Children of the Seven Sands. Who's a little smartie?

So this is the cover of Children of the Seven Sands and I think (I could perhaps be accused of being ever so slightly biased) it's a little beauty.

So here's a big thank you to the elves and dwarves at Motivate Mansions, who sweated over making the book all really rather jolly.

The book's edited to death, although something horrible's sure to have slipped by. You've got 140,000 words to get right. The picture captions are done. It's all ready to rock and roll, basically. The cover's the last element to be settled.

And now it's just a waiting game as the NMC does its thing. Time to ponder how the hell I ended up writing a history of the Emirates in the first place, how I decided to plunge into non-fiction having had a perfectly pleasant time of it writing novels. I try not to remember the research, the tottering piles of academic papers and esoteric volumes. The cross-checking facts and all that stuff.

The acid test is around the corner now - Joe Public. Will it be enough of a narrative to be readable? Will it deliver on its promise of making the UAE's often bloody but never less than fascinating history come alive? Or will it trudge and heave, limping its way to being bookshelved halfway through?

I could care less right now. I'm sitting gazing at the cover and rolling the title around in my mouth like warm brandy.

Yessss....

How NOT To Use A Drone

The Iron Age Fort at Jebel Buhais, imaged by an ex-drone

I have posted previously about my acquisition of a DJI Mavic Pro drone and my subsequent attempts to kill it. Pal Jane asked me the other day, from her new Italian fastness, to recommend a drone and I wholeheartedly endorsed the DJI drones (a friend has just bought the amazing DJI Mavic Mini and is astounded by its stellar performance) even as I confessed to her that I had finally managed to terminally, utterly, destroy my own Mavic that very morning.

This, she said, was her concern. To spend so much money and break the thing. I pointed out how very, very hard I had tried. I am dumb, the drone is smart. Time and again, it eluded death at my hand with a cautionary 'I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.'

The Mavic returns home if you fly it out of battery. It returns home if you fly it out of range. It refuses to fly too far or too high. It detects objects and refuses to fly into them even if you aim it straight at them at full speed. If you fly it behind a mountain so that it loses contact with the controller, it returns home automatically. If it's hit by bursts of military grade RF, it comes home. If you fly it in high winds, it warns you and asks to come home. If you try to fly it illegally, it warns you. I know, I have done all these things. And the drone has survived time after time.

And then I managed it. Peak feckwit.

There's something magical about the moment when you realise you have trashed nigh on a thousand pounds' worth of perfectly integrated, smart, highly autonomous technology. It's a nasty, deep-in-the-guts ache, a tingling that refuses to go away. Your mouth dries and your heart-rate flies through stratospheric. The first thing you do is denial. No way, no way that happened. I mean, that's bats. I flew it under a bridge, over a plunging waterfall, imaging the roiling torrent below.

How could it have crashed? I lined it up beautifully for the flight over the waterfall. It sailed under the spans above, danced above the mad white water below. It was a perfect trajectory.

It was, indeed - straight into the overhanging branches of a tree. The first rotor chopped off a branch, ripped into the green wood. The drone struggled briefly to right itself then other rotors snapped twigs and it dropped into the rushing white waters.

Drone to stone in less than a second. Game over.

The only (very slight, I can tell you) good news is that I had already taken the drone shots I needed to illustrate Children of the Seven Sands.

The rest is just bitter, salty tears...

Happy New Year And All That

We took an A380. It's quicker...

So, here we are back 'in station' from 'leave in UK'. The coming week will involve the usual getting used to be being back home in this place which is home but not really home. As I pointed out on Twitter,  I'm back where I came from but not where I started.

Over the years, that has felt increasingly odd and, a bit like a tetanus jab, it gets worse every time.

I have things to focus on, of course - work's going to be mad, I know. And then we have Project Children of the Seven Sands, which launches in under a month...

The book's currently with the UAE's National Media Council, who have to decide whether it will break the world or whether it is not so painful as to be beyond their ability to ignore its more dramatic twists and turns. There's a lot in there they could potentially object strongly to - so we're hoping they are feeling brave, generous and generally able to take a deep breath, perhaps even hold their noses, and let the whole thing go with, if not their blessing, certainly their veto withheld.

Why should they?

Well, for a start it's all true. The truth may not always prevail in the world of Middle Eastern politics and culture, but the Emirates is in a funny place right now and probably more capable of facing up to the comforting and uncomfortable facts of its history than it ever before has been. This is the story, the full and unexpurgated story, of this land and its origins. Now, more than ever before, an environment prevails where that story can be told without fear of censorship or, indeed, censure.

