Worth driving safely for?

As I have oft-repeated on this blog, driving like a lunatic escaping from a volcanic eruption is standard behaviour in Dubai, even for someone like me who has been variously described as a 'slow' or even 'pootling' during my driving history. Something happens to you when you move here and start driving. You have a slightly higher-powered car than you can afford in the UK because you feel the need to be able to drive more defensively and get the hell out of the way of some of the utter madmen (and women) that fill the roads here, and, because cars are VAT free and petrol is cheap. Before you know it, reversing up hard shoulders because you've taken a wrong turn, crossing five lanes without indicating, whistling through amber lights with a millisecond to spare and exceeding the speed limit with gay abandon on roads where you know there are no cameras become par for the course.

You start with good intentions to carry on driving as safely as you would in the UK, but on the 100th time you are carved up by some death-wish Mitsubishi driver on a dual carriageway, you give up, and start to  think: "Can't beat 'em, might as well join them. Everyone else drives as if their driving instructor was a cast member of The Dukes of Hazzard, so why shouldn't I?"



The end of July and August is a blessedly peaceful time on the roads in Dubai, and then, September heralds the return of a lot of drivers and the dreaded back to school means that the roads are once again filled with people who drive like zombies.

So, what better time for Dubai Police to resurrect their plans to have White Points for drivers who do not contravene traffic laws? This initiative has been kicking around for a while and was widely sneered at among the ex-pats I know when it emerged the first time. According to 7Days, drivers will accrue one white point for each month they do not commit any motoring offence, including Salik (road toll) violations and violations in other emirates. Kudos on the retro "points mean prizes" headline, by the way, 7Days.  

The points can then be cashed in to wipe away black points, pay off traffic fines that have no black marks attached, or even get your car back if it has been seized.

Here's the best bit, those who go five years without any violations could win shopping vouchers or even a new car. That's the most lovable thing about Dubai, isn't it? Fines and potential prison sentences for poor driving are just not enough, we need to bribe our drivers with hold hard cash to not drive like lunatics.

I hate to say it, but I can't see it influencing the way people drive here. The offer of a new car sounds great in theory, but just one violation, going over the speed limit from an 80km per hour zone for example, wipes out your chances of getting it for five years, and more importantly, most people, the majority in Dubai are ex-pats, remember? They are more than likely to have left the country by the time their five years of clean driving anniversary comes around.

In fairness, the driving is so bad here, with car accidents the main cause of child death in the UAE, they have to try something. Maybe it will work. Maybe we will start to see people slowing the hell down, looking before they pull out of junctions, not jumping red lights or carving you up without looking up from their Blackberrys, let alone checking their mirrors, all the while gripping their steering wheels in a perpetual state of alert, dreaming of the shopping voucher or the new car, or, not having to shell out quite as many thousands of dirhams in speeding fines as they thought, but I doubt it.

What I did on my Summer Vacation

If you have any brains, you leave Dubai for at least a couple of weeks during the months of July and August to escape the worst of the heat. Him indoors and I have failed to do that in both 2011 and 2012 and therefore consider ourselves battle-hardened UAE summer veterans.

As a friend of the Sand Warlock's who has recently moved to Dubai pointed out recently: "People talk about the weather a lot here, don't they?" Er, yes. They do. Now that I've been here 18 months, I have thankfully stopped receiving what I refer to as 'the Inward Whistle of Summer'. The IWS is usually preceded by the following conversation:

THEM: How long have you been  in Dubai?

YOU: About three months (or period of time short enough to denote the fact that you have not yet experienced the summer heat yet).

THEM: So, you have not done a summer yet? *Inward Whistle of Summer*

This is followed by tales of how the cold water comes out of the taps hot, (true) the pavements melt (they don't) they know several people who spontaneously died of heatstroke when they stepped outside for more than two minutes, (doubtful) how the government lies and pretends the temperature has stayed below 50degrees when in fact it was, like, 55 man, (because they have to give the outside workers permission to stop working  when it goes above that temperature). You get the picture. I don't know why people feel the need to tell you about the heat. Everyone knows about it before they come here, and while it's true, you can't know what it is really like until you have experienced it, but here's a clue: Turn on oven, stand next to oven for about five minutes. Put face near lit light bulb. That's what it's like. I have promised myself that if I find myself giving the IWS to a new Dubai arrival, I shall give myself an inward slap.

So, no, we haven't managed to leave Dubai during the two hottest months, apart from one night in Ras Al Khaimah for my birthday. One of the reasons for this is that I am one of the few people in the UAE for whom the summer is actually quite a productive time. As anyone with a brain, including a lot of journalists, leaves for at least a couple of weeks, publications need freelancers to cover their work, so that's where I come in and that's why I haven't updated in a while.

Now, there's a protracted excuse for not updating, if ever I heard one. It's better than 'the dog ate it', but still.

What I have been doing in between assignments is playing with one of my birthday presents, a rather snazzy camera.

If you will excuse me banging on about the heat a little more, who knew that just as glasses steam up when you step out of the air conditioning into the heat, so too does a camera lens:

This photo looks like there's mist coming off the sea on to the palm trees outside the Hilton Ras Al Khaimah where we went for my birthday, but no, it's the condensation from the temperature variation of around 20 degrees from inside to out.

In other news, our transport to and from RAK was this car:

It's an Infiniti convertible which I can say with my new-found knowledge of car journalism is as nice to drive as any other Infiniti that I have driven and has the added bonus of having an amusing story involving a crushed suitcase attached to it.

