One life

In the car park near Emirates Towers shopping boulevard is an Indian man in security uniform with four parking cones, a driveway, and no shade. It appears that his job is to endlessly place two cones in each half of the driveway - entrance and exit - and remove them when a car appears.

Presumably, he is counting the number of cars so the car park does not overfill and people double park, etc. Presumably, he blocks the exit so people don't try and sneak past him that way.

Of all the mindless, pointless, total utter wastes of a human being's life there cannot be much worse than this. To pay someone (doubtless a pittance) to move four cones backwards and forwards for ten hours a day, six days a week is an abomination to humanity.

Chalet girls

For fifty weeks out of the year, Arabic food - at least in terms of main courses - is unremittingly dull. It consists of either grilled chicken, lamb, minced lamb or the imaginative "mixed grill" combination, served on a bed of chopped parsley with a few slices of flat Arabic bread. But for the yearly fortnight of paying homage to Dr Atkins, it is the Holy Grail.

Behold the little Chalet Restaurant, lurking in the shadow of the Burj Al Arab on Jumeirah Beach Road. How long before it is torn down to be replaced by a "five star" establishment packed with fat, offensive tourists is uncertain, but for now it offers plenty of Arabic fare at wonderfully low prices. Tabbouleh for a mere 5 dirhams. Half a rotisserie chicken with salad for 15 dirhams. The dining area may be white plastic chairs scattered on a small lawn next to a busy road, but for the carb-starved, it is a safe haven.

Though the demonic vision of a very cool, rich, creamy, velvety slice of chocolate cheesecake floats endlessly around in the head...

The Missing

Dubai's brightest and best show up under the stars to pay homage to Lola LebCan on her birthday. Skyscrapers glitter around the poolside setting, in the shadow of the Evil Tower. Dubai is a place where people grow older, and wearier, but never get old.

There are no old people here. The local pensioners hide away in their villas; occasionally you may spot a bronze-masked black-clad old woman scuttle across a quiet side street in Jumeirah. Old men are never seen - not in the shopping centres, in the coffeehouses, or at the shisha pipes - do they exist?

The rare sight of elderly foreigners - generally parents and grandparents visiting their expat offspring - brings a strange pang. For a real world where old ladies push tartan shopping trolleys along a busy pavement, where senior citizens gossip on public buses, and old men take a stroll through the park.

None of that here. This is YouthWorld.

Playboys of the eastern world

How many times does one meet Arab men working and bachelor-flatting in Dubai, only to discover they have a wife and family locked away in Sharjah? The reason for this is always that "Sharjah is a more family place." One could buy the excuse that Sharjah is cheaper. But no: Sharjah's startling family-friendliness is always key to this split life.

What is really meant is that in Sharjah there are few western distractions - no alcohol, no indecency, women must cover, it is technically illegal for a woman to be seen with any man she is not related to. The place is an increasing hotbed of wahabism, due to the Saudi money funding it. Meanwhile the man lives it up in Dubai, blaming the traffic or the distance (2km!) for his need to stay overnight, doubtless catching up with friends and booze and girls in Dubai's many nightspots.

So a huge round of congratulations to the newlywed Emirati woman who took a stand against this practice. The husband claimed that Sharjah was "more socially suitable" for a family. The wife refused to leave Dubai. Marriage counsellors suggested moving to a third emirate. Result: divorce.

Racing away

Narrowly escaped endless hours of whining motor cars by politely declining a Grand Prix invitation offered by a regional airline CEO. Heat, the general public, and the stench and sound of burning rubber are surely best saved for the Seventh Circle of Hell.

The US has closed its embassy in Abu Dhabi and consulate in Dubai due to terror warnings. A nation refusing to condemn the murder of an elderly crippled gentleman in a wheelchair, much less one that paid for the bombs that killed him, can hardly wonder why it is unpopular to the point of utter loathing.

Pray God deliver us

Hello

well ....thanks for the reply

dear i dont care for english ok ...though iam a writer and a my books sell good in english and arabic...your much attention for your beloved language is meant to value a place were we are not the same so it is hostile ....then as for the relation you have poor the guy i wish god will always help him he is in an open manners school for ever....then you said how come i see you are sexy this i will ask you to forgive me ill not take it back am sorry yet i will tell you am not that hungry for porno sites or any of the kind may be am honest so believe me please...dear thanks for showing me a new value in you LOVELY SENSE OF HUMOR i can see it now along with a keen sense of satire which i love too cause i respect people who dont believe life and are bigger than what ever it promise or pretend to be...At last (be happy i made a capital letter here) am so glad i talked to you ....take care and keep up the beauty .

samir m_.

