Submitting Your Novel To Agents

Submission
Going down, down, dragging her own
Submission
I can't tell you what I found
The Sex Pistols

Calm down, now. This is a book writing post, not a music one.

Submitting to literary agents is all part and parcel of the wonderful world of writing books. Having received something like 250 rejections, I think I've got quite good at it over the years. The process is obviously of interest to a great many people in the UAE, certainly judging by Luigi Bonomi's two sell-out sessions on getting an agent at the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature, as well as the audience questions during our 'First Fictions' panel session.

In fact, I'm still getting questions from people, so here's a potted guide. The usual caveats - I'm just giving my own views here and I'm not necessarily the best person in the world to give advice to anyone about anything, but here it is anyway.

What agents ask for

• The first 50 pages of your book printed single sided in Times 12 point, double spaced with a 0.5cm paragraph indent, not hardbound (ie slide bound or even held together with an elastic band). Each page should include the page number and the title of the novel and name of the author.
• A synopsis, no more than two pages
• A covering letter
• An SAE

What Internet savvy agents ask for

• An email with a query, synopsis and first ten pages in the body of the email, no attachments.

or

• An email with the first three chapters and synopsis as attachments.

I would generally approach any agent via email first and had actively started avoiding 'postal submisions only' agents by the time I signed with my agent.

What you need
A novel
A synopsis
A blurb
A query letter
An SAE
An international postal coupon
An Internet connection
A thick skin and a good dollop of self belief

A novel
Ideally, you should have a whole novel. Some people tell me Luigi suggested you might like to write just the first three chaps and submit to see how it goes, but I can't see that working. If an agent comes back in response to your 'partial' and asks for a 'full' you're just going to muff it by trying to write a book in a couple of weeks. Getting those 'first three' chapters into top condition requires, IMHO, the experience and editing knowledge you'll gain from writing a book.

You need around about the first fifty pages of your novel, ideally ending somewhere sensible, so if that takes 46 or 52 pages, never mind. Check them for stupid mistakes, read them out loud as if you're giving a reading to a book club and correct the text. Print it out and go through it with a red pen. Ideally, upload it to a Kindle and edit it again. Then leave it for a few days and edit it on screen. It.must.contain.no.error.

A synopsis
Distil your novel down to a few pages, then print it out. Tell that story from scratch, doing your best to make it compelling, colourful and yet true to the movement of the plot. Do not lace it with 'in character' dialogue or phrases, keep it a straightforward piece of storytelling that clearly shows the KEY elements of your plot and story as a readable, flowing document. Now cut it. You should end up with it cut down to two pages.

A blurb
Imagine you're writing the dust jacket of your book. Write it up just like that, to focus on the key 'hooks' your book has to offer. Make the language compelling. Again, read it out. Imagine it as tweets - cut out any word you don't need in there. Make it elegant. Make me, the reader, want it.

A query letter
Agents like you to play it straight and don't award marks for individuality, humour or in-character stunts. There are lots of examples of query letters on the interwebs, but the best approach is to get straight in there with a two-paragraph (max)description of your book, (Olives is a stranger abroad story set in Jordan, where journalist Paul Stokes falls love as he finds himself caught up in a series of explosions that seem linked to him) followed by a short description the target market for the book, a bit about who you are (which ideally is in some way relevant to the topic/content of your book) and a signoff. You're looking at a page, max a page and a half.


An SAE
Increasingly, agents are taking email submissions which saves a load of wasted time, paper and money. It'll cost you about dhs60 to send a wodge of 50 pages of novel and an international reply paid coupon (together with an envelope addressed to yourself which will eventually contain the photocopied rejection slip) so it's no small beer once you get above ten agents. So I would definitely query agents that take email submissions first.

Which agents to approach?
You can go through the Writers' and Artists' Yearbook for agents - try and do it intelligently and find people who represent books similar in theme, genre or essence to yours. Here's a useful free listing, but it's a wee bit out of date now and I'd buy into the W&A thing, honestly.

