Something for the Weekend? Al Ain Nights

Restored Hafit culture tombs on the foothills of Jebel Hafit

Al Ain has many things to recommend it as a weekend getaway - not least of which is its UNESCO World Heritage listed oasis, which provides a lovely walk around shaded date groves latticed with aflaj irrigation channels. There are forts and museums to visit (Al Jahili and Muwaiji Forts, the Palace Museum and the Al Ain National Museum to name just a few) as well as ancient ruins (the Hilli Archaeological Park, Bidaa bint Saud) and, of course,the great rocky outcrop of Jebel Hafit.

Jebel Hafit offers a 13Km uphill run if you fancy it - or if you're sane, you can drive up to the top and look out over the forbidding expanse of the Rub Al Khali. On the way up, you'll pass the Mercure Hotel, which usually offers a reasonable room rate and perfectly pleasant, if lacking in frills, stay. Many of the rooms have amazing views, of course. Down in the foothills on the one side you'll find the 'Green Mubazzara', a resort with en suite lake and fountain, offering chalets and hot springs. Nestled away here you'll also find a tiny old dam (the 'Mubazzara Historical Dam', according to the wee brown sign) built here by Sheikh Zayed during his time as Wali of Al Ain, when he restored much of the broken down irrigation infrastructure of the area.

On the other side of Jebel Hafit, if you follow this here pin, you'll find some odd-looking monuments that wouldn't look out of place in a Star Wars movie. These are restored Hafit Era tombs, a culture so named after this very area. The Hafit people lived, and died, in southeastern Arabia from 3,200 - 2,600 BCE and were, for many reasons, important in our story of the human development of the area.

Star Wars, anyone?

With so much to do around here, you'd be forgiven for wanting to make the journey out and stay overnight and quite right you'd be, too. There are a number of hotels here apart from the heady heights of the Mercure - although the 'big name' chains have sadly abandoned Al Ain. The Hilton Al Ain as was is now the Radisson Blu and the Intercontinental is now the Danat Al Ain. The last time we stayed at the latter (and I mean the last time) there was an almighty punch up in the pub, which had filled up with a bunch of brunchers who were clearly already boiling. Our simple dinner was punctuated with the smashing of glass, flying of fists and spilling of blood. Quite charming, my dear!!!

If you're staying in Al Ain, don't bother looking around for fine dining or anything like it these days - you're looking at hotel buffets and pub grub in the main - and smoky pubs, they are, too! The sole light in the Al Ain dining out gloom is Trader Vic's at the Al Ain Rotana - also, sadly, smoky.

Don't let that put you off - but do be prepared to eat badly and expensively unless you're up for Trader Vic's, in which case you'll eat perfectly well but expensively. Or room service, which might be a lovely idea if you can sit out on your balcony at the Mercure and enjoy the cool winter evening with a little something you thought to bring yourself!

If anyone has any better Al Ain dining ideas, please do drop a comment...

It's the Fort That Counts: the Human History of the United Arab Emirates in 20 Forts

Fujairah Fort

The human history of the Emirates is all around you, often hidden away in the most surprising places. The Emirates is dotted with forts, for instance - many are museums, some are just forts for forts' sake. You find them lurking around pretty much every corner - and they're there precisely because people around here used to be, well, fighty.

They weren't just recently fighty, either. Our archaeological analysis of Umm Al Nar era remains (we're talking 2,600-2,000 BCE, here) shows a number of fortified towers were constructed by that people, often guarding precious water resources. There are Iron Age forts to be found as well - and even the Portuguese left a smattering of fortification behind.

Today's more obvious forts are mostly a product of C19th and C20th construction, although sometimes built on much older foundations. Quite a few of these forts are now museums - note they aren't open on Fridays, when you'd expect 'em to be - but they all open on Saturdays. All feature ethnographic displays of varying degrees of impressiveness - often, the more eclectic assemblages are the most fun.

So why not take a trip out to take a look at a few - especially now the weather's nice and cool? It's worth getting out and about and taking a few in when you can - we're talking weekend excursions with cooler bags full of sandwiches and chilled home made lemonade in thermos flasks. Don't forget the Cheese and Onion Walkers for that authentic 'day trip car smell'.