The short version is: I have never driven a convertible before and did not know that it is ill-advised to leave luggage in the boot when you go about opening the roof. Thus, there was a sickening crunch as our suitcase had the life crushed out of it and some humiliating moments as the Sand Warlock, I, and several staff members from the hotel struggled to free it from the mechanism (in 49degree heat, remember, so that was sweaty) while panicking that we had knackered said roof. Luckily, it was not knackered, but goodness me, the sales guy who fixed the test drive for me didn't half go pale when I told him that anecdote. Still, no harm done and once I bashed the dent back out of the suitcase, it was as good as new.

We also had a brief visit from the Sand Warlock's cousin last month, and while I was being particularly snarky and moany about life in Dubai, as one is wont to do due to issues such is ridiculous cost of living, painful levels of bureaucracy, unbearable summer heat (sorry again) he pointed out that our life appears to be pretty nice, actually, particularly considering this is the view from our balcony:

The Burj Khalifa, at my favourite time of day, as the sun's setting. The lens is still a bit steamy in the first couple as I just noticed the sun was going down and I wanted to get a some pictures. It's more or less the view I have from my desk. It's probably responsible for about 40 per cent of my procrastinating, that which isn't taken up with Facebook, Twitter, reading the news online and wondering why no one has emailed me in the past five minutes, that is.

Another diversion in these past couple of weeks has been the Spider men, the dudes, that have been abseiling down the side of the building to clean the balcony glass. Here is one of them in action.

No, it's not a Ninja but a high-rise window cleaner. Our building is 35 floors high, we're on the 22nd floor, so rather him than me, and more so with these dudes, who you can just about see working on the Burj: *shudders*

Clue, they're just above the second balcony from the bottom on the left hand side.

Anyway, we have now officially broken the back of the summer heat. I know it's official because we are being promised rain, that's right rain! Well, I say we, not us at all, but Emirates to the north and east, according to Emirates 24/7, and according to 7Days, some cooler temperatures. And, I went for a run at about 6.15am some time last week, and, wait for it, the heat wasn't totally unbearable.

So, now that the schools are back, and most people are back in Dubai that are coming back, I can tell them that's What I did on my Summer Vacation.

Justice For Natalie

You hear about freak accidents from time to time but it's easy to forget that what takes most of us a few seconds to read about in the newspaper, raise our eyebrows at, and move on, can be something that has changed the course of someone's life forever.

This lady has been the subject of a four-year court battle after she was hit on the head by a falling beam at the Emirates Palace Hotel in 2008. What was meant to be a happy weekend celebrating her engagement has led to countless weeks in intensive care, thousands of dirhams of medical bills and an uncertain future.

The courts have found in her favour twice, but, the hotel group has appealed and the case is due back in court yet again next month. Meanwhile, Natalie has recently been in hospital in a medically induced coma and her need for specialist Neurological care becomes ever more urgent. She is now back at home but there is no knowing when she may become very ill again.

You can read about Natalie, here or watch this video about what happened to her.

There is also a petition you can sign.

Broomstick field trip

The very nice people at arabiangazette.com let me take some time out from sweeping up cat litter, sweating and complaining about how things ain't what they used to be to write an opinion piece for them. So I packed the cats on to the broomstick and flew over there to opine my jacksie off and was back in time to not get round to preparing something for the Sand Warlock's dinner.

I chose to write about Kim Kardashian with whom I feel a natural affinity because I, like, her have junk in da trunk, although, I have yet to capitalise on aforesaid junk to quite the extent of Ms Kardashian. Must work on that as a potential new freelancing revenue source. Anyway, you can read it here.

I should think so too

I'm a liberal sort of gal and I generally think the introduction of new laws has a negative effect on society, my view being we humans are intelligent beings and should be able to take responsibility for our actions without the need for judicial laws to keep us in line. That is one of the reasons I get so hot and bothered about the potential UAE dress code as I think  people shouldn't need to be told to dress in a manner that won't offend or upset others, they should want to do that in order to show consideration.

However, despite the fact that I strongly feel that people shouldn't need to be told by the law that leaving a child in a boiling hot car for any period of time in one of the hottest places on earth is a bad idea, I found myself nodding in approval in the manner of a rabid old back bench MP at PMQs when I read this story in The National. 

"Phew", I thought, "about time," as I was particularly horrified by the way the police seemed to imply they would not be investigating the circumstances of two child deaths in the space of a week as no one had reported it as a criminal matter. If there is a law saying it is illegal to leave your child alone in a boiling hot car, they will have no choice but to investigate.

Now, perhaps they can look at doing something about all the pillocks who drive around with their small children on their laps with no child car seats, seat belts or anything.

Remember the fuss that was made when Britney Spears was photographed driving around with one of her small children on her lap? Well, that's par for the course in the UAE.

Another of those Dorothy moments...

I don't often get upset about news stories, even the miserable, depressing tales of human tragedy. Spending a year or so working at a regional news agency plumbing the depths of human misery for an honest(ish) wage will cure most people of that, including me.

This one really bothered me though, as it made me have another one of those "Dorothy" moments, again, that  I had in this very old post, when you realise how very far from home you are even though in reality it's a six or seven hour flight back to London. Sometimes, the Dorothy analogy extends a little further when you look around, and you realise it's not that different after all, in the same way that the audience realises that the Tinman, the Scarecrow and the Cowardly Lion are three of Dorothy's uncle's farm hands in costume and she knew them all along.

It started with this story, about a two-year-old who died after being left alone in a locked parked car. I thought to myself, such a thing could never happen in the UK. Remember the fuss was made when  police officer left his dogs in a locked vehicle for too long?

