The Passing Of The Thorban Pottery

The oil fired kiln at Thorban

There used to be just the one road out to the East Coast of the UAE, a lasso-shaped affair that snaked up into the Hajjar Mountains from Dhaid and bifurcated at Masafi to snake around to Dibba and down the coast past Tayyiba and Khor Fakkan to the sleepy and delightful Emirate of Fujairah. The road back from Fujairah to Masafi takes you alongside a deep wadi, in fact a 3,000 year-old route to the interior from the East Coast, with megalithic grave sites to prove it.

Just after you pass the Manama turnoff from the Dhaid-Masafi road is the village of Thorban, long home to the mildly famous Thorban pottery. You understand we're not talking Clarice Cliff here, the Indian potters who made the cluster of ramshackle cinder-block godowns just off the main road their home produced rough terracotta pots using time-honoured techniques. The kiln they built was wood-fired, each new batch of still-damp pots placed in the kiln and then covered with soil to let the charcoal do its work.

The Thorban pottery became a must-visit destination for any group of visitors we took around the Emirates and was always busy, potters working away on their wheels or mixing new batches of clay, a couple of chaps in lungis front of house to ask for ridiculous prices from the feckless tourists, signalling the start of the long process of bargaining that would end up at half the price and still leave you wondering how much further a skilled negotiator would have got. Latterly, we arrived there to find stacks of cardboard boxes and asked where they were headed. 'Liberty in New York' was the answer!

It was around this time the oil fired kiln appeared. Thorban was thriving and appeared to have found itself a ready export market, as well as popularity with any batch of curious holiday-makers headed East to Masafi's Friday Market and beyond.

We went East for a wander at the weekend, spurred on by the discovery of the huge changes we'd seen in our recent wander around Umm Al Qawain. And yes, the East has changed in almost exactly the same way. Piles of rocks line the Dhaid road, occasional lorries with broken backs buried in the roadside sand dunes tell of the constant flow of heavy trucks down from the mountains. Ras Al Khaimah, Fujeirah and Hatta have become centres of quarrying, mountains slowly being broken down to feed Dubai's voracious appetite for rock, gravel, aggregate and cement and the road down from Masafi is still, downturn notwithstanding, dotted with a procession of groaning lorries capped with green tarpaulins.

Mirroring the story told in Umm Al Qawain, you can see signs of feast and famine: the downturn that halted Dubai's meteoric construction boom almost overnight had its consequent effect in the mountains. Shuttered shops and abandoned date plantations catch the traveller's eye on the road across the wadi plan from Dhaid. Communities that had expanded have contracted again. What used to be the police check point for 'illegals' trying to enter the Emirates from the East Coast is now an office for the Mining Affairs Department. There seems to be another rock crusher every few hundred metres.

When we got to Thorban, what used to be the pottery is no more. Something grey and dusty remains from a spill of liquid, coating the track on the approach to the tin-roofed buildings. There are laths scattered all over the place. And the pottery stands, abandoned, rather in the fashion of the Marie Celeste - there are still pots lying around, moulds on tables and the clay-mixing machine still stands by the door into the main workshop. It's as if they left overnight, taking nothing with them. We wandered around the place for a while, peering into the kilns and, for some reason, whispering.

It was somehow tremendously sad. What had been a thriving little enterprise was gone. The source of all those pots, terracotta camels, foot-scrubbers, mubkhars and candle-holders was no more. And there was no clue as to why it, seemingly so suddenly, came to an end. There's a mobile number on the sign that still stands by the main road, but it doesn't answer.

If anyone knows, I'd be fascinated to find out. 

The Cost Of Being An Expat

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

First things first: I'm not complaining. We've lived here a long time because we like it here. I won't bore you with all our 'reasons to be cheerful' but suffice to say they are legion.

But there's a report in today's Gulf News, which talks about how 60% of young Emiratis surveyed are apprehensive but not frightened of the UAE's overwhelmingly expat demographic - 85% of the overall population here is expat - it's higher in Dubai, which is 90% expat.

That's nothing new. The UAE population has been numerically dominated by its expat workforce since the year dot.

Buried deep in GN's long analysis of why this is really good news for everyone is an interesting figure, though. According to a certain Dr. N. Janardhan, the average expat makes a contribution to the state of Dhs 2,507 while the state invests Dhs 14,066 a year in each expat.

