Route 66 in the UAE is the Dubai-Al Ain road. I'm not sure it's quite what Chuck Berry had in mind, but I guess you have to make do, no?
Just past junction 50 on the Emirates' version of the long desert highway is the chill-out delight that is the Emirates Al Maha Resort, the first desert eco-resort in the UAE and still the best desert-de-luxe experience of all. Process-driven fun-free hotel zone Jumeirah opened its 'Bab Al Shams' desert resort as a second player, but it's nowhere near the quality experience of Al Maha: we've been popping in to Maha for a day or two of expat long weekend bliss-out for many years now and it never fails to delight, although there's a certain amount of negative pocket movement to be taken into account.
The good news is that they do a half price summer offer for Skywards members and you can also swap those airmiles for a night there - I'd rather do 24 hours of luxury than an upgrade to Heathrow, to be honest. Literally, it's a 24 x 7 decision!
Their network was down, hence no posts for 48. Too busy wallowing in luxury. Sue me...
Saturday 30 June 2007
Thursday 28 June 2007
Rupee Shortage Cuts Deep
Fascinating news reports today, all pulled down from the AFP wire, that there’s a shortage of rupee coins in India because people have worked out that the base metal that the coin is made of has a greater value than the unit of currency itself, so they’re melting rupees down to make razor blades.
Kolkata police have raided a foundry which has been turning the coins into ingots for export. Meanwhile, everyone’s looking around, literally, for any small change they can find.
A currency that’s so devalued that its material value is greater than its face value. How crazy is that?
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A Nasty Green Day Habit
My old mate Ra’ed Bilbessi was very taken by a phrase I used in one of those columns I used to write in Campaign Middle East. Every time we meet now, he reminds me of the ‘Green Day punk thing’.
The actual phrase was embedded thusly: “Sadly, the chances are that right now you’re probably doing just that – dreamily looking up at the ceiling and thinking about a world where there were no advertisements, no clutter: just green fields and trees, butterflies and innocent children laughing as they play in the sunlight. Get over it. Those kids are PS3 playing surfpunks with a nasty Green Day habit, 8gig Nanos stuffed with ripped MP3s and a blog about picking your nose or how to off your siblings.”
The actual phrase was embedded thusly: “Sadly, the chances are that right now you’re probably doing just that – dreamily looking up at the ceiling and thinking about a world where there were no advertisements, no clutter: just green fields and trees, butterflies and innocent children laughing as they play in the sunlight. Get over it. Those kids are PS3 playing surfpunks with a nasty Green Day habit, 8gig Nanos stuffed with ripped MP3s and a blog about picking your nose or how to off your siblings.”
If you’re incurably curious, the full article can be found here.
So leaving the house this morning and finding that someone had been at our wheelie bin rather caused me to crack up. This picture’s for Ra’ed - NOW you know what I meant about those damn kids!! :)
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Wednesday 27 June 2007
Etisalat Customers Happy. Du Faces Task. Maktoob Effs Up.
Maktoob Research, the research arm of Arabic portal Maktoob.com, has published a report citing that 74% of Etisalat customers are happy campers.
They didn’t use the phrase ‘happy campers’, obviously!
The 74%, drawn from a sample of 360 customers (A nice round number! Arf! Arf!), are either ‘satisfied’ or ‘very satisfied’ with the mobile operator’s services. Gulf News took the opportunity in its story earlier today to point out that Du faces an ‘uphill task’ in converting these happy souls to its cause.
Uphill task. Right.
It's a great story. Media in the Middle East loves research: figures go down really well. But what amazes me is that Maktoob itself didn't make any reference to the story on its homepage on the day its release was due to get coverage - today. So any curious souls (like me) that went there to find out more didn't have a reference point to the story. Worse, when you finally find the Maktoob Research section of the site (still no reference to the cellular report) and look up its press section, the release isn't posted there!
In all fairness, I saved the original post this morning and gave 'em all day to catch up. It's 9pm DXB time and nothing's changed. The media's talking about Maktoob's cellular research, but Maktoob's not. Own goal.
Integrated campaign. So easy to say, so hard to do...
They didn’t use the phrase ‘happy campers’, obviously!
The 74%, drawn from a sample of 360 customers (A nice round number! Arf! Arf!), are either ‘satisfied’ or ‘very satisfied’ with the mobile operator’s services. Gulf News took the opportunity in its story earlier today to point out that Du faces an ‘uphill task’ in converting these happy souls to its cause.
Uphill task. Right.