But then, there was this story, about a child in the UK who died after her parents, for reasons best known to themselves, did not realise that leaving her in a zipped tent with a smoking barbecue could be potentially fatal, and, I thought, perhaps I am naive in thinking we in the UK are more clued up which made me rethink that a little.

Then, today, another story appeared in the press about another child who had died as a result of being left locked in the car in the heat of the day. That's twice, in the space of a week, that a child has died in this way and it has left me wondering why more was not done after the first incident to publicise the fact, that would seem obvious to many, that leaving your child locked in a car in the height of summer, even for a short, if you can call two hours short, period of time, is potentially fatal.

I don't know how extensive the Arabic-language press is here for the simple reason that I don't speak or read the language well enough to gauge how widely the story was covered, but I keep coming back to the fact that actual human beings need to have it explained to them that your child can die if you leave them in a car with no air con when the thermometer is nudging 50 degrees, and the fact that the story has been covered in a fairly low key manner makes me wonder if this more common than is being reported.

It's worth explaining this in more detail from a motorist's point of view because the way in which those children must have suffered is playing on my mind. I rarely drive the car here without having the air con on at least on low, except in the winter months when the temperature falls to the low 20s during the day and the mid to late teens at night.  When I pick him indoors from work in the evening, it sometimes involves a five or 10 minute wait which involves sitting there without air con on because I refuse to become a Jumeirah Jane cliche sitting with my engine running burning fossil fuels and contributing to the steady death of our planet while the air around the car becomes increasingly fume-filled, hot and unpleasant for everyone walking by.

As soon as you switch the engine off, the air in the car starts to feel nasty, stuffy and warm. No point opening the window because it will get worse because you let the hot air in quicker, particularly when the humidity is high. Within two or three minutes, and bear in mind this is in the evening when it's cooled down a lot, you start to sweat and after about five minutes, you start to feel fed up and irritably drum your fingers because you're over-heating and where is that husband, anyway? After 10 minutes, you consider putting the engine on just for a few seconds so you can take the edge off with the air con.

This is the experience of an adult, who has the luxury of being able to sweat to cool herself down, unlike a child, and who probably has a bottle of water with her and perhaps most importantly knows that him indoors will be along in a few minutes so we can start the engine, whack the air con on and go home. Imagine, sitting there trapped with no ability to turn the engine on, wind the window down, reach for a drink, for hours.

Having written this, I suspect I will have nightmares about being trapped in a car in the desert heat praying for either suffocation or heat exhaustion to kick in and at least render me unconscious in so it's over before the dreaded panic sets in.

Why did no one think about this when they walked off, apparently, if the articles are to be believed, forgetting that these children are in the car?  I can't begin to fathom why that was the case, and why there is no mention of a criminal investigation in either incident.

This is in the week when, a particular bugbear of mine, #UAEdresscode, is still trending on the dreaded Twitter on a weekend when it's reached the international press including the Washington Post and the BBC.

I find myself more than a little uncomfortable about this fact and wonder if it's down to some kind of international PR push by the campaigners or whether it's due to the fact that it's silly season and no one has much else to write about now that they've got over the Barclay's scandal a bit.

I don't know whether I am heartened or disheartened by the fact that now it appears to not just be ex-pats and tourists who are being targeted by campaigners, although, it does appear to have been squarely aimed at women covering up with little mention of enforcing a similar law for men.

I know Twitter is an unfair representation of society full, as it is, of people of dubious morals and agenda spouting all kinds of vicious claptrap that they wouldn't dream of saying out loud in front of their hundreds of followers, but I still find myself worried by the views that are expressed.

This Tweeter condemns her fellow countrywomen for failing to cover up to her exacting standards:

Some Abayas can be widely open exposing skimpy clothing under them, some can be too tight, others can expose cleavage....etc.

This is what concerns the Twitterati, whether local women might be cheekily flashing a bit of flesh in an attempt to express their sexuality, a desire for more freedom, or whatever, I can't claim to know what motivates them, but still.... This is what matters, while two children in the space of a week have been left to die in boiling hot cars?

That is something that makes me feel very, very far from home.

#UAEDressCode

This story has been kicking around for well over a month now but I have been busy procrastinating over writing that actually pays money to post.

It all started with two young Emirati women who got fed up with seeing ex-pats wearing short, tight or revealing clothes out and about so they started a campaign which was soon trending on the dreaded Twitter with the hashtag #UAEDressCode and not long after that, a Twitter account with the name @UAEDressCode was set up with numerous calls for the dress code to be enforced by law.

For the record, I have always made sure I observe the dress code, namely that when you go to a public place where there are likely to be locals, the majority of whom dress modestly in thobes, abayas and/or sheilas, or anyone else liable to be offended, you should cover your knees and shoulders. This means there are some items of clothing that I used to wear during warm weather in the UK or on holiday that I simply can't wear in certain places but considering the air con is usually on deep freeze, I got over that pretty quickly. I should probably add that shopping malls are a big part of my life here, not because I've turned into a shopaholic but because they tend to be the equivalent of the High Street - home to cinemas, a lot of restaurants, pharmacies, doctors' surgeries and so on.

The advice on the dress code is in every guidebook on the UAE and there are signs at the entrances to shopping malls so why some tourists and ex-pats have difficulty observing it is anybody's guess. But, you can walk around the malls here and you won't get very far before you see someone in short shorts or a strapless top or something so low cut that they're in danger of knocking you or themselves out with a vital part of their anatomy. I would guess the reason they do this is because they get away with it. They do it once, no one says anything, so they ask themselves why they need bother observe it the dress code and stop wearing stuff they wear happily in their home countries.

