Abu Dhabi Bans Silly String

(Photo credit: mikecogh)

One of my favourite jokes of all time is that people in Dubai don't understand the Flintstones, while Abu Dhabi do.

Sorry, silly string brought that to mind. And you won't be finding much of it around on December 2nd in Abu Dhabi, because it's been banned - along with 'unofficial' car parades, car painting and a range of other popular national day activities.

The warnings come nice and early, but then reports are already tumbling in about car decoration workshops doing Dhs20,000 makeovers in preparation for the UAE's 42nd National Day which takes place on the aforementioned 2nd December. If Dubai gets Expo 2020, the result due in on November 27th, they're going to completely lose the head all across that weekend.

I've said before that the UAE is the only place in the Middle East where the people take to the streets to celebrate their country, and that they most certainly do. It's a happy time and a time to go wombat crazy and generally make like it's mardi gras, but police around the Emirates have had enough and over the past couple of years have moved to regulate a celebration that at times looks as if it could border on hysteria.

So no changing the colour of your car, obscuring your number plate, having your windscreen tinted with pictures of the UAE's leaders or the flag, no tinting the driver side windows, no hanging out of cars or over-stuffing cars and no, and I'd like to make this quite clear, no silly string.

If you breaks the rules, it's a Dhs1,000 fine and 12 black points. And Abu Dhabi police have set aside a special area for impounded cars on the day. Presumably other emirates' police forces will enforce similar rules, although I haven't seen any announcements.

Sharjah Corniche will doubtless once again be packed and there, I am sure, you will find silly string.

Rent Hike Pain. We Are SO Back, Baby

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Today's The National reports on a 50% increase in Dubai landlord/tenant cases going to law on the back of rental increases that have topped as much as 40% year on year.

Sure enough, the news that we're back in the property-flipping, mega-development real estate boomtastic jetstream has filtered down to landlords, who have had to deal with a good five lean years as Dubai's over-heated 2008 rental prices dropped like a stone circling a black hole, resulting in a market awash with a glut of unwanted housing.

Nowadays, we're looking at undersupply of rental property - I've come across several people who've actually found it hard to find a flat, particularly at reasonable prices. And the news that we're back has prompted landlords to take the fast boat to rent increase paradise and just evict their current tenants at the end of their one-year contract.

Except you can't do that anymore - there's a pesky property law in place now and what's more it's actually being enforced. Dubai's got a sparkly new property tribunal which means wronged tenants (and, yes, wronged landlords) can take their case to law quickly and get a settlement - and in the meantime property regulator RERA hears cases.

That law has two fascinating clauses. The first relates to the RERA rental calculator, a basket of average prices which is used to calculate permissible increases in rent for landlords, the 'average similar rent'.

Decree No. 2 of 2011 on rentals in Dubai states that increases in rent are allowed as follows:

Up to 25% below the average similar rent = no increase. 26-35% = 5% maximum increase. 36-45% = 10% increase. 46-54% = 15% increase and 55% less than the average similar rent = 20% maximum increase.

In other words, even if your property rental price is less than half the RERA calculated market average (which is itself often less than market 'asking prices'), your landlord can only increase the rental by 20%

Ah, but he can just chuck you out at the end of your rental in any case. Well, actually, no he can't.

Dubai's property law states a landlord must give a tenant 12 months' notice to vacate a property AND have good reason to do so. The usual canard is that he's moving himself or his family back in. Fine, but the law actually states he has to prove he has no suitable other property for this purpose AND if he does re-let the property, the original tenant is due compensation.

So there's actually pretty comprehensive protection in place for tenants - and it seems more and more are actually taking to seeking recourse. You'd have thought landlords would be aware of the law and take care to work within this very clear framework, but the lure of those rental increases appears to be a strong one and they're trying it on.

They're much less likely to do so when people are clearly aware of the law and their rights within it, of course.

BOOK POST: Shemlan and the Big C

Shemlan - A Deadly Tragedy is about a man with terminal cancer whose journey into his past  to find the lost love of his life stirs up a hornet's nest that threatens to kill him before the disease does.

I so far have not had, but am fully expecting, the reaction 'But I don't want to read a book about someone dying of cancer.'

I genuinely hadn't given it a moment's thought until I hit the 'go' button on the various publishing platforms I've used. But then I've never really set out to make life easy for myself with this whole book thing.

I can even sympathise with that reaction. I suffered it myself to a certain degree when the book was being conceived.

Jason Hartmoor was born when Barry Cook came to stay with us back in 2008. I posted about his visit on the blog a while afterwards and I do heartily recommend you take a read. Barry had been fighting off cancer for ten years and was desperately ill. I had dreaded the visit - we knew we were going to be playing host to a terminally ill cancer patient and had both steeled ourselves for a pretty hellish three days. We were to be totally blindsided by what happened next.