Look at their websites
Agents will ALWAYS have submission guidelines on their websites and you should follow these. Don't waste time and energy putting together a package that doesn't meet the guidelines of each agent, because they'll just bin submissions that don't comply. Don't forget, agents get anything up to fifty brown envelopes full of hope every single day.

Use white envelopes.

If an agent's guidelines seem unusually onerous or ridiculous move on. Don't kill yourself jumping through hoops, there are plenty other agents in the sea.

Many agents will respond to a well-written query by email (use your blurb as the core of this) and many will accept an online submission from the UAE based on that query - do try this before posting off packages, each 'yes' you win will save you the price of a copy of Olives to gift a member of your grateful family.

Don't follow up
It can take three months for an agent to respond to a submission package. Do NOT phone them to chase your submission. They don't know who the hell you are, you're just another parcel on the great big pile in reception. Your rejection will come in time, don't worry.

When you get rejected
If you get a rejection with any feedback in it, count your lucky stars. This marks you as unusual and you should take it as a huge positive sign. Take the feedback on board and resubmit - including to the agent who gave you the feedback. Don't be in a hurry to do this, take your time - and make sure you've really taken that feedback to heart.

When you get a 'full' request
A full read means an agent has enough interest in your work to spend time and/or money on your work - they'll likely have 'readers' who charge a fee to read work and give an editorial report on it. This report will not be shared with you, although you might get a couple of lines of final feedback with the 'no'.

However, you might also get a 'yes'. This is, believe me, a very good moment. Savour it, roll it around in your mouth, then swallow gratefully. It's not the end of the process, your agent's got to find a publisher and that's a whole new ballgame. But you're pretty much through the gate and standing, blinking, in the inner keep...

GeekFest Sharjah 1.0

UPDATE since the original post we've added an origami workshop by JUKI, a Technology Showcase from Nokia, an exhibition of digital photography by Azimuddin Mohammed and the world's first Indian poetry mobile application - these and GameFest details are added in below.

It’s been a slow train coming, but GeekFest is coming to Sharjah! Every GeekFest around the region has had its different ‘feel’, and Sharjah’s no exception. We’ve got art, culture and creativity at the core of the event, which promises to be a very large amount of fun and it's developing daily, too!

So mark your diaries, set your calendars and trip your alarms for 7.30pm on Thursday 22nd March AD!

First a thanks to Mr Rupert Bumfrey, who was instrumental in actually getting the event up and running, as well as doing more organising (this will surprise few who know GeekFest) than I did.

We got talks, we got workshops, GameFest and we got ‘things happening’ and there’ll be updates as we move forward, too, because there's more stuff happening every day.

The really good news is the The Al Qasba Food Festival is happening the same night at Al Qasba and we're looking forward to integrating the two events to Feed The Geeks!!!

GeekFest Sharjah 1.0 is being held at the Al Maraya Art Centre, which is on the first floor of Al Qasba in Sharjah, relatively easy to get to from Dubai even with the Thursday traffic taken into account. There's a map at the bottom of this post.

I can tell you now, GeekFest Sharjah is an Olives Free Zone. No signings, no readings, no talks about books, no books on sale. Nothing with a stone in. And certainly nothing stuffed with pimentoes.

GEEKTALKS

Taking place in Al Maraya's fabby bean-bag cinema, which is similar to the 'old Shelter' cinema space (a tad bigger, if anything), the talks as usual start at 8pm and each lasts 15 minutes sharp!

If Music be the Food of Love, Play on!
Rasha Omer is Marketing and Content Manager at creative community website TripleW, which encourages people to upload their music, photography and film for others to enjoy and sample, with three strands to the site catering to these areas – all titled ‘makshoof’ (in the open). The idea isn’t free content or pirated content – the idea is sharing talent, building reputations and exposing potential. Rasha will be talking about the site, its aims and about the burgeoning creative community TripleW is hosting. There will be music.