It's a great story. Media in the Middle East loves research: figures go down really well. But what amazes me is that Maktoob itself didn't make any reference to the story on its homepage on the day its release was due to get coverage - today. So any curious souls (like me) that went there to find out more didn't have a reference point to the story. Worse, when you finally find the Maktoob Research section of the site (still no reference to the cellular report) and look up its press section, the release isn't posted there!
In all fairness, I saved the original post this morning and gave 'em all day to catch up. It's 9pm DXB time and nothing's changed. The media's talking about Maktoob's cellular research, but Maktoob's not. Own goal.
Integrated campaign. So easy to say, so hard to do...
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Salik: Wading Through a Mountain of Forms
I was thinking about refusing to babble on about Salik, the Dubai congestion charge, any more simply because everyone's talking about it so much it's in danger of getting boring.
But then I have been giggling quietly to myself so much this morning, I had to share. As predicted in posts passim, Salik is turning out to be far too much fun to ignore.
When you apply for your tag (as I did on Sunday), you fill out a form with your name, address, mobile number and car registration. If the databases were smart, you'd be able simply to give your vehicle registration number and everything else would be pulled from the database. Which rather points to the fact that the registration database isn't linked to Salik. Which rather points to manual data entry of those forms. Which rather points to delays in getting accounts activated.
So I called the nice Salik people on 800 SALIK (800 72545) and asked why I hadn't yet received my SMS advising me that my account was activated, as advertised. And they said there was a data entry backlog and I should kick my heels for a further 2-3 days.
Today's Gulf News (Emirates Today, for some reason is suddenly silent about Salik) reports a four day delay from readers, with one unhappy chappie saying he applied over a week ago and still hasn't got his SMS.
Oh dear, oh dear. There are only three more shopping days to Salik day and I have only yet seen two cars on the roads wearing their Salik tags. Media reports are a little confusing, but it would appear that 200,000 tags have been distributed in total, with reports of sales of 80,000.
Now. Let us assume that each form can be data entered in an average of two minutes (including downtime, error checking & toilet breaks, I think that's more than reasonable). That would mean 333 forms could be processed by one operator in a working day. So 80,000 forms would entail 240 man-days of data entry. If you had a massive data entry operation with 50 people working on entry, you're looking at 6.6 days' work.
However, we've got 200,000 tags out there and, this being Dubai, most people haven't bought their tags yet. Let us assume, then, that the 80,000 already sold have been data entered (although mine hasn't!). From today, we have another 120,000 tag applications to enter. That's going to take our 50 data entry operators ten days. So they'll be entered around about the 12th July given that no more applications are received.
I am, of course, more than happy to be told my calculations are incorrect and do point out that this is all speculation, guess-work and conjecture. But that's what people do when they're not being told what's happening...
So someone, somewhere is likely sitting underneath a huge and growing pile of forms while retailers will be facing the prospect of a weekend of increasingly angry customers demanding their tags and the call centre's in danger of getting flooded and people whose accounts aren't activated are probably going to start triggering fines or just be too scared to go through the gates...
It's all kicking off rather nicely, isn't it? What larks, Pip!
But then I have been giggling quietly to myself so much this morning, I had to share. As predicted in posts passim, Salik is turning out to be far too much fun to ignore.
When you apply for your tag (as I did on Sunday), you fill out a form with your name, address, mobile number and car registration. If the databases were smart, you'd be able simply to give your vehicle registration number and everything else would be pulled from the database. Which rather points to the fact that the registration database isn't linked to Salik. Which rather points to manual data entry of those forms. Which rather points to delays in getting accounts activated.
So I called the nice Salik people on 800 SALIK (800 72545) and asked why I hadn't yet received my SMS advising me that my account was activated, as advertised. And they said there was a data entry backlog and I should kick my heels for a further 2-3 days.
Today's Gulf News (Emirates Today, for some reason is suddenly silent about Salik) reports a four day delay from readers, with one unhappy chappie saying he applied over a week ago and still hasn't got his SMS.
Oh dear, oh dear. There are only three more shopping days to Salik day and I have only yet seen two cars on the roads wearing their Salik tags. Media reports are a little confusing, but it would appear that 200,000 tags have been distributed in total, with reports of sales of 80,000.
Now. Let us assume that each form can be data entered in an average of two minutes (including downtime, error checking & toilet breaks, I think that's more than reasonable). That would mean 333 forms could be processed by one operator in a working day. So 80,000 forms would entail 240 man-days of data entry. If you had a massive data entry operation with 50 people working on entry, you're looking at 6.6 days' work.