Does that bother me? This answer has changed over the time I have been here. At first it was not really, apart from a creeping irksome feeling that if I have made the effort to cover up, why can't they? Increasingly, it bothers me more as it is the cause of pressure for a dress code to be enforced by law and by the fact that I am realising that there is a tendency among some locals to tar all of us ex-pats with the same brush, ie, assume all of us are culturally insensitive enough to ignore the fact that our skimpy clothes may be considered shocking or offensive by locals and need to be kept in line by a law.

Everybody who comes here to live knows this is an Islamic society but it is an Islamic society that needs the benefits of non-Muslims coming here to help the country develop so, there are exceptions, you can drink alcohol although it is heavily taxed and you are not allowed to drink it outside licensed premises unless you have an alcohol licence, and, you can be arrested for drinking in a public place. There are restrictions on buying pork but it is still available.

This dress code business is a perfect example of the occasional friction between the two cultures that is difficult to resolve. Locals see us walking around "scantily clad" and it irks them because they believe it goes against their religion and/or culture and is a poor influence on their children. Because they're used to associating with people who are covered, they may also feel shocked and embarrassed themselves. The phenomenal level of boozing that goes on in the UAE is easier to ignore because it is largely confined to the hotels and nightclubs where locals can choose not to go. The debate around the dress code has revealed some uncomfortable facts about the attitudes of some hardliners towards ex-pats and tourists and truth be told, it is the first time in my 17 months here that I have ever really felt unwelcome here. The campaign may have started innocuously as two young women wanting to know why there is supposed to be a dress code but people seem to ignore it and has mushroomed into claims that people who do not adhere into are 'immoral' 'indecent' and 'destroying our culture'.

Take this article in The National, an interview with one of the campaign's initiators, it states clearly that it is not about changing the law, and the headline is about 'tourist dress code', ie those who are short-term visitors to the UAE who could perhaps be accused of not taking the dress code seriously enough because they are relaxing and on holiday and are not used to the oppressive heat. Yet, what do we hear, just two weeks later? Certain factions want a change in the law to force people to adhere to the code. And, it confirms that for some, it's a tit-for-tat gesture, a sideways swipe at some European states for banning the veil. While I would never choose to wear a veil myself, in my view it was a mistake to ban it for this very reason.

Within a matter of weeks, a campaign by two young women for tourists to wise up and cover up when they're out and about has morphed into a call for a change in the law which could mean criminalising people who fail to cover their knees and shoulders when they go shopping. I object to this for a number of reasons.

1.  Believe me, I have no desire to go shopping in a boob tube and hotpants, because at the ripe old age of 32, soon to be 33, even in the UK there would be sundry cries of 'put it away love, you're putting me off my chicken fillet selection' should I attempt that, but what I do object to is the idea of being branded a criminal if I happen to forget to make sure my skirt covers my knees or someone decides what I am wearing is too transparent. Case in point, The National's advice columnist explaining to a correspondent that wearing black is a good idea because it's not transparent.

2.  I am fundamentally opposed to the concept that my shoulders or knees are in any way shocking or disrespectful to those who look upon them. I do not mind compromising by covering them in certain situations but making me do so by law suggests that my knees and shoulders are in some way a moral hazard to the population at large.

3. These things always end up being about women and telling them what to do. Case in point, that column again which says the knees and shoulders rule is a 'guideline for ladies'. A tweet also appeared suggesting "fashion" choices for women not just covering their knees and shoulders but all the way to the wrists and ankles.

 lovely flowy summer maxi dress with light strechy longsleeved top under, looks pretty & better protection from Sun too ^__*

I will be the judge of what 'looks pretty' on me, thank you very much, and that is not it. I would look like a Playschool presenter from the mid 1970s if I dressed like that.

4.  Then there's the creeping xenophobia, an example being in reference to the non-local presenters on Dubai One who aren't sufficiently covered according to some. Another Tweet:

 you are right and this is big mistake to make non local to run any madia channel. Result will be unacceptable

5. The obvious desire by some to prevent any debate or questioning, just tell everyone to shut up and obey. More from Twitter:

Our rules, codes, traditions, culture are not to be discussed its to be highlighted, taught and obeyed .. Thanks

6. Then of course there's that old chestnut, those who are scantily clad are 'asking' for it or will come to harm because of it: Again from Twitter:

Wearing properly & looking modest can be fashionable as well. Nothing will harm you if u dressed like that

As for the claims that failing to cover 'destroys our culture' and that no one has the right to do that, I agree that no one has the right to do that, but who does this sound like? Who excuses their prejudice by saying another culture is destroying their's? It's the mirror image of right-wing extremists in Europe who claim that the continent is being "Islamified". Not the tolerant image that the UAE would like to present to the world at all.

I perhaps would not mind about the potential new law if it weren't for the fact that the selling of none dress code clothes is big business here in Dubai and the wider UAE. I went on a clothes shopping trip and I found it pretty much impossible to find a dress that covers my knees and my shoulders in any of the myriad western High Street shops in The Dubai Mall.

As I wondered around, I became increasingly irritated by the fact that if something was long enough to cover my knees, it invariably didn't cover my shoulders, or was too see-through and here I was potentially handing over my hard-earned cash for something that could be deemed illegal if this law does come in.

It didn't help that I then came across this sign in a one shop in which I could not find a single item which adhered with the code:

Buy buy buy, in other words, the exhortation of Dubai consumerism and a neat example of the dichotomy that exists here. It is fine to take money for "indecent" (the term used by some) clothes but do not, whatever you do, wear them and offend people in the very same shopping mall where you bought them. 