Confessions of a Manga Geek
Qais Sedki, married Emirati father of two, willingly gave up a career in information technology in order to pursue a passion to put entertainment to good use.  His vision was to provide original classical Arabic content, professionally produced graphic novels in Japanese manga format in order to instil a love of reading.  He set up Pageflip Publishing, an independent Dubai based publishing house to self publish his debut title, Gold Ring, which won the coveted Sheikh Zayed Book Award For Children's Literature in 2010 making him the first Emirati author to win in any category of the international prize.

Qais will be talking about manga, what defines it, its origins, and will be sharing his experience of trying to make a difference through reading. There will be cartoons.

A new level in art
Responsible for digital strategy at Ogilvy One, Alexandra Tohme is a Geeka with a fascination for community development, collaboration and the power of crowds working together to do better stuff. March is the month of art. Art Dubai, Sikka Art Fair and the statement that Dubai Properties Group has partnered with Dubai Culture to deliver an "Outdoor Art Project" at Business Bay
(see http://www.ameinfo.com/292544.html )

Alex's idea is taking public art to the next level using technology to enhance the experience. In her talk she wants to give her ideas on using augmented reality, gamification and soundscapes to deliver the next generation of art and hopes to inspire the audience to work with her on an ambitious new project. There will be collaboration.

What was Sharjah like in 1937?
One of the most memorable living documents of Sharjah’s pre-oil history is the documentary film Air Outpost, made by London Films for Imperial Airways in 1937 and focusing on the desert airport of Sharjah – complete with ‘fanatical Wahhabi Muslims’. Among many other claims to fame, this important film is the first ‘proper’ documentary as well as laying claim to be the first ever corporate video.  His interest sparked by obtaining an early copy of the film in the 1990s, Alexander McNabb has long studied the Imperial Airways story and will share the incredible tale of the network that linked an Empire. There will be a screening of the film and there will be popcorn.

TECHNOCASES

Old 'friends of GeekFest' Nokia will be on hand to talk about mobiles, maps and all things app-related as they showcase the latest from Planet Nokia and the Nokia team will be around to answer your questions, chat to you about what they're planning and generally join in the fun.

GAMEFEST

Comes to you powered by those nice chaps at tbreak and megamers - we'll once again be hosting some sort of screaming fragathon for the hardcore gaming nuts (bring a laptop) while the chaps have promised to bring some more general public friendly gaming fun of a more Kinect sort of nature. Please, once again, do not feed the gamers. They get a healthy diet and really do have to learn not to bite.

WORKSHOPS AND STUFF

10 Tips for Shooting with Retouching in Mind
Renowned photographer and digital manipulator of things Catalin Marin – as well as the man behind uber-popular photoblog Momentary Awe will be conducting a 45 minute hands-on workshop to look at how you can optimise your digital photography to make the most of the sophisticated retouching tools today’s digital artist has to hand. Places for this workshop are limited, so please do hit Catalin up on Twitter and reserve your seat!

The Great GeekFest Sharjah Origami Workshop
The team from JUKI, the Japan UAE Kizuna Initiative, will be on hand to share their origami skills in a workshop designed to harness your creativity, tantalise your tastebuds and satisfy your senses! Learn about the art of origami and how to make something more interesting than paper planes with your own two hands as well as taking a chance to talk to the JUKI guys about their fund raising for victims of Japan's tsunami and earthquake.

The Book Shelter
Has its home at Al Maraya Centre - so bring your old books to add to the Book Shelter collection and feel free to take a bunch of books away with you! There'll be a reading corner on the night for committed bookworms.

We're just in the middle of confirming more workhops and a number of other things, events and happenings, so watch this space!

Orientalism
In concert with the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, Sharjah Museums is hosting an important exhibition of the works of orientalist Owen Jones, the Victorian architect and designer whose studies of the AlHambra led to the flowering of orientalist art and brought influences and ideas to influence British design throughout the C19th. These ideas percolated throughout the century and can still be seen in the works of later influential Victorian artists such as William Moore and trickling into Art Deco.

