Blodge

Image via Wikipedia

It looks on the surface about as bad as you can get in terms of completely mis-handling your customer base, lying to consumers and losing their trust and respect in one single great big blodge.

A telco pushes an upgrade to users of devices on its network. That upgrade not only apparently has the effect of downgrading the service, but is widely reported to screw up the batteries of those devices, triggering a public outcry.

Then people start to look at this software, labelled, "Etisalat upgrade for Blackberry service. Please download to ensure continous service quality" to see quite why it has been such a disaster. And they start asking questions about quite why it was important to download a network performance upgrade to the clients.

This is what they find, according to DXBLouie (no relation to our pal Bluey methinks), posting his findings on the BlackBerry support forums: A series of Java files. Perhaps interestingly, they all install to a folder called SS8.

SS8? Who they? What do we find, for instance at SS8. com? A security and interception company perhaps? One with a newly opened local operation, too, it seems.

So the inference customers are drawing is that the telco knowingly pushed a security and monitoring application to their handsets without informing them - one that has crashed their handsets and caused considerable annoyance. Obviously, they're jumping to conclusions.

But now they're starting to ask questions about quite why it was that a telco thought it could stealth a nasty little monitoring application, without telling them, without asking their permission and without any 'by your leave' onto their handsets. You'd expect the telco to start facing questions about that...

It's going to be an interesting 48 hours, people...

Nostalgia, Ephemera and Aeronautica

I said I'd share some more stuff from my wee collection of information on the Handley Page biplanes that used to ply the pioneering route from Croydon to Australia in the 1930s. There's more info here and here and a fantastic video of Sharjah airport (Kalba, incidentally, was the location of the 'backup' air strip and therefore posessing a greater importance in the 1937 scheme of things than, sleepy little town that it is, it does now) as it was back in the days of Empires, tally-hoes and people whacking the ball long and straight, dont'cha know.


This is the plane itself. These used to land at Sharjah in Oman (from Basra via 'Koweit and Bahrein) on the way through to Gwadar in Baluchistan. Let's just take the [sic]s as read. With 36 seats (and TWO toilets - you listening EK? A bog for every 18 pax!) and a bar, the planes were luxuriously decked out in mahogany and the like. It must have been a gut-wrenching ride.

The planes' engines had to be completely overhauled overnight at Sharjah, where guests were put up at the Mahatta Fort, a remote outpost (the fort was built for Imperial Airways by the ruler, who also provided a guard) containing three stir-crazy Brits and assorted staff. The met report used to be done by flying a light bulb up on a balloon to measure the wind.




This is the 1936 timetable. Arab readers might like to note where Gaza is located. Have a think about these journey times! Given that the 7 hours to Heathrow gives me mild shudders, this trip must have been a complete joy and let us not forget that these planes flew low, had no weather radar, no stabilisers and had wings made out of stretched canvas. Oh! And when you get to Shar-Jar, there's no AC. Let alone Gwadar and the others!

Mind you, if you think the hack to Sharjah's bad (4 overnights, including a train journey from Paris to Brindisi), it's a 14-day, 12 night flight to Brisbane!

Perhaps interestingly, my information is out of whack with the info on Wikipedia - it is my strong understanding that one of the HP42 series 'planes was lost at sea in the late 1930s in the Indian Ocean, while Wikipedia says only one was ever lost to a hangar fire in the UK. Hmm...

I also have a set of 1938 timetables and if anyone's interested in better quality scans that aren't quite so JPEGed, do just drop me a DM on Twitter or a mail at the usual address. I collected all this stuff because of an abiding fascination with Mahattah (which is, after all, on my doorstep) and the idea that one day I'll get a novel out of this lot...

If anyone owns copyrights to these, I'm not aware of them so please do let me know and I'll arrange appropriate attributions or whatever.

1937 and all That

Image via Wikipedia

Remember this blog post about Mahatta museum in Sharjah and the old Imperial Airways flights?