You can usually mix it up with something outdoorsy, kayaking or hiking, a swim on a remote beach or a lazy overnight in a hotel - some of which are surprisingly affordable even during the 'high' winter season. Camping, of course, is even more affordable and there are a million places you can happily pitch a tent, taking some time out to explore the desert and more remote inland towns of the Emirates.

So here you go - the UAE in 20 Forts. All the links below open to Google Maps pins...

Dubai Museum, for instance, is located in the Al Fahidi Fort (which dates back to the late 1700s), while Sharjah's Al Hisn Sharjah is a faithful reconstruction of the building almost completely demolished by Sheikh Khalid bin Mohammad Al Qasimi in the late 1960s. Ajman and Umm Al Quwain museums are both located in the town forts, formerly the Ruler's house - Ajman Fort was occupied by the Ruler, the big, white-bearded figure of Sheikh Rashid Al Nuaimi, until 1967. I'd argue it's the most charming museum in the Emirates today.

Umm Al Quwain's Al Ali Fort, home to the UAQ National Museum

Umm Al Quwain National Museum is not only an impressive building (don't miss the UAQ Wall while you're down there, which used to completely protect the town on its isthmus) but houses some very impressive artefacts from the enormously important site of Ed-Dur, a major Iron Age and Pre-Islamic metropolis, itself linked to the inland town of Mleiha. Going inland from UAQ, you can also visit the Falaj Al Mualla Fort, or tootle out a wee bit into the sands and find the three Murabbaa - watchtowers - that guard the Wadi which feeds Falaj Al Mualla's rich agricultural resources. Look out here also for the Sharea, or baths, just opposite the fort.

Ras Al Khaimah National Museum tells the story of the town, but also of the lost city of Julphar (contrary to popular belief, not actually 'old' RAK, but to the north of the town. RAK started life as a southern suburb of Julphar) and the maritime mercantile culture which the town sprang from - including displays of early C8th Thai and Chinese porcelain brought here by the Arab traders who sailed the seven seas of the east, between Julphar and Beijing. Of course, as I mentioned the other day, there is also Sheba's Palace and Al Dhayah Fort...

The C15th mosque and tower at Bidya.

Heading over to the east coast, you can visit the 'oldest mosque in the Emirates' and the tower at Bidya (or the Portuguese Fort here) - don't forget the old fort at Masafi - or the newly restored Governor's House there. Further down the east coast from Bidya, you'll find Fujairah Fort but the National Museum of Fujairah is not actually in the fort, it's across from it - and jolly good fun it is, too - one of the most wacky and varied collections you'll find in a museum. Fujairah is a great destination for Fort Fans and also offers Al Bithnah Fort, Al Hayl Fort, Sakamkam Fort and Awhala Fort.

Take a trip out to Al Ain and you'll find the impressive Al Muaiji Fort, birthplace of Sheikh Khalifa and former home of Sheikh Zayed when he was Wali of Al Ain. It's been lovingly restored and has a pretty slick visitor centre. Al Jahili Fort in Al Ain is also worth a visit, sitting in a pleasant public park. If you want to explore further back, pop up to the Hili Archaeological Park and take a wander around the glorious Umm Al Nar era tomb there.

Last but not least, Abu Dhabi's Qasr Al Hosn was closed for renovations last time we went, so no guarantees here, but I'd reckon they've likely done a stellar job on it.

This is, by the way, not a list of every fort in the Emirates by any means. But it's as good a starting point as any if you want to start fort spotting!!!

Children of the Seven Sands: the Reveal.

The simple life of the Trucial States in the 1950s - A display at Ajman Museum...

As those of you that know me will by now have realised, there may be some book promoting going on around here for a while.

Suffer.

The good news is that this book is a bit, well, different. I try and make all my books different, but this one is differenter.

For a start, it's not a novel, a work of fiction, like the last six. It's 140,000 words of total fact. It's a very big book that tells a very big story indeed.

It's a roller-coaster ride of a tale that has never been told before in one place. And I kid you not.

Everything in it is not only true, but 100% verifiably so. It's meticulously researched and draws from archaeology, academic papers, ancient manuscripts, rare and forgotten books, archives aplenty and reputable, published (and many unpublished) sources. It draws together a story that tells of incredible innovation, of daring and courage - and of human perseverance.