Ibrahim El Salahi, the picture maker, was born in 1930 in Omdurman, in the Sudan. He is best known as the pioneer of modern African art, whose seminal work ‘The Inevitable’ has been called ‘Africa’s Guernica’. El-Salahi aimed to blend Arabic, Nubic, Coptic and European elements with one another and was one of the first modern artists to incorporate Arab calligraphy into his works, using it both as a means of communication and as purely aesthetic form.

Fatima Musharbak, Noor Karmustaji and Asma Makram from the Sharjah Museums Department will be on hand along with displays of work from the Owen Jones and Ibrahim El Salahi exhibitions, both of which open next week.

Azimuddin Mohammed
Poet, writer, Freelancer artist/ designer, photographer & creative director – musafirs (Mohammed Azimuddin) will be showing slideshows of his work, a combination of images from and around Sharjah as well as studies from further afield.

Mujeeb Jaihoon
Indian poet Mujeeb Jaihoon will be demonstrating his innovative 'poetry app', iJaihoon at GeekFest - it's available on Apple and Android and is the world's first app for Indian poetry! More here!

The Map Of  The Place Of The GeekFest

View Larger Map

If you need any other information, just shout! Here's the Al Maraya website, too! You can follow @geekfestdubai on Twitter, btw, or find us on Facebook here.

Social Crimes

Image via CrunchBase

It must be me, but Gulf News seems more and more crammed with court reports than anything else these days and they're certainly coming thick and fast. From the Afghan charged with slashing a Range Rover tyre in a bid to steal $4m ("I am not guilty. I didn't use any sharp tool to puncture the tyre. I never tried to steal anything" he told the court, channelling Vicky Pollard) to the Bangladeshi kidnap and brothel case and the employee demanding Dhs3 million compensation for his false dismissal, the tales of crime and counter-crime are certainly stacking up. Today's paper also features two 'social crimes'...

Notable among the other tales of wickedness are the continuing Twitter trial, the man who's been held since February 19th for Tweets that cursed Dubai Chief of Police, Dhahi Khalfan Tamim. Claiming he's being held in solitary confinement, coerced and pressured, the man lodged a special plea to have the police chief attend the court and give a statement. The plea was denied and judgement in the case will be issued on April 1st. Someone's got a sense of humour.

Another court report in today's packed schedule deals with the worker and housemaid whose 'love flowered after they met on Facebook' and who are consequently being charged with having consensual sex out of wedlock. This is something taken seriously here in the UAE and they're being jailed for two months and then deported. Apparently the couple chatted for two weeks on Facebook and then fell in love, the consummation of this passion taking place at the housemaid's sponsor's villa and, although Gulf News doesn't mention it, presumably their subsequent interruption by a scandalised sponsor wondering what all the noise was.

Give people technology and they find all sorts of interesting and different ways to use it, no?

Publish to Promote: The EAFOL Self Publishing Workshop

This is for those happy souls who attended my workshop on self publishing and promotion at the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature.

For a start, here's a link to the PDF of the presentation I promised y'all. It's over here for your downloading.pleasure.

Here's a blog search for articles on self publishing I've posted in the past.

Here's a link to the 'How to write a book' post I mentioned.

Here's a sniffy post on Territorial Rights.

Significant things I mentioned were editorial services from Bubblecow - Mr Gary Smailes runs this respected editorial shop and you can ask him about the name, not me. My editor on Olives was Robb Grindstaff.

Amazon's Kindle site, Kindle Direct Publishing is simply www.kdp.com and the conversion software you need is MobiPocket Creator. For booky books (and for the record, esteemed moderator Paul Blezard made a rare slip with his Russell Brand gag, Brand's biography was 'My Booky Wook') you can use Createspace (www.createspace.com) and for other ebook formats, www.smashwords.com. These aren't by any means the only options and do feel to explore (and recommend in comments) other platforms. They're simply the ones I used.

Do, of course, feel free to buy a copy of Olives and check if the quality of self published books is 'up to it' - and if you think it's not, by all means feel free to let me know, I have no problems with having that discussion, honestly!

I'll happy respond to questions in comments or at @alexandermcnabb, of course. Thanks for being there, paying all that money and not throwing tomatoes and things!