"I didn't stop laughing, or smiling, for the next 72 hours. Not only were our visitors delightful company, Barry was nothing short of inspirational. Although he'd get the odd twinge of pain in his back and needed to take enzymes to aid his digestion, he was more on top of a disease so chronic that an x-ray of his skeleton showed the cancer was so widespread it was like 'someone had thrown a handful of sticky rice grains at it' than I could ever have imagined. He'd been fighting it for ten years and was still beating it back."

And so was born the Roxanol and enzyme popping Jason Hartmoor. The resemblance ends there, Barry was a charismatic, laughing man with enough charm and twinkle for ten. But I had been building a 'challenged' character and Barry's condition - with its inevitable end - wriggled its way into that character. I think Barry himself crept into Hartmoor every now and then - Jason's lighter, more human moments are probably Barry breaking through.

I've often talked about how authors 'steal' people. This is the ultimate example, stealing a dying man. But blag away I did. My only defence is that it wasn't intentional.

I didn't want to make Hartmoor's condition harrowing or graphic in itself, at least in part because Barry had shown me having cancer doesn't necessarily mean every day is spent recalling your last chemo session or the day you first found out. After ten years, it had settled into a sort of 'business as usual' for him. Hartmoor gets tired: he fatigues easily and has to depend on The Hated Stick more than he would like to - increasingly so as the book progresses. He's frail, his routines are those of a man who depends absolutely on his medication - particularly the painkillers. But his disease has become a fact of life for him, a constant companion he has reached a sort of understanding with.

The constancy of Roxanol, by the way, was the reason I was so taken by the cover image, by Australian artist Gerrard King. But more of that another time...

So I wouldn't let the fact there's a man with cancer at the heart of Shemlan - A Deadly Tragedy stop you reading it. In fact, I'd rather like to think it was yet another reason TO read it.

The link's to the right of this post. Do it now before you forget...

Book Post - So Wearily To Market

When I finished writing Space in 2002 or thereabouts, the idea of writing a synopsis after having dashed down 100,000 words of prose was really rather horrifying. I staggered duly to my feet and got on with it in the end, but I wasn't happy. Finishing a book should really just be about that. Finishing.

Now, of course, when you finish writing a book it's just the start rather than the finish. Probably as much effort again has to go into finding readers. And they are becoming increasingly adept at not being found, I can tell you.

So rather than putting my feet up and eating my way through the Hotel Chocolat website, I'm sending Shemlan - A Deadly Tragedy out to reviewers - a list of a tad over a hundred book blogs being my secret weapon. Several of the blogs that were extant at the start of this year as I sent out review copies of Beirut - An Explosive Thriller are now dead blogs, the bloggers having presumably succumbed under the dead weight of thousands of needy authors sending in their hopes and dreams in the form of ePub and Kindle files. It's worse now, the publishing houses have joined in and now court book bloggers like love-lorn lorikeets.

I'll be dreaming up other schemes, too, of course, including readings and shouting abusive gibberish at any audience that'll have me - I am, once again, popping up at the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature as well as booked to appear on radio show Talking Of Books.

As I've said before - it's lucky I'm not shy. I have author pals who are altogether less outgoing and they find this stuff painful to point where it provokes much existential angst. I enjoy it very much. So if you're in a book club, do feel free to hit me up!

Posting People's Pictures Online Could Carry A Fine Or Even Jail Time

United Arab Emirates (Photo credit: saraab™)

The National newspaper today confirms what has long been an odd quirk here in the UAE has indeed been taken to its (inevitable) online conclusion - publishing (posting) pictures of people without their consent is against the law here - and, as a criminal case, could result in a hefty fine or prison time.

It's always been the case that you actually needed written consent before publishing somebody's photo in the UAE. That we often shortcut this requirement - as so many legal requirements are shortcut in a society which rubs along very nicely with a mainly 'laissez faire' attitude - does not mean it does not exist. As with so many aspects of life here, when things go wrong, the law comes into play and suddenly what seemed a forgotten piece of legislation becomes very real indeed.

Now it's been confirmed in words of one syllable that the online equivalent of the offline phrase 'publish' which is, of course, 'post' also carries the same weight. In short, you post an image on Facebook, Twitter or the like and you are open to criminal prosecution. Not a civil case, you understand, a criminal one.

Lt Col Salah Al Ghoul, Head of the bureau for law respect at the Ministry told The National: "Article 24 of the cybercrimes law stipulates that anyone who uses an information network to infringe upon someone else’s privacy shall be punished by a minimum prison sentence of six months and/or a fine of between Dh150,000 and Dh500,000."

You can consider an image to include video and, presumably, audio. So if you see a gentleman beating a hapless-looking chap around the head with his agal, you have 500,000 great reasons to pass by rather than film the incident and post it on YouTube.