Secondly, it's all rather wonderful. This history is rarely less than amazing, delightful and utterly counter-intuitive. I can only hope I have told it in a way that at least communicates a touch of the splendour, madness, hope and fear that is woven through a past that is magical, deadly, innocent and majestic in turns. Why would you possibly repress a past that is so colourful and magical, that gives meaning to your present and lets your people start to explore who they totally, really are? Is that a big claim for a book? Sure it is, and I'm happy to make it and stand by it.

And thirdly - and I make no apology for this - it's told by a friend. Now, we might be talking about a friend who's a bit loud and embarrassing and who drinks all the fruit juice before the important guest gets a look in, but you're better off with this story in the hands of a bumptious friend than an enemy - and you're certainly better off with a sympathetic interpretation of the archives than you are with a literal parroting of the British view as they recorded it - for instance.

I'm not saying by any means that I've papered over cracks or omitted inconvenient truths because I most certainly haven't - but I've given context where that is relevant and explained actions where they seem otherwise inexplicable. I've told the whole story only after I understood the entire thing myself, so that each action and event is given (I hope) the right weight in the overall scheme of things. I may not be a safe pair of hands, but I'm the best you're likely to get around here for a while yet.

Once we're through that, it's final covers, a quick review of the layout/page proofs and off to print in time for 02/02/2020 when we should be launching the thing.

In the meantime, there may be some promotional activity. You have been warned...

#SharjahSaturday - A QUICK FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions
#SharjahSaturday 

What IS #SharjahSaturday?
It's just a wee Twitter hashtag. I've proposed a route around Sharjah to let people see what's on their doorsteps and what they could be getting up to on the weekend instead of being cooped up in their Dubai apartments or dragging their weary butts out to yet another brunch.

We'll be a-Tweetin' as we go, no doubt. I've sort of picked things that seemed to make sense for starters, but I've not even touched Mleiha; Wasit Wetlands; Sharjah Archaeology Museum; Sharjah Car Museum; Discovery Centre;  Sharjah Aquarium; Sharjah Art Museum or the Sharjah Art Foundation Collection. Let alone the conservation centres, lodges, inland or east coast places. There's a load to do in Sharjah - and that leaves another six emirates to explore afterwards...

What ARE you doin' then?
See blogs passim. Like this here list with Google pins for everything...

Why are you even bothering with this?
Because I got irritated at someone whining on Twitter a while back about how pinned down and shallow they felt living in Dubai. The Emirates is a rich, colourful, glorious tapestry of amazing things - and many of these are in Sharjah. So I thought it was worth sharing.

Also, I have a book to sell.

A book to sell? REALLY? Wow! Do tell MORE!
Children of the Seven Sands is the Human History of the United Arab Emirates, by me and published by Motivate Publishing and launching at the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature 2020.

It just happens to tie in nicely with Sharjah's wild, rich and often extremely bloody history. The book charts the 130,000 year-old human history of this place, from the emergence of anatomically modern man from Africa to populate earth through to the end of Eden, the discovery of metals, early societies and trading networks, the advent of Islam and the fall of the first human intercontinental trade network to the bloodthirsty Portuguese, the dominance of the British and the violent, internecine wars and vicious scrabbles for power that eventually resulted in transforming the Trucial States into the United Arab Emirates.

Was that a book plug you just sneaked in?
No, no, no, no. Of course not.

If you want to attend the Children of the Seven Sands LitFest Session, the link is here. Ahem.

Do I have to come/make excuses for not coming?
No, not at all. I have no expectations here and if six people rock up, that'll be super. That's six times more people than me tweeting about things to see and do in Sharjah.

Where you starting?
Jones the Grocer - Flag Island for around about 9am. Google pin here.

Do we have to come to [insert location on the day]?
No, you can turn up, stay as long as you like in a place, miss a place out, do whatever you want to. We happen to be wandering around in a particular order, but that's no reason why you should feel you have to. HOWEVER, if you're with me/the main group, entry to Sharjah Museums properties is FREE YES FREE. If you're not, they'll make you pony up the entrance fee. To be fair, that's usually only pennies in any case - Sharjah's a very museum friendly place.

What about locations?
Every location for #SharjahSaturday is linked in this here blog post with a Google Maps pin. Isn't that all terribly convenient???

What do we need to bring?
Just yourselves. Some money for coffee/lunch/souvenirs. Perhaps some bottled water for walking, perhaps a hat for the kids. You WILL need to book Rain Room if you want to do that. The link's here for booking a slot.