Alexander

Demolishing Dubai's Red Lion

Red Lion (Photo credit: hchalkley)

The Metropolitan Hotel, one of Dubai's oldest hotels, is to be demolished and the Red Lion, one of the city's oldest places for the selling and consumption of foamy-topped and other beverages will go with it. Built in 1979, the hotel has long been an odd accretion of new wings, attempts to add facelifts, modernisations and additions - there's no doubt it's looking a tad jaded today.

But the Red Lion! Back in the day, the police used to wait outside at New Years and stop anyone attempting to drive away, take their car keys and give 'em a lift home. The keys were waiting for them at the copshop the next morning. A more innocent time, no? There was the Red Lion and the George and Dragon at the Ambassador and precious little else.  The Red Lion is really something of an institution.

I can't say I'm a regular, anything but. However I can't help feeling the passing of the 'outlet' as more of a wrench than the passing of the hotel itself. The reason the two are linked, by the way, is that 'outlets for the sale and dispensation of beverages' in the UAE can't be 'freehold', they have to be part of a hotel. The exception to this is in Sharjah, where they can't be at all as Sharjah is 'dry', apart from the members-only Sharjah Wanderers sports and social club.

Similarly, the reason for my slightly odd language in this post is that it is tradition and practice that we don't mention words such as 'pub' or 'booze'. Alcoholic drinks are 'beverages' or, if you're advertising one of Dubai's infamous all-in brunches, 'bubbly' or 'red and white'. We're a tad precious like that.

I'm not sure if the Red Lion qualifies as Dubai's oldest 'outlet' - even I'm not that old. But it's had its (fish and) chips now. Ah, well. That's progress I suppose... 

First Fictions

Richard Pierce-Saunderson's first published novel, Dead Men, which charts the last days of 'Scott of the Antarctic' is being published by Duckworth. As I'm doing a panel session at the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature focusing on how authors found their route to publication, I thought it would be interesting to explore Richard's story and look at how he took 'Dead Men' all the way to the hallowed shelves of your local bookshop.

So, you’re off on a blog tour of the world. Why stop over in the Middle East?
 You’ve got a different circle of readers to me. I want to extend my reach, so to speak. And then you sent me an article about the UK Ambassador to Lebanon hosting a dinner to commemorate the centenary of Scott getting to the South Pole, which contained a reference to Maxime Chaya from Lebanon, who’s retraced Scott’s footsteps to the Pole, or some of them anyway. And given Dead Men is about Scott’s last days, I found the connection too much to pass by!

What do you mean some of them?
No-one’s ever completed that journey from Scott’s base at Cape Evans to the South Pole and back on foot. That’s about 1,800 miles.

Oh.
Quite


So. First fictions. Let's start where we met, on the Authonomy writers’ web site back in late 2007. Tell me why you ended up there in the first place.
My wife found it for me, actually. The Guardian reported in September that it had come out of beta, and that it was open to the public. It was pitched as a chance to get your work in front of Harper Collins editors, and a place where writers might expect to improve their skills. So I joined, with a book I’d written some years before, called Bee Bones. I didn’t really expect much, to be honest. And for someone who’d been banging on the locked doors of the publishing industry for years it seemed like a last throw of the dice, before chucking in the writing lark and focusing on day job and family for the last years of my life.

Did it teach you anything?
It did, actually, and not just about writing.

Explain.
You know, writers are odd people. They’re desperate to share their words, to get them printed on someone else’s paper at someone else’s expense (and for their gain), but when it comes to marketing themselves, they’re actually clueless. What I learned then, in 2008, is that if we want something, we have to go for it.

What we called shameless plugging, back on Authonomy...
Exactly that. The community there was fairly light-hearted, as I recall it, and you and Simon Forward and I used to play these silly games where we’d try to plug our books in a subversive sort of way, rather than spamming people to come and read them. It meant we devised all sorts of subtle (and mostly humourous) strategies which might drive readers to our books. The thinking needed for those stratagems has stood me in good stead, I think. And it stopped me from packing in writing, stopped me from giving up, because it made me feel like I did have somethinig to say. I don’t know if you feel the same way.

