Fowl’s creator Eoin Colfer made the two hours slip by in subjective seconds. “We all used to fit in the car, I went in the trunk because I was smallest. My father used to tell us stories when we travelled, stories that would transport me to other worlds and other places. Then again, maybe it was just the exhaust fumes.”

We’re doing it again today. I hope it’s as much fun to listen to as it is to produce!

Taxi Booking in Sharjah

Image by Leo Reynolds via FlickrSharjah Transport has somewhat belatedly introduced a taxi booking service. As long suffering readers will know, we have for many years had Mr G on call - a trustworthy, if slightly forgetful, taxi driver whom we call when we need a cab. Mr G has many regular customers, but his arrangements would be potentially impacted by a call centre, another woe to add to his long list (it's hard to make money these days, the company imposes all sorts of fines, fees and other impositions and the bus service has had a huge negative impact on taxis).

Luckily, he's safe.

Sarah asked me to call 'em yesterday as she needed a cab from her school. The lady on the other end of the line took the location and told me the cab would be there in ten minutes.

"But I don't want it in ten minutes. I want it at two thirty."

"Two thirty?"

"Yes. Two thirty." (This was beginning to sound like a radio ad)

"Then why not call two fifteen?"

"Because I want to make a booking. You know, book a cab."

"We not take booking. You should to call two fifteen."

"But you're a taxi booking call centre. What earthly use are you if you don't take bookings?"

"Yes, we not take booking. You call ten minutes before you are need taxi."

"What if I can't? What if I will be in a classroom? What if I believed in a world where taxi booking call centres took bookings? What if I need a taxi to take me to the airport at 5am or from a remote location late at night?"

"*sigh*. Okay, mister. I make note and send taxi two thirty, okay?"

"Really?"

"Yes. Okay? Thank you goodbye."

2.30 came and went. A taxi, of course, did not.

Only in Sharjah, where all the roundabouts are squares, can you look forward to a taxi booking service that doesn't take bookings. Mr G's financial future is thus assured.

Jazirat Al Hamra

We happened to mention Jazirat Al Hamra on the radio yesterday and it caused quite a conversation. The whole thing was triggered by the unlikely news that there is to be a new Waldorf Astoria Hotel* in Ras Al Khaimah.

It appears that few people these days know about Jazirat Al Hamra, the little deserted village south of Ras Al Khaimah town. It's the ancestral home of the Zaabi family (or tribe) who left Ras Al Khaimah following an ongoing dispute with the ruler and were given housing in Abu Dhabi by Sheikh Zayed. Living in Abu Dhabi, the family still retained title to their houses, which stand today in the middle of the huge Al Hamra tourism and leisure development, surrounded by big hotels, golf courses and man-made lagoons. It's a sort of Freej moment, the little single-story houses surrounded by towering development.

Jazirat Al Hamra is a delight to wander around, old style coral and adobe houses with their rooms all leading off a central courtyard, often with a henna tree at its centre. When we first went there, you could still find ledgers with grocery entries and three figure telephone numbers, bric a brac and old electrical fittings in the houses, many of which were already descending slowly and elegantly into ruin. There's an old mosque there, too, its minaret a dumpy little thing in which the muezzin would stand and sing out above the rooftops - but only just, it's not very high.

The beach at Jazirat Al Hamra, now cut off from the village, used to be one of the few places where, after the first storm of the year, it was possible to find paper nautilus egg-cases, amazingly delicate little pieces of fractal beauty. The village was always on our list of tourist destinations for visitors, a little piece of the UAE's history and heritage that hadn't been tarted up, rebuilt, copied or otherwise 'updated'.

When I was talking about it on Dubai Eye, one listener, a UAE National chap called Rashid, texted in to say that everyone stayed away from Jazirat Al Hamra because of the djinn. We brought him on the phone line to talk a little more about this aspect of the village's story and he told of how the locals would tell spine-chilling stories, goading each other into a high state of fear and the young men who would stay overnight in the village as a dare. I know of other locations that enjoy a similar reputation - there's 'Swiss Cottage' in Sharjah, just across from the Al Owais Majlis by Green Park. Apparently no local would ever dream of renting the place as it has a rich reputation for housing powerful djinn. Villas here are lit around their boundaries, again apparently part of the same tradition of warding off djinn.

Across the Arab World people wear and own the blue talisman against the evil eye, nazar bonjouk in Turkish, part of a rich and deeply rooted belief in the supernatural around the region. It did rather strike me that the departing Zaabi would have seeded the rumour in their wake to ensure their village was left alone.