Is there much walking?
Quite a bit of wandering around, yes. The most walking will be the afternoon, but there's no rush and if you want to hop in a cab at any stage, well, why not?

Where do we put the car?
We'll drive to Mahatta from Jones, then out to the Wildlife Park - about a 30 minute drive. We'll come back to the car park outside Fen in the Sharjah Art Foundation Area, which costs pennies. I'd suggest you dump the car there and walk the rest of it.

What if I have other questions?
@alexandermcnabb or just #SharjahSaturday!

#SharjahSaturday - The Skinny

Look on the bright side - only a couple more days to #SharjahSaturday, then I'll shut up about it.

Sharjah Museums, being wonderful chaps, have extended free access to the various museums we're visiting on the day if you're travelling with the group, which is super of them.

In the meantime, here's the plan for the day in a series of handy dandy links:

9am Meet up at Jones. Do coffee, whatevs. Leave for Mahatta at around 9.45ish

     Google Pin here to Jones on Flag Island

10 am Mahatta Fort

     Google Pin here to Mahatta Fort

Mahatta Fort in the 1990s, prior to its restoration. It was a bit of state...

11am Arabia's Wildlife Centre
     Google Pin here to Arabia's Wildlife Centre

Petting zoo at Arabia's Wildlife Centre. Featuring neece.

1pm Fen Café Lunch followed by the Heart of Sharjah
     Google Pin here to Fen

Have I mentioned Fen's chocolate cake before? I have? Oh, right, then...

3pm Rain Room NOTE you need to book this one! Booking link HERE.
     Google Pin here to Rain Room

Rain Room. This is the bit you stay dry in. Actually, you stay dry in the wet bit, too...

4pm Sharjah Museum of Islamic Civilisation
     Google Pin here to da museum

Museum...

5pm The Heart of Sharjah/Al Bait Hotel
     Google Pin to Al Bait Hotel

The cylindrical barjeel at Al Bait is unique in the Emirates...

And there we end the day!

6-7pm Goodbyes/Head to Ajman

Not clever, not funny, not mature...

#SharjahSaturday - The Heart of Sharjah

Al Hisn Sharjah

Soooo, here's the scheme. Wandering back from Rain Room and the Sharjah Museum of Islamic Civilisation, we find ourselves walking past Al Hisn Sharjah - Sharjah Fort.

The old fort of Sharjah was recorded as a significant building on the coast of the Trucial States and so it would have been - the Al Qasimi stronghold of Sharjah was part of the alliance - a Federation, really - which tied Sharjah, Ras Al Khaimah and many holdings on the islands and southern Persian coast together under the seafaring Huwala tribe and their rulers, the Al Qasimi.

The fort was almost entirely knocked down by the-then Ruler of Sharjah, Khaled bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, in the late 1960s. The current Ruler, HH Dr Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, rushed home from his studies in Cairo to try and stop Khaled from destroying the fort but was in time to save a single tower, called Al Qubs. Reduced from a major fortification to a effectively a single 'Murabbaa', or defensive tower, Al Qubs gave its name to the square in which it stood - Al Burj, or tower, square. It was colloquially known as 'Bank Street' in the 1990s because all of the buildings around the square, funky early 1980s jobs designed by a Spanish architect (and now much celebrated, although due, at least in part, for demolition) towering over the little burj housed banks.

Why did Khaled want to erase the fort? The reason was to lead to his untimely and tragic death - I'll tell you all about it on the day or you can read about it in (altogether now) Children of the Seven Sands!!!

Dr Sheikh Sultan preserved many of the original materials from the demolished fort, including window frames and other fittings, as well as a detailed plan of the old building. In the late 1990s, he started the huge restoration project, rebuilding the Sharjah Fort in a faithful reconstruction that used traditional materials and followed every line and crenelation of the old fort. And there it stands today, dungeons and family rooms alike, a fine example of an Arabian fort.

A wander down the shaded walkways of the traditional Souk Al Shanasiyah

Of course, you could skip the fort and just dive towards Al Bait - in my humble opinion one of the most beautiful hotel properties in the Emirates. Sharjah's development company Shurooq spent some Dhs 27 million transforming three old merchants' houses and a goodly lump of the 'Heart of Sharjah' traditional old town and souk areas into an achingly funky hotel that screams good taste, oozes tradition and whispers luxury, modernity and chill-out sensuality around every leaf-dappled, quietly murmuring corner. The hotel is managed by Asian uber-chill hotel chain The Chedi and it's not only insanely expensive, but blindingly gorgeous. We're planning to nip in for coffee and perhaps, management permitting, a tour of a hotel that truly stands out as unique and glorious.