Well, Olives has been published.
There you are then. Part of not giving up was also to grow a thick skin, and to be able to deal with criticism.

Just ignore it, you mean?
No, no, the opposite, in fact. It’s when we’ve not yet developed thick skins as writers that we tend to ignore any criticism of our writing, and skim over advice that could actually make us better writers. Personally, I tend to find that it’s the writers who deflect criticism or call it invalid who are those who are producing sub-standard work. Developing a thick skin means taking all criticism seriously, but learning not to take it personally, and to understand that writing is very subjective.

You’d not learned that before then?
No, I hadn't! Anyway, within the first couple of weeks of being on there, I’d asked for, and got, a long review from an American guy, which basically recommended that I scrap Bee Bones because the plot was faulty, and because it was totally unbelievable.

That must have been a bit of a blow.
In one way, yes. In another, no. He made some valid points about how the book might have been differently structured, which I think I used when I rewrote it. But after about half a day’s grieving, I decided that his core criticism was just his opinion, that the book could stand, and so I left it up there. I’ve still got a copy of that review somewhere.

Do you think it informed your subsequent writing? Because Bee Bones hasn’t been published, has it?
It did inform what I’ve done since. And no, Bee Bones hasn’t been published – yet. There are two versions of it now. But, and this is perhaps the most important point, that book was actually the key to Dead Men getting published.

How so?
I sent Bee Bones to Peter Buckman, the guy who agented Slumdog Millionaire, after Harper Collins had reviewed the book on Authonomy and turned it down (it got to Number one at the end of October 2008, as you know).

I know, I was in the Top Five with you the same month.
I thought I’d let you get that one in. But not with Olives.

No, it was a funny book called Space. Still unpublished, too. Anyway, we digress.
Right, Peter read the first three chapters of Bee Bones and an extended synopsis, but didn’t take it on. He said it was a good book, but too midlist (ie no chance of selling really, really well). I asked him if I could send him my next book when I finished it and he said yes. I had, in the meantime, started Dead Men after coming back from the Antarctic, and after getting lots of encouragement to write another book from my friends on Authonomy. So, when I’d finished the book after 6 months (and some helpful comments from people), I sent it to Peter. Two 3-hour phone calls, five weeks, and a massive edit (from 113k words down to 85k) later, he asked me if I’d sign for him.

It’s taken four years to get it published?
That’s the thing, though. Everyone thinks you’ve made it as soon as you get an agent, because that part is ball-breakingly difficult, but I had to wake up and smell the coffee, because getting an agent’s only the start. Peter made a massive effort to sell the book to mainstream publishers, but nearly all of them, without exception, quoted the market place as being too difficult to try to sell a new author into with such a complex book. Some of the feedback we had included “A few years ago I may well have offered, but it’s so inhospitable out there in the markeplace”, and “It’s an impressive and really quite brave novel; an ambitious and complex novel.” But still nothing, until the lovely independent Duckworth came along and took it on at the end of summer last year. To an extent that extended selling process was more depressing and discouraging than being constantly knocked back by agents, and one that led me, on more than one occasion, talking to Peter about self-publishing.

But you didn’t go that route?
Peter persuaded me to be patient. Also, I have self-published poetry, and in all honesty I’m just too lazy to do all the marketing gruntwork self-publishing involves.

So Duckworth are doing all the hard work for you?
They have arranged some events for me, and I’ve arranged others. But my mind-set’s different now. I just hate doing admin stuff, and to have someone who points me in the right direction is really helpful, because I’m one of the most disorganised blokes in the world. Now that we’ve got events set up, I’m desperate to do more, and not too lazy to catch trains from one end of the country to another. In fact, if any airline wants to sponsor me to tour the US and Australia and New Zealand, I’d gladly do that, too.

You’re obviously bonkers, and still on that shameless plugging trip.
Now that a third party’s put time and money into editing, typesetting and printing my book (and converting it into Kindle and Kobo format), I suppose I am.