However, we've got 200,000 tags out there and, this being Dubai, most people haven't bought their tags yet. Let us assume, then, that the 80,000 already sold have been data entered (although mine hasn't!). From today, we have another 120,000 tag applications to enter. That's going to take our 50 data entry operators ten days. So they'll be entered around about the 12th July given that no more applications are received.
I am, of course, more than happy to be told my calculations are incorrect and do point out that this is all speculation, guess-work and conjecture. But that's what people do when they're not being told what's happening...
So someone, somewhere is likely sitting underneath a huge and growing pile of forms while retailers will be facing the prospect of a weekend of increasingly angry customers demanding their tags and the call centre's in danger of getting flooded and people whose accounts aren't activated are probably going to start triggering fines or just be too scared to go through the gates...
It's all kicking off rather nicely, isn't it? What larks, Pip!
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Tuesday 26 June 2007
Dubai: The Movie and Theme Park
It would appear that Paramount is to invest in a film about Dubai at the same time as Dubai is to invest in a theme park about Paramount.
Today's multi-kilo wadge of dead tree (Gulf News) carries the story that a Hollywood blockbuster is to focus on Lalaland. Brilliantly, it is to be called Dubai. GN blagged the story from Variety, the Tinseltown trade. Paramount has picked up the option on the script by Adam Cozad who is described by Variety as a 'tyro scribe', which appears to be Hollywoodese for 'unknown'...
Variety is amazing: it has a reporting language all of its own. Dubai is to be executive produced by Australian actor Eric Banna or, according to Variety: 'Thesp to produce'.
Dubai, Cozad's first script, is scheduled for a September shoot and centres around an American economist who is tricked into involvement in an Iranian plot to destroy the US economy, according to the various Hollywood mags. Producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura is apparently a hot shot at Paramount and someone to be taken seriously with current projects including Eddie Murphy's 'Nowhereland' as well as 'Stardust' and 'Transformers'.
From Nowhereland to Lalaland. Interesting.
Cozad has previously been involved in Middle East themed 'movies', with a co-director credit in Sidewalk Festival featured short 'Dust' in which 'Soldiers in Iraq must deal with the the tragedy of war'. Not to be confused, incidentally, with David Leeson's rather good personal film about being a journalist in Iraq, 'Dust to Dust'.
What is almost certain is that we can look forward to lots of fuss in September as the film team hits town, as well as the likelihood of yet another Hollywood blockbuster that over-simplifies and incorrectly characterises everything it touches. But then we're used to that by now, aren't we?
However, it is perhaps interesting (serendipitous, even) that the news also comes, from Variety, that the UAE's Ruwaad, the company with the compelling outdoor promotional campaign, is to spend $2.5 billion on building a Paramount themed picture park in Dubai which will feature restaurants, resorts and retail and is likely to focus on Paramount properties such as Top Gun and Mission Impossible.
You never know. They might even have a Dubai display if this film takes off. I quite like the idea of going to a Dubai theme park attraction in Dubai and seeing what Hollywood makes of it. I suppose, whatever they get up to, it can't be as potty as the truth...
By the way, there's already a movie called Dubai - it's a Filipino film.
Today's multi-kilo wadge of dead tree (Gulf News) carries the story that a Hollywood blockbuster is to focus on Lalaland. Brilliantly, it is to be called Dubai. GN blagged the story from Variety, the Tinseltown trade. Paramount has picked up the option on the script by Adam Cozad who is described by Variety as a 'tyro scribe', which appears to be Hollywoodese for 'unknown'...
Variety is amazing: it has a reporting language all of its own. Dubai is to be executive produced by Australian actor Eric Banna or, according to Variety: 'Thesp to produce'.
Dubai, Cozad's first script, is scheduled for a September shoot and centres around an American economist who is tricked into involvement in an Iranian plot to destroy the US economy, according to the various Hollywood mags. Producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura is apparently a hot shot at Paramount and someone to be taken seriously with current projects including Eddie Murphy's 'Nowhereland' as well as 'Stardust' and 'Transformers'.
From Nowhereland to Lalaland. Interesting.
Cozad has previously been involved in Middle East themed 'movies', with a co-director credit in Sidewalk Festival featured short 'Dust' in which 'Soldiers in Iraq must deal with the the tragedy of war'. Not to be confused, incidentally, with David Leeson's rather good personal film about being a journalist in Iraq, 'Dust to Dust'.