I'm afraid I rather screeched to a halt. I'm sure Dr Janardhan's figures are skewed by the preponderance of the UAE's labourers, but I can tell you that I for one am paying a great deal more than Dhs 2,507 in fees and taxes. And yes, I know the UAE's tax free, but when you charge a fee as a percentage of a transaction, for instance the tenancy contract registration fee, calling it a fee is really just obfuscation.

I got to Dhs 8,000 pretty easily and hadn't even started down the road of the cost of power here (which is significantly more than in the UK, despite the fact this is an oil producing country, because the expats subsidise the Emiratis). Try as I might, I couldn't work out where the Dhs 14,066 comes from, because you pays for what you gets here, from healthcare to transportation.

It started me wondering what the cost vs economic contribution would be for yer average expat. In short, what's our ROI?

Arabtec Strike - An Inconvenient Truth

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Dubai's largest construction company, Arabtec, has faced a relatively well co-ordinated labour dispute over the past few days, with UAE media reporting on the affair being somewhat patchy to say the least.

Gulf News in its story today says the company's Abu-Dhabi based workers refused to leave their accommodation on Saturday, with Dubai-based workers refusing to work the following day. However, yesterday's Gulf News story "Arabtec workers return to work" is at odds with 7Days' front page splash yesterday, which ran with 'workers down tools' in its story, 'How can we feed our families with Dhs750'?

The Abu Dhabi workers were based at the 'model' Saadiyat Island labour camp, with TDIC, Abu Dhabi's tourist authority and the master developer of Saadiyat Island (where Arabtex is building the Louvre) telling 7Days yesterday all 'workers have reported for work as usual'.

7Days' piece yesterday talked of 'hundreds' of workers on strike, with Gulf News talking about 'thousands' of strikers. Reuters goes with the 'thousands' figure in its story, run by GN today, which has Arabtec as stating 'the delivery of projects was unaffected by what it called a partial labour stoppage.'

Rather than running a Reuters file about a labour dispute on its own doorstep, 7Days today uses that old skill, journalism, to report on the end of the strike, saying that at least 6,000 workers had been involved in the work outage but they now felt they had 'no choice but to return to work as they are poor men'.

Quotes from both sides of the dispute point to a minority leading the majority to take action, which is hardly a surprise. Some workers had talked about being pressurised to join the strikers. And while it's fashionable to wring one's lace hankie and bemoan the fate of the UAE's labourers, these men signed contracts to work for that salary and are being housed in the best quality labour accommodation in the country. They are by no means the worst off - I have heard of Sri Lankan workers' wages in the garment industry here being more in the line of Dhs 400 a month.

It's also worth noting here that their pay, while a pittance by Western standards, is double the minimum wage in much of India and as much as four times the minimum wage in the worst-paid parts of the country. Bangladeshi labourers are comparatively much better off, earning over five times their country's national minimum wage.

On that same comparative scale, a British minimum wage labourer would be pulling in over $8,000 a month in the UAE, with food and accommodation paid for.

And before you pile into me for pointing out this very inconvenient truth, here's another one for you. We are all here in the Gulf on the back of minimum wage Asian labour - it's helping to fund our cosy expat lifestyles. And as you hammer the keyboard of your Mac to leave me an infuriated comment, reflect for a second how happy you were to buy that cut-price product made on the back of minimum wage Chinese labour (paid less, incidentally, than the Arabtec guys) working in conditions so harsh several have taken their own lives and anti-suicide netting is strung up in their labour accomodation.

Labour conditions in the UAE have improved immensely over the past twenty years and are likely better than those of neighbouring countries and although those conditions don't sit well with European sensibilities at times, still the labour comes here because this is still a comparatively better place to be for all of us, labourers included.

Meanwhile, Arabtec has apparently said it will hold the ringleaders 'accountable for their actions', which doesn't really strike that warm fuzzy peach note of conciliation. Bear in mind, too, Arabtec would hardly be pleased at the prospect of increasing the payroll by Dhs200 a month (the strikers' apparent demand) - that's a cool Dhs1.2 million loaded on the monthly payroll if we took just the strikers into consideration. But ArabTec employs 52,000 people according to its website. So that'd be around Dhs 10 million in extras every month.

Of course, quite apart from the massive cost, a wage increase now would also be seen to be rewarding the strike action. I can't see it happening, somehow - whether we, from the comfort of our armchairs, would like it to or not.

Indian Lecturer Held By Dubai Police For Defamation

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Gulf News' Bassma Al Jandaly reports today on the case of an Indian university lecturer who has been held by Dubai police, while on a visit to the country, for defamation. Arrested on the 5th May, two weeks later he's still in Dubai, out on bail but with his visa held by police.