You don't want to mess with djinn, see.

* Can't even say 'Waldorf' without thinking about this comedy classic... Sorry about the subtitles, it was the only version I could find...

GeekFest Abu Dhabi

It's been a long time coming, but we've finally got us a GeekFest Abu Dhabi! UNorganised by Yasmin, Abbas, Hitesh and the chaps at tbreak.com, the technology, gaming and movies website, GeekFest Abu Dhabi takes place at media and creative zone TwoFour54 this Thursday, the 3rd March. Here's a link to the GeekFest Abu Dhabi website and another to the Facebook page. You can also follow @abudhabigeek on Twitter.

GeekTalks include Ali Al Saloum, the man behind askali.com, the website that aims to break down misunderstanding and cultural barriers as well as provide general information regarding the UAE for the curious. Emirati filmmaker Nayla Al Khaja is also speaking, focusing on guerilla filmmaking and how to circumvent the censor. Mark Makhoul from Kuwaiti blog 2:48AM, famously sued by Benihana Kuwait for posting his opinion regarding their restaurant, is also speaking (via Skype) on the evening. I'm supposed to be speaking as well, likely some shambling peroration on the future of publishing or the like.

There's food and drink and, if last GeekFest Dubai's Kinectathon is anything to go by, the tbreak team will be staging the Mother Of All GameFests.

Here's the Google map to TwoFour54 - GeekFest takes place at The Auditorium, Mezzanine Floor, Lime Green Building, twofour54.

We're putting on a bus to GeekFest AbuDhabi following popular demand from people at GeekFest Dubai expressed when we announced the event. If you'd like a ride to the event, it'll depart from The Shelter at around 4.30pm on Thursday and will come back when everyone wants. If you could register for the bus here, just so we have the right sized bus on hand, that'd be lovely.

The lovely peeps at the Park Rotana are offering a Dhs499 per room deal for bed and breakfast (plus taxes, note), so if you fancy sharing a lift down and a twin with a pal things get pretty affordable - details linked here.

There's also a GeekFest Abu Dhabi after-party! For those so inclined, the Park Rotana Peeps are tossing in a first drink free for Geeks turning up after GeekFest at their Coopers outlet. How can we say no?

Middle East Expert

Image via WikipediaWatching Sky News last night, I was infuriated to see, once again, a random person interviewed and billed on the strapline as a 'Middle East Expert'. It's something I hate with a passion, to the point where I got told off for talking at the TV again. Yes, I really am turning into a grumpy, spittle-flecked old bastard.

This awful, lazy habit of validating people with a label rather than a credential is a major problem with mainstream media. When we've got The Observer trotting out the canard that we need 'proper' journalists to give us more trustworthy sources of information than 'citizen journalists', we're obviously being told to sit back and trust our media, take whatever they feed us as gospel and meekly accept that someone who Sky News calls a 'Middle East Expert' is, indeed an expert. And on the Middle East, at that.

And yet that's a great deal less validation than I'd expect of a source on Twitter, say. Who says he's an expert? What's the measure of expertise? Why not give his title, which presumably would be Dean of Middle Eastern Studies at London University or Middle East Analyst at the United Nations? Or is the problem that he's a lobbyist, baker or perhaps a candlestick maker? Don't get me wrong: I don't care if he's a candlestick maker if he's making sense and putting forward a credible argument. But I still want to know what he is so I can filter my judgement of what he's got to say.

I see this process all the time myself. I'm the Group Account Director of Spot On Public Relations. I'm a PR guy. I'll accept communications consultant. Media don't like to put 'PR guy' out there against their nice, glib commentator, so they like to change my job title. I have been a 'social media expert' (ugh) and once, to my extreme, squirming embarrassment, a 'social media guru'. I have been, on many occasions a 'blogger' and even a 'prominent blogger' and, again once, a 'leading blogger'. Would you trust a 'leading blogger' or a 'PR guy'?

It's a no brainer, isn't it?

When I shot a scene for Piers Morgan in Dubai, I gave the producer my business card. On the segment, I appear in the desert with the immortal words, 'Ex-journalist and blogger' under my name. Not 'Group Account Director' or 'Public Relations Professional'. 'Ex-jounalist' neatly rubs away the vague, if evaporating taint that comes with 'blogger'.