->Trash->Block sender

Taking the fuckwits to task

Hi [name]
dont laugh ok ....promise
you did fine
well i saw your picture by chance
i liked it
you look smart firm sexy and passionate
i like to know you more
good for me am easy to be checked on
you can find my books on www.[website].com
and you can add me to your msn and check my profiles
samirm_@hotmail.com
hope we will soon be friends
good things take off fast :)
send me mail lets communicte
bye for now and take care
i know you didnt laugh
i hope you will smile now


Dear Samir,

Thank you for your letter. Can I be completely honest with you?

Firstly, I am not looking for new relationships.

Secondly, as you can probably tell from our website, I am a professional business executive. I realise English is not your first language, but I find emails such as yours - with no regard to spelling, grammar or punctuation - a total turn off.

Surely you know that it should be "I" not "i"? That sentences begin with a capital letter and end with a full stop. That it should but "don't" not "dont" etc?

If you want to impress intelligent, English speaking women, then you need to develop a correspondence style that does not make you appear like a semi-literate, lazy school child. A woman like me would never dream of entering a relationship with a man with such poor literacy skills.

Simply running the text of your email through a Microsoft Word spelling and grammar check would have corrected your many mistakes for you.

Thirdly: I find it somewhat disgusting and offensive that you look at a photograph of me on my work website, and deduce that I am "sexy and passionate" from it. Had you found my picture on a pornography site, fair enough. But "sexy and passionate" is your interpretation, you cannot possibly tell that from a single passport photo of just my head.

Good luck with your search for relationships and friendships, and I hope that you take my advice in the kind spirit in which it is meant.

yours sincerely

[name]

Exec VP
[Company]

Burn the Witch

There can be no word nor phenomenon more excrutiating in the 20th/21st centuries than that of the "guru". Even those as enlightened as Lola LebCan fawn over these peddlars of snake oil for the soul. Their horrific success over the past few decades leaves one torn between two plots bubbling away in the cauldrons of Guantanamo Cell Block G:

1. Self Help Books Are Shit
Rottweiler a different self-help, "leadership" or new age tome in each chapter, tearing apart their glib bunkum with savage, slavering teeth. Case studies of those following this drivel to the last letter - yet still witnessing their lives descend into a hellish spiral of misery and failure - will enlighten and encourage the reader. Bonfires shall be even more numerous than the Harry Potter Burnings, cremating "Chicken Shit for the Soul", "Seven Steps to Fuckwittedness" and their sorry ilk.

2. The Way of The Djinn
Jump on the bandwagon of bilge, and publish a hocus pocus mishmash of faux Bedouin mysticism and traditional Arab tribal "culture", peppered with trite vignettes of simple robed peasants endlessly drawing plans in the sand. Patience and Peace - let the ancient wisdom of the desert revolutionise your goals, priorities, and life success.

Grim blue line

Today, a column of blue-clad migrant workers marched for over ten miles along Sheikh Zayed road, to go to the Ministry of Labour in what is almost certainly another desperate attempt to claim unpaid salaries.

These men sacrifice their entire lives to come and work here. They see their families and children only once every two years, they toil in the dust and dirt and heat and endless sun building this entire country. And yet their corrupt, inefficient and greedy employers continually fail to pay, continually lie to the Ministry of Labour, which itself continues to take the word of one fat cat construction boss against thousands of honest labourers, granting extension after extension for the company to pay them, which it never does.

This is a country that literally runs with oil and drips with gold. The treatment of these migrant workers is an abomination. People who work without pay are slaves.

When you look at the glittering buildings of Dubai, remember the Pyramids of Egypt and the slavery that created them. Thousands of years pass, nothing changes.

Free aid for free speech

The Gulf News reports that journalists brought to trial will get free legal aid from a pioneering group of lawyers. "The economic openness of the UAE should be inseparable from any other open policy adopted by the country. It's illogical to adopt an open economy policy while at the same time adopting strict policy on freedom of speech," says lawyer Abdul Hameed.

Effectively there is zero freedom of speech here. That is because any such freedoms - even in the Free Zones - were curtailed by the nebulous "must take into account the culture of the region" speech by Saeed Al-Muntafiq at the launch of Dubai Media City. Essentially, free speech in the UAE is a mass of contradictions.

The DMC inaugural speech by Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, UAE Minister of Information and Culture, states that:

"...freedom of the media... is essential. It is the life breath of any effective media."

Abdullah then claims that when he talks about media freedom, he "does not not mean it as an ambiguous and misleading phrase."

"The freedom in which we believe is responsible freedom, in accordance with the law."

So what are these laws? Later clarifications by local lawyers claim they are the same as general UAE law, despite the Free Zone status. According to Al Tamimi's Hoda Barakat, this prohibits:

"...any insult to Islam, the government or higher interest of the state... publishing opinions violating public decency, what purports to inciting hate crimes, confidential communications or military affairs or provisions of agreements or treaties concluded by the government before being published in the official gazette... publishing anything that involves blemishing any Arab, Islamic or friendly country president."

So what is the point of article 30 of the UAE constitution?

"Freedom of opinion and expressing it verbally, in writing or by other means of expression, shall be guaranteed within the limits of law."

