Deira Diary

It was Christmas Day in the family house

2011-12-29T20:30:00.004+04:00

I drove down to my Mum’s at around 5am Christmas morning. Although getting out of bed that early in the morning was not part of my plan, I assumed that an inability to sleep was an inevitable product of the child-like excitement that this time of year regularly engenders. It also had the virtue of potentially enabling me to make an early getaway later in the day and to return to my wife who had wisely opted out of any contact with any part of the family for the entire Christmas period.

Arriving a little after 7, Mum appeared to only just be getting up. I am not sure if we specifically exchanged the felicitations of the season, or just the ritual “how are you”, neither of us really wanting an honest response. After the affects of the coffee that I made myself had worn off, I began to develop a distinct feeling of dread as the realisation kicked in that we couldn’t really begin cooking for another couple of hours. “Christmas, what do you make of it,” I asked, irritably. “Well, it’s not like it used to be, is it?” she replied. I became agitated at my own unforced opening up of a vulnerable emotional flank. I, after all, was central to the value of this particular Christmas celebration as I had opted to drive down to be with Mum. “Does Christmas matter to you?” I asked, half wanting to hear that there was in fact some point in me being there. “Well, it wouldn’t matter if they did away with it,” she said. “They?” I queried, wondering if she had in mind a sudden state directive declaring the sentimentalised and superstitious memorialisation of the birth of a baby and the attendant consumer blow-out incompatible with socialist values.

“I am here because I thought it mattered to you,” I said. “Oh, it matters to be with family,” she said, half recovering but only sufficient to make me realise that my presence on this day was merely a matter of keeping up appearances. The carers had been cancelled this particular morning because one of her sons was showing up. Otherwise she would have to explain to some barely interested girl on triple time why neither of her boys was coming this year, and our family would not appear “normal”. As if any honest appraisal could consider this a remotely solid unit. “It was better when we were younger,” she added. “Oh yes,” I agreed. I suppressed the urge to remind her that no sooner had we both left home than she and Dad would themselves do what I only wish I could do, and opt out of a family Christmas. Regularly they would disappear out for Christmas lunch, and even for the night on two or three occasions - down to some hideous little guest house on the seafront.

I rallied, however, remembering that she has some sweet but not too sickly sparkling white wine getting warm in the kitchen. It would be weak enough to combine with driving, but hopefully just about strong enough to improve the atmosphere. “Happy New Year” she inappropriately toasted me, perhaps deciding to drop any more references to the event that we were apparently celebrating. We stood in front of the lit bureau that displayed my Mum’s glasses, all of them small, fit for a suitably parsimonious outpouring of liquor. Nothing was ever done in excess in our house, modesty in all things; generosity never a dominant virtue, not even to ourselves.

I had hoped Mum wouldn't bother with presents. I had told her not to. We are skint, and despite this I don't really see the point of being given petrol money as a "gift". Mum had though prepared two envelopes of cash and a present for us both: a cushion emblazoned with flying ducks. Just my thing.

We negotiated awkwardly around each other in the small kitchen space as we prepared a traditional Christmas fayre of roast beef and Yorkshire pud. For some strange reason I deferred to Mother’s apparent wisdom when it came to steaming the Christmas pudding, and watched as the water boiled fiercely, discounting her dismissal of my suggestion that the plastic container should stand on something in the pan. Mum sounded desperate as the frozen peas proved beyond reason. “Mum, they are only bloody peas, it’s not the end of the world if you can’t get some into a saucepan, is it?” I quickly became more emollient, not wanting to ruin the day.

As we prepared the rest of the dinner, the room filled more and more with smoke. As I gazed at the strange, black-current like, liquid surrounding the pudding, a high pitched alarm went off, in turn automatically triggering a dialling up of social services. Within moments a woman’s voice came through from the intercom in the lounge. “Are you alright?” I hurried in, and managed to laugh off our attempts “to burn Christmas dinner,” as I jocularly put it. Ambulance averted, I returned to the kitchen. “What should I do?” Mum rather desperately enquired. “Open the door?” I suggested, incredulous at the lack of initiative.

It is partly age, but it is also an inactive and overly sedated mind that, I guess, causes this. We managed a second Lambrusco with our meal. Beef slightly underdone (suited me; her Brussels boiled to such an extent that they no longer looked green; gravy as thick as syrup, but tasty as I managed to intervene before she deployed instant granules; spuds that were actually rather good. Her Yorkshire pudding failed to rise to the occasion, in fact it failed to rise at all, but, with another gravy gloop, it tasted alright. Christmas pudding, minus the melted plastic, tasted okay too.

I left at 2pm on the dot; my personal deadline. Here’s to next Christmas. My brother’s not getting away with it for the fourth year running.

Arms and the Middle East

2011-09-14T15:08:00.004+04:00

Saudi Arabian military and security officers were out in force at the biennial “defence and security equipment international” sales exhibition, DSEI, held at Excel Stadium (part of ADNEC, the Abu Dhabi exhibitions company) in London’s Docklands in mid-September. Hundreds of companies from literally around the globe were represented. It was a strange event, a bit like a cross between a rock memorabilia convention and the UN. Like the latter, it was also replete with prostitution of the overt sexual variety. A number of impossibly sexy Russian women had been shipped in to tout their wares alongside their fellow countrymen.

Saudi Arabia did not have its own exhibition area as it is not quite in the market for selling its wares. It is though in the market for big purchases. The US$100 bn extra spend announced in May by King Abdullah includes a large allocation to the interior ministry – a logical response to the Arab Spring, and this will not just be a boost to manpower. In addition the National Guard, run by Abdullah’s son Miteb, are in the midst of an extensive modernisation programme (and a stabilisation programme in Bahrain), and the Saudi defence ministry (MoDA), are apparently moving to actualise the large US contract announced two years or so ago. The Bahrainis were also in town, although much of their defence, internal and external, is effectively contracted out to the post-British successor protector state, Saudi Arabia. Saudi ambitions to develop indigenous defence industry capability seem to be largely focused on the partnership with BAE SYSTEMS, who employ 5,000 people in country and have set up a tail fin assembly facility for the EuroFighter (Typhoon) in the Kingdom. MoDA has also long run a small defence manufacturing outfit, but this is far from cutting edge.

Much optimism was in the air at DSEI as far as sales in general and specifically in the Middle East were concerned. UK defence procurement minister Gerald Howarth was lively first thing in the morning, wowing assembled UK defence journalists and British civil servants with morally uplifting talk of the virtues of the country’s defence industries. Defence secretary Liam Fox was due to speak later in the day. However two UK government ministers in one day would have been a bit much to take, so I had made my excuses before he hit the stage.

Cassidian, a Welsh company that forms part of the French-led Euro consortium, EADS, boasted, a tad ironically perhaps, of “defending world security”, and hosted on the spot briefers to talk to industry issues. BAES had a large display on one side of the stadium, including an array of armoured vehicles. Needing a breather I went dockside and witnessed Sonardyne’s “Sentinel” sonar detection technology in a simulated threat to the British warship HMS Tyne, which had berthed at DSEI alongside some fellow NATO craft. This was disappointingly dull as a large number of DSEI attendees crowded around television screens on a wind-swept poop deck. However one of Sonardyne’s PR people put impetus into proceedings when he indicated that the sonar could be used to induce vomiting or even a blow akin to being hit over the head by a baseball bat, should an intruder be foolish enough to get too close to the mammoth vessel. Then suddenly the presentation conducted by UK naval personnel in partnership with officials of British company Sonardyne was rudely interrupted by a heavily American accented robotic voice announcing that there was a “suspicious diver at 3 o’clock”.

In terms of Middle East-produced wares, Jordan had a large exhibit, mostly revolving around KADDB, a company founded in 1999 to develop indigenous defence engineering capabilities. Two of the model armoured vehicles on display, I was told by a Jordanian officer on the stand, were designed and made in-country at the 100% Jordanian staffed company. I guess that goes for the life size versions too. One of these may be “under development”, but, if wholly true, this seems an impressive and rare feat in that part of the world. Rare, that is, apart from the Israelis, who were, so to speak, out in force. Uzi and other sub machine guns were menacingly pointed at punters (see picture), while a freely distributed English language journal, Israel Defense, talked of “a return to the southern front” in light of changes in Egypt following the so-called Arab Spring.

The event was (almost) disappointingly free of protestors – they had been rerouted upriver to the House of Parliament, while the police, transport and regular, were heavy on the ground. In terms of the protestors’ concerns, some of the kit could no doubt be used to put down domestic opposition, whether in Jordan, Israel, the Gulf, or, for that matter, Europe where economic woes and criminal ambition are motivating civil disturbances. Whether that is a reason not to sell seems a moot point. Much of the kit could also be used to undermine another country’s national sovereignty, whether blessed by the UN or not, but that does not seems to be mobilising the anti arms trade people so much these days.

Saudi and the Arab Uprisings

2011-05-01T16:41:00.003+04:00

For comment on Saudi Arabia's response to developments in the Middle East, check out this article on BBC Newsonline. Timely as the Yemeni government apparently reneges on a GCC deal it never really backed.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-13208800

Middle East in turmoil

2011-04-12T10:29:00.005+04:00

Crisis what crisis? If I hear the word revolution (or thawra) one more time I think I will engage in high projectile vomiting. If I may paraphrase al-Masri Al-Yowm (Egyptian daily) the revolution in that country still has some way to go. Not many partner. I may be in danger of being conditioned by so-called "People's" revolutions of the 20th century, but who ever heard of a revolution that leaves the Field Marshal/defence minister still in place and now more obviously in charge? The revolution has a kind of substance in Libya, although a shoot out for regional and tribal dominance fuelled (ouch) by petroleum ambitions (those of the LIBYANS!) seems closer to the money (as it were). Has anybody talked any sense among the western opinionistas since the Arab spring first saw the light of day? Not too many, though I would cite the attractive presentation of Anita McNought on Al-Jazeera English who on April 11 was the first person I heard say simply that the fight in Libya is a fight for life, literally, on the part of the Qadaffi family and their erstwhile green comrades in Benghazi. What's bothering me is that the so-called Arab democracy wave/spring/awakening becomes a western conflict with flaky Arab state support, just like yesteryear.This is becoming Iraq circa 1992-2002, with Benghazi increasingly shaping up to be the protected northern Kurdish regional government…….) Next stop ground troops (first they came as advisors).....Then there is the current Gulf role...more than ignoring sanctions as they did in the 90s ---we now have a few Qatari planes and the UAE still standing by with their US pilots....

Here is a link to something that gives a different spin on what's happening within the Gulf

http://partrickmideast.org/archive.html

Stiffs and stuff

2011-01-23T21:38:00.004+04:00

Thought I would fire this up after a five month lull, in part to see if any of my legions of followers are still out there, or still alive for that matter. A few stiffs have been registered of late. Among those who made a particular mark on my radar were Captain Beefheart, Gerry Rafferty and Anthony Howard. The Captain could disappear up his own arse musically but particular album highlights for me were "Decals", "Spotlight Kid" and Ice Cream for Crow. If you want accessible Captain, try Bluejeans and Moonbeams, which includes a JJ Cale cover, Same ol Blues Again. The infamous Trout Mask has its moments (in short doses or longer if you're in the right, assisted, mood), Dachau Blues was one track that made an impression on me among others. Anthony Howard is best remembered for editing "The Crossman Diaries" and general press and TV punditry. Gerry Rafferty's late 70s album "City to City" is very good (whatever one thinks of Baker Street). Then there is what became the psycho soundtrack "Stuck in the Middle With You" because it was used in Reservoir Dogs. (It was written during the Stealer's Wheel phase 20 years earlier). Having read his very sad obituary in The Guardian, his late 60s/early 70s solo number Mary Skeffington also took on a very poignant note. It's about his mother.

Livestock review

2010-08-16T21:40:00.006+04:00

Livestock is a fanstastically named back to basics music festival held in a small village in Oxfordshire where farm animals meet musos. I had not sampled the delights of this four year old event before and had sadly missed the first two days, which were held in the nearby Red Lion (This is a small festival). Festival director Malachi, whose family owns the farm including the land on which this almost intimate festival was partly taking place, goes to a lot of trouble to bring in acts from around the world as well as provide slots for friends and acquaintances. The result is a barely known gem. It almost felt Glasto 1972 (tad smaller admittedly) with comments overheard about how it had grown (I would say there were 200 people present on the Sunday afternoon). I don’t think they're in danger of spoiling the vibe just yet.

The Knights of Mentis kicked up a storm, livening up the last afternoon of festival with country and blues-style banjo and guitar picking, accordion and fiddle, and hearty singing that brought plenty of people to their feet. Their version of Bob Dylan’s much ignored Gotta Serve Somebody (from his first Christian album) was a revelation, while I am not sure I will be able to listen to the Led Zep original of Rock n Roll without wondering if the Mentis haven’t nailed it for good. Lenny (see below) was on banjo and mandolin, while earthy singing from the guitarist and one of the other two banjo players kept things lively. Festival main man Malichi was on double bass. Stage left stood Rhys Iffans doing a passible impression of Peter Cook as a folkster; he had some droll repartee to boot.