The reality is that much as the UAE may be becoming uncomfortable with so-called westernised culture of people dressing how they please without concern for others, tourism is a huge part of the economy, and the country relies on ex-pats coming here and being able to a large extent to continue their western existence undeterred. The first ex-pat or tourist fined or imprisoned for flouting any new law will make headline news around the world and will be doubtless deter many from thinking that the UAE is somewhere they really want to visit or live.

Bring Timmy Home

This man has been missing in Dubai for more than two weeks. If you have any information on his whereabouts, please use the contact details provided above to get in touch. 

You should be so lucky

I haven't updated for a while but I'm back now, alright? Want to make something of it? *holds up fists and does boxer style dance.* So, on with the blog.

A place him indoors and I have been meaning to go to for a while is Lucky's Furnitures in Sharjah, home to reasonably priced somewhat eccentric looking Indian and Arab style furniture. It's based on a somewhat non-salubrious industrial estate but, you know, seeking out these hidden gems is part of showing that you're a REAL PROPER EX-PAT now who knows what's what in the UAE and not some fly-by-night who's on a six-month secondment through work who's here today, gone tomorrow.

So off we set, one blazingly hot May day, well, they're all blazingly hot now until Octoberish, on the tandem air-conditioned broomstick for aforesaid establishment. If you think I'm stretching the witch and wizard related analogy a bit far, you just wait.

Lucky's is almost, if not exactly like the Room of Requirement in the Harry Potter books. OK, it may not be quite as complex and grandiose looking as the set for said room in the final two films, but that's what it reminds me of, if, in fact, the thing you most require at that moment is a distressed hand-painted cabinet, an eccentric-looking and potentially lethal cot for your baby, a carved elephant, a selection of antique lamps or a wooden Hindu or Sikh idol.

 
OK, so it's more like the Room of Requirement in appearance than actuality as these rather poor pics show, but you know what I mean, work with me people.

Now this is a garden swing:

It's a bit big for our balcony and heavy to bring up 22 floors, otherwise I would have purchased it, obviously.

We came away with a tallboy that resembles Wizbit, Paul Daniels' yellow cone-shaped pal from the children's TV programme of the same name, but not before we had spent at least an hour getting lost in the warehouse.

There are actually three warehouses which you dart in between to escape into the air con from the blistering sun as quick as possible. We narrowed the choice down to two cabinets - Wizbit or another one which handily had spaces for bottles of wine. Unfortunately, the wine cabinet seemed to disappear. We couldn't find it again. Eerie that, isn't it? We trotted up and down all the rows of the three warehouses returning to the place we thought it was, asked the staff, which was admittedly a bit of a pointless exercise as they spoke very little English and didn't look like the wine drinking sort, so probably had little idea what a wine cabinet was even if they knew what a cabinet was in the first place. But no, it had vanished like Draco Malfoy's vanishing cabinet, and yes, before you say it, I know that it's things or people put in Draco's cabinet that vanish, not the cabinet itself, I told you I was straining the analogy.

So, Lucky's clearly decided it was a Wizbit-shaped cabinet that we really required, not a wine cabinet.  It was probably right. It would probably have just made us buy more wine.

Welcome to the Wild Middle East

I would like to share a little anecdote with you that made me have another one of those: "Oh, Toto, we're not in Kansas any more" moments the other day.

I was casually chatting to a chap I come into contact with at work regularly and he informed me he was on his way to the Marina to sell his boss's boat.

"Oh," I said, "Your boss (who I also meet from time to time) has a boat? I didn't know that." Aforesaid boss was rapidly sinking in my estimations as I had previously thought he was ok but I was now envisioning him being one of those ex-pat pillocks idioting around the World Islands on a boat covered with emaciated bikini-clad promo girls. But that's beside the point.

Well, it wasn't his boat, it was given to him as collateral by a client who couldn't settle his bills with boss's business. The understanding was that it would be given back once the client had settled his bills. Unfortunately the client hadn't settled his bills so boss had dispatched the chap to sell the boat to the highest bidder. I resisted the temptation to ask if previously mentioned client was also currently at the bottom of Dubai Creek wearing a concrete overcoat.

Can you imagine such a transaction taking place in Britain unless you happened to be called Phil or Grant Mitchell and living in a fabricated working class community in the East End of London? Perhaps I am naive but I had no idea such things went on. "How very Wild West," I said. But no, it was a lot worse than that a few years ago during the boom times, apparently.  Another lesson learned. I wonder if our next landlord might consider taking Kevin the Toyota if we find ourselves unable to afford our next rental payment?

Sand Witch's tips for a burkini body

You may remember that last year Nigella Lawson got a lot of flak for wearing what the papers like to describe as a burkini on the beach in Australia. Who knows why Nigella wore the burkini? Was it 1. She didn't want paps snapping pics of her larger than size zero and therefore 'scandalous figure'. 2. Worried about skin cancer as she has beautiful youthful looking alabaster skin and perhaps either doesn't tan well or wants to keep it that way. 3. It was a bit nippy, or perhaps, 4. She's a free citizen of a free country and can do what the **** she likes.

Anyway. Some speculated at the time as to where she bought it. I can confirm that these garments are on sale in The Dubai Mall should you wish me to purchase one for you if the bikini diet isn't going too well and you have an urge to 'do a Nigella' during your summer sojourn to sunny climes.

I am pretty sure it's a swimsuit not a general workout suit as the mannequin is wearing goggles. I haven't seen anyone wearing them on the beaches of Dubai or at the swimming pools but I have seen fully dressed women in their head scarves and robes walking into the sea up to their waists to paddle with their families. There are women only days at the beaches here so perhaps such things are more commonplace then, although, perhaps the women only aspect would negate the need for a burkini in the first place. I have never been to the beach on a women only day because the Sand Warlock's drag act sure ain't as convincing as it used to be.

