Guest Post - Phillipa Fioretti

Today, as a treat, you can have a guest post from Australian author Phillipa Fiorretti.

My morning routine, once I have settled and have my evil espresso next to me, is to go through my overnight emails from the Northern Hemisphere and cruise around my favourite blogs reading the latest posts. I’m always pleased to see a new post from Alexander on Fake Plastic Souks, because I know that usually I’ll have a bit of a giggle.

Alexander and I are writing pals, having ‘met’ on Authonomy last year. I helped to edit the manuscript of his book, Olives, and I have to say there is nothing more soothing after a tiresome day than to pour a drink, pick up a sharp pencil and savage his work. I’m cruel, brutal even, but I’m fair. I won’t stand for any nonsense with adverbs and deal ruthlessly with any signs of lazy expression. And I don’t smile while I do it.

But when I arrive at his blog I’m off duty and care not if he uses three adjectives in a row. I read all the posts, although I tend to skim the technology ones unless there is an interesting angle – like the Etisalat patch for Blackberries, or the intricacies of using SatNav devices. The ones I really like are usually about the new train service, taxis, and commentary on daily life in Dubai.

I live in Australia and geographically the closest I’ve ever been to Dubai would be Kashmir. Most of us here, unless we know a friend or relative living in Dubai or have business connections there, think of money, expats, finance, money, sex on the beach and Emirates Airlines. As a kid, the constant references, (as in news stories), to the Middle East really bothered me. I was on the east coast of Australia and the Far East looked pretty close to where I was, so why was it Far, and what was the East in the Middle of?

Maps of the world, in Australia, show this continent in the centre of the Southern Hemisphere. Thus the Middle East is actually the North West and the Far East is the North. America is the Far East really, according to my junior map reading skills. So had someone made a mistake and the rest of the world just went a long with it? I began to ask questions and demand some answers.

But long and involved parental explanations were lost on me and it wasn’t until I started reading history books for my own pleasure, as opposed for school history teachers, did I get it. Two of my favourite writers on the region are Edward Said and Tim Mackintosh-Smith.

But while books like these humanise countries and explain the historical intricacies, they don’t give the immediate, daily minutiae that really brings it alive in one’s imagination. Posts such as Hard Times on Mr G. the taxi driver, NufNuf coping with the Abu Dhabi traffic, Sharjah’s Number 14 bus, the Etisalat saga and the strange creature called Modhesh.

I’m sure there are other blogs about Dubai written for the visitor or armchair traveller, but Fake Plastic Souks isn’t speaking to them and that’s what makes it so fascinating to me. I see the dust and the traffic and the air conditioned towers and all of the stories a travel writer would leave out.

And there is never an overload of adverbs to jolt me out of my reverie, cause me to sigh and shake my head, or make me want to slice away the excess words.

Phillipa's most excellent blog, which mixes her respective fascinations for art and writing quite neatly, can be found here. Her first novel, The Book of Love, is to be published by Hachette Australia next year.

Jokers

As Dubai's "integrated response" to the "challenges of the traffic issue" kicks in, we are seeing increased regulation of our lives on the roads. It's likely that nowhere else in the world are motorists subjected to such regular doses of radar - the fixed cameras are everywhere and the mobile ones are where the fixed ones aren't.

We're being charged to use some roads, thereby 'encouraging' us to use others. Seemingly random roadworks dot the city, adding extra excitement to the congestion. We're not allowed to share our cars unless we have registered to do so. Dubai trarn-sport has replaced the private sector cabbie solution with a modern integrated trarn-sport solution and now we can't get cabs when we need them - increasingly a problem at certain times, even if they're pre-booked through the call centre. Those cabs are increasingly expensive: including a Dhs20 surcharge to go to Sharjah.

They're also replacing Dubai's traditional (and much loved) abra water taxis with a fleet of modern, air-conditioned customer-centric boats that nobody seems to want.

I reckon working for the RTA must be tough. The poor guys must rank below investment advisors on the unpopular job chart. You can just see the kitchen at the party.

"I'm an interior design consultant. What do you do?"
"Oh, you know, import/export kind of stuff!"
"Alan? Why did you say that? You work for the RTA, darling!"
"Shhh!"

They do have my sympathy. Altogether now? Aaahhh.

Which is probably why I am amused by RTA cars negotiating the sandy snicket that lies between Sharjah and Dubai of a morning. Given that their job is to deal with the problem, it seems unfair that they're not eating their own dog-food.

But insult was added to injury the other day when an RTA car sped past me pulling upward of 120kph on the infamously mobile-radar infested Academic City Road. Really. An insane 80kph speed limit applies on this stretch of tw0-lane each way desert blacktop and the boys in green are such a very regular occurence than nobody dares break the limit there anymore. We just go quietly insane, crawling through the empty desert at a snail's pace. Unless we work for the RTA, in which case we're obviously immune.

And then this morning I found myself on another 80kph road, this time in Sharjah, as another joker in an RTA vehicle slammed past me pulling at least 120 klicks.

And, dear reader, for one awful, vengeful moment, I have to confess my heart was not filled with love towards our 'traffic expert' colleagues. I am, I know, a bad person.