If it doesn't make you draw breath and gasp at the sheer, blinding hugeness of what you didn't know, I'll refund you without quibble. Many of you are aware of my 'no refunds' policy. I'm willing to waive it for this one.

Children of the Seven Sands, set to be published in February next year by UAE-based publisher Motivate Publishing, is the human history of the United Arab Emirates. It's a 130,000 year-old tale that has, quite literally, never been shared before. And I guarantee you, it'll blow you away.

Bloody, gruesome, dramatic, vicious, honourable, glorious, brilliant, deceitful, noble, brave, bonkers and just plain splendorous, the history of the UAE is a wide-screen panorama of a narrative which has carried me away like a bewildered ant clinging to a log adrift in a winter wadi in spate - and I am going to delight in sharing it with you - here on the blog, but also in the book itself. You'd never believe the half of it - you'll never believe it's sitting here right under your noses. And it's all around you, even today.

It's a story I've set out to share with all its depth and vigour, charm and brio - it's a series of remarkable ups and downs, upsets and triumphs. It will challenge everything you thought you knew about UAE history but also quite a few unusual and unknown snippets of European and Indian history, too.

I kid you not - and I'm not overdoing it. I sent the final manuscript off to the publishers today and I can tell you that every single page contains something you didn't know, something that will challenge what you thought about this place and something that'll make you think about here in a totally new light.

Am I over promising? Let's see - but this, ladies and gentlemen, is what has been keeping me so very quiet as of late...

Children of the Seven Sands

Well, this is a first. It's only been eighteen years since I first sent a book to a literary agent (almost to the day, funnily enough), resulting in the first of something like 300 rejections I was to pick up as time went by. I hasten to add this has in no way diminished my joy at writing my six novels (one silly, five serious) or in my interactions with the very many readers who have enjoyed them. And even the one or two who have felt the need to protest them!

And now we have my very first ever publishing contract. And the devil of it is, this book's non-fiction!

More anon...

Twitter Rant Reprised - Bored in the Emirates?

If you wanted the places I outlined in my Twitter diatribe earlier this week in one handy post, you need go no further. Here, for your delectation and delight, are a number of interesting places in the UAE you can go visit at the weekend - particularly as the cool weather she is upon us. Links in bold are to Google maps pins.

I'll be posting a lot more of these, in more detail, but here are the original candidates just for starters.

Meet Al Dhayah Fort, which you'll find north of Ras Al Khaimah. 400 men women and children holed up here for three days withstanding British bombardment in December 1819. There was no food or water for them - many were simple farmers from the date plantations inland of Rams, chased through the plantations by British bluecoats with bayonets. The fall of Dhayah marked the fall of the Al Qasimi Federation and led to the Trucial States. You can park up next to the fort and take a walk up to it: I'd recommend something to cover your head and a lot of cool water to hand.

Have a walk around and wander up to the Iron Age fort at Jebel Buhais - the largest and oldest necropolis in the UAE, it dates back 7,000 years and tells of a human history of nomadism as well as giving us clues to the 'dark millennium' when humankind abandoned the west coast. You'll find Wadi Suq and other burials littering the sides of the mountain and this here Iron Age fort, discovered by an Iraqi archaeological team back in 1974, which you can walk up to and explore freely. Again, cover your head and take plenty water. Please note, I got this shot in before the drone fly zones changed and Jebel Buhais is now WITHIN the no-fly zone, so please don't try and get an aerial shot. If you want one, ping me and I'll send it you.

Mahatta Fort in Sharjah. Here landed the HP42 Heracles, the biplanes that connected the 1930s 'Empire Route' from Croydon to Australia. You'll find the history all in the museum, housed in the fort built in 1932 to house the Imperial Airways passengers and guard against 'improbable bedouin raids'... There's more info from me here about the fort and museum.

Take a trek around Jebel Hafit in Al Ain and visit the reconstructed 5,500 year-old Hafit Era tombs that litter the foothills of the mountain - they're a bit Star Wars, TBH. Zip around the other side of the mountain to take the 13 KM climb to the top. You can stay up on the mountain at the Mercure Hotel, overlooking the forbidding Rub Al Kali desert or just have a chai at the café up top...