Bowell & The Movements are either criminally misnamed or singer, and lead writer, Rob Powell, is simply emphasising the creative tension between the intense emotion of some of his songs and the humour that somehow coexists, even sometimes in the same verse. This in essence is what this band does: ramshackle stompers and heart-wrenching ballads. During Rob’s solo set there were moments when his ability to hit the emotional funny bone in his half-innocent plaintive laments for love lost (or not found?) that you thought this guy pisses all over much of the rather precious(mostly Brit) balladeers from this millenium onwards. But then, just when he was in danger of getting mawkish, the daftest rhyming couplet would make you wince with delight. I don’t know the names of the first and last songs of the solo section of the gig as I didn’t manage to get the names down, possibly because I was somewhat overcome. Rob should get some of these (possibly new) solo tracks out there (there are some solo numbers available to hear on My Space). Perhaps a dedicated band website, together with one or two of the band’s stompier numbers is in order. And what about that band? Sterling performances from mandolin player Lenny (aka Midnight) and bassist Patrick Leonard fleshed out the more up-tempo numbers, while a very late stand in on drums (from earlier act, The 309s) helped to keep up the rhythmic pace.

Despite the official drummer dropping out, this, the first live reunion of The Movements for 12 years, was high on emotion, not least for the hard-core Bowellistas in the grass mosh pit, and for many, including those less familiar with the Movements’ work, an absolute delight. This band – and in particular it has to be said – the singer’s solo songs – show a lot of promise and a lot of passion. Of course that does not guarantee any kind of professional future, but people were moved out there and it wasn’t just the Oxfordshire Ales that were responsible.

Labour leadership election: The Bland and the Boring

2010-08-16T14:14:00.005+04:00

We hear a lot about how politics these days is all about personality, presidential contests etc etc. So why is it that the Labour leadership contest, crammed full of candidates, literally jostling for position on a tiny podia somewhere near you, is so lacking in personalities? I say this mindful of the partial exception of Dianne Abbott, whose delivery revolves around a self-righteous celebration of her electoral pulling power in Hackney.

So, for the “real” candidates: four men with barely a personality between them: the likely victor David Miliband comes across as a petulant comprehensive head master in a well healed home county. His brother Ed, slightly less petulant, sparring with his slightly older brother for who can best package their answers to encompass the median party demographic without alienating the narrow socio-economic band who will actually determine whether they ever get to be prime minister. Ed Balls, hideous to look at, wide-faced and slippery, the infamous “emissary from Planet Fuck”, as Mandy alleges he was known in the Blair Camp, oh so superficially left-wing in a field of 40-something blokes way to the right of Ted Heath. Oh, and not forgetting Andy. Nice guy, very nice guy (I mean that, I worked on the same floor as him at the palace of Westminster when he and I were mere MPs’ research assistant). But if Milly Sr is a middling school’s middling head teacher, well, Andy is probably the PE teacher. I am sorry, do I appear a snob? I mean I wanted Alan Johnson on the ticket so we could put him up against Lord Snooty. That doesn’t prove I am not a snob, I guess. However, what I really look down on is average-ness dressed up as significance. This is not confined to the Labour Party of course, but at least the Tories produced a guy with plausibility as a PM. Of course when he beat the seemingly more preferable (marketable?) David Davies (how classless a name is that?), many would have doubted he was made of the right stuff. Maybe one of the Millies will grow into the job. But am I betraying my age (I am 46) when I say that as a Labour supporter who remembers (just about) Michael Foot winning the 1980 leadership election (against Healey and Shore), Tony Benn’s challenge for the deputy leadership in 1981 (against eventual winner Healey and John Silkin), the 1983 face-off involving Kinnock, Hattersley, Shore and Heffer), that the calibre of the candidates, their defined and passionate personalities, their intellect, makes the current boyish posturing look like a minor scrap among soiled ex-secretaries of state for who is the most “deserving” of the job. Of course it’s arguable that 1994 wasn’t much of a contest either, with some plausible leaders whose philosophies were in marked contrast to the Blair-Prescott stitch-up declining to stand and Beckett hardly making an impression. However, at least these were personalities and Beckett did at least seem to represent something different to the modernising juggernaut that had been chomping at the bit under John Smith.

In 2010 I am still hearing about the debate the candidates want to have, and nothing about their ideas, policies, least of all philosophy, unless that is you count a “fairness agenda” that everyone from Cameron to Mr Leftie Balls buys into. British social democracy was at one time passionately and intellectually argued for by party leader Hugh Gaitskell and by Tony Crossland (whose cabinet experience was less than his admirer, David M). After New Labour, social democracy has been reduced to ensuring “opportunity for the many” by reforming welfarism and providing tax breaks for the wealthy. I guess therefore that it’s hardly surprising that these limp wrists can’t get off the starting blocks.

Muslims press candidates at Walthamstow election meeting

2010-05-05T11:20:00.009+04:00

Local hustings in the Walthamstow constituency have been lively affairs, but none perhaps as interesting as the Grove Road mosque meeting on Friday evening April 30. After all, this is a constituency with the third largest Muslim community in London, where Muslims are a major component of the estimated one third of the borough who are non-white. The packed audience largely consisted, unsurprisingly, of male Asians, and a few of their wives seated the other side of the aisle.

Among the four "honoured" guests was, to my surprise, Jonathan Steele, the former foreign correspondent of "The Guardian", who was presumably there to add gravitas. Of the candidates of the three main parties, the only woman was Stella Creasy, the Labour candidate, who, notably, had her head uncovered. The rather genial Walthamstow Council of Mosques leader introduced proceedings, or rather introduced Mr Steele (at some, almost obsequious, length). Why the mosque leader wasn't the one chairing a meeting aimed at the local Muslim community, can only be guessed at.

In the manner of the televised Leaders' debates, the questions had been approved in advance, and were mostly safe and sensible, albeit reflecting the understandable specific concerns of the local Muslim community. Creasy, a former local mayor, and the favourite to win what should be a firm Labour seat, and her main challenger, the Lib-Dem parliamentary candidate and local councillor Farid Ahmad, clashed over specifics concerning their individual and/or party records on issues like outlawing religious discrimination and health care. In the manner for which his campaign has become somewhat renowned, Ahmed made unsubstantiated accusations against Creasy and her party and showed a disturbing lack of familiarity with his own party's stance in the Lords on legislation tackling religious hatred. However it was when the meeting turned to foreign policy that things really came alive and audience members began to voice their opinions in an unscripted fashion. The three candidates adopted a mostly faithful rendition of their national parties' approach to Middle East matters - there were no questions about China and Russia. Andy Hemsted, a rather tired retread of a 1980s Tory Essex Boy caricature, found himself in fairly deep water as his rather unsophisticated take on terror and nukes made him sound a tad too close to Israel for this audience's particular delectation.

Overall, Creasy stole the show, in part because she was quicker on her feet than the other contenders, but also because she has plainly been working this particular community who warmed to her reminders of her past community work. Ahmed, whose campaign has sometimes cynically courted the vote of fellow Muslims against Labour on religious grounds, was not as well received as might have been expected. I left the meeting feeling that perhaps Labour's 7,000 majority, which was slashed from 15,000 in the 2005 "Iraq" poll, will in fact hold up pretty well.

Saudi debates

2010-02-27T15:31:00.002+04:00

Riyadh, Friday 29 February 2010.
I have been in KSA nearly a week in which time I have dipped in and out of the Jeddah Economic Conference, a kind of big ticket stadium event for the Mid-East business analysis crowd, and then almost traversed Arabia to reach the capital Riyadh where I have been seeking interlocutors for my latest research project. My departure from Jeddah was premature; I later discovered that one or two of the people I really wanted to see here in Riyadh were actually at the conference. In addition, it’s an attractive city with a partly accessible shoreline a thousand plus miles from the Gulf, and that’s not a bad feeling sometimes.

Today I took the superfast lifts to get more than 100 floors up the Kingdom tower in Riyadh and stood on the SkyBridge (the tallest vantage point in KSA) and surveyed the city. I had walked there in the 35 degree winter heat (natch) and looked more than a little shabby as I arrived in the Mamlika Mall desperate to purchase my ticket. It was prayer time of course, although it was interesting (albeit not for the first time) to watch shopkeepers from right across Asia hurrying to briefly shut down these outlets in one of Riyadh’s many temples of mammon as the muezzin called (some of) the faithful to pray.

Thus far the trip has brought me closer to some of the debates raging around the Kingdom, but not that close. Everything is of course spun to suit the self interested or associated party that is being represented. So I am aware that the advancement of legal reform in the face of religious resistance and the flowering of civil society is in fact happening while at the same time domestic and foreign policy is in the hand of a tiny number of senior figures who in many instances don’t agree and don’t consult with each other. Hard to see how the latter adds up to anything other than the chance for some symbolic actions through dismissal and appointment rather than a major series of political shifts. In this vein the recent removal of two troublesome priests is seen by some here as an indication that the top man could push things further, not least on the planned shake up of the judiciary that in theory could water down existing clerical control in favour of a more structured management approach with proper specialised training not least in the much needed area of commercial law. If you can sack such big guns without merely a whimper, goes the argument, then major reform that allows more reform-minded clerics to manage the process is plausible. Maybe, but how far and with what impact, argue others. Being so personality-led, the issue seems to boil down to what can be achieved at the very top before mortality kicks in. Economic cities may not have progressed sufficiently to have a legacy but, goes one argument, rights-orientated legal judgements by the reconstructed supreme appeals court can create precedents.

On regional issues things have looked up in terms of inter-Arab diplomacy, with the KSA working closely with Yemen over the northern revolt that spilled over the Saudi border and unleashed disproportionate fire power from the Kingdom’s de facto military chief. The proportionality doesn’t seem to be bothering the Saudis however. The ceasefire between the Yemen Government and its northern rebels is holding, with KSA backing the GoY to the hilt with major funding while it turns its border policing operation into a regular pork barrel for the Saudi military and its de facto head. Saudi-Syria relations seem to be at their best for 5 years, or more precisely since Damascus had Saudi ally and top Lebanese politician Rafiq Hariri blown up. This firms up the Arab tent with the hope that, being inside, they’ll piss out. Of course, from Syria’s point of view it’s probably a case of having your cake and eating it, as the Iranian tactical alliance isn’t going to come to an end and nobody expects otherwise. On Palestine, the hope is that a solution constrains Iranian asymmetric power, but no Arab state want to lift a finger to help other than to stand behind Egypt which is being limply backed by the US while Israel remains unbound.

Pictures from the recent past

2010-02-27T15:24:00.001+04:00

On getting back to my room after the Riyadh Sky Bridge, I absorbed myself in photos of our US road trip last summer. I have never appreciated these pictures quite as much. I cried as I thought of how disconnected I had been for much of that journey and yet how moving I found the mere photographic record of them 5 months later. She looks lovely in so many of the shots I took (partly because she is so pleased that I am actually using my camera) and in one she looks divine. I know that my (rare) emotional engagement is against a background of a lonely Friday in KSA but it was so important to me to connect to the trip and to her, even if I didn’t that much when I was actually on it.

Out of Town Riyadh

2010-02-27T15:16:00.005+04:00

Durba Door

Durba Central

Escarpment heading out of Riyadh

Saudi in springtime

2010-02-24T22:37:00.005+04:00

Scene from my hotel window, Riyadh

Islamic Games fail over Nationalist names

2010-01-18T19:48:00.002+04:00

Arab or Persian? Islamic Games shelved in "Gulf" row
Mon Jan 18, 2010 9:22am EST

By Asma Alsharif
RIYADH (Reuters) - A Saudi-based body organizing the world's second Islamic Solidarity Games has canceled the sports event planned for Iran amid a dispute over whether the Gulf waterway is "Arab" or "Persian."
The Islamic Solidarity Sports Federation, an affiliate of the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference based in Saudi Arabia, said after a meeting on Saturday it decided to scrap the games which had been set for April.
The federation said Iran had taken "unilateral measures concerning logos used on printed material and medals," a statement sent to Reuters on Monday said. Secretary-General Muhammad Qazdar said that was in reference to Iran's planned descriptions of the Gulf.
Designation of the key waterway for global oil and gas supplies has long been a touchy issue among the countries bordering it -- Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Iraq and Iran.
Iran says it is the Persian Gulf, the Arab states say it is Arab. Foreign language descriptions can offend either party if they use one name or the other, or sometimes if they avoid an adjective altogether.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said on Monday the federation should reconsider its decision but insisted the waterway was Persian.
"The logo and naming should be done correctly, based on international norms and regulations and the naming by the United Nations," he told reporters on Monday.
"So basically the board of directors did not have the right to just interfere in such a process... We hope they will reconsider," he added.
The sports federation said a dispute over television rights and Iran's failure to provide information over steps to contain H1N1 flu also contributed to the decision to cancel the event.
The dispute comes amid tensions between Sunni Muslim-led Arab countries and non-Arab, Shi'ite Iran over increased Iranian influence in the region through its allies in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories.
Saudi Arabia, a U.S. ally which sees itself as the leading Sunni state, is trying to rally Arab countries to challenge Iran, who it fears wants to obtain nuclear weapons and win U.S. recognition as the region's leading power.
Saudi Arabia and Iran are also at odds over a Shi'ite revolt in north Yemen. Riyadh has been fighting the rebels since a cross-border raid into Saudi territory in November, while Tehran says the fighting should be brought to an end through talks.
The Islamic Solidarity Games were first held in Saudi Arabia in 2005 with the participation of 55 countries, including Iran. They were delayed from October last year over flu concerns.
(Reporting by Andrew Hammond in Dubai and Asma Alsharif in Riyadh; Writing by Andrew Hammond; Editing by Dominic Evans)