That has always been the case here - as some of the more liberally grey-haired on Twitter pointed out when that particular video was put up. You can, literally, defame someone with the truth in the UAE.

Protecting decent folks' privacy or obviating social justice? You tell me...

Book Post - Populating Shemlan - A Deadly Tragedy

Image via CrunchBase

So we pushed the button yesterday, but even in the 'Internet age' these things can take time. We're looking at three editions of Shemlan - A Deadly Tragedy: Smashwords, Kindle and CreateSpace. Here's what happens when you press 'go' on a book.

Smashwords
Smashwords populates pretty much instantaneously, provided your documents are formatted in the required fashion. Smashwords' own guide to formatting is a free download and reading it will save you time and hassle. I choose not to publish to Kindle using Smashwords but use Amazon's own Kindle Direct Publishing. Once 'Meatgrinder', Smashwords' multi-publishing engine, has done its work, the book is available on the Smashwords site as an ebook compatible with Sony, Kobo, Barnes and Noble's Nook and Apple's iBooks. So you can go to Smashwords here and buy Shemlan.

Smashwords also populates the relative stores - B&N, Kobo and iBooks. But that takes a good deal longer - it's part of the 'Premium Catalog' and requires quality checking by Smashwords before that goes ahead. So for now, it's just Smashwords, not the retail sites. That can take a week or so.

Kindle Direct Publishing
Kindle takes a while longer, promising 12-24 hours but usually beating that quite comfortably. In fact, the Kindle book of Shemlan was up a few hours after Smashwords. So you can go here to buy Shemlan from Amazon in the UK or here to buy it from Amazon.com. There are now Amazons around Europe and even further afield, including Japan, but posting all those links is just too exhausting. I have never sold a book in Japan.

CreateSpace
This is the print edition of Shemlan - A Deadly Tragedy and takes longest. Createspace is currently still reviewing the book files. Once they've passed the files (an automated check is performed when you press 'go' but they still do a manual check following that), they'll populate the Createspace store, Amazon and then expanded distribution outlets such as The Book Depository. This can take a couple of weeks.

While that's happening, it's down to compiling the list of reviewers/book blogs. And yes, you're all in for a rough old ride because I'm in promo mode now and that means bugging everyone and their uncles to run around screaming 'buy Alexander McNabb's novel Shemlan - A Deadly Tragedy now now now!'

It's not about you buying it, see - it's about you getting everyone you know to tell everyone they know to buy it!!!

Book Post - Shemlan Chalks Up LitFest First!

Gerrard King's amazing pill skull image, 

wot graces the cover of Shemlan - A Deadly Tragedy.

I didn't realise until the dirty deed was done, but my third Middle East spy thriller, Shemlan - A Deadly Tragedy, today became the first book ever to be published at the Emirates Airline Festival Of Literature's spiritual and temporal home, the Dar Al Adab.

Today's workshop, part of the LitFest's 'Open Door' series of workshops and writerly things, was for the Hunna ladies writer's group and explored how to publish a book - both getting an agent and publisher and doing it yourself.

As part of the latter bit, I showed how to format, upload and manage a printed edition using CreateSpace, a Kindle book using MobiPocket Creator and Kindle Direct Publishing and also an Epub standard ebook (for Kobo, B&N and Apple among others) using Mark Coker's brilliant Smashwords.

What better example than the book I have just finished editing and proofing?

All three took well under half an hour, underlining how essentially easy and accessible self-publishing platforms are these days.

So Shemlan - A Deadly Tragedy is now published - available here right now for your Kobo, Sony or iPad and here for your Kindle.


It's a funny old feeling, actually. Shemlan became something of a project on hold after I decided to self-publish Olives - A Violent Romance and then Beirut - An Explosive Thriller. Shemlan completes the Levant Cycle (three books set roughly contiguously but NOT a trilogy) and comes at the end of a lot of enjoyable but hard work.

I'm wondering what people will make of it, actually. I love it to death (obviously!) and think it sits somewhere between Olives and Beirut. I've already had people express strong preferences for both of those books at the expense of the other, Gerald Lynch appears to be the Middle East espionage thriller equivalent of Marmite and the strength of feeling he provokes from readers can take a chap aback occasionally. It's fair to say his behaviour in Shemlan will do little to dampen down the love/hate debate.

Needless to say, one will be having a quietly celebrative quaff this evening...

Book Post: Shemlan - A Deadly Tragedy - The Cover

The cover of Shemlan - A Deadly Tragedy.

Australian artist Gerrard King created the cover image for Shemlan - A Deadly Tragedy. I stumbled across it during a session of frustrated Googling, having found various images that just wouldn't really do the job. I was looking for a combination of pills and death, two themes that run through the book, and you'd hardly find a better themic concatenation than Gerrard's decorated skull - one of a series he created as part of a perhaps worryingly extensive exploration of the artistic potentialities of skulls.