I happily rambled on about Air Outpost, the documentary that was filmed in 1937 about the desert airport of Shar Jar - we have had a copy of this amazing film for many years on videotape.

Well, now it's online. The National has snaffled a copy and posted it up on its website - so you can now go here, watch it and decide for yourself if I was right to call the Brits in it 'preposterous'! The original blog post has more background on the fillum.

Enjoy!

Air Outpost

Swine

Image via Wikipedia

The UAE's advertising agencies have long been famous for their skill, creativity, taste and discernment, let alone managing to run their businesses on unbelievably tight margins (the latter, at least, an assertion made by advertising bigshot Joe Ghoussoub talking to Emirates Business 24x7 last week which did rather result in me having to clean half-chewed muesli from my keyboard).

So any hint of egregious opportunism in the advertising campaign for Dac, whose roadside promise to 'Eliminate flu viruses and doubts for 24 hours' in the face of rising public concern regarding the H1N1 'swine flu' virus is obviously in my imagination. It's nice to see big business taking a role in public education campaigns in the face of health scares rather than making unsustainable claims for products that target our fears.

The advertising campaign being mounted by Dettol (ten times more effective than soap, apparently) at least doesn't make a promise, directly or indirectly, to protect gullible consumers from swine flu or any other form of influenza, even if its timing does perhaps mean it sails a little close to profiteering from the pandemic.

The Dac advertisement did leave me wondering if global chemicals company Henkel, rightly proud of its track record in corporate governance and CSR, would truly associate itself with a campaign that makes the absolute promise that one of its domestic cleaning products will eliminate influenza viruses. And if it does, I'd love to see the peer-reviewed research that stands the claim up...

Marwa. Mainstream Media Fail? AGAIN?

Image by luc legay via Flickr

Egyptian Marwa El Sherbiny lived in Germany with her husband. Subjected to verbal abuse by a Russian man, Alex M, because she wore a veil, Marwa eventually took legal action against him. She was in the courthouse in Dresden when the man walked across the room and stabbed her 18 times with a knife he had brought into the coutroom. She died in the attack.

Marwa was pregnant.

Her husband rushed to help her, but he was shot by a policemen who apparently mistook him for the attacker. Having spent three days in a coma, he is currently in intensive care.

The man who stabbed Marwa is to be charged with murder. Early reports on Bild apparently said that the charge would be one of manslaughter. Interestingly, the vast majority of reader comments on the Bild website were horrified at the crime and how the man could have been allowed into the courtroom carrying a weapon.

The Guardian, finally, tells the story here. The incident took place on Wednesday last week and I picked it up when colleague Mai tweeted the news. Her first tweet on it came on Thursday (sparked by a tweet she had received linking to a report on Egyptian blog Bikya Masr) and was part of a growing tide of horrified Tweets from around the world reporting the incident. The horror expressed was both at the crime and at the way mainstream media appeared to be largely ignoring the incident - outside local German media such as Bild, which carried a report on its website the day the attack took place - there were no files from the major European newspapers and nothing from news agencies, either. Reuters, in fact, didn't file until Sunday 5th July, when it deigned to release a picture story caption showing protestors holding placards that said things like 'Our blood is red too, not cheaper than yours'.

As Bikya Masr points out quite correctly, European media coverage didn't break until almost a week after, when mainstream outlets started to report the protests in Egypt that took place. Those protests, as The Guardian points out, were fuelled at least in part by the way that the European media was seen to have ignored the killing. The Guardian's story, its first, was filed yesterday.

So, once again, we have news that travelled around Twitter, Facebook and blogs, the social media I talk so much about, but that was not considered newsworthy by the newspapers and TV channels that form 'mainstream media'.

At a time when the debate in Europe over women wearing the veil has been refreshed and brought into sharp relief by comments such as those made by Nicola Sarkozy, you'd be forgiven for thinking that a horrific murder committed IN a courtroom against a pregnant woman because she was veiled would be 'newsworthy' - the many people around the world who picked up the story from social media sources certainly thought so.

