Masafi - Greenwash or just a spin cycle?

Image via WikipediaI have been a happy Masafi customer for over 20 years now. I can remember when the stuff used to come in vinyl bottles (Crumbs, vinyl! What were we all thinking back then?) even. A friend who is an analytical chemist did an analysis of the UAE's bottled waters and consequently would only ever buy or drink Masafi.

Me too. It's a brand I have incredible faith and trust in.

Reaching for the green-handled six-pack at Spinneys today, I found myself lifting a jute bag with not six but eight bottles - a green gift from Masafi! Good stuff, chaps. I'm mildly supportive of green things (although have to confess this comes with an almost irresistible urge to flick tree huggers' nipples) and thought this was a good idea.

Turns out the extra two bottles are free. Daft, really, I'd have bought the 8-pack happily. Does Masafi, easily the premium brand in this market (discounting madly expensive imports like Evian or Voss) really face competitive pressures sufficient to necessitate a 25% giveaway and a free jute bag? I'd say not, but then I'm perhaps an unusually  loyal punter.

It turns out when I get home, that they're actually a six-pack that's been shrink-wrapped in 'ordinary' plastic, rather than the normal bio-degradeable packaging. The extra two bottles have been Sellotaped to the six pack. This makes the whole lot very hard indeed to get out of the snug-fitting jute bag, which is just the right size to squeeze eight bottles into. Then you have to unpeel the two taped bottles, which leaves a big sticky band around them. Trying to lift the wrapped bottles, the shrink-wrapping burst leaving me having a wee sweary in the middle of a muddle of rolling water bottles.

It all left me thinking, rather irritably, why didn't they just put the eight damn bottles straight into the jute bag  (which, by the way isn't a 100% jute bag and appears to contain quite a bit of plastic in itself) and save all the wrapping and packaging? Because in the end, the whole bundle isn't very green at all - in fact, arguably less 'green' than the standard six pack wrapped in biodegradable plastic.

I thought it an unusual misstep from a company whose marketing has never been less than deft...

Bankers - A reprise

I think we might get into an iterative link loop here, as this excellent piece on the maladroit gibbering gumboils over at HSBC by the Kipp Report links back to this very self same blog. But hey, don't let that stop you nipping over and enjoying a rattling good read about other peoples' experiences with the bank that likes to say 'Ugh', or noting the large and growing number of Facebook likes etc etc.

I enjoyed doing this little blog search and reading the results. Their wee ears must have been burning over the years...

In related news, I have man-flu and so it's a miracle I've posted anything at all this week.

Reconciled

I am delighted to be able to report my mobile and the car are now reconciled. The last three days have been an absolute hell of long snitty silences on the road. I don't know what sparked this awful long-running marital, but every journey has been a miserable stretch of yawning quietude.

Let me explain. The new car is wired up for Bluetooth, and it works. The last three words are the critical ones. Once you've paired a mobile with the car, you can program in your contacts or just say a number to have the mobile call that number. This is not new, but it's new to my Pajero - and the voice recognition is competent to the point where it never misses. It's sad, I know, but I still get delighted when technology actually, you know, works.

So when you hop into the car and press the little button, a rather fetching female voice says, 'Link system ready. Alex's mobile is connected.' You might say 'Sarah' and then she'll pipe up, 'Dialling Sarah' and you're away.

I have got used to this very quickly indeed - I've never had a competent hands free system - I've tried, and junked, Bluetooth devices before, including the little ear-mounted microwave ovens. So you can imagine when, the other day, the car started ignoring the phone I was worried, vexed and quite quickly in a state bordering distraught.

I tried re-pairing the phone, but they simply refused to try and put things behind them. I tried restarting everything I could find to restart. And eventually yesterday I made one last desperate attempt after spinning my tale of silent woe during a chat with young Jonathan Castle and found an obscure setting in the phone that had somehow been toggled off. I still have occasional iterative feedback loop fail sessions with the Android interface which result in me threshing around in menus and options so many people of my acquaintance have now got used to receiving random calls from me or messages that offer the chance to smite the bungalow with a bratwurst or some such gobbledygook.

So they're talking again and all is well with the world. The relief is not inconsiderable.

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.