I had tested a tentative image or two with my pals over on the mailing list only to find them definitely 'meh' about the ideas. But this one really does the job - it's got impact, vavavoom and lipstick bullet following kabamm - in my humble opinion.

The image file (1600x2500 resolution both for Kindle and Smashwords, people) is ready to upload, as is the full Createspace cover. I have yet to finalise the .prc format text file for Kindle, the .docx file for Smashwords (all Meatginder-ready) and the Createspace text file. That's today's job.

And then tomorrow I'll be pushing various buttons at the 'How to self-publish a book' workshop at the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature's spiritual and temporal home, the lovely and tranquil barjeel-laden Dar Al Adab tomorrow. The Hunna ladies group of writers will be gathered to watch in puzzlement as I wrestle with the various feersum endjinns involved in actually making a book happen in this brave new eworld of ours.

And then, gradually, pixels will pixellate. It's all quite exciting, really...

UAE Petrol Retailers Are Breaking The Law It Seems

(Photo credit: 401(K) 2013)

A report in today's Gulf News quotes Omar Bu Shahab, CEO of the Commercial Compliance and Consumer Protection Division (CCCP) in the Department of Economic Development in Dubai as saying that charging 2% fees on credit and debit card transactions is a violation of consumer protection law.

While he was commenting on an attempt by a GEMS school to levy a 2% processing fee on credit and debit card transactions, his clarification also applies to Emarat and EPPCO/ENOC service stations, which charge the fee on credit card transactions for fuel. This surcharge appears to have been the resolution of a spat between the credit card companies and the fuel distributors dating back to 2007 - and the early days of this here very blog. The story from way back then is suitably linked 'ere. Basically, the retailers (not ADNOC, you'll note) have always charged extra for credit card purchases, in violation of the card issuers' agreements and when the card companies kicked off, the retailers just stopped taking credit cards. They've recently started again, but with a Dhs2 'service fee' on any transaction for fuel up to Dhs100. In short, 2%...

“Retailers who are charging extra fees on the credit card or debt card payments are violating the consumer protection law and will be subject to penalties,” Mr Bu Shahab told the newspaper that tells it like it is.*

So it'll be interesting to hear what the petrol companies say when the media come calling, won't it?

*Well, sometimes.

Book Post - Shemlan On Target

As they climbed up into the hills above Beirut, Hartmoor gazed out of the car window at the buildings around them. No scent of spring for this trip, he reflected, the February rain greying out the scenery. Misty tendrils snaked around the treetops. He remembered his first journey on this road, past the sprawling village of Bchamoun at the foothills then the road winding through the villages clinging to the plunging gorges of the Chouf Mountains. Now, as then, the houses in the villages seemed stacked up on top of each other, densely packed on the steep hillsides.
To the side of the road ran a concrete storm drain that crossed the tarmac as the camber and direction changed, the grating covering it clanging under the taxi’s wheels. The taxi hit a pothole hard, the engine note jumping and a dark cloud left behind as the driver changed down a gear. The rosary hanging on his rear mirror jangled.
They passed the village of Ainab, Hartmoor marvelling at the number of new stone-clad villas, gated developments and building sites overlooking Beirut spread out far below. A blue sign proclaimed ‘Shimlan.’ He leaned forward and asked the driver to slow down, ‘Shway, Shway.’
From Shemlan - A Deadly Tragedy

The mornings and evenings this week have been a tad hectic, with proofreader Katie Stine chucking up no less than 230 line errors (where the hell did THEY come from?) in her edit of the MS of Shemlan - A Deadly Tragedy and my last editing round, performed using a Kindle, now almost over.

Its amazing that after so many edits, beta reads, a professional edit and a professional proof read (Katie's VERY good) that I'm still chucking stuff up but that's the way it goes with books. You can do a lot with 85,000 words, including word repetitions, lazy adjectives, little touches to clarify points, better word choices, filters (he saw the shiny spoon = the spoon shone) and more.

I'm giving a follow up workshop for the Hunna Ladies Writer's Group on Saturday at the Emirates LitFest's home, the Dar Al Adab - on how to self-publish a book. Last time we looked at how to write and edit, so now we're going to complete the exercise and look at how you can use POD and ebooks to make your work available to a truly global audience. What better example to use in the live demos than Shemlan itself? So I'll be publishing the e-book on Saturday.

That doesn't mean you'll be able to get your hands on it Saturday. Amazon Kindle takes 12-24 hours to populate, Createspace for the paperback can take longer (including the Book Depository which can actually take a couple of weeks to bring up a title) and Smashwords' Premium Catalogue (iBooks and the like) can similarly take a while. I reckon by my 'official' target publishing date of November 5th you'll be good to go and the links can go up.