SLO train returns

2009-11-19T10:19:00.002+04:00

Bakersfield is synonymous (for me) with country music as imagined by the Rolling Stones (“girl with faraway eyes”) and memorable for both of us the place we consummated our marriage. This time round it appeared to have grown exponentially and as a result finding anything at all in the town, least of all a motel, proved difficult to say the least. Eventually we found the always reliable America’s Best Value Inn and headed off to a pizza parlour. The latter turned out to be a cross between a sports bar and a working class social club: the sort of place that in the UK would probably make me wince but which in the US having a wife and a pleasant disposition (and an enthusiasm for beer and pizza) made effortless. The next day we were in San Louis Obispo (SLO), more our kind of town: surrounded by mountains yet warm most of the year, inland but a short distance from the Californian coast, and possessed of very cool vinyl and book stores virtually next door to each other (Boo Boo Records and Phoenix Books). We stayed in the same motel on California as our last visit. Painted in adobe style, the Los Padres Motel is well located, being a short stroll up from the aforementioned stores and a selection of bars around California and Higuera streets. However its walls are paper thin and an afternoon’s siesta was to be rudely interrupted by the arrival of Randy and Barbara, or whoever, whom we could hear fart, let alone cough or copulate. SLO still proved a winner however, and a new discovery was in fact the oldest record store in town, “Cheap Thrills”, launched in 1971 when its album title appropriation would perhaps have been more obvious. It lives up to its name, and not in the negative, UK, sense, with LPs from $3 and some great and often very clean rarer items. Weighed down with another fix we retired early before hitting Boo Boo the next day which is a cooler store but which has a lot less vinyl. I still managed to score however, finding a (cheap) thrill reminiscent of three decades back as I tested a period copy of Traffic’s “John Barleycorn is Dead” on one of their many decks. Can you imagine being handed a cartridge and invited to cue up a second hand album in an equivalent UK store? The riverside bar and restaurant in Higuera once again proved a winner, as dining outdoors in mid November proved irresistible. We eased off our beer intake by strolling around the mission building to the sound of “Another Brick in the Wall (part 3)” pumping out of a bar and I felt a degree of patriotic fervour well up inside me. On being invited to enjoy a Stella with a drunken Brit in a bar over the road from the restaurant, I felt rather less affinity for my country. Leaving SLO was sad, but before long we were on Route 101 and hugging the Californian coast, reaching Big Sur where we discovered the delights of Gorda, essentially a small motel and collection of cabins/a restaurant and a shop. Our hotel room had a view of the Pacific a few hundred feet away, which helped offset the painful bed and an invasive external light. Up in Ripplewood, the log cabin collective run by Anglo women and worked by Mexicans, the breakfasts are still phenomenal. Priced out of the market we stayed for the first time at Fernwood where we were within walking distance of the bar and restaurant which still excites but the food service was never its strongest point. That day we revisited Pfeiffer-Big Sur, where we had spent hours watching a beached golden sea lion back in 2000 and which has meant so much to us since we first started coming to California in 1997. This time round it didn’t disappoint – rugged rocks and wild waves enhanced the sunset, after we had spent time watching a heron on an afternoon fishing expedition. We spent a couple of nights up the coast in Monterey where we prepared for a repeat whale watching expedition that, despite an attack of nausea, was a welcome escape from land that included a hump back as well as some dolphins. Coming into San Fran for the final leg proved easier than expected, although the city seemed sadly dead even for the time of year. While tourists are fairly thin on the ground in late November, it seems odd to see bars and shops closing up by 9. Tosca’s bar on Market and Columbus has a juke box with mostly opera and walls adorned with depictions from operatic scenes. Its dark red ambience is normally conducive to drinking but this virtually empty bar seemed a little sad, even though we were celebrating with a bottle of local champagne. We got to chatting with a banker about this and that and the time passed pleasantly before we moved on to red wine and steaks at Sears restaurant near our hotel – Grants on Bush in the renowned Nob Hill area (where an all male cabaret and a stimulant shop helps the area to (unwittingly) live up to its name). After such an evening our final full day in the US was a touch subdued, before the 2 days of flying back to the UK. It has however been a wonderful trip, one on which I have learned a lot and wished that I had known a hell of a lot more before I came. The divisions that one superficially witnesses are not just north and south, red and blue, but struck me the most as coastal versus interior: the cosmopolitan over the more traditional. Much of the time, however, we didn’t talk politics with those who for the most part were serving us rather than accompanying us. We enjoyed the hospitality and the polite lack of questioning or the polite disinterest in those with “funny accents”. The US has probably lost some of the lustre for me as the familiarity has grown, even in the limited experience I have of it. However I still want to know more, and to experience more, of this place, and will no doubt be back before that long.

Viva Las Vegas

2009-11-13T06:29:00.001+04:00

We returned for what was scheduled to be a one night gig, 9 years on from when we came here to get married. Once again the Hard Rock Café chain provided what for some might be a surprisingly tasteful hotel option. Tasteful in terms of room décor and in terms of its museum like arrangement of rock memorabilia and photos, but, yes, also tasteful in terms of Vegas, which really shouldn’t be judged by conventional notions of taste at all. More important than these average musings is the fact that as soon as we found the check in desk (not easy) and duly checked in, we returned to the Pink Taco. Not a gay Mexican food chain but a bar that made you feel very happy and provided very good food. The bar itself, like many bars in Vegas, has gambling machines indented in its very surface. This though didn’t detract us. The margaritas, however, did, and provided an exciting stimulant at 2 in the afternoon, which a light tapas-style mex lunch didn’t interfere with too much. That night we checked out Caesar’s Palace, not the concert hall, where Frank was performing with Sammy again but for the first time was united with Barbara, but the gambling area were we settled in for another margarita and watched the world go by. Hunger pains sent us out and about on the strip before we chanced upon a hitherto unknown venue (to us). “Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville”. Having a liking for some of his material (see London revue in my July blog), having a good friend who is totally devoted to the man, and a penchant for margaritas, we couldn’t resist a chance to, well, drink more margaritas to the accompaniment of the man who has created a margarita musical culture all of his own. Of course Jimmy wasn’t there in person, but his endorsement and his music, and the general ambience of parrots, pacific isle chic and, eh, margaritas, made for an attractive option. We were seated at the end and could witness “parrotheads” dining en masse and a newlywed couple dining out in style. The African American groom - unembarrassed by his “parrothead” balloon adornment – was, like his white wife, dressed in what, by Vegas standards, was very smart, almost conservative, wedding garb. Our waiter kept us well oiled, allowed us to acquire for our friend a souvenir menu, and generally made our time there a breeze. Next stop was, to be honest, a disappointment. Our Afghani cab driver seemed sure that there would be live music (why would you seek advice on this matter from an Afghani?), but nine years on "The Voodoo Lounge", where previously we had hung out after our wedding, is no longer a music venue. In truth it’s an average disco whose sampling of dance classics pumped out to a largely middle aged crowd seemed somehow pointless. It was great though to see the place again – its several levels of roof top drinking spaces and impressive inner bar makes for an attractive venue. As the DJ weaved in a few seconds of Curtis Mayfield we wondered aloud how much more conducive to dancing for this (or possibly any) crowd the playing of the real thing would actually have been. Our taxi driver regaled us with the evils of the public health option and dismissed my drunken attempts at postulating the virtues of market regulation, before blessing our Queen and conceding that this was an issue best left to us to debate. Back at the Hard Rock the earlier conversion to gin was no longer proving smooth. The benefit however of the next morning’s ill health was an unplanned second day at the hotel which was very conducive to my health indeed.

Hiking in a different world (nearly)

2009-11-05T19:29:00.002+04:00

We were sad about leaving Denver. Our path out through the slowly evaporating snow was smooth, but re-entering motel city proved a difficult adjustment. Furthermore, the weather remained bitterly cold in south-west Colorado en route to Utah. Our first stop was the town of Eagle and specifically the Eagle Grand, a misnomer at least at this time of year. The setting was fantastic, with mountains encircling us, and the motel was low rise and run by a genial host. However with temperatures outside below freezing, it was darned hard to get warm. Dinner helped, and right next door was The Grand Restaurant where we ate good food in front of a roaring fire. The next night we stopped in Green River where a functional motel (the heater worked) at a bargain rate and a cheap and no hassle town sat well with us. It was Halloween so Ray’s Tavern was not, we were told, as busy as it would normally be on what was a Saturday night. After good burgers and draught beer there we went over to another bar where the clientele patently weren’t engaged in trick and treating with little Johnny and Annie. A drunk vamp (sic) with what I think were false Dracula style teeth and a variety of werewolves caroused up and down the bar as we nursed our buds and listened to the skinniest trucker I’ve ever seen engage in monologues about his living arrangements. Nice guy though. We left the revellers to it, fancying that we were intruding a tad on a (mostly) locals’ party. The next night we upgraded, stopping after a thrilling ride at dusk through Utah’s incredible landscape of limestone rock. Caverns loomed large as we were the only people on the long ride to Hankville. We had to phone for a room from a Bentley-driving owner of the only store in town. Supping beers and drawing on rollies, we made the most of such a comfortable stop. Perfect silence and a full moon made for a transcendent experience in the chill of the evening as my wife did her blog.
In Boulder (Utah that is) there is little except a couple of motels and three restaurants (largely catering to the hiking crowd en route to Bryce. However the Circle Cliffs Motel (three rooms, cash preferred) was a delightful place with rooms where the lady of the house had plainly made an effort to make it as comfortable as possible. The next day we entered the Bryce complex, taking in modest trails still overpopulated with tourists for what, after all, is a few weeks shy of Thanksgiving. That night we avoided the corporate style motel/restaurant set up at the entrance to the national park and took a room a few miles down the road in Tropic. If you are ever in Tropic do not eat at Clark’s Restaurant. Hope that the pizza place is open. Clark’s ageing food did not go down well. However their draught porter did. I recommend a pitcher of porter and well done hamburger.
The next day we took one of the longest trails in Bryce – Fairyland. While the name conjures up a venue frequented by those of broad sexual orientation, the trail itself is a wondrous spectacle of orange limestone canyons and sheer rock faces populated by spruce and fir. The incredible sight at times makes one think of Wadi Rum, Jordan with a touch of the jurassic as (often) dead, gnarled tree trunks reminded me of twisted human life or animal forms. The “hoodoos” – tall limestone rocks partly eroded by freezing and thawing – can easily make you imagine that the old Indian legend is true and that the bad people were turned to stone. Faces peer out across the phenomenal landscape – gay dogs, Karl Marx, conferring elders, a witch’s cat, and, more generally, images akin to Abu Simbel or the Valley of the Kings, with a touch of Mayan or Inca rock carvings, came to mind. Half way through this eight mile hike I transcended for the first time on this trip, other than when in bars or restaurants or driving to the accompaniment of great tunes. At the incredible frozen stream and waterfall near "The Tower of London" rock face this feeling was, sadly, knocked back by the first presence in 4 miles of other humanoid life forms, especially when one of them turned out to by a post sell-by date hippie hiker with no apparent state or national address other than the “world”. We hiked back the same way, struggling up the final stretch, but bowled over by the same scenery from a different perspective as the rocks and trees were cast in, literally, a different light.

Things to do in Denver before you're dead

2009-11-01T06:49:00.002+04:00

Having caught the cable car up to the top of Sandia mountain in ABQ, we hiked a little amidst the snowfall in near freezing temperatures, an amazing contrast with the weather on terra firma. We spent our final night in ABQ with 2 new friends we had met earlier on a trail near the Sandia mountain who kindly let us stay a night with them. They advised us to take Route 285 to Denver, our next destination. As a result we saw amazing snow-topped scenery en route north to Colorado rather than the monotony of the interstate. The next night we stayed in Salida, a very pleasant if all too darn nice artsy stopover, with great diners and numerous studios and galleries. We met an interesting sculptor who has entered his 50s finally doing what he wanted all his life after his marriage broke up and too many years in regular work. More interesting than Salida, however, was Antonitas, a sleepy New Mexican town which, after driving through damp and snow exiting ABQ, provided a welcome stopover. Here there were no tourists (except us). This laid back settlement town has been peopled by those of Indian and Mexican origin for 500 years. We ate well and cheaply in the local diner among an interesting clientele that included the local sheriff and some local officials who effortlessly switched their conversation from English to Spanish, a vision of the American future perhaps. I nearly got busted by a genial local policeman for parking the wrong way, but the timely intervention of a town elder prevented the People of New Mexico from facing me in the county court in 7 days time.