What is almost certain is that we can look forward to lots of fuss in September as the film team hits town, as well as the likelihood of yet another Hollywood blockbuster that over-simplifies and incorrectly characterises everything it touches. But then we're used to that by now, aren't we?
However, it is perhaps interesting (serendipitous, even) that the news also comes, from Variety, that the UAE's Ruwaad, the company with the compelling outdoor promotional campaign, is to spend $2.5 billion on building a Paramount themed picture park in Dubai which will feature restaurants, resorts and retail and is likely to focus on Paramount properties such as Top Gun and Mission Impossible.
You never know. They might even have a Dubai display if this film takes off. I quite like the idea of going to a Dubai theme park attraction in Dubai and seeing what Hollywood makes of it. I suppose, whatever they get up to, it can't be as potty as the truth...
By the way, there's already a movie called Dubai - it's a Filipino film.
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Monday 25 June 2007
Death to Modhesh: Facebook Catches up With Our Little Yellow Fiend (Sorry, I meant Friend)
Yes, that most pernicious of social networks has kicked into action and there's now a Facebook Group 'Death to Modhesh'.
Oh dear, oh dear. What is it that these naughty people can't take about our cheerful little fiend?
Well, in the Group's own words:
I've decided to create a group that finally says what all the normal sane people (yes, all 5 of them) living in Dubai have repeatedly said: Modhesh is EVIL and should be abolished.
The yellow abomination is haunting me. I've never been in such constant close contact with a yellow Jack-in-the-box.
It's the result of a Banana and a Slinky having an affair. It also gives a whole new meaning to 'Bad Hair Day'
This of course not to mention the Nasal voice and annoying grin.
All In All...I raise my voice saying 'DEATH TO MODHESH'
Well, well, well. Some people have NO SENSE OF FUN AT ALL. Really.
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Are Dubai's Businesses Ignoring the Salik Toll?
Most businesses I have spoken to about it haven’t got around to thinking about their policy regarding the Salik congestion charge yet. Which is possibly slightly strange.
Does your company intend to pay the Salik costs of business travel? Will you get an allowance? Or is the company simply ignoring the additional charges and expecting you to pay them out of your pocket?
If companies intend to pay it, it’s possible to envisage the charge contributing an additional cost to service businesses of anything up to 1%. In other words, Salik is a significant potential addition to the cost at the bottom line – and an inflationary contributor.
The costs soon mount up, by the way. And if, as I suspect, we will be seeing a lot more Salik Tollgates springing up, we’ll be looking at the potential for Dubai's busy business types to relatively easily rack up the full daily Dhs 24 per day charge (6 passes) with ease. At Dhs 24 for 5 working days and 11 months (say you spend your four week leave out of the country), that’s a cool annual Dhs 5,280 ($1,444).
So what is the policy? Pay reasonable business travel, pay an allowance to offset the effect on staff pockets or let them pay it themselves? Companies will undoubtedly find staff asking about it over the coming week.
Look on the bright side. One point of view is that it should at least cut down on the useless and frustratingly unnecessary meetings we all suffer from. :)
Does your company intend to pay the Salik costs of business travel? Will you get an allowance? Or is the company simply ignoring the additional charges and expecting you to pay them out of your pocket?
If companies intend to pay it, it’s possible to envisage the charge contributing an additional cost to service businesses of anything up to 1%. In other words, Salik is a significant potential addition to the cost at the bottom line – and an inflationary contributor.
The costs soon mount up, by the way. And if, as I suspect, we will be seeing a lot more Salik Tollgates springing up, we’ll be looking at the potential for Dubai's busy business types to relatively easily rack up the full daily Dhs 24 per day charge (6 passes) with ease. At Dhs 24 for 5 working days and 11 months (say you spend your four week leave out of the country), that’s a cool annual Dhs 5,280 ($1,444).
So what is the policy? Pay reasonable business travel, pay an allowance to offset the effect on staff pockets or let them pay it themselves? Companies will undoubtedly find staff asking about it over the coming week.
Look on the bright side. One point of view is that it should at least cut down on the useless and frustratingly unnecessary meetings we all suffer from. :)
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Salik Goes Ahead. Of Course.
The near-hysterical tone of the chatter surrounding Dubai's controversial Salik (Arabic for 'clear') congestion charge has been cranked up by a report from Zawya Dow Jones that the introduction of the toll may be delayed. The original Zawya story, that the RTA was meeting Sunday to discuss possibly delaying the scheme in the face of public reaction, was denied by the RTA and the denial story is front page 7Days, Gulf News and Gulf Today. Khaleej Times and the Arabics didn't go as big with it.
