The Emirates ID Card Confusion Continues

clarity matters"" (Photo credit: atinirdosh)

EIDA, the Emirates ID Authority, has established a remarkable track record of communication since its very inception. Many's the time I have posted about this deadline and that requirement being countered by that requirement and this deadline. Nothing has ever been terribly clear since the get go, if you don't mind me saying so.

And it remains oblique, opaque, obtuse and generally obfuscated. Today we have two reports in our newspapers. Well, news media - as one, Emirates 24x7, is not technically a paper anymore, having sublimed and become a being of pure energy.

Gulf News, then, is first to punch its grateful subscribers' eyeballs with a typically hard-hitting headline:

Millions of expat employees in UAE to save ID card costs biennially

The story, linked here for your viewing pleasure, is quite unequivocal:

"Millions of expatriate employees in the country can save the cost of over Dh200 for ID card renewal every two years, thanks to a new move by the Emirates Identity Authority (Emirates ID). Sponsors have to bear the costs of national ID cards of their expatriate employees, according to a top official."

And so on. It's quite clear, no beating around the bush. Our sponsors have to pay for our ID cards and take responsibility for the same - presumably extending to late renewal penalties (not cleared up in the story, but we can wait for clarity. God knows, we've waited since 2008.)

But what's this, in Emirates 24x7?

Rule to let sponsors bear expats' ID card cost under study: Eida

Hang on a cotton-pickin' moment there. 'Under study' doesn't mean 'new move', now does it? Emirates 24x7 goes on to add awful clarity to the assertion that this is no done deal but a 'move under the anvil' as Gulf News would have itself put it.

“We are considering the proposal to make it mandatory for sponsors to pay for the ID cards of their employee, but it has not been finalised. It is currently left for the companies to decide whether they want to pay the cost,” an Eida spokesperson told Emirates 24/7. No timeframe was, however, given on when the directive would be issued.

So has Gulf News jumped the gun, or Emirates 24x7 simply got it wrong? Or has EIDA told two different reporters two different things? Or perhaps told them both the same thing in terms so confusing they've come away with two different stories entirely?

We await, with a feeling of remorseless, crushing deja vu, clarification.

A Proper Author

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I'm not a proper author, but I'm feeling like one this month. I've just finished our Umbrella Series workshops at The Archive and now it's the LitFest week of madness. I'm going on Dubai One TV today to record a programme for tomorrow, radio tomorrow to talk about the blogging panel on Thursday, then I've got the LitFest moderator's briefing later in the day followed by the author's dinner.

Flash! Flash! Flash! Sweetie!

Then there's the blogger's panel Thursday, with its highly luminary guests. I'm co-hosting a special show on Dubai Eye Radio from the LitFest on Friday from 1-3pm directly following that, Kamal Abdel Malek and I are hooning around onstage in our own session (followed by - ha - a signing session!). Saturday I get to interview Anissa Helou. Following all that I'm giving a talk at Zayed University on the role of narrative next week and then in April I'll be doing a 'More Talk' about telling stories at More Cafe and then joining a panel on self-publishing at the Abu Dhabi Book Fair on the 25th.

You'd almost think I was a proper author, but I'm merely masquerading. It's a load of fun, for sure, but a proper author would be making money out of all this. I'm just losing the stuff. Don't get me wrong - not a shred of regret in the air around here.

Scratch An Al Fahidi Cultural Neighbourhood, Find A Bastakiya

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There's been a rash of renamings over the past couple of years. Satwa's Al Diyafah Street has been renamed December 2nd Street (December 2nd being the UAE's National Day, marking the establishment of the Emirates, formerly British protectorate the Trucial States, in 1971), the Emirates Road has been redubbed the Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Road. And Bastakiya is no more.

Changing nomenclature is part of the scenery around here. Business Bay Bridge was originally called the Ras Al Khor Crossing and, of course, the Burj Khalifa was long intended to be the Burj Dubai.

Sometimes the name changes mark new futures or obliterated pasts - Jumeirah Beach was long known as Chicago Beach after the Chigaco Construction Company, which had its compound there - and Sharjah's Mothercat Roundabout was similarly named after a company compound, although the usage has largely lapsed. Naming places after nearby landmarks is part of the tradition of directing people by sending them from landmark to landmark, a habit born of the lack of early street names. National Paints, for instance, has lent its name to the infamous roundabout/interchange much as Staples Mattresses lent their name to London's Staples Corner. There's less and less need for that kind of thing these days as we use our mobiles to search for places and get directions from dispassionate avatar voices. Which is a shame, it was all part of, well, the colour of living here.