I have been thinking about women who choose to cover themselves playing sports a bit recently partly because of this story about the debate surrounding women's ability to play sport in Saudi Arabia and compete in the Olympics for their country and because International Football Association Board has just voted to lift a ban on women players wearing hijabs.

I can't speak with any authority about what is going on in Saudi Arabia, obviously, but there are a couple of women who wear hijabs, trousers and long-sleeved shirts who attend my running club from time to time and no one bats an eye lid. Another reason it has been on my mind a bit is my own musings about what I am going to wear to go running once the weather starts really heating up. Although it is a chilly 19 degrees today, it was much warmer than that as well as muggy and humid at Friday morning's session so my gear, some of which was bought for trolling around Ealing's Gunnersbury Park on chilly mornings, is not going to cut it any more. It's a tricky balance between wearing something practical and the very, very slight risk that someone will be offended if your clothing is deemed 'immodest'.  

Who says nothing grows in the desert?

A few of  you may have fallen about laughing at my enthusiastic plans to create a balcony garden detailed in this article which I wrote last year. But, I have been as good as my word and attempted to create a garden on our terrace, although, in not quite the way I had planned. There are two reasons the garden is not quite what I envisaged.  First, at the time of writing, we were living in a tower on the 13th floor and I fully expected to still be living in a tower with a very small balcony as opposed to a low-rise with a freakishly large (for Dubai) terrace. Second, a chance encounter with a fellow Brit ex-pat at Dubai Garden Centre.

The main news this ex-pat had to impart was that he had recently acquired a chicken from a school fete which was in chick form at time of acquisition. Unfortunately after it had grown up a bit, the chick turned out to be a cockerel and his insistence on waking the neighbourhood up at dawn every day from the balcony (yes keeping a chicken on a balcony was probably not a good idea anyway but this is a city in which one sees tigers riding in the front seat of cars so one becomes used to such eccentricities) had caused him to be evicted from his flat.

So, ex-pat, wife and cockerel had moved into a villa with a garden.  The subsidiary and arguably less important bit of news was the fact that ex-pat had successfully grown vegetables in his garden.  So, as we were at a garden centre, I immediately trotted over to the seed stand to see what food growing opportunities were on offer to grow on pots in the terrace with all thoughts of wind, sand and sun resistant plants banished. I guess a deeply English desire to cultivate one's own vegetable patch dies hard even if you have moved to a dust bowl.

One thing they don't tell you at the various garden centres in Dubai is that although one may sneer at the obviously forced grown, regimented lines of plants that line the sides of the city's roads, the heat and the dust is not the only reason that such 'unnatural' gardening practice - of growing in polytunnels then importing to the site before ripping up again when they look a bit tired - is necessary here.

I have found gardening in Dubai to involve fighting off biblical plagues of pestilence armed only with a weak washing up liquid solution. Leaf miners are the chief culprits for the slow but eventual destruction of plants, followed by black fly and then if that's not enough, some weird yellow snot resembling bugs that are currently trying to munch their way through my desert rose. There's not much you can do about bugs eating vegetable plants in Dubai. Pesticides are not widely available because garden centres have to have licenses to sell them because they are of course highly toxic, so not many of them bother, and the high toxicity could of course render the crops inedible anyway.

So, while I have successfully grown beans and tomato plants, others have fallen by the wayside.

Here are aforesaid tomatoes growing in a thicket like arrangement I expect is typical of the inexperienced gardener who was not aware of the triffid-like proportions that tomatoes can reach given the right conditions until it's too late.

Here's a closeup of said tomatoes which are getting quite big now:

They're refusing to ripen at present which I suspect may be due to lack of sun which is not as mad as it sounds given our location in one of the world's hottest places as the terrace is in shade for much of the day. I have ignored the Prince Charles approach of talking nicely to them to get them to grow and instead can be found swearing at them to get the **** on with it because that's a bit more my style.  The white squiggly marks on the leaves are the ever present leaf miners which I feebly spray with water and washing up liquid in an attempt to keep them at bay.  I think the problems with pests are down to the fact that there are not enough cold snaps to kill them off.  They certainly seemed to retreat during the cooler months but as the temperature is creeping back up again I suspect they are now here to stay.

Despite this, we have already enjoyed my first, admittedly rather small, harvest of beans:

Although the first sowing of courgettes succumbed to leaf miner followed by black fly, some of the next ones are looking pretty promising:

Growing all these edible things of course makes growing flowers seem tame as progress is so slow. I don't know if it's my lack of skill but the yield from the amount of flower seeds sown is tiny in comparison. Here's some blue asters that finally look as if they are going to flower after several months in the soil:

My attempts to grow so-called desert friendly plants are feeble. I suspect this Blue Agave would rather be in the ground than in a pot but there's not a lot I can do about that unless I decide to dig up the terrace and create a flower bed which is admittedly tempting considering our landlord's behaviour:

I have been trying to find a position for it on the terrace in which I don't walk into it and damage its spines but have so far failed, hence its slightly sad looking tendrils.

The desert rose did not like the cold (for Dubai) winter very much and is also currently looking a bit sad.

Despite the sap being poisonous to humans, that's not the case for the aforementioned snot-like bugs that have recently started attacking it. I recently pruned it rather haphazardly with some blunt shears so it's looking particularly sad which is a bit galling when I keep seeing flower covered desert roses thriving in flowerbeds everywhere. Over the winter, it sulked and threw off all its leaves if I put even a drop of water near it.  I think it's the lack of sunlight on the terrace that it doesn't like and perhaps it will start looking a bit more cheerful when the warmer weather comes.