So, what next?
The Kindle version of Dead Men is already available, although I am trying to encourage people to use their local bookshops instead. The physical book comes out on 15th March, although there’s a rumour that the Natural History Museum in London might be putting it on their shelves in the week starting 5th March. I just hope it sells lots of copies.

So, many congratulations are in order. Have you bought your celebratory copy of Olives yet?
Erm...

Here's a link to 'First Fictions' at the LitFest, which you can still buy tickets for at the amazing, knock-down price of Dhs65 and which even includes a seat!

And this here is your very own link to Richard's debut novel, Dead Men, which you can pre-order from Amazon or snap up on Kindle.

And here, last but by no means least, is a link for Richard to buy Olives ... >;0)

We Are All Publishers

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

We are all many things. You can be an oil executive, commuter, father of three or violent crime victim to journalists, depending on whether they're quoting you on oil prices, late trains, the joys of parenting or the nasty gash in your cheek.

Today, all four of the UAE's English daily newspapers report on a lawsuit filed against a 'tweeter' for insulting the Chief of Dubai police, Dahi Khalfan Tamim. I thought that was interesting. If he'd insulted Mr Tamim by phone, would the papers have called him a phoner?

So what makes Twitter so special? Well, this is the first lawsuit filed by a public official in Dubai against someone using Twitter. It's illegal to insult ('curse') a government employee in the UAE, the offense carries a maximum Dhs30,000 ($8,000-odd) fine or three year jail sentence. So the chap in question, an Emirati gentleman, is potentially in quite serious trouble - defamation is something taken very seriously here in the UAE and, actually, in the region as a whole.

It's yet another reminder that despite the access we have to the wonderful playground that is social media, these platforms are public places and subject to the law in the same way any other public pronouncement would be. While the authorities struggle (or fail to get to grips with) with the nature of these platforms and quite what 'publishing' is in the digital age, the platform owners are quite clear - Facebook, Twitter, Google et al are providing a platform onto which YOU publish content. In putting content 'up' on these sites, you are taking on the responsibility of a publisher.

(It's one reason why my money's on strange German internet maverick kim.com in his case against Uncle Sam in a New Zealand court - his website, megaupload, was a 'platform' for people to use, his lawyer is expected to argue. So the responsibility for copyright infringement that took place on the site would be the users' not Kim's.)

The defendant and Kim.com actually have something in common - both have been refused bail, in the case of the Emirati gentleman, he's been in Al Slammer since February 19th and has had his case adjourned to March 11th. (Kim.com was eventually granted bail, BTW). By that time, he'll have spent three full weeks in custody as a result of his tweets.

Whatever the context of the story, you can bet one thing. These days, we are all publishers.

Playing with Evi

So you've got an Android phone and you're jealous of those iPhone wielding pin-heads who are rattling around saying stupid things to Siri and getting wildly amusing responses, right?

Be green no more. For now we have Evi, the AI-driven personal assistant for Android phones that not only says funny stuff when you ask her to open the pod bay doors, but is also more Euro-centric (well, UK-centric, let's admit it) than Siri and also answers questions directly from her own databases rather than constantly pointing you to search engines as an answer.

Apple has already threatened to remove the iPhone version of Evi from its AppStore as it is "Confusingly similar to Siri" (or possibly just too good). This is obviously no problem for Android users, as their very own mobile operating system was considered so strongly to be 'confusingly similar' to Apple's own operating system.

Best of all, Evi works, although she sounds a lot more robotic than Siri:

What is the square root of 69?
The square root of 69 is 8-some - more accurately 8.30662386292.

Why did the chicken cross the road?
The chicken was on her way to the rail station. I told her there was a train to London leaving in 10 minutes.


What time is it in Beirut?
The time in Beirut is 10:16:58 Eastern European Time.

Where's the nearest McDonald's?
I couldn't find anywhere suitable, so here's Yelp results for McDonald's in your nearest town, Dubai.

Open the pod bay doors, Evi. (Well, I had to, didn't I?)
I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.