So you can only begin to wonder at the vested interest disguised by 'Middle East Expert' or 'Defence Expert'. It infuriates me precisely because I know how very dishonest the practice is - from a media that insists on telling us that it is the only trustworthy source out there these days.

Nukes

Image via WikipediaI'm just finishing a massive rewrite/edit of Beirut that addresses a number of structural issues that get in the way of the story. So you're going to have to put up with a post about writing.

Looking back over the research I've done for the book, I'm amazed I haven't been nicked or in some other way inconvenienced by having a long talk with someone 'in security'. My Google life alone has been remarkable, including searches for all sorts of military hardware. The Soviets' Oka tactical nuclear warhead, for instance, a cold war weapon which actually remains to be decommissioned in many installations.

I've researched deadly  poisons, guns, security services and military procedures, insignias, installations and personnel, as well as how to shoot up heroin, something I have never actually done myself (an omission in an otherwise compendious experience of abusable substances) although I have lost friends to the drug. I have contemplated pretty much every security breach you’d want to imagine, trawled through sites and forums ranging from military enthusiasts to complete right wing wackos and sought out pictures, histories and specifications of all sorts of unpleasant whizzbangs. I have, in short, exhibited an unusual fascination for things deadly.

I've had to trawl around picking up information on how to do stuff as diverse as berth a 50 metre yacht in Valetta (I've spent quite a lot of time playing about with large yachts, which has been pleasant) to how best to get yourself a beer inside the UK's intelligence headquarters. I am now quite sound on the topics of blowing yourself up, shooting people and anti-psychotic drugs. I have also researched a wide number of deadly toxins using search phrases which, looking back on it, wouldn't play out too well if something happened to Sarah.

I've had a few worrying correspondences by email, too, with various subject experts. And I've had conversations on the phone about how to legally stop an aeroplane taking off (interestingly, you can't!), autorotating helicopters (interestingly, you can!) and how you'd stow nuclear warheads in a luxury yacht.
It’s none of it triggered any alarm bells anywhere as far as I can tell.

I wonder what you would have to do online to actually get someone's attention? Or have I triggered hours of clandestine investigation only for them to find it's just some wee dork who thinks he can write a book? That would be quite fun...

They Don't Make 'Em Like They Used To

Our first Pajero was 'a prize from the camel races in Qatar'. It took us a while to get over the fact that we'd just splurged the best part of twenty grand on a car - back in the UK we'd have been hard pressed to squeeze together two. That car took a huge amount of abuse, among other things it saw me through the endless desert driving and wadi bashing it took to research and put together two issues of the Emirates Weekend Offroad Guide for Khaleej Times. It had a mechanical winch, which was both a blessing and a curse - a curse because you end up winching every damn fool Corolla driver out of sandy parking lots as well as countless cars out of the desert sand. It's one of the nice things about the desert - I've long admired the real camaraderie out there, where people have always stopped to help each other in trouble, Nationals in particular exhibiting sometimes remarkable chivalry.

Our next car was a Pajero, too. And the next. We've seen the marque through five distinct model changes and have had one of each. Right up to the present day - we picked up a new Paj at the weekend. It's a very nice car indeed. This will be our third black Pajero – it’s become something of a trademark now: same car, same colour. The new model is a great deal slicker and more refined than the 2005 model that's just been retired - the engine's more powerful and responsive and  it even has a voice-activated bluetooth phone system that works.

Taking a quick hop through a popular little stretch of desert I use, I got cold feet as the terrain started to get very bouncy indeed. This was, after all, a brand new car and hadn’t even been run in. As it started to slam in the ruts, I pulled my foot off the throttle and in that instant had that nasty, cold sinking feeling you get when you realise you have done something incredibly stupid. One second later, I was nicely bogged down on the flat with stretches of nice deep, soft and flat sand to my front and back.

Super. Out with the sand spade and down with the tyre pressures. A congregation of the mildly curious started to assemble, including a local guy in mufti driving one of those ginormous black GMC thingies with every add-on you can imagine attached and most of the exhaust removed so that you are under no illusion other than this guy has got a really, big powerful mean machine.

Apparently not powerful enough to offer a tow, though...

A Pajero pulled up. Its driver sauntered over and joined GMC man in observing me. ‘You driven in the sand before, have you?’

Oh great. A comedian. Yes, thank you, I have. A lot. I just did something stupid because it’s a brand new car, so why don’t you pop off somewhere and play with some Semtex and a detonator or something…

I smiled at him, my heart black. ‘Haha. Can you give me a push?’