Wander around Ajman Fort, probably the most charming museum in the UAE. It was the Ruler's House right up until 1967 and, oddly enough, was invaded in 1920 by the headman of the place in Sharjah where I live, Abdulrahman Al Shamsi. He made a bit of a mess in the process... The displays include an 'old souq', which is just cute.

The nice thing about Ajman Museum, BTW, is its very authenticity. It's not trying too hard, it's not all consultants and glitz. It's truly a snapshop of life here before modernity came a-knockin'...

Here's Masafi Fort, up in the cool mountains above the Dhaid plain. There's an example of an old falaj waterway inside the museum, which is surrounded by traces of the Iron Age settlement of Masafi, including copper mines that used to provide exports to Sumeria 5,000 years ago.

This is a 'Murabbaa', a fortification or watch-tower. These are to be found all over the UAE and every one tells a story - from Deira's Burj Nahar through to the three towers (this is one, the Western Tower) which guard the wadi at Falaj Al Mualla, deep in the desert. Every one of them is a piece of human history... Falaj Al Mualla has a sweet fort/museum and the wadi here is usually lush and a great winter drive - so is a nip up into the desert and the amazing ghaf forest you'll find there.

Here's Sheba's Palace in RAK (properly, the Shimal Fort), an early Islamic era fortification in Shimal - there are extensive Wadi Suq Era burials around here, too. RAK is also home to many Umm Al Nar and Wadi Suq era finds, the world's longest zipline, the lost maritime city of Julphar with its links to C8th trade with China. RAK Museum is fab, too...

Have a trip to the East Coast, pass by the 10,000 graves of men lost in the Ridda Wars at Dibba, visit Bidya Mosque and marvel at the Portuguese Fort there, itself built of stones recovered from an Umm Al Nar fort and burial site. Stay at Al Aqah's beach hotels or camp there...

Stay in one of my favourite hotels ever, the Hatta Fort Hotel - famous, of course, for its chickens - or glamp it up in style at the Adventure Centre with its bike tracks, ziplines and outdoor activities - including kayaking in the mountain lakes of Hatta. Or you can visit the Hatta Heritage Village...

Here you go - a bit of indoor fun. Visit Rain Room in Sharjah, an immersive art experience which lets you walk in the rain and yet stay as dry as a bone (as long as you don't move too fast!). You have to pre-book online for this one, it's a 15-minute giggle-fest. With a Fen Cafe!

See this? This is a carnelian necklace from Saruq Al Hadid, the 'iron path', a major Iron Age metallurgical centre out in the desert near Marmoom. Most carnelian jewels found in the UAE come from the Harappan Civilisation of the Indus Valley. Mysterious and amazingly rich, the huge trove of bronze, gold, jewellery and weaponry so far found at the Saruq Al Hadid archaeological dig out in the desert near Marmoom (the whole thing, BTW, was discovered by Sheikh Mohammed - and a ring from Saruq Al Hadid gives us the Expo 2020 logo) can be viewed at the Saruq Al Hadid Museum in Shindagha, Dubai.

If you HAVE to go to the Louvre, enjoy things like this decoration from the early Christian church at Sir Bani Yas. You can chat to @Peter_Hellyer about it - he found the whole thing. While you're in Abu Dhabi, visit the Founder's Memorial, an amazing monument to Sheikh Zayed...

Go visit the Heart of Sharjah and enjoy a lavish coffee at the Chedi-managed Al Bait Hotel (take out a mortgage) or any one of innumerable teashops and cafes lining the cool walkways of the souks by the creek. Enjoy museums, art galleries and restoration projects aplenty...

Do let me know how you get on - @alexandermcnabb...

Dubai, the Good Old Days and Sundry Confessions

Okay, it's a fair cop, I'll come quietly. It was me. I done the blag.

We had a bit of a clearout yesterday - chucking out bags of that cruft that seems to assemble around life: old user manuals, bits of laptops that had long been consigned to the inexplicably green 'general waste' Bee'ah dumpster outside our villa. The blue one is meant for recyclable waste, which is a novel idea to implement in a place where there is absolutely zero awareness of recycling, let alone which materials are recyclable (actually depressingly few plastics are actually recyclable) and which are not.

I digress.