Media law in the Emirates has a long, rocky road ahead.

We don't want no Education

Some bizarre spat has erupted between journalists and the Ministry of Education and Youth, with the hacks boycotting Ministry functions due to being banned from its premises. Is it not a blessing to be blocked from this institution?

According to sources in the education industry, this same Ministry recently decided to prevent any local child from ever failing an academic year. By some obscure law or statue, pupils allegedly have to be passed, regardless of attitude, attendance, academic performance or capability.

Local media would be far better to turn their attention and camera lenses to more important issues, such as the new baby giraffe at Dubai Zoo. And start a full-on campaign for the Zoo to get off its arse and either speed up its move to a new, spacious location, or temporarily rehouse its animals in a facility less akin to a cramped Victorian prison.

Saddam right on time

A very fine, elegant ladies watch with a youthful, smiling Saddam on its face is my souvenir from an associate newly returned from Baghdad. It is apparently the equivalent of a Ba'athist corporate gift, presented to ladies visiting the Palace for official functions etc. A crafty Iraqi merchant has unearthed a horde these treasures, and is now raking in the cash from admin folk and GI Joes.

Certainly, a grinning Al Tikriti on a working timepiece is a far better present than the endless baseball caps, business card holders and faux leather binders forced upon reluctant hacks at press conferences. The dishdashes-that-be could learn a thing or two from their cunning Iraqi cousins. I eagerly await the first brass mantel clock featuring a beaming Sheikh Zayed.

Celestial torment

Allah is indeed merciful. Just an hour after reluctantly confirming a business meeting in Bahrain, an invitation arrives for the same date to a book discussion of the latest abomination from the Celestine series. A series whose vastly unworthy success is testament only to the utter idiocy of modern man. No words put it better than this review by Kenneth Moyle:

As I trudged my way though the arid, jargon-mined desert that is Redfield's novel, buffetted by barrage upon barrage of brutally prosaic, 80's self-help clichés, wincing at the glare of the shiny, shifting, new-age platitudes, I couldn't help but ask myself time and again: What in God's name do people see in this banal, grating screed?

But it appears that God this time has saved at least one soul from torment. Never before will the arid concrete wastes of Manama appear so welcoming and desirable.

Doing the Locomotion

To anyone stuck daily in Dubai's hellish traffic, the prospect of a railway taking half a million cretins off the road is very appealing.

But in practice - how will people get onto those trains? Unlike places such as London or Singapore, where people might walk for fifteen minutes to get to a tube station, taking Shank's Pony even sixty seconds in the Arabian heat is barely possible. At the height of summer, when the burning humidity does not relent day or night, no one except the very poorest (who already use buses) will be prepared to walk to a station.

One answer might be better urban planning, with shaded walkways throughout all cities. But take a look at the concrete hell of Sharjah - no one cares enough about these low paid subcon expats to improve that area. Or consider Mankhool - an expensive, affluent zone built in the style of a high rise slum without so much as a dusty date palm in sight. A dream such as has been realised in Hong Kong is very far off.

Portrait of Durian Gray

Being flung from paradaisical Singapore back to the deserts of Dubai is like being cast out of Eden into the dust. The only serpent in this tropical wonderland was a mass of dark rainclouds incessantly snaking their way through the skies, spitting endless drizzle and squeezing out the sun.

It must now officially be noted that the notorious Durian fruit tastes far worse than it smells. The flavour is that of a rotting rockmelon - high and over sweet - with a liberal dash of cheap gooseliver pate. Add the oddly meaty aroma of contact lens deproteinising tablets, and there you have it. Vile beyond belief.

Kinder Kuche Mosque part 2

News today that Emirati women will be leaving the office at 4pm every day, thanks to new legislation designed to help national wives spend more time with their husbands and children. They will also be allowed to retire after ten years with one company.

Quite apart from the fact that this will make local women the dalits of the private sector, will many of them actually relish the chance to spend extra time in domestic drudgery? Given that juvenile deliquency - an increasing problem here as elsewhere - is generally linked to absent fathers, would it not be more effective and progressive to send the men home at teatime?

Women are also told they should have "at least six babies and this should be viewed as a national duty." No wonder they are increasingly choosing to escape to a nappy, brat and bawling-free office.

That sinking feeling

A karaoke tragedy for Lola LebCan, whose world record for most microphone time was smashed by a former competitor on Stars In Their Eyes (Harry Connick Jr) ringing it at Harry Ghattos last night. Never before has anyone sung so loudly and so long.

Singing considerably less loudly, a source reveals information set to spread the warm glow of Schadenfreude across the Emirate. Let the glorious song of Tight Fit ring throughout the clubs, bars and karaoke halls:

Fantasy Island - all we ever dreamed of
True love - holdin' us together
Star shine - Fantasy Island
Oh I wish that we didn't have to spend hundreds of millions more dollars raising the sinking island by another two metres