Zawya's sticking with the story it had, updated here, but is saying that the meeting was duly held and RTA decided to go ahead with the scheme. None of the stories add much information, of course.
We are terribly prone to this type of hysteria here in Lalaland. A few years ago a Shopping Festival stunt to bake the world's biggest cake (it stretched up Maktoum Street and down Muraqqabat or something like that, if my ageing memory serves me right) came to a messy end after a rumour went around that there were keys to a Toyota Lexus hidden in the cake: 'members of the public' lost no time in attacking the enormous sugary confection in search of a bonanza that was, sadly, not there.
Now we're getting hysterical at any opportunity to believe that we won't have to pay Dhs 100 for the damn tag and another Dhs4 every time we pass a toll gate. The level of speculation and gossip that's out there, of course, being the direct result of a flawed and unclear communications strategy. The great lesson here: news expands to fill a vacuum.
But what larks, Pip!
Zawya's sticking with the story it had, updated here, but is saying that the meeting was duly held and RTA decided to go ahead with the scheme. None of the stories add much information, of course.
We are terribly prone to this type of hysteria here in Lalaland. A few years ago a Shopping Festival stunt to bake the world's biggest cake (it stretched up Maktoum Street and down Muraqqabat or something like that, if my ageing memory serves me right) came to a messy end after a rumour went around that there were keys to a Toyota Lexus hidden in the cake: 'members of the public' lost no time in attacking the enormous sugary confection in search of a bonanza that was, sadly, not there.
Now we're getting hysterical at any opportunity to believe that we won't have to pay Dhs 100 for the damn tag and another Dhs4 every time we pass a toll gate. The level of speculation and gossip that's out there, of course, being the direct result of a flawed and unclear communications strategy. The great lesson here: news expands to fill a vacuum.
But what larks, Pip!
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Sunday 24 June 2007
Russian Girl's Dubai Face Slash Attack
You'd have thought that, coming back to Lalaland from Europe, you'd have the right to expect the usual slew of daft 'good times' news from the dailies but I was shocked to catch Gulf News' story on Alla Khrapovitskaya, the 20 year old student who was attacked in Dhiyafa, near to where our bijou offices are.
Returning home from university one evening late in May, she was slashed repeatedly in the face by an unknown attacker using 'a large knife'. She remembers little about the incident, says GN, bar that it was unprovoked and her assailant took nothing from her and didn't try to touch her sexually.
The slash across her face cuts through her left cheek and then, the other side of her mouth, her right cheek. Another cuts down across her mouth from her left cheek while the right side of her face bears a downward slash from her eyebrow to her lower cheek. In all, she has seven such slashes carved into her face. The scarring she has been left with is horrific.
Her mother wants her to have reconstructive surgery: she told GN she was willing to sell her kidney to pay to restore her daughter's face. I did find it strange that someone would immediately think of that as a way to raise money.
But two things really struck me hard about this story. The first was that I cannot recall any previous story - did it really take a month to get this out there? And the second thing was that the GN report doesn't address the one angle that is surely of the greatest public concern. Despite a natural sympathy for the poor girl, it's the fact that the police are at a total loss: the attacker left 'no clues' apparently.
Which means that whoever did this is still free and wandering around Dubai's lively Satwa residential area at night. The thought is unsettling, to say the least.
Returning home from university one evening late in May, she was slashed repeatedly in the face by an unknown attacker using 'a large knife'. She remembers little about the incident, says GN, bar that it was unprovoked and her assailant took nothing from her and didn't try to touch her sexually.
The slash across her face cuts through her left cheek and then, the other side of her mouth, her right cheek. Another cuts down across her mouth from her left cheek while the right side of her face bears a downward slash from her eyebrow to her lower cheek. In all, she has seven such slashes carved into her face. The scarring she has been left with is horrific.
Her mother wants her to have reconstructive surgery: she told GN she was willing to sell her kidney to pay to restore her daughter's face. I did find it strange that someone would immediately think of that as a way to raise money.
But two things really struck me hard about this story. The first was that I cannot recall any previous story - did it really take a month to get this out there? And the second thing was that the GN report doesn't address the one angle that is surely of the greatest public concern. Despite a natural sympathy for the poor girl, it's the fact that the police are at a total loss: the attacker left 'no clues' apparently.
Which means that whoever did this is still free and wandering around Dubai's lively Satwa residential area at night. The thought is unsettling, to say the least.
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