The Al Bait Mercedes. Rest of hotel not pictured...

And then we'll maybe take a walk through the Urban Garden as we make our way back to the car park outside Fen Café, where we'll say our farewells or perhaps plan to meet up down the road in Ajman, where evening entertainments abound - Ajman's fast-emerging hotel businesses include a number of beach-side properties along the Corniche, from the very Russian and luxurious Ajman Saray, to the seafront terrace of the Fairmont Ajman or perhaps the English-themed Outside Inn, altogether less salubrious. We're not going to the terminally funky Oberoi Al Zorah, easily Ajman's most luxurious hotel (and an outstanding property in its own right) or the Radisson Blu Ajman with its 100-foot-long sports bar but they're there for anyone adventuous enough to go looking...

The Urban Garden. Its urban. It's a garden.

See you there! Jones The Grocer, 9am, Saturday 7th December. As I've said before, come as you are, stay as long as you like, dip in, dip out, cherry pick - just don't feel you're being 'organised' - we're going to play it all very much by ear! The only thing that is constant is #SharjahSaturday on Twitter, where you can share your Sharjah joy (or pain!) with the world!!!

#SharjahSaturday - The Sharjah Museum of Islamic Civilisation

The flowering of Islamic science resulted not only in the translation and preservation of the knowledge of the ancients, but in a remarkable flourishing of scientific investigation, discovery and achievement. To this day, a significant amount of our scientific and mathematical vocabulary is peppered with words that have their root in Arabic, a result not only of Baghdad's remarkable Bait Al Hikmah, but of observatories and centres of knowledge in Cairo, Alexandria, Cordoba and elsewhere in the Islamic world.

Mantissa, algebra, zenith, alkaline, alchemy and alcohol all trip off the tongue, but they're all rooted in Arabic. So's the word assassin, before you get too uppity over there in the Arabic corner. Something like 60% of the stars in our modern night sky remain named in Arabic - a remarkable testament to the legacy of Islamic achievements in astronomy. This efflorescence of the sciences in the Islamic 'golden age' provided the base for the subsequent explosion of scientific thought following the dark ages in Europe, but it also underpinned the exploration of our world and the opening up of global trade networks.

As we discover in Children of the Seven Sands (ahem), the Arab traders of this area sailed the seven seas (the number of seas between here and China, as it happens) thanks to the navigational skills and observation of the stars that Islamic scientific discovery underpinned. It was from here that the first intercontinental trade networks were formed. The Emirates' most famous son, Ibn Majid of Julfar, left us a remarkable legacy built on the long-standing Arab navigational capability that sustained trade networks across Asia from before the C8th BCE through to the C15th and led to a virtual monopoly of the eastern trade until the Portuguese embarked on their bloody and cruel conquest of those networks in the early 1500s.

All of this and more are awaiting you at the Sharjah Museum of Islamic Civilisation. The building was originally a souk, but it turned out not to be a terribly successful one. The Museum, I am glad to be able to report, is an altogether more successful venture and provides a brilliantly put together display of the eye-opening ethnography of the Islamic world.

Which is why it's included in #SharjahSaturday, natch...

#SharjahSaturday - Rain Room

Rain Room. Funky outside, funky inside.

For the purposes of #SharjahSaturday, Rain Room is a two minute walk from the end of the Irani Souq (passing the Sharjah Museum of Islamic Civilisation, which you can visit if you're too early for Rain Room or leave until afterwards if you are so minded).

I have posted about Rain Room before. It's linked here for your viewing pleasure and convenience. Having said all that, it would be folly to repeat it now.

You can't be bothered to click on the link and are wondering "What IS Rain Room?" It's an art installation or, if you prefer, a piece of experiential art. It was conceived and put together for the Sharjah Art Foundation by an insane international art collective called Random International and its permanent installation in Sharjah is unique in the world.

It's a great big underground space, all black, with an enormous rain shower in it - lit by a single lamp. You walk into the rain, hundreds of square feet of it. You walk slowly. Sensors pick up your movement and switch off the rain around you. You walk in the rain, surrounded by the sound of hissing droplets, and you are dry. Unless, of course, you have Naughty Neece Ava with you - who quickly works out how to move in order to game the sensors and get you wet.

Siiiiinging in the rain, just siiinging in the rain...

It's all a bit mad and quite, quite fun.

You need to book Rain Room online - you can't just rock up and expect to get a slot. The booking link is here. Each session lasts 15 minutes and can accommodate 6 people. I've booked the 3.30 pm slot on the 7th December and have some spares if anyone's interested.