The lecturer worked for a "private university" in Dubai's Academic City. According to the story in GN, police confirmed the man had his contract terminated without reason by the university - Dubai courts found in his favour and he had received his end of service benefits.

However, returning to India, the lecturer appears to have indulged in the activity known as the grinding of the axe. I think I found his blog, which makes for highly entertaining reading and lets the university have it in no uncertain terms with remarkable vigour and an almost obsessive degree of staying power. Although comments are turned off and the YouTube videos have been made private, the rest of the content is up there and there is certainly plenty of 'masala' on offer.

The university's response was apparently to lodge a defamation case against the man at Rashidiya police station. And so when he travelled from the US, where he is based according to GN, to the UK and stopped off to see his Dubai-based wife, his collar was comprehensively felt.

In a rare moment of sheer cravenness I'm not going to link to his blog because I can't be entirely sure this is indeed the blog in question (given there are no names in the story, I found a blog that seems to fit the bill quite nicely by Googling "dubai university lecturer india end of service", as you would) and I'd rather not be joining him over at Rashidiya nick trying to defend myself against a charge of sharing links to material alleged to be defamatory.

It's interesting (and noteworthy bloggers, tweeters and all you other online commentators - as I pointed out in my last post, in fact) that in the UAE, defamation remains a criminal rather than civil matter. Now covered by the provisions of the UAE's cyber crime law, the mere accusation of online defamation has resulted in this man's liberty being taken from him. He can now look forward to a lengthy and expensive trial process unless the defamation case is dropped.

In choosing this course of action, I would argue that The University That Must Not Be Named has ensured greater reputational harm will ensue from this affair than if it had chosen not to pursue a criminal case of defamation in the UAE.

However, in the meantime, our lecturer friend would appear to be in rather a lot of hot water...

Careful What You Tweet For

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Gulf News today carries a roundup of recent cases of bloggers and tweeters in trouble around the Gulf and it's an extensive and growing list.

Flagged as being 'with inputs from AFP', 60% of the story is lifted directly from an AFP file, (the rest being made uo of this report from Habib Touma, which is the only bit available online) but we mustn't cavil, must we?

Tweets aren't a joking matter anymore - imagine facing this one in court: "undermining the values and traditions of Bahrain's society towards the King on Twitter". The six Bahraini 'tweeters' who did have just been sentenced a year in prison for 'misusing the right of free expression'.

It's as neat an illustration of the conundrum posed by social media in the Middle East as you're likely to get. Here we all are in possession of these powerful and far-reaching technologies that support widely sharing information and opinion and when we use them we're suddenly very far above the parapet indeed.

All this freedom of expression stuff suffers from the problem that it is, of course, that it's an absolute. You're either free to express or not, surely? But then we also apply 'filters' to that absolute in the West (whilst being all to ready to be scandalised by the hypocrisy of societies that don't allow total freedom of expression) - incitement, hate speech, holocaust denial and a number of other things our society deems to be unacceptable.

We also saw how fragile our freedoms are when British Prime Minister David Cameron, faced with lawless rioting across the country organised via Facebook and Twitter made it clear he would favour 'switching the Internet off'. That's the kind of thing despots do, isn't it?

The trouble is, of course, that government is government the world over - there's that lovely definition of democracy - "Say what you like, do what you're told." which works well as long as when you say what you like it doesn't have the benefit of a platform open to every man and with enormous power to allow messages to be shared and reach audiences far wider than are possible with 'traditional media'. Let's not forget, there are now over double the number of users of Facebook Arabic in the Middle East and North Africa than there are newspapers sold every day (in English, Arabic and French combined) in the region. That's Arabic alone - most users in the region still prefer the English interface, whatever language they are posting in.

It doesn't take insulting a leader or inciting religious hatred to get into trouble with the law on Twitter - you can just break any old law that would have applied in the 'analogue world' - for instance, a lady was fined Dhs 1,000 in Dubai earlier this week for calling an Egyptian gentleman 'stupid'. The law in the UAE does take the issue of personal respect very seriously indeed - it's not something limited to the rulers alone. So, logically, calling someone stupid on Twitter could potentially open you up to a Dhs 1,000 fine.

It's a reminder - whether you're going to put your life on the line for something you believe in or whether you're just sounding off. The law is peering over your shoulder - and those little 140 character blipverts are subject to its full might and weight...