Now, a week later, we are seeing coverage of the protests - those comforting images of screaming zealots in the streets chanting for revenge that help people in Europe to 'understand' the Middle East.

The real question is why we didn't get to see that a gentle woman was killed in cold blood last week, when it happened. It took Twitter and blogs to tell us about that.

Summer Bargains for Brummies

Image via Wikipedia

Dubai is embarking on a bargain basement bonanza as the summer kicks in, flogging off package tour deals that beggar belief. There’s no doubt that chaps over at the Dubai Tourism Promotion Board have been busy little bees.

Local residents could perhaps be forgiven a sigh of frustration at just how much better off the out-of-towners are going to be – the rates on offer to UK residents, for instance, smash the rates we’re quoted locally into a cocked hat. In fact, not only do the Great British Public get a better deal on hotel rooms than we do, they get a better deal on flights too!

The Metropolitan Hotel, Dubai is offering three nights of four star luxury, including flights to and from Birmingham, for £399 from August 11 to September 18th. Now, for a couple, that works out to a total flight, hotel and breakfast deal of Dhs4,788.

At locally quoted rack rates, three nights in the Metropolitan (inc b/fast and tax) in that same period will set you back a cool Dhs1,350. So when you add the cost of two flights to Birmingham (cheapest EK return rate for two DXB-BIR is Dhs7,050), you’re looking at locals paying an equivalent package deal bargain of just Dhs8,400 – nearly double what the tourists will pay!

Book in UK deal - £798 for two (Dhs4,788)
Book in UAE deal - £1,400 for two (Dhs 8,400)

The Atlantis Hotel, Dubai is offering three nights of five star whale shark endangered species-teasing luxury for just £549, including Birmingham connections. Now locally, a three night booking in August will set you back Dhs2,880 including taxes and note that’s a weekday – weekends aren’t available. So we’re already talking £480 for the hotel, before we add in that Dhs7,050 flight cost – a couple of Dubai residents could fly to Birmingham and back, staying at the Atlantis for three nights for a mere £1,655 compared to the cool £1,098 package being offered to travellers coming the other way – so living in Birmingham means a saving of £557 on living in Dubai when you holiday in the sun – enough for a third package!

Book in UK deal - £1.098 for two (Dhs 6,588)
Book in UAE deal £1,655 for two (Dhs 9,930)

But it gets better! Let’s start to book a room at Le Royal Meridien Beach Resort and Spa, whose cheapest local B&B deal is Dhs 3,458 for the three nights. Add in our Brummie flight at Dubai prices and you’re looking at paying Dhs10,508 for three nights of Dubai bliss for two – the package price for your sun-seeking Brummie would be £499 each, or a total of Dhs5,988 – Dhs4520 (or £753) LESS than a Dubai resident would pay at locally quoted rack rates !

Book in UK deal - £998 for two (Dhs 5,988)
Book in UAE deal - £1,751 for two (Dhs 10,508)

If you buy your EK tickets in Birmingham rather than Dubai, BTW, they’ll cost as little as Dhs 6,100 - £1,017. So a Brummie based Brummie is instantly Dhs950, or £158 better off than a Dubai based Brummie flying the same sector – let alone the more expensive local hotel rates.

Never mind. Don't forget The Oceanic's doing Dhs199 a night for a double! :)

Slim

Image via Wikipedia

As various posts over the past eight or so months have noted, Gulf News has been cutting back on the carbs and has dropped its weight from a rather turgid 1.3Kg in November 2008 to an average 640g in Feb 2009, a downward trend continued through May, which saw the paper taking up regular exercise and slimming down to an reasonably regular 540g.