He and GMC man shook their heads. ‘No way. We’ll get sandy.’

I was struck dumb. I’ve spent twenty years helping people out of the sand and now I need some help, I’ve attracted the most precious gang of Priscillas going. In the end we reached a solution. Pajero man drove and I pushed. At least he gave me that much help. GMC man just stood to the side, smoking and occasionally making an unhelpful comment in Arabic.

Last night I drove across that self same stretch of sand. And there was a huge black GMC covered in accessories, irredeemably bogged down in sand up to its running boards and abandoned.

Karma is, indeed, a bitch.

ArabNet - Getting Started

Image via WikipediaI went to ArabNet in  Beirut last year with very low expectations indeed. Despite my deep fondness for Beirut, it's not a city I have traditionally associated with effective regional conferences - this would have been the first I had ever attended. I suspect that attitude is at least a product of the creeping UAE-centricity that affects so many people living here, Dubai in particular.

I also had reasonably low expectations regarding the objectives of the event. Over twenty years of working in the media and communications business here, much of that focused on the technology and telecoms industries, I have long seen a lack of innovation and entrepeneurialism - and what there was all too frequently crushed by software piracy and the often remarkable inertia of decision makers who always seem to find 'no' so much easier than 'what the hell, let's go with it'. We have so long been a retail market, too - we import everything from food and toys to ideas and software. We're massively risk-averse, a condition that is exacerbated by the criminalisation of failure in much of the region. And education, particularly in the GCC, has all too often been seen as a formal process of learning fact to obtain qualification - rather than leading to centres of innovation, research and development.

There have, of course, been some notable exceptions. But they remain exceptions rather than the rule.

All of this doom and gloom were dispelled for me by ArabNet. I spent much time wandering around with a stupid grin on my face. Over a thousand smart people in a room, speakers who had something new and fresh to say (apart from the Lebanese Minister of ICT who just doled out flaccid, worn platitudes in a wasted opportunity, just one of many that I am sure he oversees) and a mixture of youth, optimism and energy together with older, wiser heads bearing cheque books - they were all there, funds, angel investors and venture capitalists. Someone commented that this was the Middle East's dot com boom, only ten years too late. And I have some sympathy with that characterisation.

ArabNet's just around the corner - it's taking place again this year, from the 22nd-24th March. This year it's expanded to become a four day event, a two-day conference, a developer day and a 'community day'. It's billed as 'the biggest digital gathering in the Middle East' and I'd tend to support that billing, although Jordan's ICT Forum probably contends for the title. The event features an 'ideathon', where startup ideas are pitched in two minute chunks - the top three voted by the audience winning seed capital grants and also a 'startup demo', five minute pitches by startup businesses to gain early stage investment. The activity has been supported by a 7-country roadshow held by the team from event organiser IBAG, which provided workshops, mentoring and consultation with over 1500 young entrepeneurs from around the Middle East.

ArabNet is a highly connected event supported by a phalanx of bloggers, Twitterers and the like. One highly amusing aspect of last year's event was the 'Twitter walls' either side of the stage, which transformed the nature of presentation and debate on the stage. The smart young things at IBAG turned it off for the Minister's address...

Seeing this level of digital entrepeneurialsm in the Middle East is still a delight for me and, rightly or wrongly, I do see ArabNet as a sort of inflection point - there had been startups before and funds before, but the bringing together of so many last year in Beirut was a first. I have never had so many conversations with digital startups as I have over the past year, ranging from copycat websites derived from ideas that already work in Western markets through to innovations that are unique to the region. I do see this as a trend, and a strong one at that. And it's exhilarating purely because there has been such a dearth of this kind of thinking in the region in the past. You can find out more about ArabNet here.



My expectations for ArabNet this year are consequently set absurdly high. Let's see...

NEW SALIK GATES? ARGH!