Now Bastakiya, with its crumbling barjeels now restored to their former glory, has been renamed the Al Fahidi Historical and Cultural Area. Home to the Emirates Literature Festival's Dar Al Adab, the area is a little warren of adobe buildings and paved walkways, barasti roofs and cool rooms lined with cushioned diwan seating, funky little hotels, tea shops and galleries. In this weather, it's a delightful place for a stroll in the sun or a cold fruit juice in the shade.

Shame about the name, but then that's progress, isn't it? Or something like that...

Come With Me From Jerusalem

Kamal Abdel Malek and I are sharing the stage at the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature in a session entitled 'Tales of Two Cities' on Friday the 8th March from 3pm. The session's name reflects the fact Kamal's novel is set in Jerusalem and my latest is, at least in part, set in Beirut. Tickets for that session are moving fast I'm told and can be got here. We're both pretty lippy, so it's going to be fast, furious and fun for sure.

I first met Kamal a couple of years ago at the LitFest. He's an intelligent, engaging and thoroughly likeable character who loves nothing more than good-natured disputation and banter. He's also a talented writer - published conventionally as an academic author, he took the decision to go straight to self-publication with his first novel, Come With Me From Jerusalem - a love story recounting the adventures of Egyptian Copt Sami, who becomes the first Egyptian student to study in Jerusalem after the 1979 peace treaty and  falls in love with American Jewess Lital. When Sami is accused of murdering a call-girl, his and Lital's love is tested beyond reason.

I'm still reading it - it's an amazing book I am thoroughly enjoying. Kamal's work mixes elegant prose and strong characters with real 'voice' and a narrative that hooks you by the nose and drags you forwards. It's wilfully different, witty and well observed and, thank God, avoids those 'obvious' pitfalls of books that attempt to give a new treatment to the Arab/Israeli narrative.

So I thought I might have a chat with Kamal prior our session and perhaps take the opportunity to highlight  that today's McNabboGram emailer carries a FREE copy of the ebook of Come With Me From Jerusalem - even before its official launch! There are more specials in store, so if you didn't sign up before, you might want to get clicking on this here link to sign up to the McNabboGram!

Onto a chat with Kamal:

What made you decide to put your heart and soul into a work of fiction after a lifetime of academia? 
I have two answers: one modest and the other arrogant. The modest answer is this: the life of the academic is austere in many ways; he spends years poring over research topics, writing papers and books in as objective a manner as is humanly possible. These writings are by and large of interest to him and at best a handful of other academics, so he decides to try his hand at something else, something less objective and more personal, something that is not engendered from the brain cells but from the folds of one’s own guts. This can be a liberating exercise.

The arrogant answer is this: well, Kamal, my man, if you are so good at chess, you can be equally good at swimming, besides, you’ve got a talent in the use of the English language; glib and quite the raconteur at parties, impressive and attention-grabbing as you exhibit with ease your storytelling wares. Yes, English is not your native tongue but English was not the native tongue of Gibran and Nabokov, and before them Joseph Conrad, and look how they fared! So one day three years ago, I said to myself, “Kamal my man, just do it!”

What is Come With Me From Jerusalem about? Not the plot, but the substance, the essence of the book. What are you trying to achieve through this story? 
Come with Me from Jerusalem tells the story of Sami, the first Egyptian student in Israel, who falls in love with Jewish classmate Lital. Sami’s life is shattered when he finds himself arrested and tried for the murder of a Tel Aviv call girl. Only a miracle can save him from a certain life sentence as he and Lital come together, offering hope for reconciliation and a shared future.

So what does this really mean? As an Arab novel, Come with Me from Jerusalem is unique in many ways. It is perhaps the first novel by an Egyptian author which presents a Christian Copt and a Jewish woman as the main characters; minority figures are all of a sudden placed in the center of action, in the spotlight of drama. The setting is Jerusalem, not Cairo or Alexandria, not an Egyptian village or an oasis, and in the novel Jerusalem is viewed in a different light, not as a holy city but as a livable city with streets and cafes and rundown houses with TV antennas burgeoning on their roofs like alfalfa sprouts.

Besides, Sami and Lital, lovers from opposite sides of the conflict, are ideally placed to constitute a microcosm representing divergent views of the Arab-Jewish conflict and the desire to achieve genuine reconciliation.