It's been feeling lighter recently and I have generally resisted the mildly obsessive impulse to weigh it again, but today's edition felt noticeably more feather-like. And it is - thanks to my trusty weighing scale (the best Dhs19 I've spent at Lal's in a long time) I can report that today's GN is weighing in at 440g, something like a third of its original weight. I have to add the usual caveat - a Dhs19 scale is hardly capable of atomic accuracy.

I think we can all agree there's a trend here - it's hardly rocket science. The fact that the trend is continuing is a worry, though. GN has already apparently shed a number of journalistic jobs - albeit fudging this news with an example of corporate responsibility and transparency that should inform any company wishing to call the skeleton in the cupboard a 'new market opportunity'. Few will welcome the news of more to come.

PermaTweet

This is my Twitter on Paper. I'm oddly proud of it.

It's not actually on paper, it's via JPG, but it's part of the same project by the deliciously oddball New York designer Sam Potts. The idea was to send people a paper version of Sam's Tweets on request. No money or other emolument required, a simply one-way service that made selected Tweets enduring and gave them permanence (Tweets are not archived beyond 48 hours).

It took off so quickly and widely that a JPG based overseas service was introduced. I got in there just before Sam got overwhelmed by the sheer volume of requests for this very strange and almost completely useless Twitter-based service and had to stop providing Tweets made permanent on request.

Is this art? Is it rock and roll? Is it promotion?

I'm not entirely sure...

Exploring Jordan

Channel 4 DJ Neil 'Jay' Grayson asked what there was to do in Jordan. And here's an answer. It's not necessarily the answer, but it's an answer!

I do miss the place, you know... probably why I ended up writing this rather long post.

Jordan provides the setting for Mr Unpublishable's second book, Olives, and is also somewhere I have spent a hell of a lot of time and where I have many good friends. Here are some of the many excellent reasons why it's well worth taking a long weekend break, at the very least, and exploring the place for yourself. And yes, thank you, if you're from the Jordan Tourist Board, you can send the envelope with used 10JD notes. Thanks.

Oh! Talking of which, do make sure you get there with 10JD per person in your pocket in local currency for your visa otherwise you'll just have to leave the visa queue, change money and rejoin it - which ain't fun.


AMMAN

I stay at the Grand Hyatt for preference, but the Four Seasons is also a great hotel. The Kempinski in Shmeisani is cheaper and not bad. Martinis in the Four Seasons is a famous Alexander treat, taken in the Square Bar in the summer and the downstairs lobby lounge by the fireside in the winter. The Hyatt's fish restaurant 32 North is expensive but stunning, its Italian is also famously good and Indochine downstairs is also excellent.

The Citadel
The Citadel is the central of Amman's original 7 hills (it sprawls over 22 or so now, apparently) and contains important Roman, Islamic and Byzantine remains. Brilliantly, the government has excavated to the most important era in each case and it's a great place for a wander.

The Ampitheatre
Still used for live performances, Amman's ampitheatre is a brilliantly preserved piece of Roman architecture. Standing on the brass button centre stage and talking in a normal voice not only lets you be heard at the furthest seat but you also feel the pressure of your own voice on your ears. Spooky. To the right side of the stage there's a small but wonderful museum of bedouin things which you should not at any price miss.

The Motor Museum
King Hussein was an avid car collector and this museum is based around his personal collection. Well worth a visit.

The Eastern City
I like to wander around the streets in the Eastern City, particularly around the bird market, and just soak it all in. It's pretty full-on and don't for the love of God keep your wallet in your back pocket.

North of Amman
See the castle at Ajloun and the Roman ruins at Umm Queis. There's a smashing Arabi restaurant at Umm Queis around the back of the ruins and overlooking the Golan with a quite marvellous view and I recommend it most highly.

Do not leave Jordan without seeing Jerash. Simply don't. It's a huge Roman city, preserved with amazing streets and buildings - also called the city of 1,000 pillars, it rivals Petra in its wonderfullness but doesn't get as much attention as the Rose Red City. You can do Jerash, Umm Queis and Ajloun in one day, but you'll just end up rushing things. Better to take two days over 'em IMHO.