I have the Western instinct that a garden should be green and lush so I find the Agave and desert rose's slow growing not so greenness rather uninspiring. I expect the greenness will start to disappear and fall victim to the hot weather soon so perhaps my enthusiasm for desert friendly plants will grow accordingly.

Sandy

I've been whinging at various stages about the sandstorms that swept over the Emirates recently. I have had a think about it and realised, hey it's not that bad. Give me a bit of sand over TfL grinding to a halt at the sight of a few flakes of snow any day of the week. It is, however, quite unpleasant sitting outside in it. I found grains of sand between my teeth when I had to cover a polo match recently (oh, my life is so hard, poor little me) and people with respiratory conditions are told to stay indoors when it's really bad.  Anyway, it's all gone now, but here are a few sandy pics to show you how the desert tries to reclaim Dubai when the mood takes it:

 Sand tries to take over the road on the way to Ras Al Khaimah.

Camels on the way to Ras Al Khaimah. Not particularly sandy, I just like them.

A somewhat bemused poinsettia plant.

Pretty sand patterns near Fossil Rock on the Dubai/Sharjah border:

More sandy roadness:

Another thing I have randomly photographed for your enjoyment is this camel. Yes, I am obsessed with camels but I thought this particularly bling camel sums up Dubai beautifully; Arabian but blingy. She is suspended forever in time near the Emirates Towers which are, surprise surprise, home to a luxury hotel, a luxury shopping mall and some offices and stuff.

There are various decorated and bling camels situated at opportune points around Dubai because we're very interested in preserving our Emirati heritage and reminding ourselves how far we've come. I personally think this camel says a lot about just that. 

Chick with a tick

As some of you know, I have joined a Nike Running Club.



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I've just left a bit of space there for those of you who know me of old to pick yourselves up from the floor and sew up your sides and opt for surgery on the various hernias that you will now have ruptured.

But no, really, I have.

I've written before about the 'Dubai stone' that creeps on many who move to the Emirate and my various attempts to combat it and I shan't bore you again, but after making some pitiful attempts in the gym over the summer, a friend brought the running club to my attention.

How you go from being a misanthropic, social inadequate to joining an actual running club is something that requires background because as is common to all bloggers, I freakin' love banging on about myself, so - my relationship with organised physical activity begun 27 years ago thus:

Five-year-old me at my first PE lesson, (it was called games then) at my village school in a pair of green patterned shorts and, if I recall correctly, a Victoria Plum t-shirt and those marvellous black plimpsolls with the stretchy bit.  There was running, there was jumping, there were things involving skipping ropes, there was running while carrying things.  The distinct memory I have of it is trying, doing the same things that everyone else did, the same actions with the same effort but something wasn't right.  Everyone else's ball would travel metres before hitting the target, mine would trickle a little further on than my feet, everyone else would finish running without breaking a sweat and I would turn up half a minute later panting for breath, everyone else managed the skipping while I tripped over my rope and cried.

There is one reason and one reason alone for this, and that is physical ineptitude - a condition that afflicts the bookish among the population - or so I am led to believe. Or, do we become bookish because we need something to do rather than flailing around while people point and laugh? It's chicken and egg. Which came first? The books or the inability to participate in physical activity?

My ineptitude was and indeed is a bad thing because I am both highly competitive and a bad loser, not a good combination, but I did try at sport. My sister recalls a particularly amusing episode when for some reason I got put in the reserves for a school inter-house cross country competition which meant you still had to run but your time wasn't registered unless someone was injured and dropped out. All the other runners went past, obviously, then a couple of minutes later (well probably more than that) I came past sobbing and threatening to vomit. Dignified. This inability used to really bother me but after a while I resigned myself to being picked last for every single team and hitting the ball about twice in roughly 2,000 rounders matches.

I was pretty glad to kiss goodbye to such things when I reached the end of compulsory education. There is, of course, a problem with this in that you can turn into a right fatty if you don't  move around a bit at least once a week as you reach adulthood and hurtle past 30, particularly when you're in a country where it's too hot to move for a part of the year and getting a takeaway or eating out is cheaper and easier than cooking for yourself.

So, while 10 years ago I would have decked you if you had dared to suggest I would even consider joining a running club, I readily agreed to go along. And, it's not that bad.  In fact I would go as far as to say it is good. Very good.  So good that I don't even mind you seeing this picture:

Who is that idiot?  Jumping in the air (at only just gone 8am on a Friday, I might add) with something resembling vim and vigour as if she hadn't a care in the world?  What on earth is wrong with her? Why isn't she in a darkened room grumbling about anything and everything and pointing out that nearly everything on the planet is rubbish except her? 

The ineptitude has remained.  I do feel sorry for the personal trainers who are syndicated by Nike to train the terminally physically incapable like me. They have their work cut out but if they feel any frustration, they do not show it.  Luckily, there are some genuinely very good runners in the group and there are some good runners in the group, some above average runners and some average runners and some not that good runners. Unfortunately, all of them leave me in the dust and have already started on the sprint training or the situps and spidermans long before I rumble over the hill to the finish in a demented and exhausted fashion.  Yet, because you get presented with Nike gear for regular attendance, I am building a collection of t-shirts. So, I am to be seen, twice a week, shambling around in lycra, yes, lycra, in public, in the environs of Festival City and Burj Park with the hallowed big tick on my chest and something resembling a satisified smile, or more likely an exhausted grimace, on my face.