Come With Me From Jerusalem is about an Egyptian in love with an Israeli. Now you've lit the blue touch paper, how far back do you intend to stand? 
Technically, Lital, Sami’s beloved, is not Israeli but a Jewish-American woman planning to immigrate to Israel. Well, now that I’ve lit the blue touch paper, I intend to stand as far back as I can. This is bound to be a huge explosion, figuratively speaking, of course. In our Arab world we are not used to reading novels in which a Jewish or Israeli character is a real flesh-and-blood human being with feelings, let alone an object of love and sympathy. There is something disarming about a reference to a handicapped Israeli child. Have we Arabs ever thought that an Israeli can be handicapped? We are more used to him as a predatory soldier, an aggressive land-grabbing settler, a religious fanatic of one stripe or another. But a handicapped child? So I better get myself a good medical insurance policy because the explosion is bound to be a huge hellhole. 

There's a danger of 'conflict fatigue' with Arab/Israeli conflict books. Having read Come With Me From Jerusalem, I know this is a vividly original, smart and fascinating story. How are you going to get over that 'oh, another Middle East Arab/Israeli book' attitude? 
I stand by my work of fiction. I pitch it to the readers and let them decide. I say “Listen folks, this is not part of the usual stuff written about the Arab-Israeli conflict. It is first and mainly a love story.”

“Hatred stirreth up strife;” the Bible tells us, “but love covereth all sins,” (Proverbs 10:12)

Arabic literature has produced a scant volume of works of fiction dealing with the sensitive topic of interethnic and interreligious liaisons. The most celebrated love story between a Palestinian man and a Jewish-Israeli woman is the story of Palestine’s national poet Mahmud Darwish and his Jewish beloved, named “Rita” in some of his poems. I find it strange that Arab audiences in musical festivals such as the one in Jarash, in Jordan, would listen with rapture to the tuneful song “Rita” as sung by the Lebanese Marcel Khalifeh, and not show awareness that the “Rita” of the song is really a Jewish-Israeli beloved and that their rapture is focused on the taboo love between a Muslim-Palestinian and a Jewish-Israeli. Can love conquer all, really? Well, I urge readers out there in the real or virtual world of cyberspace to read Come With Me From Jerusalem and judge.

You're the professor of Arabic Literature at AUD, so your deep literary expertise is rooted in Arabic. How did you manage to write a novel in English - and why English not Arabic? 
Arabic is my mother tongue but English is my step-mother tongue. In the world of languages, and as it happened in my case, step-mothers can be and at times are kinder and more affectionate. We don’t choose our mother tongues, do we? They’re imposed on us; they are like our names and our facial features. Like a mother, our mother tongue often yells at us; she’d wag her figure in our face and harshly reprimand us when we make mistakes, when we use the wrong end-vowel, when we replace the nominative noun with the accusative, when our verbs are in the jussive instead of the subjunctive.

But step-mother tongues? They may be at times introduced to us as part of our school curriculum but to continue to live with them and to adopt them as our own mother tongues is a voluntary act. We do this of our own accord, as an act of volition, an act of love. I am speaking for myself here but I bet you 1001 Emirati Dirhams that writers whose step-mother tongue was English must have felt the same way, writers like the Polish Joseph Conrad, the Lebanese Gibran, and the Russian Nabokov, or the Egyptian Ahdaf Soueif.

You're a published author of non-fiction works in your academic capacity - did your work on Arab/Israeli literary portrayal inform the way you managed the characters and their interplay in Come With Me From Jerusalem? 
Undoubtedly. How people from different cultural backgrounds relate to one another without losing their authentic selves is what has preoccupied my scholarly and fictional work alike. America in an Arab Mirror: Images of America in Arabic Travel Literature, 1688 to 9/11 and Beyond (2011), examines Arab images of America: the unchanging Other, the very antithesis of the Arab Self; the seductive female; the Other that has praiseworthy and reprehensible elements, some to reject, others to appropriate.

But my passionate interest is in the historical and cultural encounters between Arabs and Jews as depicted in literature and the cinematic art. You could say that The Rhetoric of Violence: Arab-Jewish Encounters in Contemporary Palestinian Literature and Film (2005) was a prelude to my fictional work, Come with Me from Jerusalem, in which I tell a story of star-crossed lovers caught up in the vortex of Arab-Israeli conflict.

As I mentioned, you're already conventionally published. Did you look for agents and publishers or go straight to self publishing? And why? 
Finding publishers for one’s academic work is far easier than for one’s creative writing. I think that some literary agents out there are darn harsh in their prejudgment of authors’ samples, sending off rejection letters as cowboys shoot from the hip in a Western movie. It is time to challenge these guys whose agencies have become virtual abortion clinic for literary talents.