Suffice it to say that we drove into the capital of Colorado in upbeat mode, keen to see a very old friend of my wife’s who has lived in the US for more than 25 years. We were all nervous about how it would turn out. So much water under the bridge since they had worked together in London, so hard to know how much they would have in common now, and how I would get on with him. Within minutes of entering his apartment we both felt right at home, however. His spacious flat is crammed with framed movie and album posters and there is a hi fi in both the living room and his bedroom, each with a turntable. How cool is that? Conversations ranged widely but music was the constant theme. A major snow storm over the city on the first night ensured that we rested and appreciated our friend and his cool pad all the more. We ventured out to an Anglo style pub and on the the third day the amazing vinyl and poster delights of "Twist and Shout" on Colefax, the main street, saw us splurge once more

Route 66 to Albuquerque

2009-10-25T21:15:00.004+04:00

The interpretive center in Chandler OK http://www.route66interpretivecenter.org/ is a remarkable attempt to introduce the Route 66 experience to tourists who may not have an extensive background in the myths and legends of the “mother road”. Run, it seems, as a business, this Route 66 Museum provides you with a motel type experience, courtesy, we were told, of a German who volunteered his conceptual support. Visitors can lie back on white beds and look upwards to a TV taste of both past and present along the historic route. Two local photographers’ work depicts remnants of Americana. There was also a veterans’ hall that I assume functions on memorial days. It houses a 1940s type police car and a tribute to the local fallen.

There wasn’t a suggestions box in the foyer, so I venture this comment now: where is the Woody Guthrie/Chuck Berry/Rolling Stones soundtrack and/or visual installation? Europeans, like, I venture, Americans, think of Route 66 as a mixture of dust bowl migrants heading to California for its “pastures of plenty”, and, more often probably, rhythm and blues blasting from gleaming chrome Chevies. This is how I would like our road trip to have been conducted, that combined with at least a portion of Hunter S Thompson’s trunk when he was en route to Vegas. The former at least is what I think the punters need some of at the interpretive center. I should add that it may be that the dust bowl heroes get a look in at the Museum of National Pioneers down the road in Chandler, which sadly we didn’t have time to visit.

That night we crossed into Kansas (Ks) and found ourselves in Hutchinson, an intersection on what proved to be a major detour south-west. The Lone Star restaurant, a Texan style steak house with great music, young and attractive staff, draught local beer, oh and excellent steaks, saw a conversion on the road to Denver and little more than the inspiration of Neil Young’s song Albuquerque to lead us to the decision to head to New Mexico via Route 66. Poor sleep sadly took the edge off the feeling the next morning. We drove through heavy storms before the layered clouds that had darkened the skies finally cleared and we crossed the Ok border again before reaching Texas itself, or at least a north west corner of it. There we found a comfortable redoubt at the lesser-known motel chain, Rodeway Inn. One floor only and no internal doors. The manager had got out of east Africa in the early 70s, hoping for a better life in the UK before ending up managing this pleasant if a little overpriced motel. The next day we entered Albuquerque (ABQ) to the sound of The Who’s Live at Leeds. In (almost) the words of the Neil Young song of the same name, we had hired a car, were moments away, and had the means at least to get in the mood. The University Lodge – an independently owned motel run by a genial Indian – was our first stop, up on Nob Hill, the smarter end of Central Avenue, ABQ near the University of New Mexico whose partisans dominate this part of town. On the ground floor at a two level motel we were risking disturbance, but the room had a pleasing feel and a welcome bathroom window looking out on the street. However an hour listening to a guy punishing the bed above us and exhausting his girlfriend’s (?) repertoire of excitable noises in the middle of the night, followed by a car horn repeatedly going off outside our window, and then a full-on Mexican moan fest about domestic woes obliged us to seek better accommodation.

That day we hiked near the Sandia mountain, whose often snow topped peaks are an omnipresent part of the city’s backdrop. Exhausted and dehydrated after foolishly packing insufficient water supplies, we checked in to “The Imperial”, another independently owned motel at the other end of Central Avenue, in the Downtown area. Despite getting an upstairs room next door to a store room, depression hit me as I spotted the dreaded and previously unsuspected internal connecting door, source of many a negative motel experience for me. More importantly the area had a bit of a badlands feel as a majority of the motel guests didn’t have cars and my hired Chevy Impala seemed to get undue attention. The fact that the manager spoke to you through a glass screen and made you sign for the (non functioning) remote didn’t help my confidence. Unwashed and still dehydrated we headed for a drink and found the splendid Malone’s, dark with a huge circular bar, great service and a cool 80s soundtrack (sic). We knew that we should have split for dinner elsewhere but could not resist yet another pint of Sam Adams on draught to chase down an in house burger (surprisingly good) served at the bar. The place was popular but this was 9 o’clock on a Friday night and we had plenty of room to get full and thorough attention and a lot more than elbow room. In any British town at this time on Friday night there would be scrum at the bar of an indifferent venue with impersonal service. We finally got out and discovered an excellent micro brewery bar (Chama River). Four pints on, we headed back to The Imperial and the promise of a number on the balcony of the badlands. We surveyed the scene of drunks and suspicious parked up vehicles in the neighbouring lot, and a weird mixture of other guests passing us as we took in the scene. I faded out before the morning-after beckoned. Immobilism was relieved by the tender mercies of The Standard Diner (www.standarddiner.com), an excellent recreation of a deco-style eatery built in 1947. The walls were covered with the work of local artists and photographers, and the diner served good food and coffee with a kick – a rare US experience. At the record store, “Natural Sound & Vision” on Central, I splurged on bargain vinyl at $3 a time and, for a while, my long time addiction was satiated.

The caravan moves on

2009-10-21T04:02:00.011+04:00

Heading in to Missouri (MO) we visited Pine Woods lake. Hardly a trek, this was a chance to walk off lunch before more driving. After Big Springs later that day, where the river runs a natural shade of green, we stopped at Van Beuren, where a motel, a general store, a funeral parlor and a couple of restaurants serve the local populace and, more importantly for the local economy, the canoeists for whom MO is a greater focus than hikers. Van Beuren's avuncular owner told us that this out of season hamlet was a "party town", something hard to believe, even when the canoeists are in full pelt. He told us that the general store was the place for all culinary and libation needs. Dinner was classic southern fried, breakfast the next morning was bollocks, largely due to our own ineptness and lack of cafeine. We purchased a couple of CDs from the counter however, one of Powdermill, a rootsy MO mix with rock sensibilities and genuine musicality, authors of Trailortrash (check it out on on youtube), the other Shund, who should be renamed Shite: it has the same opening two letters and a total of five, is easier to pronounce and entirely encapsulates their oeuvre. Shund are totally local: the bass player was the shop server's nephew and the singer ran the machinery shop next door. The Shund schtik is lumpen metal and the lyrics of those whose relationship experience sounds like the equivelent of playing air guitar. The next night we stopped off in Monett (no silent t's for this town) which appeared (from our motel room) to be largely strip malls but had the distinct advantage of a Bayou, a New Orlins-style eatery right next door. Feeling ripped on a bottle of Sam Adams each, drunk chilled from the boot of the car on an empty stomach, we went on to dine in the bar and enjoyed steaks and beers. The sad part was being back in the motel room without anymore beer. However Are You Being Served on cable for the first time in 30 years was quite a hoot. We left Monett late after a slow start and a weird breakfast overseen by an Indian watchdog who menacingly studied the TV a few feet from where we trying to stuff the muffins and doughnuts into our pockets. We got to now the road from MO to OK (Oklahoma) pretty well as a few hours later we were back, wife having forgotten her wallet (stashed under the pillow in a high security move that obviously foxed both of us). For a second time we traversed the border, observing as best I could from the driver's seat Native American casinos (legal when on reservations) and an interesting arrangement of rusting tractors in a long line on a hillside. That night in Tulsa we supped beers and ate well in a Ruby Tuesday (the same sh*t we have in the UK, right?) but something wasn't quite right in Motel City, the phalanx of two story motels arranged one side of town. A bad night's sleep in the Super 8, and an impossible to fathom tourist map, led to us making a premature exit from town. Less than 24 Hours in Tulsa, as the song might have had it. We stopped off in Stroud that lunchtime, hitting the Route 66 trail, and enjoying the first of many OK themed venues, trying to milk a key part of US culture. The Rock Cafe was originally built in 1939 when the US was still sitting out the battle against fascism and The Kansan Wizard of Oz was wowing movie goers. In fact a reinvention burned down only a few years ago, but the stone building and artifacts make for a pleasant ambiance. The staff, like many Americans, are very friendly and the food was damn good. Graffiti is officially encouraged in the unisex restrooms and you can watch the cooks at work as you follow the yellow highway lines to the crapper. That night we stopped along Route 66 in Chandler, where a fairly new lazy motel owner was milking the originality of the 1930s Lincoln Motel to the extent that the wooden cabins are falling apart. I mean, do you really want an original bog seat?

From Ky to MO

2009-10-18T19:25:00.001+04:00

Went to Lexington VA with our friends on Monday on a visit combining an important health treatment with thorough examination of that town’s thrift stores. The latter enabled my wife and I to kit ourselves out with warmer clothes as fall marches on. Driving back to Frankfort we took in the beauty of the surrounding scenery, including some Kentucky farmsteads and a country store selling overwhelming cake. Time passed all too quickly before we had to be on the way again as we approached the one third mark of our trip. Leaving Frankfort we journeyed to the south eastern part of the state, stopping off at Mammoth Caves where we experienced a small slice of some 350 miles of chartered cave networks since this national park was opened in the 30s. A tribute to the CCC, the conservation corps founded under FDR’s New Deal, was opined by the impressive forest ranger on the bus as we headed to one of the caves. Tired, I was lifted by his articulacy and natural authority. When he heard we were “from England” he told us to apologise to the Queen for what he was doing to “her language”. I was too slow to reply, as I should have done, that he speaks far better English than her as his speech is coherent and he enunciates his vowels whereas her Anglo-Germano-artisto pedigree makes many of her vowels hard to decipher. We left the caves and headed for Puduka, famous for little other than state incentives for artists to gentrify its poorer parts. On arrival we headed for a focal part of a city that appears to have only poorer parts, the Salvation Army Center. In the US these are de facto welfare centers where good value clothing and sometimes social services are on hand. Paduka was no exception and we took advantage of the former before somehow heading right out of town earlier than intended. Row upon row of strip malls and dead motels passed us by before we realised we had exited the city. We washed up through pleasant and increasingly flatter terrain in Missouri (MO). The lesser known town of Russelville beckoned us to its liquor store, gas station and Econo Lodge. All of these were fine, though I am not eating another Mexican until California. They are never hot and rarely serve beer let alone margaritas.

Rattlesnake jazz

2009-10-11T22:29:00.009+04:00

From Elkton we joined the Shenandoah national park via the Sky Line drive (Virginia) off of which we hiked a series of trails, some arduous, some not. An identity shift seemed to occur as we got the pleasure out of spending a serious amount of bucks on hiking paraphernalia at the Rock Lands camping shop. Such an investment required justification of the outlay. It was as if these two middle aged and relatively novice hikers were over reaching themselves in a bid to justify the expenditure. The first day we must have hiked for around three to 4 hours and had to turn back from completion of the White Oak Trail as dusk fell and we wondered about our stamina for getting back up the incline. One of the earliest sights on our first day was as above (Stony Man Trail), as we took in the beauty of the mountains which then became shrouded in cloud. The next day a combination of a wrong turn and ambition saw us hike for a total of 5.5 hours as combined two trails and nearly wiped ourselves out climbing up and down steep and rocky trails. Some had glorious vistas, others were more the pleasure of the walk through woodland with deer and chipmunks a constant feature.

One such trail saw us reach an impressive waterfall where a rattle snake made a surprise landing at my feet and lay inert. Assuming its rapid path from above my head to my feet was the result of it being either dead or severely under the weather, I didn’t panic. My wife, more concerned than me, expressed the urgency of the situation which sent me into a belated and perhaps risky skedaddle as I scuttled away at some speed. However the snake seemed content just to hang in the water before bizarrely shooting down stream. The weird thing is that I am more bothered about the people walking towards us on a trail and whether we will have to talk, then I was about the rattlesnake.

The hiking in the Shenandoah was great but the accommodation and eating situation was of a different order. A kind of hikers and campers’ theme park, Sky Land (as in the Sky Line drive) offered cabins in the woods originally constructed in 1902 when the site was first opened to the “well to do” as the description inside our tiny cabin put it. The place was very quaint and the surrounding mountains sublime, but something told me that the well to do of the turn of the previous century would not have spent the best part of the night listening to children who hadn’t been put to bed til 10 crying and moaning before the dulcet tones of Dad coughing his guts up in the early morning light finally ended my futile attempts at rest. We got ourselves moved out of there to more modern motel style accommodation which made us feel a whole lot better.