There is a small corner of my psyche that is slightly perturbed by the fact that despite my efforts, I am still the worst or nearly the worst in the group but I choose to be amused by this.  I persist because the running club is perfect for an impoverished hack like me as it's free due to the training being paid for by Nike. It's clearly unlikely that they are doing this out of the goodness of their hearts and it's safe to say they get plenty of valuable publicity when they hand out free stuff and by people like me blogging about them. I'm not sure that I'm quite the sporty, healthy, wholesome type they have in mind when they design their sweat absorbing, stretchy, brightly coloured gear. On the other hand, perhaps I'm exactly the type. Let's face it, there are more like me - bile-filled inepts who shun daylight, positivity and physical activity where possible - than healthy sporty types on the planet. Wouldn't that be ironic? That my sporting inability has led me to become the precise target audience of a sportswear company?

Although I have hauled my sorry behind around charity races before - a 10km in the fairly pitiful time of 1 hour 12 minutes was my last effort - it's only since I joined the club that I became aware of some of the things I am doing wrong. I chose running as a way to try to get fitter or at least try to remain reasonably fit as I get older because it's a sport that you can do alone and that appeals to me. However, disappointingly, it turns out to be the case that having fellow runners and a mega-fit professional to encourage you does work and that it is true that doing proper stretching will mean you have fewer pulled muscles.  You have no idea how distressed I was when I finally had to admit that those are two true facts.

Meet one of the instructors, Tom: 

Now I've got that gratuitious picture out of the way, all I need to do is say if, like me, you are in Dubai and want to do some sport or physical activity but don't want to be humiliated or badgered or made to feel inadequate, Nike Running Club might just be for you. It meets at 6.45pm on Tuesdays outside the Nike store at Festival City, at 7.45am on a Friday at Burj Park and at 6.45am on a Saturday in JBR. No of course I haven't made it to the Saturday one yet.  What do you think I am? Some kind of sicko? Have a look here and click on Nike Run Club Dubai if you're interested in that one.

Bring on move 15 in 15 years...

I haven't updated in a while because of various things including a trip to Nepal, Christmas, and so on but plan to get back into the habit when I can.  Really must get round to uploading some of those elephant polo pictures.

Anyway, we've been content in this apartment for getting on for nine months now and had hoped to renew our tenancy in April, but alas, we find ourselves preparing to move once more. There are laws in Dubai introduced after the "good" times to protect tenants from unscrupulous landlords who imposed astronomical rent increases. In some ways the laws aren't necessary, particularly if you're just after a flat, as there is a glut available thanks to the out of control construction sector.

Unfortunately, these laws do not protect you from landlords who are total pillocks and living in cloud cuckoo land.  We could fight our case to stay here through various bodies but it would involve time and money which would be better spent finding a place with a landlord who is not a pillock.

Here is a letter that I wrote when it became apparent that we will be moving house again in April.  This will be the 15th time I've moved house since I left home to go to university in 1997 so you can imagine how utterly thrilled I am about this.  Don't worry, I didn't send it and I let the Sand Warlock handle most of the communication side as he is less inclined to lose his temper and start making biological suggestions to people he gets annoyed with.  It made me feel better though.

Dear Landlord

In response to your recent rent increase “suggestion”, we cannot afford to pay 125,000AED per annum rent. We are not sure why you would think we would choose to live in a 85,000AED per annum flat if we could afford 40,000 extra in rent so we are amazed that you would even suggest it. If our circumstances had changed to that effect in the course of the year, we would certainly have been looking for another flat with more space or putting some money aside for our future rather than blithely agreeing to pay 47 per cent extra rent for the same flat to line your pitiful pockets. What kind of morons do you think we are? We are not sure where you get the information that ‘rents are returning to what they were’ before Dubai’s widely publicised gargantuan economic crash but I suspect it was in some kind of psychedelic dream brought on by all the crack you have clearly been smoking.

There are many similar flats in the same area that are advertised at the same rent or a few thousand dirhams more than we are currently paying so we feel that you would be wasting your time trying to impose such a high a rent on a new tenant. Why would any new tenant rent this flat for 125,000 when they can get a similar one for 85,0000 to 90,000AED?

It is illegal in Dubai to raise the rent when a tenant has lived in a property for less than two years so why are you trying to do so? Surely as a landlord it is your responsibility to be aware of the law and adhere to it. If it is the case that you want to live in the property yourself, as you stated on your eviction notice AFTER telling us that you wanted to put the rent up by 40,000, then of course there is nothing that we can do about that and accept that we need to move out, you just need to be honest with us about it.  Why the subterfuge?

We have been good tenants taking good care of the property, giving our neighbours no cause whatsoever to complain and have made minimal contact with you during our tenancy and only when completely necessary. We are residential landlords with property in the UK and do not currently get as high a rent as we would like but we appreciate the value of good, reliable tenants as they inevitably save money in the long term because there are fewer missed payments and the need for repairs is less likely. It is a pity that you cannot do the same.

We will be moving out in April.  Please don’t expect us to listen to your feeble, piffling reasons for trying to impose this rent increase on us. We are only interested in hearing from you if you are agreeing to keep our rent at the same level. Otherwise we will be complying with the eviction notice which you issued when we failed to reply to an email within 24 hours. Considering how long it took you to respond to phone calls when we first moved into the flat and our fridge had broken that was quite frankly the last word in hypocrisy. I hope you are totally ashamed of yourself and your next tenant trashes the flat and never bothers to pay the rent, you total and complete idiotic scumbag.

**** you, you imbecilic plank-brained wankerish d*ckhead. I’ve met some morons in my time but you’ve won the award for the biggest ever.

Sincere congratulations and well done you!

Dubai Sand Witch