From Bangladesh To The UAE - Labour Conditions To Come Under The Microscope?

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It's not going to be long now before news media work out Bangladesh isn't the only place cheap clothes are being manufactured to stoke the insatiable appetite of the developed world's high streets. And the heat is most definitely on - retailers are being forced to get proactive before the next scandal hits them. They're going to want to be able to prove that their suppliers have at least some minimal level of worker rights and care in place.

With a sigh of relief as H&M, Mango and Primark take the brunt of the opprobrium, the rest of the High Street has been put on high alert.

Quite how conscience stricken the average consumer is remains to be seen - despite media-fuelled outrage at the appalling conditions in Bangladesh, most of us have long known that cheap clothes and consumer electronics come at a price. It's just that we don't have to pay it and as long as it's not being shoved in our faces, we find it convenient to walk by on the other side of the street. Hands up if you own an Apple device. Now hands up if you are perfectly well aware of the suicides of staff employed by Apple contract manufacturer Foxconn.

Take a look at these images from Dhaka, whose leather industry is one of the most appalling and polluted environments in the world, where workers are dying, poisoned by the toxic cocktails created by the medieval processes and conditions that prevail there. The human price, The Guardian tells us, is 'intolerable'. So now you know, are you going to look for the label in that lovely handbag before you buy it to make sure it doesn't say 'Made in Bangladesh'?

Documents recovered from the rubble of Rana Plaza show retailers are buying clothes for up to a tenth of what they retail for in the West. This excellent Reuters report details the economics of cheap labour thanks to order books recovered from the wreckage - Mango buying polo shirts for $4.45 that retail for over ten times that in the UK. Also, interestingly, Mango sells those shirts for the equivalent number of Pounds to Euro, a mirror of the annoying practice of just changing the $ to a £ tag and letting the Brits consequently pay loads more for the same stuff.

But it's not just Bangladesh. There are sweatshops all over the world, from Mexico to Ajman and Szechuan to Sharjah where workers live in conditions far removed from the halogen lamps and sleek shelving of those glittering stores that sell us not just clothing but aspiration, the dream of a lifestyle lived in that one unforgettable moment of joy. Secured by immersion in the brand, clinched by the act of buying.

It's mildly ironic, is it not, that the top on sale in that gleaming Dubai mall could have been made in a warehouse in Ajman, shipped to the UK or US and then shipped back here again?

I'm not saying for one second the UAE's garment factories are in the same league as Dhaka's tanneries or the mass grave that was Rana Plaza. But godowns packed with Asian (mostly, as far as I can see, Sri Lankan) women on minimal wages working long hours and housed in soulless labour camps turning out piles of cheap clothing for top high street European and US brands are to be found both in the industrial areas and free zones of both Emirates. It's going to be interesting to see if they change their working practices voluntarily, as the result of that roving media spotlight or because a newly image-conscious UAE imposes regulation on them. Of the three, of course, the former is by far the preferable.

The only question is whether they're smart enough to see it coming...

Arab Media Forum Faces New Media Challenges. Shock Horror.

This is in no way a gratuitous plug for the 'book of the blog,' you understand.

This blog, as readers of Fake Plastic Souks - The Glory Years will know, started around The Arab Media Forum 2007. This was mere coincidence, not by any means a result of the forum which I have never attended and likely never will attend. In fact, as the first post attests, we were sitting at home eating Lebanese takeaway.

There seems to be even more intense debate at this year's forum (judging from the reports one sees on Twitter) about the 'role of new media' and all that. It's an interesting debate - some may argue taking place a little late in the day - particularly in this region, where reporting is so very dangerous and the conflicts so very real - and, as all conflicts necessarily are - polarised and messy. Making sense of these things is tough, dangerous and hard - journalism, true journalism, is a thankless and wearying job. But some people are just plagued with that need to delve down to uncover the truth and then get it out there into our hands so we can make more informed judgements about the world around us.

Shame there are all too few of these in the Middle East, but that's the breaks.

The Great Debate, of course, has moved on. It's no longer about whether digital media are relevant, but whether traditional media is relevant. You'd hardly have thought that from the Forum, which includes the session, "Digital Media: Authority Without Responsibility". Apart from a few 'digital heads' the debate at the Forum remains principally analogue and although there are nods to a process of transition, there is no sense that this transition could easily well take the form of disintermediation.