Have you ever seen their storage areas of rejected MSs? A graveyard of human creativity as a result of wanton death sentences, uttered in the absence of jury and the city folks. I say it is time to revolt against this oppressive oligarchy. Time for the Authors’ Spring! Let my outcry here be the first drum-roll in our holy crusade against the talent-abortionists.

What are your hopes for the book? And are you truly ready for the controversy? 
Will there be controversy surrounding my novel? No doubt and I say Ahlan wa Sahlan! I am ready with my bullet-proof jacket and my helmet, and my F-16 fighter plane is being now equipped with laser-guided verbal missiles. So this is a fair warning to the Tatars at my city gates. So much for war and battlefields.

On a happier and more optimistic note this is what I want to add: I used to say to my erstwhile beloved, “My sweet kattousa, ‘lana l-ghadu wa l-mustaqbalu l-wa’du’ - Tomorrow is ours; we are bound for glory!” Ever since I watched this wonderful movie, “Bound for Glory” about the life of singer Woody Guthrie, I’ve always felt it in my guts that someday, somewhere somehow there’s going to be a dramatic turn-up, a big breakthrough in my fortunes. This book is bound for glory because it is an eloquent dream of a brave new world where love rules as a supreme but benevolent sovereign.

GET YOUR COPY NOW!

Come With Me From Jerusalem is available from amazon.com as both a Kindle book and printed book and also from Smashwords for iPads, Android tabs and other ebook readers. It'll soon be available on other platforms such as Kobo and iBooks and a UAE print edition will be available in stores soon. If you've got $95 going free, you might be interested in Kamal's 'Rhetoric of Violence' or for a mere $105, his America in an Arab Mirror.

If you're REALLY fast and sign up to the McNabboGram today, you might be in time to get today's mailer and get Come With Me From Jerusalem for FREE! :)

Sharjah Salik Gates. Dubai's Hundred Million Dollar Baby

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Back in 2007, when Dubai's Salik road toll was first talked about, there were rumblings and mumblings that the Al Ittihad road linking Dubai and Sharjah would be one of the locations for toll gates. The feared gate didn't materialise at the time. In fact, Dubai's Road and Transport Authority was at pains to dampen speculation regarding a 'phase two' which meant, of course, that phase two was just around the corner.

When it came, phase two added a gate to the Sheikh Zayed Road and one to Maktoum Bridge. Both of these, as the original gates, were avoidable, but only by taking a more roundabout route. In fact the RTA, which likes to trumpet its green credentials (even going so far as to award a silver-plated cow's aorta for sustainable transport), has created a system of tolls that lengthens thousands of commuters' journeys each day by taking the most direct route.

And so it is with the new gates, which set the extraordinary precedent of taxing travel between two emirates. You'll be able to make a tax-free Sharjah/Dubai journey by travelling out to the E311 (The Road Formerly Known As The Emirates Road), a significantly longer drive than the Ittihad road. This is predicated on the vast road improvement scheme currently underway on the E311, which upgrades the junctions leading up to the infamous National Paints Roundabout and is intended to remove the bottleneck at National Paints. This is scheduled, we are told, for completion in April. I'll be delighted if it is, but looking at the current state of National Paints I simply can't see it happening.

What will happen if the changes to National Paints aren't ready or, worse, turn out not to work? Will the RTA go ahead, turn on Salik on April 15 (the announced 'go live' date) and create massive, snarling jams on a road already comprehensively choked by the large volume of inter-emirate traffic it carries? The move will certainly put huge pressure on a brand new road network in a known and notorious traffic hotspot. But then it's Sharjah's problem, isn't it? Dubai won't care, it'll be too busy counting the proceeds.

Back when it was launched, Salik was meant to raise Dhs600 million a year in fees according to 'traffic expert' and chairman of the RTA, Mattar Al Tayer. It's consistently whizzed past those targets, raising a stunning Dhs669 million in 2008 and 776 million in 2009. Media reports in 2011 told of Salik being used to underpin securitised loans of Dhs 2.93 billion based on its revenues to 2015. Apart from that, we have seen few up to date figures on Salik revenues - but a four year loan of Dhs2.93 billion would be about consistent with 2009 revenues - a tad over Dhs730 million a year. There's no doubt, whatever its impact on traffic has been, it has been an amazing success financially.