What do you think of Siri?
Siri is a great product in the iPhone4S. it controls the phone and retrieves information from Wolfram Alpha and Yelp in the US. But my technology differs. While Siri uses technology Apple got from Siri Inc, I use technology developed by True Knowledge. These technologies work in completely different ways. I'm also available on most Android phones and most iPhones and soon will be available on other channels. You can talk to me with voice or keyboard. Siri is only on the iPhone 4S and you must use voice.

How many calories are there in a Snickers bar?
There are 467 calories in 100 grams (3.53 ounces) of Snickers bar.

Evi is available on the Android market and is a free download. You can thank me for the time you wasted playing about with Evi later...

Speed - Emirati Style

Image via Wikipedia

Gulf News today reports on the story of an Emirati motorist who was rescued by Abu Dhabi police after the cruise control on his Japanese 4WD jammed on the Al Ain Highway. He'd set the control at 160kph and called emergency after realising that it had not only jammed but also jammed the brakes. Three patrol cars from Abu Dhabi police surrounded him, one in front to clear the road and one either side of him in case he lost control. Meanwhile police operations tried to keep him calm and talk him around to a solution which was, eventually, to apply the handbrake to bring the speeding car to a halt.

Apparently one piece of help the police were able to give him was to tell him to secure his seatbelt. I'd have fined him for that one, for starters...

It took 45 minutes in all to bring the situation under control.

The GN report is all very breathless, but as usual fails to answer the one BIG question that any mildy questing reader would surely ask.

Why didn't he just turn the ignition off and coast to a stop under manual steering and braking?

Exeter Medical Center And Comment Spam

40+60 Feet, Euw. (Photo credit: bark)

Channelling Victor Meldrew, I don’t believe it.

I’ve been comment spammed! By the Exeter Medical Center, which is apparently a medical institution in Abu Dhabi. For some reason, a random drooling clot within that organisation thought it would be a great idea to leave this comment on my post way back about the UAE health check. The comment is about feet rather than heads, which is odd because I could have sworn only someone resident within a gated medical institution specialising in the psychologically challenged would have thought comment spamming blogs was appropriate behaviour.

Directors’ Welcome
Friends and Colleagues,
Exeter Medical Center is a specialized Orthopaedic Center based in Abu Dhabi, the fast growing capital of United Arab of Emirates. Aligning with the UAE vision to continually improve healthcare services, EMC has been developed to provide world-class care in Orthopaedics.
In our dedication to provide Orthopaedic Healthcare Professionals with the latest advances in knowledge and training, Exeter Medical Center in association with the Edinburgh Foot & Ankle Unit, would like to invite you to join global leaders and colleagues from around the world in the fascinating city of Abu Dhabi for the Abu Dhabi International Foot & Ankle Symposium in Sheraton Hotel Abu Dhabi – UAE on February 23rd and 24th, 2012.
http://footanklesymposium.blogspot.com

The Abu Dhabi International Foot and Ankle Symposium? Are you fatheaded spam-dumping gargoyles for real? Why would you think it appropriate to paste a notice about it as comment spam on my blog? Whatever next? Are you going to start wallpapering people’s cars with this breathless announcement? Perhaps tattooing people’s children with it, maybe on the forehead? Maybe you can make the above announcement into a t-shirt and have poor people wander the streets wearing it? You could staple it to people’s dogs. Or just kettle shoppers in supermarket aisles and shout foot messages at them?

How would you like it if I turned up in the middle of your stupid foot-fest and started handing out leaflets saying ‘Read Fake Plastic Souks, it’s good for your feet’? Or took over the microphone on your stage, grabbing it from some random toe-tickler to announce a special foot-lovers day on my blog? Maybe if I turned up at the inevitable (and under-attended) press conference you’re going to hold to talk toes and ‘this little piggy goes to market’ and told the media that Fake Plastic Souks was an official media partner of your festival of ponderous pediatric posturing?

You wouldn’t think that was so clever, would you?

So why did you think it was clever to dump comment spam on a blog, you parboiled cretins?