We found, as usual when you do this sort of thing, some old treasures. My pair of 1995 'Emirates Internet' 3.5" floppy disks, for instance. Eudora and Netscape Navigator, anyone? The edition of Paris Match featuring an interview with British Expat Alexander McNabb hanging out at the luxurious boutique Park Hyatt hotel, which got me into trouble with France Telecom, with whom I was working in Jordan at the time. "We are paying you too much!", their outraged CEO bellowed at me when we met. He'd read the magazine on the plane over. Oops.

But I digress.

The Internet in just two disks! Marvellous!

One of the things we unearthed was a tatty manila file. And inside it was evidence of My Great Crime, perpetuated the very year those two disks were first clutched in my sweaty hand as I danced out of Etisalat's Sharjah HQ with my Emirates Internet subscription confirmed.

You see, I am - was - TE Chapman.

Not unnaturally, you will be puzzled. That is likely because you won't recall the Emirates in pre-Internet days, when the Gulf News letters page was the nearest thing to a forum or chat room, Facebook or Twitter, you could get. It was all very charming. You'd fax (fax, eh?) your letter in and the next day it would be printed. Then the day after, you'd get a reaction to it. Quaint, no?

The pastime of writing stupid letters to Gulf News was popular before we had electrons to play with. The trick was to write something so blindingly stupid that only a drooling idiot would fail to realise that nipples were being tweaked and toes pulled. But to pitch it just right, so that the letters page editor would let it pass. It was a skill I was to hone over the weeks and months.

I recall one particularly mad thread developed around the issue of plant pots on apartment balconies. One prominent expat got away for weeks with a correspondence based on his keen interest in scatology and wondering if there were any other like minded scatologists interested in grouping together to found a society. It was a common thing to find, expats writing in to say they were interested in Scottish history from 1814-1826 and wondered if there were etc etc. It was, literally, weeks before the GN letters editor was apprised that scatology is the study of faeces and the correspondence abruptly closed.

We had more time back then, alright?

Anyway, I digress.

Many of the contributors to the GN Letters Page back in the day were (arguably) unduly concerned with British imperialism, colonialism and any other ism you care to name. It seemed to be the work of just a few seconds to conceive a character who would be a rabid colonialist and set about baiting various hapless victims who had otherwise been passionate about exposing the evils of orientalism and the like.

TE Chapman was actually one of the various names adopted by arch colonialist, hero figure and shortarse Thomas Edward 'TE' Lawrence (Ronald Storrs, the British governor of Mandate Palestine, referred to him as 'Little Lawrence') AKA Lawrence of Arabia. See what I did there?

For quite a while, the GN letters page lit up with fiery denunciation and towering polemic. Chapman incited controversy and thundered away, enraging his audience with joyful consistency until, one day, a foolish young colleague 'outed' him as a nom de plume and Chapman's career was brought to an abrupt end.

They're all in that file. Yellowed, stuck to the daily faxes that went off to GN, a record of my undoubted glee at being quite so successful in being a right royal pain in the butt to so many people.

I was younger, back then, m'lud. That's me only defence.

But yes, it was me alright...

Back

See you, pal? See you?

It's been nigh on a year, don't yer know. Have I missed y'all? Truth is, not so much. I've spent some time doing face to face chatting with some of the people I've known online, which has been lovely. I've been busy with one thing and another and have rarely had the time to think about blogs and suchlike. I've even been taking Twitter very lightly.

One issue with my little online Tamagochi was feeding it. What do I have to say every day? When I started this here thing up in 2007, there was loads to say and I was happy to devote half an hour or so each day to saying it. A whinge here, a snark there, a giggle every now and then - it was all such fun, Pip. But with the passage of time, it started to feel like an obligation - and that, as I wrote in the last post almost a year ago, was when I decided to leave things lie a while.

But the other day, I had cause to post a bunch of tweets about what's around us, here in the UAE. And an awful lot of people perked up and said things along the lines of 'Really? I didn't know about that!'.

And, for reasons which shall become clear in the weeks and months to come, I have had reason to explore many of these things and places myself, often with a depth you'd not normally, reasonably, afford 'em. Added to that, one of my favourite things is taking friends and family around the place - I confess to greatly enjoying the role of tour guide.

So I think I might take to posting about the UAE that's around us, often hidden in plain sight. Let's see where that takes us...