From there we have the option of taking in some Islamic Civilisation or a slow wander back through the souq to perhaps have a leisurely look at Al Hisn Sharjah or enjoy a coffee in the gorgeous, whispering courtyards of the Al Bait Hotel - a place I would contend is probably the finest, most beautiful hotel property in the Emirates - and if not, certainly in the top five.

#SharjahSaturday - Fen and the Heart of Sharjah

Fen's chocolate cake. This is actually legal.

Returning from the desert and its amazing wildlife, the idea is to drop into the achingly funky Fen Café, just behind the Iranian Mosque on the creek. Surrounded by art galleries and exhibition spaces (these are often packed with the most puzzling displays of strangenesses that have been created in the name of art, which is a thing that I do not even begin to pretend to comprehend), Fen Café is uniquely Sharjah. It's a collection of bonkers - hipster food served up in painfully 'on trend' furnishings with polished concrete and barasti surfaces all around, neatly packed up in a restored old house - part of the sprawling and visionary restoration of the 'Heart of Sharjah' - a project to restore the old town of Sharjah to its 1958 glories.

In this weather, the courtyard at Fen is a delight - shaded, filled with birdsong and often capped with a sky that can only, in all justice, be called cerulean.

Sitting outside at Fen

So here we take a leisurely lunch break before setting out on a dander through the 'Heart of Sharjah', perhaps stopping off at the Bait Al Naboodah to take a look at the opulent home of Sharjah's most successful pearl trader, with its teak colonnades and breezy summer room. With homes in Paris and Bombay and customers who ranged from jewellers to Maharajahs, Al Naboodah was doing alright, thank you very much, until the pearl market tanked.

By the way, pretty every historian will tell you this happened in 1929. It didn't, it happened much earlier. And they'll all tell you it was down to a double whammy of the Great Depression and the invention of the Mikimoto pearl but that is actually total rubbish. The truth is totally at odds with that lazy narrative and in Children of the Seven Sands I not only debunk the myth, but explain what actually happened, when it happened and why. That wasn't a book plug, honest. I was just saying.

The summer room at the Bait Al Naboodah - the woodwork's all fine Indian teak...

Anyway, we'll pop into the Souk Al Arsah and then pass the gorgeous Al Bait Hotel to take a wander down the shaded walkway of the Souk Al Shanasiyah with its tea rooms and shops selling cool Emirati designer thingies and then through the Irani Souk with its poor stores and groceries before we pootle over to Rain Room. There's no rush, is the idea - we've plenty of time to take it all in and enjoy exploring it all...

#SharjahSaturday - Arabia's Wildlife Centre

I'm wild, baby!

Our second stop on #SharjahSaturday, on the 7th December 2019, will be Arabia's Wildlife Centre. This zoological garden and animal sanctuary is about 30 minutes' drive away from our first stop, Mahatta Fort, but it's worth the journey out and we'll have the chance to point out some other things to do and places to see on the way.

The Wildlife Centre sits on the road to Dhaid, past the Bee'ah waste management complex and the little desert village of Saja'a - once the remote desert home of the fearsome Bani Qitab bedouin but now a bustling industrial area with a cement plant, cable factory and gas field as well as an extensive industrial zone.

It opened in 1999 after an expatriate lady called Marijke Jongbloed wrote to Dr Sheikh Sultan Al Qasimi and expressed her concern about the parlous state of the Dhub or horny-tailed lizard. Long prized by the Bedouin as an aphrodisiac, it was in danger of being hunted to death - the lizard bred in a specific place, a bowl in the Sharjah desert interior. Dr Sultan's response was a bolt out of the blue - yes, by all means protect the lizard, but why not establish a proper wildlife centre and conservancy there, as well? Jongbloed, awed at the chance she'd been given, leaped at the opportunity to built her centre.

Arabia's Wildlife Centre consists of an extensive indoor series of collections of wildlife indigenous to The Emirates - from Ruppel's Foxes to scorpions and saw-tailed vipers. There is also a neat section where larger animals roam around, gawped at by humans in glass cages. As I have said many times before, this last bit amused Jongbloed no end.

There is also the Sharjah Natural History Museum, which looks at the deep history of planetary formation, plate tectonics, dinosaurs and the Emirates' flora and fauna in general. There's also a charming little Islamic Botanical Garden, a kids' petting zoo and, although you can't visit it as such, a breeding centre for endangered wildlife.

After this, we're heading back into town to grab lunch at Funky Fen Café...