When we exited the Shenandoah and took on the southerly Blue Ridge Mountain trail we divided our time between the easier hikes off the parkway and exits for the evening into cheaper motel type accommodation. Using the latter you don’t feel like you’re paying through the nose for just a sometimes questionable rest spot. You also get to explore small towns like Buena Vista where we took in a local Mexican restaurant, and the Meadows of Dan, barely a village but with a great name and a great diner that provided healthy dinner and breakfast the next day. We exited the trail having visited the Blue Ridge Music Center where an impromptu double bill of bluegrass moved us with its almost innocent beauty. Older singer and guitar player Willard Gaillard had teamed up with younger banjo and guitar player Scott Freeman. Scott was quite a virtuoso player and a less confident but pleasant singer. Later reading made me think about banjo techniques and his use of claw hammer and finger pickin seemingly came right out of the banjo styles brought by slaves from western Africa, and specifically western sudan and Senegal. This barely appreciated aspect of the history of so called white country (and for that matter the “country” style pre blues music of black men in the Appalachians singing in English of life’s troubles accompanying themselves with a banjo and a fiddle) is documented in a highly recommended thesis on the subject available from the music center. African Banjo Echos in Appalachia by Cecelia Conway gives transcribed and pieced together oral histories of African American “country” musicians of the so called pre blues era. The guide in the music center had by her own admission genned up on the history and disparate roots of country as developed in Va. The exhibits there told a story of local musicians and the first country 78s from the 1920s when “hill billy” was first applied to white singers (as opposed to purveyors of “race” music) before the 1940s arrival of “blue grass”.

Inspired by our conversations there we drove on heading towards Kentucky where we are as I write this. Our friends have a house in the old state capital Frankfort, a quaint town of 23,000 where we discovered a wonderful book shop (Poor Richards) where we spent several hours browsing (and purchasing) second hand books, where later we returned for a gig featuring John Pope, a blues and jazz piano stylist, Matt “Zip” Irvin on tenor sax, and a double bass player Owen Reynolds. He though was the only professional musician, John being a piano technician by day and Dr Zip being a professor at EKU. On arrival we hadn’t expected much and, despite the venue, were not excited about what we mistakenly thought would be a sober coffee shop situation. When we walked in we became 45% of the audience (and much of the rest seemed connected to the venue) and sat right down near the band for what was akin to a private audience. The tunes veered between old and more modern jazz standards (MoonRiver, a Buddy Bolden song and a song about Buddy Bolden, Mose Allison etc), trad blues songs and some more contemporary or off the trail numbers such as a self penned instrumental by John (presently nameless to me), a cover of Billy Bragg’s musical interpretation of a lyric penned by Woody Guthrie about a town known to Zip - Winston, Salem - a theatrical style piece (Hail Mary) by Pamplemousse, and an adaptation of a Basque folk tune about being a tree. It was a great night, where it felt wonderful to chat with relatively local musicians and to throw out the odd comment between numbers. We returned to the porch before retiring pretty light headed well past 1 am. Earlier our friends’ friend’s daughter, who is house sitting in their absence, had come back from a work shift to check on the dogs accompanied by her friend and we semi embarrassedly told of (some of) our evening’s fun. It was as if the roles had reversed.

A dining highlight in Frankfort was Rick Paul's "White Light Diner" (whitelightdiner.com), where we ate an excellent lunch on our second day in town. The host was out of town that day but we were in good company in the small but atmospheric eatery where the locals offered good advice and kindly interest in our travels. The diner has functioned since 1943, and Rick Paul, almost a celebrity chef who has cooked for a variety of interesting personalities including Goerge Bush Senior, has made the place a source of a wide variety of southern dishes. Well worth a visit.

roadtrip photos New York and VA

2009-10-05T03:56:00.001+04:00

US roadtrip begins

2009-10-05T03:55:00.001+04:00

The Virginia Plan proposed delimiting federal executive power by empowering the national legislature. Virginia Plain proposed cool yet retro sophistication among lumpen glam stomp. Out here in Virginia plans are few and the hills definitely outnumber the plains. Yet these hills are the stuff of inspiration not hindrance. Walking trails among the Apalachians (pron. Apa-latch-ee-ans) we found the meaning that we had been searching for on this road movie since arriving in New Jersey over a week ago. NY - our early port of call after a brief tarry in the big apple’s perceptibly rotten neighbour NJ – had been good for drinking with an old English friend and workmate and for an insight into some of the bars and restaurants that make up his life. However the defining of what this trip will be all about would be held in abeyance until we had rented wheels in the outskirts of Trenton NJ - a blue collar rail hub. Abandoning plans to head to the nation’s capital for engagement in matters middle eastern, we headed down to Virginia via Elkton: a brief stopover in Maryland off the interstate 95. A station stop before a planned visit to Fredericksburg VA the next day, Elkton was to us no more than a cheap motel and a KFC. This though was much appreciated after a 2 nights near Time Square NY had provided the most expensive accommodation per square foot I had ever had the misfortune to pay for. The hotel though was conveniently located in walking distance to welcoming bars: one where we met our friend’s workmates, another involved an enjoyable couple of hours in the Blarney Stone or some such, where the music was on random and the punters rarely saw limeys in their drinking establishment
After our night at the Knights Inn in Elkton, the Indian cleaner peered in the window of our clearly lit room, where my wife was reading the Cecil Whig clad only in knickers and a loose top. This apparently short sighted gentleman was seeking to determine whether human life dwelled within and therefore whether he should douse down our bog with bleach or shake our sheets free of detritus. “Don’t understand English – Asian” they later revealed when I asked them not to look in our room when the presence of a car out front and illumination inside suggested we may not need his and his wife’s tender attention. Later that day we arrived in Fredericksburg – famous as the fault line of the American civil war when thousands died fighting in just a few brief days in the battle of unionism versus southern confederacy. Robert E Lee’s southern forces were eventually subdued by the Yankees fighting under the flag of a barely invented American nation, a nation to this day still struggling with the legacy not just of southern slavery but of resistance to big government – whether GOP or Democrat – if headquartered in DC. The public health care option bit the dust the day we arrived here, opposition to Obama’s plans echoing a political tradition rooted in resistance to the power of the center, itself a sound constitutional principle applied in state’s rights and the separation of powers. So today does this strain of liberalism find representation in the GOP or among Dixiecrats both defending a principle and susceptible to private health company money.

Having arrived early in Fredericksburg we checked out the fantastical wares of an antiques market where I bought a Vietnam campaign medal and resisted vinyl temptations. Along the beautiful river that snakes along the east side of town we found relation as we connected once more to the point of our journey – natural beauty taken at our own pace. I had been in this town only 18 months earlier, meeting up with an old friend from Jerusalem whose undergrads I gave a lecture to on the obscurities of Saudi foreign policy. Now I was back with my wife and more relaxed as we were here for purely social purposes and I had not come here hot foot from burying my father in England. My friend’s son is growing fast. The pleasures of fatherhood were though sometimes belied by his wistful remembrance of a former freewheeling existence around the mid east. It was great to see him and his wife again, albeit that tiredness got the better of us all before the beer had the chance of aiding recollection of old acquaintances among the would be power holders and inebriates of Palestine.

We had planned to stop over in Charlottesville the next day, an apparently pleasant student town with an artsy scene – however the arrival of the U2 travelling juggernaut pushed up the hotel rates for largely overbooked rooms. We promptly left town and holed up in nearby Waynesboro where I descended into a deep depression as the focus of the trip became lost on an auspicious anniversary – the birthday of my dead father. Salvation was thankfully found among the warmth of the occupants of the nearby strip mall of which Little Caesar’s (Little Hitlers?) and a flooded laundrette proved particularly appealing.

Life ends at 45

2009-08-26T21:27:00.004+04:00

...thought that might get your attention. Though the title of this post, as Tim Lott once observed of a tiresome Freddie Mercury routine, is a bit like the old man producing a rat from under his rain coat. The thrill wears thin after the first few repeats. Appropriate metaphor indeed...I had said that the relocation from Deira to Dire Diary might produce some observations on life back in blighty, so here it belatedly is, though without the satire desired my my wife. Approaching 2 months back in the country, I am heading toward the fork in the road, and am, as usual, determined not to take it. I had hoped to avoid thinking about my professional future, had even thought I might avoid the middle east (see July posting) but knew that this aspect at leastwas a delusion .

We are both intent on the road trip from next month; the rest, who knows? Some possibilities exist for me from UAE contacts and from elsewhere that could pay the bills from the winter; other options would suck me back into the London slog that I have been avoiding and which friends tell me to avoid.

I am currently having my wife's suggestion that we could never have had kids emphasised to me by the experience of having our nephew in the house for a couple of nights. My reaction to him is my father all over. Flexibility has never been my strongest suit.

Life is short. I will focus on the luck of being free of an employer for the time being and must make the most of it until the road trip beckons. More vinyl therapy is definitely needed; this after all was virtually the whole reason for taking time out in the UK.

Jimmy Buffett Live in London

2009-07-06T20:38:00.008+04:00

Jimmy Buffett’s First Ever UK gig – July 5 2009 Shepherd’s Bush Empire.

40 years in the business, tons of albums under his belt, and a relatively small but highly loyal fan base across Europe. Yet, strangely perhaps, this was the Mississippi/Florida singer songwriter’s first ever UK gig (barring a performance in an all star charity bash a few years back). The legions of self professed “parrot heads” (the name by which his devotees are known) were not disappointed. Shepherd’s Bush Empire – long the redoubt of tribal gatherings – saw a profusion of white middle aged couples in Caribbean fancy dress gathering early for a chance to grab the best view for this unprecedented show.

Mr Buffett’s musical and cultural shtick is a Carribean/Key West Florida gumbo of mid tempo rock with a rootsy undertow, as, I guess, befits a man who started life as a wannabe country singer. Seeing him centre stage dressed in, appropriately enough for his image and for this almost tropical UK heatwave, Bermuda shorts made me think that this was possibly the least cool gig I have ever been to in my life. Much of the gig involved an eight-piece band, and one female backing singer, knocking out foot-tapping numbers bolstered by Jimmy’s often comical lyrical observations, as reflected in such titles as "Cheeseburger in Paradise". Other times there were embarrassing exercises in frat party cool ("Summer School", for example). Every number however elicited ecstatic responses from the Buffett cognoscenti. His performances though were all too often easy on the ear and emotionally unchallenging. In contrast, “Son of a Son of a Sailor”, "One Particular Harbor", and the (sadly only) three acoustic numbers were, for my money, the stand out numbers of this gig. The acoustic songs were a funny (and possibly the only recorded) satirical take on the world financial meltdown, Plenty to Drink About; and two of his most renowned (if that is the right word) tracks: "A Pirate Looks at 40" (revered by Bob Dylan, he wryly noted) and “He Went to Paris”, which closed the show. On these latter two numbers, the quality of Mr Buffett’s vocals and the emotional power that he is capable of summoning up, despite all the schlock of his Carribean island thang, came through strongly. Margarettaville, a signature Buffett tune that perfectly embodies his sailing, sozzled, and soaking up the rays persona, was enjoyable. Ending with “He Went to Paris”, however, meant that the gig closed on a qualitative high note, right after a thoroughly unnecessary sop to the Brits had seen him and his oversized band tackle Yellow Submarine. Buffett seemed bowled over by the response of the audience and promised to come back next summer for his second ever proper British gig. I hope he does, and in the process he should draw deeper on the emotional depths that he plainly has.

UAE parallels with Iran?

2009-06-28T14:41:00.012+04:00

The UAE, a neighbouring country of Iran that allows the Iranians a business and finance enclave in Dubai, is relatively unaffected by the political upheaval in the Islamic Republic, and stands to gain economically. Obviously the UAE's rulers are wary of Islamically-sanctioned authority being challenged in the streets, even if it is largely in the name of regime figure who has been electorally dispossessed. The nearest parallel to what is happening in Iran in the GCC states are the disputes over succession. These still ocassionally pop up among the families of some of the northern emirates of the UAE, and via the family fights vitiated through parliamentary shenanigans in Kuwait as well as the more coded family disputes over policy that get a semi-public airing in Saudi Arabia.

Otherwise Gulf politics are about traditional consultation methods and individual sheikh's majlises, processes that are sometimes bolstered by narrow electorates for powerless putative parliaments. Kuwait is a relative exception to this rule. However its legislative politics are more parliamentary theatre than substance, as could be said of the UK until last week. The Al-Sabah have long been a lesson for other GCC leaders in why they should not go down the part-constitutional politial route. Now that Iran has shown that electoral politics is as dangerous as brash modernisation was 30 years earlier for the Shah, this lesson is only compounded. Dubai's version of brash modenisation is unlikely to herald what happened in late 70s Iran of course. The (indigenous) cultural conservatism and the ruling family's partnership with the local ulema who have become more controlled in the last 10 years will see to that. Dubai's clerical class, as in other UAE emirates and in other GCC states, are rigorously held in check in what is a small city state. Radical Islamic opinion -once useful throughout the Gulf in countering the attacks of Arab secularists - has been easily controlled by ministry purges in the last few years, while talk of national identity and more active morality policing has helped offset more recent disquiet.