Empty Quarter

Oh, dear. Three months have passed and no post at all.

Is the Fake Plastic blog dead?

As Hemlock pointed out the other day, most of the other old UAE blogs have died. Do all blogs die one day? I suppose so - people get bored, move on, grow up, whatever. You realise that the volume of effort that goes into posting is increasingly indefensible. And that your 'hot take' on the world may well amuse you, but it's hardly worth sharing every day. As the lovely young things of Instagram are only just finding - and we found years ago - that whole sharing everything starts to become an end in itself and it doesn't really make much sense in real life.

The Fat Expat Blog was a lot of fun, for instance, but it just took too much out of us. Other UAE foodie blogs rose up from more talented people with more time on their hands.

And, increasingly, I've found I don't need to vent on here so much. I don't really need an audience (I never thought I needed one, but in reality I liked having one. A bit like Geekfest, that one - if it becomes important to you, it's probably time to stop doing it). It's not that there aren't things to vent about - my last visa renewal was a little shop of horrors, but then we all have horrible visa renewals, no?

I've got a new book in the offing, so it'd be nice to do that whole sort of 'It's important to keep the blog going as an author promotion platform' thing but then that makes you, the reader, the tool for my ambition (I'm using you, in other words, to promote my book) and it also doesn't work very well (a few, a very, very few people have read my books because they've liked my blog. It's likely in the tens, though. This is not a book promotion panacea, you understand. I'm not Boris Akunin, for instance, whose blog can pull six or ten thousand comments per post!).

I could blog about my book writing, publishing and production experience of course, but then a) it's not very interesting and b) see using people point above. I have issues laying out my content stall because I want to make people behave in a certain way ('Buy my book'). Yes, yes, I know I never had issues with that before, but I'm a different person now. Honest. No, really. I swear.

Also, please note, book posts have always been a HUGE downer on the blog. I post about whales having belly buttons or the awful shite that Tim Horton's put in their 'coffee' and you're looking at multiple thousands, even tens of thousands, of page views. Book post? A thousand or so if you're lucky and a LOT of tumbleweed knocking around.

As eny fule no, a thousand views put into the formula proposed by McNabb's Law of Clicks means a picobook is sold. It's hardly worth it, really, is it?

Anyway, I may well post again if and when the fancy takes me - but I'm clearly no longer in the 'post a day' league, as we can all see.

Meanwhile, you can always find me, of course, on Twitter!

HSBC. The End Is - Finally - Nigh.

Customer service paradigm

Went to Spinneys the other day to buy stuff for dinner and get some cash from the ATM. The ATM she no work. The credit card she no work. I pay using my Lloyds UK card (expensive, but what to do?) and call The Bank That Likes To Say EOWRUTABABA to find out what's gone wrong.

They've blocked the cards. Without warning, without telling us. No phone call, no email, nothing. They just blocked them and then went home. No, the call centre can't unblock them. No, you can't have access to your own money. No, the branch is closed so you've got no money at all tonight. Mafi faloos, baba. Not a penny. Despite having thousands lodged in your account.

Why? Because they had asked me for a 'salary letter', the latest in a long line of insane documentary requests made in the name of 'compliance' and 'Safeguard'. Apparently, having a scan of the updated utility bill of a guy who's been your customer for 25 years makes us all safer from fraud, scams and Osama Bin Laden.

I queried the requirement for a salary letter by return email, because it strikes me as a tad silly that I - a company owner - would want to write myself a letter confirming I paid myself. In fact, I found out from a letter I got by Aramex on Monday that I could upload my trade license instead and so I did that the very same day. Tuesday they blocked the account.

Wednesday they replied to me with an email explaining I could upload a trade license in lieu of a salary letter. Bit late...

We don't have any loans, or any outstandings. We're in credit. Big time. And we can't use our money. We are, oddly enough, stony broke and cash rich at the same time. It's the last straw, I've finally had enough. This camel's back - after 25 years of abuse and idiocy - is broken.

We're closing the account. I can't trust a financial institution that would do that to its customers. God knows, I couldn't trust them to issue a cheque book, meet a cheque, make a transfer, issue a credit card, operate an ATM, manage a call centre or generally do anything else you'd expect a bank to do.