Now, with the Ittihad road carrying some 260,000 vehicles a day, an amazing number but one that comes straight from the horse's mouth, the RTA can look forward to raising a cool million dirhams a day or a hundred million dollars a year. According to the RTA itself, the whole scheme is intended to divert some 1500 vehicles per day to the E311 or E611 Dubai Bypass Road. I can see a lot more than 1,500 people choosing to take the long way round to avoid paying Dhs8 per day. Most people around here would buy and sell you for a Dirham.

That's effectively a hundred million dollar tax on travel to and from Sharjah. Neat.

It also means you're paying Dhs28 straight away to any taxi to take you to Dubai before the meter starts ticking and Dhs36 if you cross any of the 'internal' Salik gates. When I first came here, you could get a cab to Chicago Beach from Sharjah for Dhs25. Ah, me, but those were the days, eh?

Win LitFest Tickets!

Win? Yes, win! LitFest Tickets? Yes, LitFest tickets!

To The Blogging Panel at the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature.

5.30pm on Thursday 7th March will see yours truly onstage at the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature, hosting four most excellent people in a discussion about the world of online and its role and relevance to their lives and work - the blogging panel. And I must say, they are a most interesting bunch.

*

Shobhaa De is a bestselling author and Times of India columnist, a former model and magazine editor and a well-known Indian socialite and public figure. She is the author of some seventeen books, the latest of which is the hard-hitting political novel Sethji.

Long a consulting editor for Penguin Books in India, in 2010 she launched her own imprint under the Penguin brand. Her popular blog (linked above) carries notes from her life as well as her columns. Interestingly, in a recent post, she asked the question, "What’s a Lit Fest without at least one juicy controversy?"
What indeed!

*

Cathy Shalhoub is a little bit of Lebanon in Dubai. Well, a little bit of Lebanon and Poland via New York and Boston. She can design submarine robots, has engineered marine optics but prefers to write books, which is a choice many at the LitFest would admire. Her first book, Life as a Leb-neh Lover takes an amused look at the Lebanese identity in diaspora and was actually based on her blog.

*

Caroline Faraj is a seasoned journalist and is well known as the editor of CNNArabic.com. Formerly the senior political reporter at Jordan's Al Rai and managing editor of The Jordan Times, she has also worked for Dubai TV and Bahrain TV. She has her feet firmly in two camps - 'traditional' journalism working for a major global news organisation and working with online properties - CNNArabic.com turned ten last year.

*

Boris Akunin has sold over 25 million books in Russia alone. It's actually a pseudonym - his real name is Grigory Shalvovich Chkhartishvili. His Erast Fandorin novels are fascinating romps through the late C19th, set in Russia and Japan and zing with intelligence, energy and constantly twist and turn like twisty turny things.

Fascinatingly, Akunin became a social activist at a time in his life when he would be forgiven for sitting back and enjoying the fruits of his literary success - Akunin has been a key figure in the anti-Putin protests in Russia and memorably used his blog to publicise a walk around Moscow's statues of famous poets in a test of freedom of movement. Calling a couple of author friends and dropping a post on his blog (linked above - you'll need Google Translate, Boris blogs in Russian) to announce the walk, he arrived on the day to find ten thousand people waiting to join him.

*

Four very different people with very different outlooks on life. One hour. And a troublemaker. I'm looking forward to this mightily.

So how can you WIN yourself two SMASHING tickets to this most fascinating session FREE? Simply by clicking on this link, signing up to The McNabboGram, my lovely emailer, and answering the question in this Friday's LitFest edition of the mailer. There'll also be interesting book links and a freebie, too. What larks!

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP!

Ikea Meatballs - More Horsing Around

The latest retailer to fall under the hooves of horsegate is Swedish low cost furniture company Ikea. Funny, isn't it, how this is hitting low cost brands so hard? It seems like wherever there's been excessive pressure to cut costs and the presence of 'white label' food processors in the supply chain, a little whinny can be heard.

Interestingly, Ikea's UAE website doesn't have any information relating to the recall (at the time of writing), although Ikea's Swedish site does have a flash that points to a press release detailing the recall - Ikea says it tested its food products two weeks ago for horse DNA but that a fresh test has come up with the goods and so they have recalled the product. All fair and good.

Oddly, the company identified as being at the heart of the adulteration of Ikea's iconic meatballs, Swedish food processor, Familjen Dafgård, has made no changes to its website apart from posting a press announcement (with no links from the home page) on its otherwise moribund 'press releases' section - there are two other releases on there, one from 2011 and one from 2012. The company's statement, in Swedish only but brought to you by the marvel and occasional strangeness that is Google Translate. In its entirety, is as follows:

We have received information from a Czech laboratory that a party meatballs may contain traces of horse meat.
Current batch has been closed and we are investigating the situation.
We perform ongoing extensive own DNA analysis. We continue our sampling to investigate the situation.
We will further test results within the next few days and can provide more information in the case.