Image via WikipediaGulf News today reports that a 'study' by the Dubai Roads and Transport Authority has led to them proposing two new Salik gates - one on Al Ittihad Road (AKA 'Murder Mile') and one 'in Al Ghusais' says the paper, being a tad coy about the precise location. We can only presume that 'in Al Ghusais' means 'on Beirut Street', the second major arterial road into Dubai from Sharjah. (although Damascus and 24th Streets get pretty tasty in rush hour, too)


I have to confess to finding GN's story that this proposal comes after extensive studies somewhat hard to swallow. When Salik was first 'on the anvil' to use one of GN's more memorable phrases, any study would surely have included these two routes - you don't need a study to show that Al Ittihad Road is the most congested road in the Northern Emirates and has been such for the 22-odd years I've been knocking around this place. Every morning a snarling snake of metal belches fumes and induces coronaries from the Sharjah border to Dubai, a pattern reversed every evening. In fact, the Ittihad Road traffic is actually a great deal easier these days since we lost so many people to the joys of the downturn and the bursting of the Great Dubai Property Bubble. It's even reasonably clear outside the major rush hour periods.

Similarly, Beirut Street gets pretty lousy in the rush hours but isn't too bad outside them. I've always been fond of Beirut street - it used to be the sandy shortcut I took to get to Dubai and avoid Ittihad.

Salik gates on Ittihad and Beirut will undoubtedly force traffic out to the Emirates Road (E311) and the Dubai Bypass Road (E611) where Sharjah residents will be burning three times the fuel to make the same journey. So much for the RTA's 'green' lalala...

The Emirates Road is already notorious in rush hour. In the morning, traffic backs up to the Sharjah/Dhaid road intersection, in the evenings you're starting to stop at Sonapour, the labour camp area. It's horrible - jostling, lane-swapping traffic, heavy lorries and cars vying for that little advantage, that little selfish creep ahead of the next guy's bumper. The culprit is the infamous National Paints roundabout into Sharjah where the Emirates Road narrows to three lanes from Dubai's rather more generous seven lane stretch and where the side roads introduce a tiny, but telling, clog factor with joining traffic. I do often wonder if being strongly associated with shitty traffic jams has been good, bad or neutral for the National Paints brand...

I have long had fun posting about Salik (some posts passim linked here), which has been a constant joy to me since it was first announced. The RTA, which had 'no immediate plans' to expand the scheme back in 2008 has in fact already expanded the original gates - this will be the second 'expansion' of the scheme. The pretence that Salik is about traffic management is one I find interesting given the obvious and immediate consequences of this next move (to completely stuff up the Emirates Road), especially coming as traffic volumes and congestion have reduced considerably from the heady heights of 2008. Laughably we're told by the RTA that this is because Salik has succeeded, rather than being because something like 20% of the population has nipped off home to avoid being banged up by banks bent on basking in boodle.

When examinig the motivation for expanding Salik, it's perhaps interesting to hark back to the words of 'traffic expert' Mattar Al Tayer, the RTA's Chairman, in 2007 when he predicted that Salik would one day raise revenues of Dhs600 million per year. According to GN today, it's making Dhs800 million, smashing its original target and providing, IMHO, a very real incentive to expand the scheme once again.

This move will also raise the perennial question of quite how much each journey's going to cost us. If one is to travel from Sharjah to Dubai Internet City, for instance, an additional gate would bring the current cost of the trip in tolls alone to Dhs12 (the two gates on the Sheikh Zayed Road charge as one if you pass through them immediately after the Garhoud or Maktoum Bridge gates). Will this be the case, or will we see the 'multi-gate' discount applied to the relief of drivers?

Then again, the whole proposal may just not go ahead. Ittihad Road was an obvious target for phase one of Salik and was passed over for some reason. We can only wait and see what happens this time...

Ola Abu Jarmous - Update

Many will likely remember the story of little Ola, whose sheer liveliness and spit captivated Ussa Nabulsiyeh's Sara and sparked an online fund raising effort that raised the $18,000 needed for her life-saving surgery in record time.

We got an update from the Palestine Children's Relief Fund's Steve Sosebee this morning. It reads as follows:

"I would like to update you on the status of Ola Abu Jamous from Nur Shams refugee camp in Tulkarem. Because you responded to our appeal to help us cover her expenses to go to Florence, Italy to have a tumor removed from her brain, and then to have radiation therapy for cancer, she has had what doctors there are calling a "miraculous" recovery and will be coming back to Palestine in a week of so.

As you know, we sent this beautiful child there in November with her mother, and sent her father a month later when the tumor was discovered to be cancerous. As you can see from these photos, she is still full of spirit and life, and we thank you for making this possible. I'll let you know when she gets back to Palestine. Thank you Diya Khalil for sending me these photos. I apologize for not getting photos to you sooner, but we had very little support there due to our almost nonexistent contacts in Florence. Thanks again for all of your support and help in saving this beautiful child's life."

I'm wearing a stupid grin this morning...