I mean, it's not like they haven't been trying to get rid of us. Oh, no, they've been trying REAL hard. Even a cursory glance at the Fake Plastic Archive gives us some idea of the treats they've been doling out over the years:

Here, back in 2008, I posted precipitately about my joy - glee, even - at opening a new account with Lloyds UAE and getting rid of HSBC. It was not to be, alas. Lloyds blew opening the account so badly that we gave up. It didn't matter, as it happened, as Lloyds UAE got taken over by HSBC anyway. So it was a case of out of the frying pan into the frying pan and over to the frying pan. It didn't end there, of course.

The howls of pain recorded on this blog alone (bear in mind it started in 2007 and I started banking with HSBC in 1993, so there's years of silent screaming out there)  are testament to a bank that's really, really getting things wrong in a big way. There is NOT ONE aspect of banking service they haven't screwed up over the years. I kid you not, not one aspect.

I have happily accused them of drooling incompetence and gleefully pointed out their legion failings. I have accused them of operating potentially the worst call centre in the world (and defy you to identify a worse one) and charged them with ineptitude of the first order - which is being mild about it.

I have glibly compared their staff to badly trained macaques of below average capability, particularly when they quietly added a requirement for an IBAN number to make transfers and failed to include that field in the onscreen transfer form - then rejected the subsequent transfer AFTER it had gone to the UK and then booked the consequent - and considerable - exchange rate loss back to me.

I have also accused them of lying in their advertising. I have stood by as they have bounced my cheques, screwed up my transfers and generally shook me up like a wasp in a bottle. I have called them useless bastards in the past and I must say I do so very much stand by that accusation.

"Why do you stay with them?" People asked me. Well, it was usually because every time I went to get shot of them, everyone told me the other banks were just as bad. Now I don't care any more. Any bank that will unilaterally cut you off from access to your own money without warning - and that because of their own desire to enforce their unjustified procedural requirements and total incompetence - is not fit to have charge of my funds.

That's it. Game over. I'm sure they'll be glad not to be getting the abuse anymore as much as I - I can faithfully report - have an enormous sense of relief at the prospect of getting rid of them forever.

I only wish I could hurt them more to make the idiots responsible for doing this feel the impotent fury, frustration and considerable inconvenience their thoughtless, pointless and draconian actions have caused us.

I'm not sure what's more remarkable - that we've stuck with them for 25 years or that they just burned a customer of 25 years' standing. As I told the snobby wee girl in the branch today, I can remember when it was the British Bank of the Middle East and there were bedu guards with Martini rifles at the door - and when the paying in form asked for your company stamp or 'chop'.

Goodbye, HSBC, you legendary screwups.

Rain Room Sharjah (#RainRoomSharjah)

I can't remember how we heard about Rain Room. But we did and a glance at the Sharjah Art Foundation website was intriguing, to say the least. It was the work of seconds few to pick a day and time and book (you have to book an 'appointment' online, there's no point just rocking up and expecting to get in - more on this later). That was us sorted - a trip to Rain Room for our 15 minute 'experience'.

What is Rain Room? I hear you asking (unless you've been, in which case yes, I know, you've got the t-shirt*). It is an experiential art installation originally conceived by an London-based art collective/company called Random International, back in 2012. Rain Room toured the Barbican in London, MoMA in New York, LA's LACMA and other august artsy locations, to rave reviews. It has found its permanent home in Sharjah, and is open to the great unwashed in return for Dhs25.

It's a giant, black rain shower. You walk into it and sensors clear you a 6-foot dry patch as you wander around. Clearly, if you walk too fast or move suddenly, you get wet.

So here we are in Sharjah and it's late July. It's hot, the mercury at times nudging 50C. It's humid, too. Nasty, muggy, dense humidity that gets so thick and cloying a goldfish swam past my head the other day. The very idea of spending a little time in the rain has a certain appeal, no?

We booked for Saturday at 5pm. Get there 20 minutes early, says the email that followed my booking. Present this registration code when you arrive. And please use the hashtag #RainRoomSharjah. And so this is precisely what we do. Parking isn't a problem, there are reserved spaces alongside Al Majarrah Park with the blood-curdling threat of a Dhs1,000 fine if you park and aren't a guest of Rain Room. How do they know?