(my bold)

You'd be forgiven for thinking that's not really the hottest of responses. It's certainly very sparse indeed compared to Ikea's much more comprehensive and informative recall announcement. Amusingly, as the eagle-eyed among you may already have spotted from the website grab above, the Familjen Dafgård website still flashes up pictures of the company's delicious meatballs. Mmmm!

This company is in what we in the business call a PR crisis. It is the subject of global media attention and is potentially responsible for sickening and letting down tens of thousands of consumers across Europe as well as dropping Ikea, a major customer, in the dung. The only reason I'm saying potentially is because some media outlets have stopped short of naming the company as specifically responsible at this stage, although the New York Times (linked above) does name it. The doubts over its Ikea products have to cast doubts over  the company's other products, including the lovely lasagne that is such a prominent feature of its home page. We all know what's in cheap lasagne these days, don't we kids? Yup, "Newmarket Steak"!

'Within the next few days' simply isn't an option any more. You need to react with blinding speed, get as much information as you can out there and keep it flowing. If you have a website, you need to update it fast with consumer information. Ideally, you would already have developed 'dark sites' for potential crises, however notionally unthinkable, and then work on managing your response to consumer concern with all the resources at your disposal. Dark sites are ready-made webpages that you can cut to immediately

Even without a 'dark site' Your website needs to change to meet the circumstances. Joyfully promoting  meat balls on the homepage when your meat ball products have been recalled from stores around Europe is not what you'd call smart.

You need to get to the truth as quickly as possible, show that you're interested and committed to that process and share as much as you sensibly (and responsibly) can as it surfaces. You need to establish clear lines of communication for media and consumers alike and ensure that you have a statement of your position out as quickly as possible - ideally using multiple media platforms.

You need to find out what went wrong, fast. And then you need to fix it. And tell people how you've fixed it. Because needing a few days to investigate your supply chain in the current environment is really something of a worry. You've had weeks of notice that something's wrong out there. You look incredibly complacent as a result.

You don't need to do all this to minimise the immediate impact of the crisis and media coverage. You do this because today is the first day of your long road back to regaining consumer trust and confidence. Sticking your fingers in your ear and shouting lalalala does not, I submit, do this.

And, by the way, in the current environment, any company that is involved in the manufacture, sale or distribution of foodstuffs (and, yes, I'm including hotels and restaurants) that doesn't have a comprehensive crisis plan in place that includes digital platforms at the heart of the plan is simply totally insane.

GeekFest Dubai - McNabb Moves On

Back in July 2009, a post appeared on this very blog heralding the first GeekFest Dubai. Well, just GeekFest, actually, because there was never a plan for anything other than, well, one GeekFest event.

My brother in law quickly slapped together a logo for me and on the 29th of that very month, Shelter Curator Saadia Zahid, Simone Sebastian (who had arranged the original coffee meeting between Saadi and I that launched the whole potty scheme) and I sat giggling in The Shelter waiting to see if anyone would turn up and, if they did, whether any of them could actually speak without having to text or Tweet. Over a hundred smart, highly voluble and delighted communicators pitched up and much offline socialising was done by that very online group of people.

It was something of a revelation for us. Dubai didn't have gigs like this - smart people giving free-flowing talks to smart audiences on topics ranging from Mosque 2.0 to the future of newspapers and trekking across Nepal, gamers playing alongside humans and not biting them, digital art displays and workshops. All sorts of things going on! We quickly carved out some guiding principles (Eventually to be enshrined in The GeekiFesto), including the fact the event would be UNorganised - the organising force was not to be a gatekeeper, owner or, indeed, force. GeekFest was to be a cry of yahoooo! from the community that made it happen, nobody was going to tell anybody what to do, where to go, what to say or when to do it.

GeekFest Dubai span off GeekFests in Abu Dhabi, Jeddah, Sharjah, Damascus, Amman, Cairo and Beirut. I have to say, the last GeekFest Beirut featured fashion shows, rock gigs and all sorts and was a total blast!

And of course, GeekFests around the region gained the benefit of Naeema Zarif's stunning visual identities, those juxtaposed compositions that brought such wit and quirkiness to it all...