Old New Homeland

2009-06-20T20:27:00.003+04:00

Strange times indeed. Am in a period of transition between departing the UAE and arriving in our old new homeland, the UK. Departure has been something I am taking in my stride, mindlessly preparing for the off by filling my time packing and finishing up admin tasks in Sharjah before spending a few days with friends in Dubai and then on to the plane with X, my long-time friend and wife. I expect that the journey home will see some deeper reflection on what it has all meant but maybe not, as tiredness and a hangover are more likely to compound the generally dissolute state of mind that I have found myself in over a number of months. An inability (or unwillingness) to think and a difficulty in remembering has been something that has characterised my state of mind for several years now, beyond the specific and relatively narrow requirements of work.

What is to be done? I am happy to have no specific plans beyond deep immersion in my music collection and time spent with my wife, in addition to reacquainting myself with my mother whose health had largely dictated future calculations over the last year. The difficulty will be in gauging what happens in say a year from now; what do we do beyond raising mortgage money and paying the bills? Do we want to be there for say the next 5 years, dealing with family and working on the mideast (in my case) from the vantage point of London? I had thought that once work pressures eased (as they plainly now have) I would want for nothing more than escape from the damned region and the chance to make the most of the 15 years left for fun before old age kicks in. I am not interested in competing with the big boys in regional meltdown watch, and I have never had the patience to do what real regional experts do (learn the key local languages properly and obsess, obsess, obsess). In fact I have always found the obsession of my western peers who work on the region to be rather tiresome, wondering what is missing from their lives that the fate of the Palestinians, Iraqis or even the Bahraini Shia is something that can make them fulminate with impotent rage against local power brokers, western governments, religious intolerance (delete as appropriate).

I had thought that I could redirect my energies on something that would take me (mentally at least) far away from the accursed middle east and apply my general political nouse to wider problems. We shall see – I can’t earn money by presenting the long historical view of the strange death of the Labour Party, while condescending to step into the parochial ring to fight, fight and fight again to save the party I love is plainly a waste of my inordinate political talents. My teaching of international relations at Sharjah hasn’t really made me an incisive observer of world political trends, while my creative writing abilities (as you can no doubt tell) haven’t really improved much for 20 years. My wife however thinks that a sometime sparkling and satirical wit should be deployed in scripting socially observant plays or comic observations – I will certainly have time to pursue this possibility, but don’t hold your breath. Old dogs and new tricks come to mind. Watch this space as Deira Diary relocates from the middle east to the east end and my takes on the UK, the mid-east, old (and new) music, and, as far as possible, the world become subjects for some sometimes ill-considered reflection

Back to the Mother (F) country

2009-06-07T13:50:00.003+04:00

We are leaving Sharjah on the 14th June, so unless I run into any of you in the office, this may well be goodbye.

I am highly appreciative of the willingness of the university to give me the opportunity of teaching for the first time in what is now an even more varied career. I have no idea what will happen back in the Old Country; that will be in the hands of God, my mother, and the luck of the Irish (note the order, as was said of Saddam’s comments concerning what he thought were life’s three afflictions). I am not, by the way, and to the best of my knowledge, Irish.

It has been an up and down experience for both of us out here in the UAE, one that we will, for sure, remember for some years to come. It is also possible that we will be back, although probably not in a long term employment capacity. I shifted my Mid-East focus to the Persian Gulf over 10 years ago, and it’s probably too late to shake off this particular affliction. So that suggests that a return visit to the UAE is more than possible. Whether I will then be serving in a teaching capacity back in the UK or preparing my bid for the Labour leadership in 2014, I cannot predict. Equally likely, I will be a “researcher”, with all the ambiguity and mukhabarat connotation that that implies. My wife, I trust, will return, full force, to painting, and, with the grace of God, will make a mint and I will get to realize a long held ambition: to drive a van from town to town, continent to continent, from art exhibition to art exhibition.

If our current plan works out, we will be on the road from NYC to the west coast sometime between mid-September and mid-November 2009.

This blog will shortly redeploy to the wild east of London. Dire Diary anyone?

Checking out...for good

2009-05-15T14:58:00.011+04:00

Another rerun of the Eagles' tune on VH1 last night reminds me now of where I came in. That being the Hotel California where I was holed up for three months in 2007 courtesy of my former employers, a conflict resolution charity. In this two star benign regime anything was available for Dirhams, albeit that Heiniken was my only occasional indulgence. Now I am really checking out of the UAE, and from this university compound in Sharjah where we redeployed nine months back. It has been another benign regime, hard to escape its collective clutches, its welfare provision, and its relative ease and convenience. Well, we are now finalising the prison break, although like Michael of the TV series we may have to continue the struggle on the outside, in part one of our own making. Blighty beckons, main reason being to provide psychological support to my mother , but other factors are at work too. Teaching has been especially hard and almost gruelling when combined with writing research papers on the regional situation. These though will provide fame and glory in the major publishing platforms that only Abu Dhabi and a UK university can provide. Once back in the child's bedroom of musical delights and hi-fi, I will probably miss the structure, the relative respect, and the apparent purpose behind what I have been doing in Sharjah. Close, confessional, friendships there have not been, but interesting folks a plenty have been discovered among the faculty. Friendships made here and in Dubai and Abu Dhabi will hopefully be sustained when we all move on to pastures new. Where this goes next, and what will have been achieved is hard to gauge. I know that some students appreciated my insights, others made me feel intellectually and personally inadequate to the task. Overall, university teaching diminishes your analytical depth as those close to the real politics are more out of reach and your own analysis is necessarily simpler. We fly soon, hoping that the advantages of northern European climate and things to access without wheels will make us both closer and life in general more fulfilling.

Jeff Buckley debate

2008-12-30T11:55:00.001+04:00

Wasn't the whole "Make Jeff Buckley No 1" campaign back in Blighty getting a little over-exercised? In a decidedly maudlin fashion the pro-Jeff forces mobilized on behalf of a dead artist as opposed to a (thus far largely) undiscovered one. The Sun newspaper - with Absolute Radio’s backing – was, for its own obscure reasons, behind the effort to disinter this one-time photogenic dead singer for belated mass consumption. Absolute Radio’s DJ, Christian, stated on the station's website that Jeff Buckley's version was that of someone whose voice sounded like “he has lived”. Well, compared to the twat on X Factor, that’s true. However Buckley was only in his late 20s when he recorded it. Leonard Cohen, who wrote and performed the original, had lived a lot more in all senses when he released it in the second half of the 80s. John Cale’s cover was haunting, with a voice that was decidedly “lived in” too. Imagine either of these (still alive) singers as a Christmas number 1 in the UK. Now that would have been interesting.

Politics GCC-style

2008-12-11T07:21:00.007+04:00

Have just returned from trip to Bahrain and Qatar. In the latter I glimpsed the new Islamic Museum standing magnificent alongside the Doha creek. Business district on one side and tasteful low level buldings on the other. Very impressive from a passing taxi, though couldn't decide if it looked like random breeze blocks, or a modernist thing of beauty as befits its concept. Never got the chance to check out the opening for the plebs, due to meetings, meetings meetings. However found my way to Education City, which somewhat puts Dubai's knowledge village and its companion free zone in the shade. For one thing the partner educational institutions in Qatar appear to be of a higher order, seeing this as a frontline commitment not just a business adjunct, and are regulated with quotas for nationals. How they secure them with a similar demographic in Qatar to Dubai, my lord and saviour alone knows.

Back in Bahrain one year on I feel relieved. Breathe the air of overt politics even if the parliament is akin to the theatre that causes apparent political crises in the mother of all Gulf parliaments, Kuwait. Haven't been back to that former people's republic for more than 2 years.......

Bahrain takes me to the seemier side of town, as befits Deira Diary...the Adhari is, despite its oifficial claims, a two star with a fine selection of music venues (see Hotel California, Deira) and a bar that begs to be explored. Dark space, friendly women, and blasting dinosaur rock. Breakfast even tastes like pork products. Served up in another dark and dingy bar, I take a black plastic table top at 730 am and check out the other clientele: A drunk Saudi who appeared not to have graced his bed last night and who was nursing a fresh beer. He talked to met in Arabic about my breakfast. I wished him a happy Eid before promptly indicating that my conversational skills in French are worse than those in Arabic so he should get back to his beer.

Bahrain is gearing up for its national day, having reached the giddy heights of independence a few days after the UAE. Flags were on display but it looked like being a calmer affair than back home. I even saw an Emirati flag atop a 4x4 in Manama. Old Najdi family alliances of course. Bahrain will not see the same frenzy that is these days taking over the UAE streets on December 2. For one thing, despite its sectarian problems, Bahrain's majority national population are all full nationals with an equal right to vote and stand for an assembly that, although toothless, can embarrass senior people and question alleged corruption and planning absurdities. How much better it is in the UAE where they restrict full nationality to only a proportion of the "nationals" and the government votes in the electors? Reminds me of Bertold Brecht's quip about the ruling East German Workers' Party (SED) despairing of the proletariat. Perhaps you could vote for a new one, he suggested.

Qatar for its part has an arguable 2/3 of its passport holders without full nationality, keeping out the so-called Persians and errant tribes. It though now has two national days, one, newly conceived, is imminent in memory of Jassim, the "enabling" ruler who aligned with Britain having fought off the Turks. What a sensible chap.

Came back to Sharj to find that I had missed National Day and the rain, darn.

Redeployment to Sharjah

2008-11-13T11:20:00.007+04:00

Am about to complete my exile from the seemier side of Dubai to an altogether different gig in Sharjah. Same country (apparently) but its those "little differences". One is the financial association and the historical political connection between Sharjah and the regional big bro. Sources suggest this association was recently terminated as an external debt at least. I had assumed that those big bro loans were softer than those thye made to Iraq. However any rejection by Sharjah of fresh support could only occur if another banker had been found closer to home. This would fit with what one understands happened back in the early '90s when Big Bro was told to butt out by one of Sharjah's neighbouring amirates. The residue of Big Bro is still felt however in terms of the volume of conservative book shops and the high profile focus on Islamic Civilization for which there is a dedicated museums department in Sharjah and a whole host of related museums. Of course this may just be a symbolic balancing with modern art bienales et al. One museum checked out by yours truly of late was an impressive collection from the local ruler, taking in ornate tapestries and artefacts. The building is also currently housing a temporary show from Kuwait consisting of the personal items of one of the sons of that country's ruler, including some exquisitely illustrated Korans.

For the most part my work beat is educational, whether by way of teaching or research. The focus is on the region. My students keep my stimulated most of the time, largely with what they say or with the cultural orientations they have. For example my (relatively numerous) local students are drawn from distinct parts and backgrounds, sometimes taking in the broad region. Others were born in additional parts of the Middle East, and even a few anglo-saxons are also represented. This makes for an interesting discussion on occasions, as much without as in class.

Canteen jazz

2008-10-30T08:04:00.008+04:00

Dwight Dickerson, African American musical virtuoso and American University of Sharjah (AUS) lecturer, showcased his jazz band at the University Canteen mid-October. He blasted the young audience with an excellent opening number, Cantaloupe Island, with Dr Dickerson himself doing the Herbie Hancock electric piano leads and fills. Don't know who the other guys were, but the trumpet player, alto sax and double bass player were excellent. The drummer, a local favorite, was not in the same league, but performed sufficiently well to drive the beat on as the band tackled Round Midnight more as a Miles than a Thelonious Monk rendition before, to my mind unwisely, moving into extensive soloing of which the highlight was, in much of the audience's mind, the drummer (see OverLoad below). That said, when the trumpet and sax players soloed they were often highly impressive. Perhaps the trumpet playing was a little too reminiscent of Miles, but the sheer blast and alternate subtlety that he showed was sometimes akin to the best performers of this often sublime instrument. When music, at the AUS as anywhere, is normally fenced off in confined and defined spaces (theaters etc al), this gig was a rare treat indeed, even though this superior art form had to compete with the usual lunchtime blather and bullshit of fast food and fast talk. Sadly I was partly driven away by the ongoing solo exchanges, which at times had more of an air of a band practice that a performance. However this is undoubtedly an excellent ensemble and I thoroughly look forward to their next set live at the canteen.

OverLoad

2008-10-13T06:13:00.007+04:00

Pakistani fusion band OverLoad came to the American University of Sharjah last week, and desperately tried to enliven a half empty hall consisting of kids who would clap jello sliding down a wall, and ageing teaching staff. Not that they weren't good, beginning with a four piece of female vox, synth player, electric guitarist and drummer, their own-brand rock and electronica was interesting, even accomplished in places. The singer sounded confident, despite this being her debut appearance apparently. She sung in English and Urdu, with the latter seeing an accompanying musical shift of gears from the guys behind her. Much of their obscurer stylisations were lost on the non-paying students hyped up for a 5pm gig (!) however. Most it seems were there for the hairy sufi drummers who we were told were playing complex Indian rhythyms on their two large drums which they periodically swirled around in tame dervish stylee. Frankly, 10 minutes after their entry I was tired of the overload of drumming pyrotechnics and wanted the cool female vocalist to return to the stage. So it seems did a few of the testosterone fuelled students whose wolf whistles had earlier encouraged her to cover up when she was reduced to being stage hand for the rest of the band. Dump the drummers, change the name, and turn up the volume guys.