The Forum's first session was, in fact, "Conventional Media vs. New Media" - the program outlines the problem as this:

News industry is remarkably challenged by the emerging “new media” platforms. This synthetic prelim produced unprecedented dilemma for traditional journalism and undoubtedly added more complications.

Quite.

Of course, what the debate lacks is a sense of where humanity's eyeballs are going. Are people consuming as much local media as before? Does it carry as much weight with the public? Is the Arab News media seen as credible compared to online and first hand sources? Where are people going for news these days? Gulf News or the Daily Mail Online?

That research could have underpinned a viable and vibrant debate framed by the scale of the challenge facing print media and the practicses of print media journalism. Events in Syria and even the recent Beirut bombing which I posted about at length here, comparing Twitter to a Lorenzian water wheel, have shown that trying to adapt conventional 'big' media reporting to Twitter and YouTube can have disastrous effects - and have arguably eroded the weight we give to mainstream media. Never has there been more need for careful, considered journalism - and never have we seen so little of just that.

Instead, we have the same old ground being gone over - with a distinct under-representation of the 'new media' everyone is so upset about (although nice to see Maha from Google there). Although it's nice for everyone from the region's media to get together for a chat, I can't help but feel the actual eyeballs have, well, moved on...

Beirut Off Limits?

(Photo credit: Côte d’Azur)

I wonder if Gulf News gave Beirut's Phoenicia Hotel the option of dropping its quarter page colour ad in today's edition, given the paper carries the news of  the UAE Foreign Ministry's clear warning to Emiratis not to travel to Lebanon?

The warning comes as Lebanon struggles to cope with the effects of the Syrian conflict on its border (which makes a change from a Syrian conflict within its borders, which has also been known to happen), with a large and fast-growing refugee problem and myriad economic woes hanging on the conflict's coattails.

It's a pretty bleak warning as the Ministry is making travellers sign a pledge to take responsibility when they travel to Lebanon. A few days ago the Lebanese government asked Gulf governments to drop their travel warnings - intra-regional tourism is an important revenue earner for Lebanon, particularly as we go into the summer and the Gulf's favourite playground comes into its own.

This year, it's going to be a desolate little playground, methinks, filled with the sound of people playing with that brittle, manic gaiety born of desperation.

Even the UK's FCO has joined in with its own travel warnings. Given, as I pointed out (admittedly using the voice of anti-hero Paul Stokes) in Olives - A Violent Romance, the FCO is usually sensible...

"Scanning email got me a travel warning from the Yanks for Jordan: present danger despite the peace deal, terrorist threats against US and other allied nationals, extreme caution, yadayada. Great. Looking up the Foreign Office resulted in, as usual, the suggestion that Brits might like to wear a hat if walking through Gaza at midday as the sun can be tiresome."

...its warnings against travel in the Bekaa, Saida, South of the Litani and anywhere close to the Syrian border are slightly more nuanced than the Gulf's blanket warnings, but are all the more concerning for all that.

Given the Lebanese embassy to the UK (nice website for fans of the 1990s school of web design, BTW) advises travellers to "Leave a copy of your trip itinerary with a friend or relative at home and maintain regular contact with family and friends while in Lebanon." You'd perhaps begin to sense a pattern. Increasing lawlessness, sectarian violence and the re-emergence of kidnapping as a pastime have all contributed to a general feeling that perhaps the place is a tad less secure than it was, say, this time last year.

The Israelis have, of course, been lending a helping hand by conducting low-level bombing runs over Beirut, an old but much beloved pastime of theirs, breaking the sound barrier above the city and smashing much glass in the process.

Of course, 'the West' or 'the allies' - or whatever epithet the people tacitly supporting the American bid to engineer regime change in Syria wish to use to describe themselves - aren't really terribly concerned about the growing instability in the pretty little country next door.

Having just finished writing a book set in part in Beirut back in 1978, I feel terribly conscious of the echoes coming to us from a terrible age ago. And yet I can't bear to lose all hope...

Umm Al Qawain Redux

(Pic from Google Earth)

We decided to take a hike north over the weekend - it's literally years since we were last in Umm Al Qawain and we were feeling inquisitive. It's amazing how time dulls the curiosity of youth - we used to spend weekends breathlessly roaming around the UAE discovering new stuff, now we rarely bother.