GeekFest Dubai ran relatively regularly every two months or so until 2012, when it sort of ran out of steam. Saadi had left The Shelter and the Shelter itself turned into New Premises. I had always said when it started to matter, I'd stop doing it and I found myself rather trying too hard to bring the event together. It wasn't about that.

I was tempted to let it die, but something as good and fun as GeekFest just won't expire like old yoghurt. GeekFest Jeddah is still alive and they're talking about GeekFest Cairo now. So perhaps it's time to pass on the baton - in future GeekFest Dubai will be UNorganised by the team at T-Break, the website for gadget lovers, gamers, goons and geeks - together with Leith Matthews, the Man Behind Make.

And so I am delighted to be able to tell you that GeekFest Dubai  - The YouTube Edition - will take place once again at Make Business Hub in the Al Fattan Tower behind JBR on Thursday 28th March from 7pm onwards.

If you want more information, you can hassle @theregos on Twitter or follow @geekfestdubai for updates or look out for news and info at the GeekFest Dubai microsite - http://www.tbreak.com/geekfest which is now live, if not quite populated yet!

This, ladies and gentlemen, should be FUN!!!

The Emirates A380 Door Problem - A Communications Lesson?

 (Photo credit: engineroomblog)

The Daily Mail is a massively popular newspaper in the UK and also boasts the world's top online news site, with over 100 million visits. It does what it does remarkably well, catchy attention-getting headlines combine with a tone of moral outrage that nicely captures the sentiments of the British 'man in the street'.

So 'terror at 27,000 feet' is a very Mail story - and that's precisely what it served up on February 15th with a story that a door 'blew open' on an Emirates A380. As the headline tells us: "Terror at 27,000ft: Crew plug gap in super jumbo jet door with blankets and pillows stuck together with gaffer tape after it 'blows open' during the flight."

The whole story's stood up on the testimony of British tourist David Reid and taken at face value, it's awful. Terrified crew hiding under their chairs, the atmosphere visible through the gap in the door, cabin pressure drop, freezing conditions and yet despite all this the pilot decided to carry on flying. Horrendous.

"...the door in business class came an inch and a half ajar, leaving a gaping hole, said Mr Reid"

It's only when you start to read the comments left by readers you might have a different perspective on the story that rings rather more factually than the story itself. They point out that the A380's doors can't actually open in-flight as they open inwards and are fixed by their shape 'like a plug' and that any pressure drop at this altitude would have caused the oxygen masks to automatically deploy which the images in the story clearly show has not been the case. They, reasonably, point out that a door open by a fraction at 27,000 feet would suck out any blankets being used to plug the gap and they also make the point that crew can't actually hide under their chairs - one of the more colourful lines in a pleasantly lurid story. Oh - and cold air wouldn't come into the cabin, air would escape. And so on.

As Crikey's Ben Sandilands points out, the "Emirates A380 door explosion story is rubbish." Notably, two Australian websites that gaily parroted the story have since taken it down.

The Mail's reader comments are remarkable for the fact they have been 'rated' by other readers using the Mail's comment rating system - the more sensible ones have been promoted by over two thousand people. And while thousands more have rated other comments criticising the story to the top of the comments pile, over five thousand 'liked' the story - and over ten thousand tweeted it.

Well, it's too good not to share, really, isn't it? Even if it is clearly bunkum.

In all, over 770 people commented on the story, of whom the majority (and the majority of 'upwards' rated comments) are negative about the story being told, correct its factual basis and criticise the Mail for the 'standard of journalism' it represents. The Mail has closed comments now.

The Mail's pieceis an excellent example of not letting the truth get in the way of a good story - Emirates' statement is pretty clear, although perhaps a little disjointed.

The Mail quotes Emirates as saying ‘We can confirm there was a whistling noise emanating from one of the doors on the A380 upper deck on flight EK384 between Bangkok and Hong Kong on Monday, February 11. At no point was the safety of the flight in jeopardy.’ 

That statement was later updated (and the Mail is at pains to make the fact it was later updated) to include, "At no time during the flight did one of the upper deck doors open. There was also no loss in cabin pressurisation at any time during the flight. The noise from the door was caused by a small dimensional difference between the inflated door seal and the door lower frame striker plate, when the door is in the closed position. This is currently under investigation in conjunction with Airbus. Emirates have now fixed the problem. The blankets were placed around the door to abate the whistling sound emanating from the door, not to prevent the door from opening. There was no point during the incident where the safety of the flight was in jeopardy. In addition, the green light next to the door does not represent that the door is open. It is an Attendant Indication Panel and is used for communication information for the Cabin Crew."