Sahwa Nikolai

2008-09-18T14:39:00.007+04:00

Have been laying low , focusing on a new work situation outside of Dubai but have occasionally been surfacing in order to catch "ethnic" concerts in the more conservative emirate down the road, Sharjah. Ramadhan has not prevented the party mood taking off after iftar, even if attendance is sparse. A (relatively) classical Arab music ensemble, the Tigris Ensemble no less, performing last week at AUS featured, I think, an Iraqi oud player, and, I guess, a Lebanese violin and viola player respectively, and an Egyptian tamborine player. (This was no Liam Gallagher (barely) trying for effect; the man played it with his right hand as if it were a tabla.) Sadly the Arabic and English leaflet that was barely noticeable upon arrival, told us everything except the names and nationalities of the performers. This was said at great, mumbled, speed at the beginning of the gig by one of the musicians. My Arabic is not excellent, so I scrambled to take it in, but there should have been a bit more fanfare, in any language.

As was (almost) said of Frank Zappa, I wished the other guys had shut up and let the guy play his oud. However when he was given free rein the subtleties were lost on much of the audience. Sadly the event was a social more than an artistic occasion, a cause for (loudly) affirming cultural identity bolstered by post-iftar caffeine overload, rather than allowing a sufi-like serenity to take over (G-d forbid). When an elegantly dressed Iraqi (?) singer rather modestly took the spotlight, it did raise the tempo several degrees, however. He had an impressive range and a definite presence.

National Identity extended?

2008-09-18T14:39:00.005+04:00

Have noted the naturalisation application process in Wafi and other malls for the stateless bidoon ("without"), for foreign Arab applicants, and those in the half way stage between already being Emirati but not having a copy of the so-called family book. I understand from the UAE press that all kinds of applicants are invited to sign up in the next month, but privately I understand that the bidoon are getting first priority. A recent sympathetic article in Gulf News about the plight of one such man affirms this impression.

Euro wars and local dealings

2008-08-13T08:30:00.006+04:00

Arrived back in Dubai Aug 8 after a month holidaying in England, Wales and Berlin. I had assumed that I would be suicidal upon my return. However despite the heat, or more appropriately, the ratouba (humidity) at a level that I don’t remember last August, I am still feeling good. Bonding with friends, enjoying some home comforts, and taking in stunning scenery and wallowing in history certainly helped. My last entry mused on national identity and cultural issues here in the UAE. It’s plain that culture exists here, whether of the international consumerist kind or the discrete cultures that do not so much as melt as co-exist in a sometimes harmonious fashion. However historical legacies seem to largely be confined to traditional ruling orders relatively untroubled by contemporary innovations, and the informal shoura that ties in the key, non-sheikhly, local and incorporated families. That, and the Dubai Museum’s paltry offering constitute traditional culture within the metropolis of urban Dubai. Such historical “myths” are also recycled in Abu Dhabi, drawing on their less coastal economy traditionally speaking. This may be good or bad, but it certainly helps one appreciate Europe, even if the historical legacies I was recently taking in in Berlin for the first time in 10 years were ideological and nationalist.

Within the latter bracket came the splendid neo-Roman splendor of Soviet authoritarianism available at the USSR’s war memorial in former East Berlin (see pic below). Upon my return to Dubai this became more apt on the contemporary stage as Russia’s Near Abroad was once again rigorously policed by Russian Federation forces as it was by Soviet and Czarist ones previously. The local angle to this is more fascinating than the business section of yesterday’s Gulf News would suggest. Poti port has been largely destroyed, with large Ras al Khaimah (RAK) investments going to …eh pot as a leading RAK company had exercised strategic reach in this part of the former Soviet Union.

The latest political controversy in this particular people's republic is that all visas (with exception of clearly defined tourist ones it would appear) will incur a health insurance charge payable up front on arrival or with evidence from sponsor of it being in hand. Alongside this, Sharjah has announced (according to the phone in progamme "Nightline" on Dubai Eye, that is) that it will require copies of residential contracts for families when individuals with families try to renew their visas. For those crowded into a room or two this could be tricky, commented the Nightline programme the other night. Security tightening, national ID enforcing, or just good government business? More irreverently, readers of today's Gulf News may care to check out the discreet court room report of the claims concerning a certain major British media story in early July. The defendent breached public indecency, the paper reported the prosection lawyer as saying.

UAE national identity

2008-06-24T22:31:00.002+04:00

Here in the UAE national identity is all the rage. A debate has been sanctioned from the top, a conference in April saw some strident, almost nationalist, posturing on the part of some, and a series of cultural and educational initiatives are underway to deepen national fealty. At present this national project is being conducted as an assertion of essentially conservative attributes - promoting Arabic, teaching Emirati history more aggressively in schools, pushing bedu symbolism – whilst railing against those outsiders who apparently threaten national cohesiveness. Relative liberals want to extend nationality, or at least a halfway house of long term residency, to those outside of the Sunni, Arab, tribal construct that especially prevails in Abu Dhabi, but who have nowhere other than the UAE, or at least a specific emirate, to call home. Nationalists, as some are being called locally, led by the de facto leader of HH’s loyal “opposition” here in Dubai, police chief Lt Gen Dhahi Khalfan al-Tamim, are warning that the transition to the sons of the current crop of UAE crown princes could be challenged by someone with a Hindu name. Exaggerated? Yes. Impossible? Probably. An authentic voice of Emirati existential angst? Undoubtedly.

The trouble with nationalism of course is that it posits a subjective and usually non-inclusive notion of the nation to the detriment of many long time residents of a given country. While Emirati nationalism lacks European-style national chauvinism – no one honestly thinks that the UAE is the greatest nation in the Middle East much less the world – it shares many of the same myths, the “imagined community”, the subjective notion of belonging that often excludes many of those who are in fact inextricably part of that same nation. Educated Emiratis will tell you that national cracks are being covered by this focus on the “other”. They will stress the difficulty of belonging when you are an Emirati ajami (a so-called non-Arabic speaking “Persian”), especially if you are a Shia; or if you are a Baluch. They will tell you that the rebirth of localism, of individual emirate identification, threatens to rent asunder the federal project that was awkwardly settled in the constitutional compromises of 30 years ago. No one doubts that the UAE will necessarily have to recycle at least some of the national mythology that all countries feel the need to trumpet, but there is a dilemma in the obviously different versions of the national project that is playing out in Dubai contrasted with Sharjah, for example. Superficially they are all one Emirati family, but there are strong criticisms being aired between and within emirates of some of the visions at work on the ground. And for unity to therefore be forged at the altar of national exclusivity, even in an emirate like Dubai whose history is so bound up in economic and cultural inclusion, at least at the merchant level, seems sad and, more importantly, short sighted. It is perhaps an understandable national project for a national minority, but how can nations existing in a sea of international communication and mobility talk only of a demographic challenge?

Dhahi Khalfan argued that the UAE has to slash back population inflows to tackle the imbalance – a measure that would destroy the economic diversification that Dubai in particular has championed and other emirates and neighbouring countries are emulating. He also argued that a different federalist project – to create a Gulf Arab nation with common citizenship would tackle the demographic disaster sapping at the UAE’s national spirit. Here perhaps he had a point. Sixteen million Saudi subjects (whoever heard of monarchial citizenship?) would be one hell of a useful asset, at least in the numbers game (the GCC’s total population is about 37m). This should make the UAE and Qatar in particular hard-line federalists in the way 1980s UK Conservatives used to think of the French and the Germans. Trouble is very few Gulf Arab subjects think the GCC’s “federalist” projects mean much. The common currency was postponed in May, though few noticed, as 2010 became the target date for a powerless monetary committee instead of the launch data for the GCC “dinar”. National sovereignty is a construct still very much in vogue among jealously competitive ruling houses, not least after the events of 1990-91. It may be a “myth”, especially when arguably the common currency is and will remain the greenback, but it is one many buy into. In the UAE, however, establishing consensus on the attributes of the national myth is a very awkward exercise. Easier therefore to fear the foreigner.

Life and life only

2008-05-16T17:59:00.006+04:00

That is a line from a song, right? God knows I should know. Things have been vertically eratic since that last solidly negative entry way back in April 10. Mother has not emerged from a hospital ward dedicated to the care of clinically depressed elderly folk; we remain keen to exit and find creative financial solutions to mitigate the relatively short distance til the final exit of this temporal existence; and our work situations are variable. However I have recently been offered a full time teaching post, so that was a boost. Providing I can square it with other work commitments, and the visa sitch can be worked out, I will have fixed full time work from the fall. However it means we will be living apart for the majority of the week, in separate emirates. This blog will therefore become tales from the staid academic side of life in the UAE rather than getting low down and dirty among the south asian working class. Still, there is hope in teaching - the students can be stimulating, and many are appreciative, and usually very polite. It makes a change from the diplomatic finesse of my previous employer. That international charity committed to relieving crises, staffed and advised by ex diplomats, that treated me with less respect than the timber yard that employed me as a cherubic looking grunt at the age of 16. I digress. In short, life is mercurial. This weekend has been a prick of a one, not helped by wife's understandably negative reaction to being dissed herself, in her case by local employers. Not sure where any of this will end, but we increasingly feel the departure back to the sceptic isle will be sooner rather than later.

======================================================
From 2 June 2008: a reposting and re-editing of "Impotent"

Impotent, empty rage against the self
Structureless, devoid of form
Drowning in the delusions that memory creates
Wanting meaning in a barren desert of existence
Wanting to come alive in a lifeless zone
Lusting, longing, lurking
From one stale old poster
To another cover shot of yesteryear
Wondering where the youthful zeal went
When the energies were mostly onanistically dissipated
Then as they are today

Work as means to paying rent is a common experience
Leisure that micturates away the surplus ain’t uncommon either
Middle aged middle class heineken drinker
Passionless except about the weakness of the self
And the fading desire for salvation through earthly love and musical liberation
Everything dead except as snap shot of something visceral
Penge boy cycling from record shop to record shop
Days upon days poring over records he would never hear
In search of the only truth that he still holds dear

The physical sublimation of the passion of the soul
Long since reserved for the sixth form poems he didn’t write
Because he left school at sixteen
Wanting to weep, though the tears won’t come
Empty impotent rage
Against God knows what

Thursday nite shite

2008-04-10T22:35:00.008+04:00

It's two cans of Heineken and the washing up as a grey film of indifference forms a grim veneer over Thursday night in Al-Hamriya, Bur Dubai. This is where the weekend ends as work beckons, the prospect of which is made infinitely worse having lingered between modest alcohol intake and the vodka bottle. Better to have not touched a drop or to have drunk the flat dry. This was no time for avoiding the fork in the road. The damned students and their petty complaints about grades hang over me while my apparent analytical edge gets daily blunted by library book cramming to keep a few steps ahead of these kids in the Mid East knowledge stakes. Good Lord Eissa I am only doing this so I can continue to jerk off on the prospect of one day running away to an educational establishment down the Californian coast and leaving the horror of my dead and dying family and the awesome enervation of this local nonsense behind. What the hell am I bothering for..."44 and there's so much more...." Where the fug is that pick up...sure wish I'd swung a left on Sunset Boulevard back in 2005

Conflict resolution

2008-03-16T09:06:00.000+04:00

Does life begin at 44, or does the greying, sagging quality of each naked morning deepen as the months drift by? Caught at the existential fork in the road, I am still intent to plough straight down the middle. An uncompromising, devil may care, commitment to fence sitting as I face key career choices immediately ahead of me. As a wise satyr said to me yesterday “at least it’s good to have choices”. The consolation one takes from this aphorism is proportionate to the enthusiasm one feels for anything at all. Sorry, that was a tad overdone…..

Since I last committed text to blog, nearly 3 months have wended their way down the creek and a few key events in the middle aged lexicon of life have predictably come and (almost) gone. The job I came out here for with an internationally renowned conflict resolution charity ended after exactly one year; my ageing and increasingly frail father’s long overdue season ticket finally got cancelled by the mortality police; and I have sought to find a new professional direction whilst still based in the UAE. The latter part nearly lost me (and therefore my wife’s) right to remain here, but that particular chill to the testicular area has thankfully passed (I believe).

The end of my contract to advance conflict resolution in the Gulf had been agreed back in November. The phone call had actually come on the eve of the three day national holiday out here at around 6pm, a bit like getting the sack on the eve of Thanksgiving. “Sorry”, he said, on hearing that the time and emotion involved in getting and trying to make something of the job he proposed had taken something of a personal and family toll. Finances were involved in this parting, and editorial disagreements too. He didn’t like the way I wrote and I thought what he and his deputy were seeking was unrealistic in this particular part of the sand bucket. So good riddance. Since that conversation the work has kept on coming. I am busier than ever, balanced precariously between mostly old research contacts recently reinvigorated, and a new (and possibly permanent) position at a local educational establishment. The fork in the road requires me to depress the accelerator in the freelance consultant type direction, or finally succumb to the academia that I have long had a love-hate relationship with. If only for the third option: that second hand record store in San Louis Obispo, off Route 1, California. But that ain’t gonna happen. I am not 21 and it would of course be such a waste of one’s talents, wouldn’t it?