Our connection to the tiny emirate is an odd one. Back in 1993 Sarah agreed to head up the opening of a Choueifat school in Umm Al Qawain - the tiny school was a compound of three hexagonal buildings. Someone had tried to establsh a school there before and it had been closed. Now it was to reopen as a Choueifat with two teachers and twelve kids. We arrived at the school, a gritty track led from the main road to the compound, to find it empty and abandoned. The gatehouse contained a Bangladeshi gentleman called Taimussadin who looked disconcertingly like Catweazle and who patently hadn't seen a human being in years. The echoing classrooms were dusty, their ceramic tiled floors scattered with abandoned toys and posters.

Umm Al Qawain has changed a bit over the years. The school, which used be next to a barracks in its own huge sandy patch, is now nestled in among villas and tarmac roads. The barracks has gone. The Umm Al Qawain Marine Club is still a marine club, although the riding stables have been eaten up by the Palma Beach Resort - a strange compound of double story chalets and an even stranger 'bowling club' in faux-Wafi style, including a massive concrete scorpion.

Back in the '90s, we learned to ride there, chased around the school by the stentorian tones of Susie Wooldridge barking 'Mexican reins!' at us. I used to ride an ancient Lippizaner called Samir who was a workshy, wily old bastard at the best of times. Getting Samir to move beyond a shuffle took enormous effort but every now and then my inexpert foot would tap him in the wrong place and he'd be off executing exhilarating dressage moves as his glorious youth rushed back to him. Then he'd remember his age and go back to his normal moribund state.

They had two camels they'd taught to do dressage, Larry and Alexander. Quite the sight, I can tell you.

Umm Al Qawain's old town area remains fascinating, still crumbling now as it was then, a collection of winding streets with coral-walled houses topped by wind towers. It was to have been developed into a 'mixed use' area. Selfishly, I'm quite glad the plan didn't materialise. Beyond it the gorgeous beach at the tip of the promontory, fading signs proclaim this to be the site of the Radisson SAS Resort - a development that doesn't have appeared to have survived the crunch. The huge villas that line the seaward facing coast are bizarrely now all abandoned, glorious 1970s concrete masterpieces, their owners appear to have moved to the creekward coast, leaving a road of eerily abandoned palaces, each with its own enormous diwan.

It all reminded us of those days when we'd sit in the barasti-covered bar of the tourist club, a strange affair managed by an eccentric German, drinking from cans and hiring jetskis or the glass-bottomed boat to mooch around the mangroves, spying turtles and the occasional marlin. Friday barbecues by the creek, cantering down the unspoiled beach and riding into the sea bareback after a hack. There's nothing in the world like swimming with horses.

It was a fun drive, filled with oohs and aahs and remember thises and remember when thats. The place has expanded, of course, and the gaps between the buildings have filled in a little more. Tatty hoardings promote mega-projects that remain sandy wastelands - the massive, swooping waterways of the Blue Bay Nujoom islands appear deserted. Emaar's 'Umm Al Qawain Marina' is a tiny estate of Dubai-style villas, a very strange drive away from the main road between hoardings (meant, presumably, to protect one's sensitive eyes from the expanse of undeveloped sandy littoral around you) leads to the gated area of finished housing,  a microcosm of the much larger project originally planned all around it. Bearing the mildly egregious realestatesque (it IS a word!) tagline, "A costal paradise where life comes full circle", the Marina was originally intended to be a 2000-acre 'mixed use' project rather than a slightly awkward cluster of beige villas in the middle of a vast sand-blown emptiness.

Whether and when the projects will become reinstated is, of course, a question.

Nutter

There's little doubt that Gerald Donovan (@gerald_d to many) is special - whether that's not quite right in the  head special or another kind of special is something the jury's out on. If you want proof in the pudding, the above video was taken on an abortive trip to the top of the Burj Khalifa to get the shots he needed for the Burj Dubai Pinnacle Panorama wot I have previously posted about.

Finding himself at the top of the world's tallest tower, some 860 metres up at the end of an 60-metre tube that's 1.5 metres in diameter when a sandstorm blows in, he of course straps on a helmet camera and proceeds to hoon about poking his head around the place as the wind buffets the whole structure.

Anybody normal wouldn't have been up there at all, but I would submit if a reasonable man had succumbed to a head-fit and gone up to find those conditions, he would have nipped down for a coffee and almond croissant at the Armani or something.

Anyway, you can read more about the whole thing over at The Daily Mail, which leapt at the chance to play with the pano again. By the way, in case you're wondering what a piece of coverage on the Mail Online website is worth, you can start at 100,000 views in 24 hours.

I'm thinking of doing a stunt competition for a client whereby people have to devise ways to scare our Gerald. I mean, I'd hate to have to cure his hiccups...