This statement is given right at the end of the story, after all the damage has been done. No matter how ringing the denial, the Mail's piece is structured to deliver its 'terrifying ordeal' sucker punch before any factual statement from Emirates is made.

It's not a nice situation to be in - and it is one I have been in more times than I care to recall - when you get those incoming calls from newspapers - particularly the UK press. You've got to get onto the story fast, finding out whatever facts you can internally before deciding quite what to do externally. You have to check your facts scrupulously - a burden the journalist (as you can see from the above) doesn't necessarily have to bear. And then you have to decide quite what you're going to say in response to the story. When you've got a newspaper that reaches 100 million people, 'no comment' is rarely going to be the solution. But then getting into a point by point argument isn't smart, either - you're never going to get your point by point rebuttal in the front of the story and you're not going to stop the story running, either. Even if it's clearly rubbish.

One of the interesting aspects of communications in the online age is the role of communities - the reader comments provide plenty of rebuttal of the factual basis for the story - the Internet is famously self-correcting. The other one is speed - you don't even have the luxury of a few hours and the burden on the communicator is consequently multiplied, get to the facts, check them, consult, decide on a response, craft that response and have a follow-up plan in place. As you're doing this, the journalist will be pressuring you as much as possible - not only do they want to break their story first, but a harried and panicking comms guy can often be a journalist's best friend.

The key is to try and make one definitive statement that is as crisp and monolithic as possible. This is always easier when the picture is clear and straightforward (and when your flow of information internally is fast and totally reliable) and when you are quite sure you have absolutely all of the facts.

And pick your fights - deal with the umbrella charge, don't get led into trying to nitpick your way through a story so full of holes your statement loses its authority in a tide of 'he said, she said' rebuttal.

Food Adultery

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I must start by recommending you read this article in the New York Times, "The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food", It's long, but very readable indeed. Don't worry about me, I can wait 'till you're back.

Done? Scary wasn't it? I loved one quote from a Coke executive outlining his sales problem: “How can we drive more ounces into more bodies more often?” The whole idea of an industry focused on that problem, using complex food science, packaging and marketing based on psychology all focused on a single trigger in us all, the need to consume food and drink. Not just meeting that need, but driving it, extending it and blowing it up beyond any reasonable limit.

The result has not only been the creation of a fat, bloated nation (Luke commented a few posts ago about the irony of a world where the poor are fat and the rich are thin, which does rather take one aback) with a massive diabetes problem, but the creation of a society which has come to accept, even expect, the adulteration of food by companies.

And then Europe gets all bleeding heart about horsemeat? Look at the practices the food industry has evolved in the pursuit of competitive advantage, the ways in which food is already twisted out of all reasonable expectation of its remaining pure, natural and healthy. Pink slime is the tip of an iceberg of people getting sick from bacterial diseases contracted from deep-injected steak marinades, minced up bonemeal and water-injection making cheap meat heavier and practices such as MSM - mechanically separated meat. We're not even starting to explore hydrogenated fats, trans-fats, HFCS and the myriad other creepy crawlies companies are 'driving' into consumers.

In fact, it is one of these delightful industrial processes that lies behind horsemeatgate - desinewed meat. This is a low pressure bone stripping process that gets the shreds of meat off slaughtered animal bones, resulting in the production of a mince-like substance that can be easily turned into ground meat processed foods such as, oh I don't know, lasagne, burgers or cottage pies. The European Commission banned the use of the process in beef and lamb, although it can be used in poultry and pork as long as it's labelled as MSM (mechanically separated meat).

The result was to give added impetus to the search for cheap meat by processors. We're in a recession, don't forget, so the pressure's on for those 'value' lines of food to outstrip each other, cheaper foods always come at a price - added sugar, extra filler, lots of salt and MSG to bring flavour back to food that's been leached of flavour by processing. And buyers presented with a cheaper beef mince aren't going to look the gift horse in the mouth. Because there are managers assessing their performance, directors aiming to outsell competitors and grow market share for shareholders to be satisfied with their dividends.

It's actually a very short hop from packing cheap fats, salt and sugars into foods designed for maximal shelf-life, scientifically optimised 'mouth feel' and hitting consumers' 'bliss point' to packing horsemeat into beef meals. We've accepted the fundamental principle - that we'll tolerate foods that are not what they seem to be on the packaging (blueberry muffin, anyone?). The question now is only how far companies will go in their mendacity. I suspect I know the answer - and it's not horsemeat.