The building's totally plain - funky, for sure, but unadorned by any text that proclaims it to be Rain Room or, indeed, to be anything. It's all concrete, glass and steel and the floor is not only laid with the same blocks as those out on the pavement, but they're matched so they form a continuation with the outside paving. There's a Fen Café, just so's you know you've arrived in funky town. For those that don't know Sharjah's 'signature' art café, Fen is on funk. So much so that it actually aches, like eating too many ice cubes. We get our tickets printed and settle down to wait for our turn.

We watch people coming in off the street and expecting to get their 'experience' right here, right now. The chap on the front desk seems to spend 95% of his time explaining things and turning very entitled-feeling people away. Do you know who I am? Yes, and you haven't booked, mate. We're holding tickets and booked in for 5pm, the next available booking is 7pm. We briefly consider setting up in business buying tickets up online and sitting in Fen touting them to walk-ins. They only let six people in at a time and slots fill fast for popular times like weekends and evenings. Putting up a sign to this effect would save a great deal of very repetitive explaining. Our man stays calm and patient and we admire his stoicism almost as much as we admire Fen's jars of funky cookies and display of hipster cakes.

At just before 5, the security guard asks if we're the five o'clock crowd. Yup, that's us. Go to the waiting area, please. It's around the corner, a long concrete wall with bench seats set into it on our left and a great glassed vista looking out over Majarrah. It's a bit odd, looking out onto Sharjah backstreets from this cool concrete monument to contemporary chic. We wait. Nothing happens. 5pm comes and goes. I go to see Security Man. We're aware we're getting 15 scant minutes and that's our lot. So what happens now? We are waiting for people in the toilet, apparently. I ask if we're getting to stay in there until 5.17, then? The security guy giggles nervously. The man on the ticket desk intervenes, no, go on just go ahead. To be fair, they could have been a bit more precise with the old directions, there...

We go back down the corridor and turn a corner into a long passage that descends into the very bowels of the earth. We can hear water. A lot of water. At the bottom of the ramp, a local gent greets us and then we walk into a massive black room containing a single brilliant white light and a enormous cube of rain. It falls from tiny spouts high up in the ceiling, spattering and disappearing into the black grating which covers the entire expanse of floor. We walk into it and are consumed, enveloped in rain. The light picks out the droplets and they shimmer and scintillate as we turn and swoop. We're both laughing. There's a group of three Emirati girls in there with us and they're more nervous than we are, picking their way slowly and wonderingly into the big wall of constantly falling drops.

It doesn't smell of anything. There's no reek of chlorine or even musty damp. There's no sound beyond the hiss and spatter of rain, no hum of machinery. It's just the falling water and the shadows picked out by that single brilliant light. We get our mobiles out and start photographing ourselves not having a great time because we're so busy documenting the great time we're having. To be fair, you can't help yourself. It's deeply photogenic.

We throw shapes. We walk too quickly (and are punished). We're dancers, now, exaggerated slow movements as we carve our wee swathes through the curtain of bright droplets. We play like the big children we are. Our fifteen minutes flash by in subjective seconds and we are politely ejected through a curtain to wander back upstairs, blinking and giggling. It's all a bit intense, really. You feel bereft afterwards. I prescribe a nice cup of coffee and a Fen cookie.

*I said earlier that if you've been, you've got the t-shirt, but that's one trick the Rain Room misses - no merchandise. Sharjah of late has been quite good at merchandising its attractions, but there's not a Rain Room branded goodie in sight. Which is a missed opportunity, IMHO. Yes, yes, I'm sure art transcends base considerations of merchandise and all that...

In short, GO! You can get tickets to Rain Room Sharjah here at the Sharjah Art Foundation website. There's even a pin for those of you that don't know Sharjah or  where to find Al Mujarrah Park (or Al Majarrah park. It's a sort of movable feast, that spelling). The traffic's fine right now, so stop being a lily-livered Dubai type and make the journey North. Swing by the Heart of Sharjah while you're here and take a wander around some real souks. Or visit the Museum of Islamic Civilization (just around the corner from Rain Room) or even Sharjah Fort and its museum or discover the Imperialistic joys of Mahatta Fort, the site of the first airport in the UAE.

Go on, treat yourselves!