Eats
You can eat really well in Amman these days. Arabic restaurant Fakhreddine is one of the great restaurants of the Levant. Vinaigrette is popular with the beau monde, as is Whispers, both near Shmeisani. The Blue Fig is a great place to have drinks with friends.


THE DEAD SEA AND ALL THAT

I love driving down to the Dead Sea and my preferred hotel has always been the Movenpick, although the Kempinksi and Marriott are preferrd by Jordanians in general. The spa at the Movenpick is great, we found the staff and treatments at the Marriott Spa were better. The Marriott can get very noisy with families. The Dead Sea itself is obviously a treat - and always significantly warmer than Amman.

The Baptism Site
A few kilometres north of the hotels on the Dead Sea, tucked away on a left hand turn off the main road back to Amman, is the site where John the Baptist baptised Jesus and a lot of other people. It's also legendarily where Elijah ascended to heaven on a chariot. You can see the sad remains of the River Jordan here and also look out over the tamarisks to Jericho. A must-see.

Madaba
Madaba is the site of the oldest and most important Byzantine mosaic in the Levant and also the location of Haret Al Jdoudna, one of my favourite restaurants in the Middle East. Dunno why, just love the place.

Mount Nebo
It was here that Moses showed his people the promised land and on a clear day it's some view. The mosaics preserved here are simply beautiful and Nebo is a must-visit, even if you're the Pope. Popes like Nebo.

Kerak
The crusader castle in Kerak, on the escarpment overlooking the southern Dead Sea, is important and worth visiting. There are Christian families living here descended from the Crusaders, which is pretty bonkers if you think about it. TE Lawrence was here.


PETRA

We are very fond of driving down to Petra from Amman on the King's Highway (criss-crossing the railway line that old TE spent so much time trying to blow up) and then looping back up using the 'old road' and travelling through Tawfileh (the butt of Jordanian 'dumb person' jokes), past Wadi Dana (where microfinance projects have created an ecoresort and also jewellery makers whose fine silversmithery can be bought here and at the Wild Cafe in Amman) and Kerak then up the Dead Sea to the spa hotels. It's a fantastic drive that will take you through the deep country, past escarpments, hills and bedouin encampments. It's deliciously Mediterranean countryside and you'll go through a range of small townships where the rural poverty can be a tad 'in your face'. Poor people in Jordan are very poor indeed and rich people are very rich. Everyone you meet will delight in telling you that Jordan has no middle class, and although that's no longer quite the case, it's not a bad model as they go.

Stay at the Movenpick in Petra. It's the closest to the old city and it's a dandy hotel. Drinks and shisha on the rooftop are a big treat.

You should really give Petra a couple of days and the night-time tour down into the 'Rose Red City as Old As Time Itself (TM)' is popular and visually incredible. The 3,000 year-old Nabatean city is every bit as impressive as you'd think and then some. You walk quite a way down into the Siq (yes, I'd take one of the carriages but haggle) before coming to the Treasury and then down into the city built up into the hillsides around you. There are a bunch of hawkers and gee-gaw sellers here and that's just fine. Further down the track, you'll come to the Roman ruins and at the bottom there's a museum that's worth a trip. From here, you can walk up in every direction, trekking through the hills back up to find side streets and bits n bobs all over the place.


THE SOUTH

Wadi Rumm is famously beautiful and can take days to explore. It's something of a schlep from Amman, so I'd suggest staying over at Aqaba, which is the Red Sea resort town of Jordan, home to the ASEZA free trade zone and hotels with famously indifferent service. If you thought you'd be rediscovering the little down in Lawrence of Arabia, forget it. Aqaba itself is about as charming as Gordon Brown.

I am quite sure I have missed out thousands of things to see and do in Jordan, but then you can have fun discovering them for yourselves.

I hadn't realised I had made so many trips here over the years until a couple of years ago when I was staying at the Hyatt just after the Amman bombings. I actually went over to attend an art exhibition protesting the event, which we sponsored. I still have two of the prints from the event and they are very dear to my heart, tragically both are calligraphies of the 60 victims' names. There were only 16 guests in the hotel and I went to my room to find a gift-wrapped book on my bed. I thought it was a kind of 'thanks for staying with us because the lobby's a wreck and nobody else will come here because of the bombing' gift, but when I opened it I realised that it commemorated my fortieth stay at the Hyatt! In all, I must have made over 60 trips to Jordan and they have left me with an abiding fondness for the country and its people. I like the country so much, I wrote a book about it...

Sharjah Summer Breaks from AED99

Image by kevin (iapetus) via Flickr

Sharjah Summer Breaks from AED99 is a startling promise to make in an advertisement (Gulf News today) and one that is guaranteed to pique curiosity from would-be summer breakers.

But that's the deal - Sharjah's going for it and I'd commend an overnighter to the 'Cultural' emirate most highly.

There’s a hell of a lot to see and do in Sharjah, from a wide range of museums, art galleries and restored souq areas through to desert trips taking you to the idyllic Indian Ocean retreat of Khor Fakkan (and its venerable but still fun hotel, The Oceanic) and the important mangrove swamps of Khor Kalba. An overnight in Sharjah would be well worthwhile, IMHO, for many people - particularly the many living in Dubai who've never bothered going next door. These posts about stuff to do around the UAE might help

Don't forget that Sharjah's 'dry', but don't let that put you off, either.

Go crazy this summer and give one of these a bash - there are more on the Sharjah Tourism website, but I've cherry picked the best of 'em here.

FIVE STAR

Radisson Blu
Tel: +9716 5657777
Dhs 299
The Radisson SAS. This is a pretty nice hotel, actually, with a good pool and beach and does simply fantastic Lebanese food. The Friday buffet’s not unpleasant and I'd recommend the place as easily the best hotel in Sharjah.

Holiday Inn Corniche
Tel: +9716 5599900
This hotel’s on the Buheirah Lagoon, in the city centre near the famous Blue Souq (Souq Al Markazi).
Dhs 255 Single
Dhs 299 double

FOUR STAR

Sharjah Rotana
Tel: +9716 563 7777
On the site of the old Palace Hotel, plonked just on the edge of the bustling Al Arouba souq area, this business hotel always struck me as a slightly odd place. Never been in it.
Dhs 200 double

Marbella Resort
Tel: +9716 5741111
The Marbella has been there for donkey’s and is next to the Holiday Inn. It’s all chalets and has always seemed pleasant enough to me. I do recommend a visit to the website, which is highly nostalgic and will take you back to 1970s retro brochure design and first generation website design.
Dhs 199 junior suite

Sharjah Carlton Hotel
Tel: +9716 5283711
This is one of the older properties in Sharjah and used to look pretty imposing back in the 1980s. It just looks old now, but is not unpleasant, has a lovely beach and is near the old fishing village of Al Khan and Sharjah’s aquarium, which is well worth a visit. Its website describes it as situated on the lush Arabian sea and so, I guess, it is.
Dhs 199 single
Dhs 225 double

Oceanic Hotel, Khor Fakkan
Tel: +9716 238 5111
This is, again, an older hotel with distinctive round porthole windows and is absolutely fine to stay in, has a lovely beach and pool and is ideal for exploring the East Coast of the Emirates.
Dhs 99 single
Dhs 199 double

Personally, I'd go for the Oceanic for sheer value and the East Coast and the Radisson for facilities.

BTW, I got the pricings above from the most helpful Mohammed at the Tourism call centre - 800 SHJ to you!

Thanks to Rob, whose comment on the original post (which I scrubbed) alerted me to the fact that Sharjah Tourism's website had been updated and my whinge about it's lack of content had been addressed even as I was whingeing!