Christmas in Dubai

2007-12-29T17:04:00.000+04:00

Christmas in Dubai was weird. We are broke, so my present to my wife was a shirt that I never wear, and her present to me was nicely presented tin of peanuts and a frosted ear plug. In a nativity-relevant occurrence, a decent dining table (only one wobbly leg) and two chairs suddenly appeared in the stairwell on Christmas Day – we have lots of room in the inn but are desperately in need of furniture, il hum du llilah. We spent the morning people-watching as a slight Christmas buzz could be felt, largely due to the nearby sounds of an early filipino party which veered from contemporary carols to Bob Marley.

Late afternoon, after several aperitifs, we sat down to roast lamb. This was enjoyed to the further accompaniment of liquid gifts from friends who recently passed through customs. We then finished off one of the bottles whilst watching a DVD of The Who Live in Brighton in 2006. This actually gave me hope after entering a deep, post prandial, depression. We would have then polished off the rest of our gifts, but sobered up to Cat on Hot Tin Roof (movie version with Newman and Taylor) followed by a phone call home. A very pleasant walk down by the Creek followed, and we were in bed and sound asleep by 1030pm

Dubai Lime party at the Loft

2007-12-24T09:13:00.000+04:00

It was good to see that Dubai Lime have restarted their residency at the Loft and were kicking things off with a party for all Limers and with no charge on the door. The musical fayre was a more mixed bag than on the few occasions that I have checked out Lime music events before. Once again it gave a significant role to the Canadian songstress Jennifer Gove (Buddy can you spare a recording contract?) - I am told that Jennfer, like all Limer performers, has a very regular day job and does no gigs save those that Dubai Lime put on at coffee shops and the Loft ocassionally. Hard to believe, as I told her slightly drunkenly outside afterwards. Less impressive were Midnight Oil (Aussie band in the 80s, no?). Well, the "Kuwaiti-born" new wavey drummer, Ahmed was good. I think he should split from "Sam from London" and find a funkier cooler vehicle for his talents. Sam was sometimes painful in the vocal department, and own songs were decidely bedsit-driven. He tried hard though and a decent cover of Losing My Religion (in Dubai?) went down well, especialy amongst a table of Nigerians near me. REM are so damn international, aren't they? "Iz", from the UK (?), pushed a few emotional buttons..for some...and played well and passionately, performing mainly his own songs. A final word for the compere, Glaswegian-born John McCorrigan (?). He was funny and an all round good bloke. I am sure he has more "Stella Street" type impersonations in his wardrobe that he could amuse us with next time. Frankly I missed the last music act as we had to go due to our finances not being at ease with AED28 for a small bottle of Heiniken. Me thinks the Loft a tad greedy.

Dubai Jazz 2008

2007-12-18T14:50:00.000+04:00

Thrilling news that the internationally-acclaimed jazz artiste Mr David Gray will be gracing us with his presence as this year's much lauded Dubai Jazz Festival. The highly influential unplugged tunesmith who has influenced legions of bejeaned, stubbly and oh so emotional singer songwriter clones over the last few years will no doubt raise a chilled white whine at the news. Those interested in jazz, for all its manifold varities, better look elsewhere. Of course this is something of a tradition at Dubai Jazz. Last year Dee Dee Meyers (or someone who sounds like a Clinton staffer.. DD Bridgewater...Who?) was a top feature. She was a bit jazz; less so was Freddy Cole who is jazz as in being black and soulful, which covers an awful lot of talented people who would not dream of labelling themselves jazz. More RnB really, when the term meant rhythm and blues as opposed to, well, black. Strange really, I remember that just a few weeks after the Dubai International Jazz Festival 2007, the genuinely acclaimed Scandinavian jazz pianist Bobo Stenson was a part of the "Gulf Jazz Festival" that was on the road in bohemian fashion between Gulf Arab capitals and played a night at the Deira Raddison SAS. I missed that too, but in his case wished I had not. He has played with some key names at the freer end of the jazz scene since the 60s, including Charlie Haden, and is a virtuoso whose subtleties would be lost on virtually anyone who has ever trod the boards of Dubai Media City's open air auditorium. Speaking of jazz artists, the famous brand of toilet manufacturers also lends its name, appropriately enough, to an AOR band by the naff name of Toto who headlined Dubai Jazz this year. Was it last year that Thelonious Monk's son and heir Roger Hodgson was on the bill? Don't get me wrong, Supertramp's Logical Song and Bloody Well Right were groovy forays into sixth form art rock back in the 70s, but the only thing that was jazz about them was Antony C Helliwell's tenor, and that was played strictly rock-stylee. Jeez. I mean there is a lot of jazz talent out there. And I do not mean soft white female vocalists of the current jazz and rootsy "wave" like Dana Krall or Katie Melluah, nor the excreable Jamie Callum, who substitutes the sensitivities of the gym for the escoterica of the music. This is where the play off between bums on grass and the cost of a ticket to see class acts that people might have heard of from the real jazz scene kicks in. However Dave Holland, Anour Brahem (yes, an Arab), Charlie Haden, Pharoah Saunders, Lyle Mayes, Bobo Stenson... these guys do not cost like those pop artists increasingly drawn to Abu Dhabi do, and, if marketed right, people would come to see them. Anyone interested out there?

Gordon Brown

2007-12-08T11:21:00.000+04:00

(Quote: Money Week magazine, 5 Nov 2007) ".......Moreover, Gordon Brown may yet share the fate of another Prime Minister. James Callaghan's place in history turned out to be a footnote to Harold Wilson. He took over as Prime Minister in mid-term and had an opportunity to go to the country early, but chose to cling on to power to the very last minute. The economy deteriorated through the winter of discontent, and he was routed at the polls. Gordon Brown, too, is facing a deteriorating economic outlook. In the past few years economic activity has been underpinned by a booming housing market and financial services sector as well as large increases in public spending. A stimulus from any of these areas is unlikely next year. The outlook for 2009 is more problematic, but by then the Brown government may be a busted flush. It is possible that Gordon Brown's worst nightmare waits - being a footnote to Tony Blair. Politics is interesting once more. ....."

I made this comparison about 18 months ago on the basis of the UK Treasury (Red Book) fiscal and UK economy projections...

The key DIFFERENCE, of course, is that we are unlikely to see again the 1978/79 style meltdown, but the Labour party disaffiliating and/or bolshie UK trade unions have some options. The other key difference is that Jim was popular right up UNTIL the winter of discontent, and bested the silly blonde girl all the time over the dispatch box. Oh, and the other key difference, JC was a likeable if a tad dry (by today's standards) bloke...Gordie ain't no "Sunny Jim"; he has remained a shit ever since he dissed me in a lift back in '95. JC, like all successful politicians (the only one in the 20th century to hold all top FOUR offices of state) knew how to exercise the popular touch. He also had the background to make it seem genuine. Gordon Brown (not to be confused with that much more interesting politician, and companion of JC, the former chancellor George Brown) is a privileged scion of the Manse and Scotland's Oxbridge: Edinburgh University. Combine that with a rarified, puritanical, cold showers and proddy guilt upbringing from a clerical father, and you have the man. As Paul Weller said in 1982 (?), I'm voting Tory..

GCC and Iran

2007-12-05T12:20:00.000+04:00

The attendance of Iran’s President Ahmedinejad (AN) at the GCC Summit on December 3 was blessed by all countries in the GCC, said Hamid bin Jassim at the closing GCC press conference. The Qatari prime minister and foreign minister said that there have been many other such invitations to non GCC heads of state. On this occasion the desire was expressed by the Iranian president to attend, and the foreign ministry in Qatar was notified accordingly by Iran, and we extended an official invitation. It was seen as important to extend the dialogue in this fashion. Outside the press conference a senior Kuwaiti media official told me that the attendance was important as a way of expanding the current dialogue with Iran, although he acknowledged that the Kuwaiti foreign minister for example had said that we are not clear on what is wanted by any part of the regime in Tehran. He added that this is a GCC view, not just that of Kuwait. He rejected idea that the speech by AN and the press conference yesterday was in effect saying “halas” to the Saudi idea for a Swiss nuclear bank. His caution may related to the KFM saying that he heard of the invitation in the press. The problem the Kuwaiti said is that Iran wants to ease the tension by deflating the football outside of the region. In other words there is a perceptible lack of genuine Iranian diplomacy. This same ball he had claimed was in Iran’s court as the GCC had made its proposals known on nuclear compromise.

Other comments in the margins at the summit suggested surprise, even anger, among GCC participants that an invitation that may not have been a matter of consensus was not responded to with warmer words by Iran. The speech to the GCC, the first in the history of the GCC by an Iranian participant, let alone a head of state, had not even mentioned the nuclear issue. When questioned about this at his own press conference, AN said that he did not want to dwell on something used by “two countries” to cause problems and that the issue was “over”. This comment was not seen positively by the GCC participants, least of all the hosts Qatar. The Qatari premier told the press on December 4 that we should not allow outsiders to be drawn into conflict, implying the US. Iran should take into account the concerns of the countries of the area, he said. If it is extending the true hand of cooperation this is good, but if we allow outsiders to be drawn into the conflict this is not acceptable. One question from a locally based AFP correspondent concerned the latest US intelligence (NIE) judgment that a weapons programme had not been continued after 2003, and whether this meant that the dispute was over. HbJ said that he did not know as his only information came from the IAEA and the “brothers” in Iran. It has a right to a peaceful programme and thus the dispute should be resolved by peaceful means and direct dialogue by the parties concerned, referring to Iran, the IAEA and it seemed the leading international countries involved in the dispute. In the normal fashion, he did not choose to identify the GCC as an interested party in this respect. The GCC does regards AN’s proposals as positive, said HbJ – the Iranian leader issued a 12 point programme for cooperation in his speech – and as practical ways to enhance cooperation and we said so in our agreed closing statement read out at the conclusion of the conference. Iran is a neighbouring country and should remove causes of tension between the GCC and Iran. In this respect HbJ mentioned the islands dispute and added that all the countries of the region (including Iran) were interested in a peaceful conclusion to the current situation. One questioner suggested that there could be (reciprocal) steps taken toward Iran on a bilateral or a multilateral basis by GCC states. Kuwait he said had argued that individual countries could consider initiatives. However all were in agreement that ideas of individual countries had to be agreed collectively. (It was not clear to this observer what the collective status was of the Saudi initiative for a nuclear enrichment bank)

Afterwards another well-connected Kuwaiti raised the issue with me of the NIE, believing that the making of a US-Iran deal could be in the wings, and that the report was possibly released to underline the idea of engagement with a locally feared Iran. While sounding fantastic it seems that the war option has been largely taken off the table, even if the risks of conflagration should not be downplayed too much. Conspiracies always abound in the region. Gulf Arabs will wonder again about US will-power at a time when, as the Kuwaiti argued with me, there had been a shared view about who was causing the problems in Iraq and what needed to be down about it. In this situation a GCC reluctance to come forward with plausible diplomatic initiatives with Iran, despite the ball actually being in the GCC’s court after the Ahmedinejad GCC speech, will be underlined. The refrain of powerlessness will go out with greater vocal strength now that the US has, quite possibly without management of the soft intel, effectively signalled that its Iran policy, like that of Iraq previously, is in freefall. Perception is nine tenths of the political law out here.

There was a question at the GCC press conference on whether there had been discussion about revaluation of individual currencies outside of the peg to the dollar. The summit declaration had reinforced the target date of 2010 for a common currency, with a review at the next summit in Muscat, and has not passed judgement on individual currency policy. In response to the question HbJ said that collective decision making was desired in terms of currency policy (mindful it seemed of their impact on the currency union goal). However he noted that the decision was for sovereign countries who “can do what they want”, and noted that this had already been exercised by Kuwait. Before the summit the desire for collective sanction had been expressed by the UAE and others at the time of the pre summit finance ministers meeting. A GCC common market will however come into being in January, for it has been deemed so at Doha. Some countries will have to move quickly to make the claimed equality of treatment in business and investment terms a reality in less than a month. This will not be a common market with a level playing field however, as Dubai’s open platform for foreign (non GCC) ownership and investment is hardly the same as current practice in Saudi.

More positively, and key at a time of apparent regional tension, the Saudi-Qatari kiss and make up appears to be genuine. Abdullah turned up to the summit, and al Jazeera continues to turn down its negative kingdom coverage. Saudi is the backbone of the GCC, declared HbJ to much scribbling in the press conference. The big brother is back, especially when Doha had thought it would be in the frontline of a US-Iran conflict and thus needed to ensure solidarity to reduce exposure.

Andy Warhol in Dubai

2007-12-02T12:14:00.000+04:00

Well am gearing up to hear meaningless prattle about nuclear options and collective approaches to weak currencies and employment problems in Doha. Been a strange holiday weekend. Began with a phone call from HQ. This was immediately followed by a trip to the XVA Gallery in the cultural nub that is otherwise known as Bastakia (Bur Dubai). Here we were promised the first of a series of Andy Warhol flicks. Being something of a doyen of the genre, my mind boggled at the idea of an open air, open to the public, showing of Joe Dellesando's arse, or nubile aryan flesh being cut up and splattered around the courtyard care of 3D specs....the possibilities were endless. The first of what promises to be a whole series of bohemian delights, albeit filmed on downers, was the fairly obvious choice of "Chelsea Girls". This launched the Warhol silver screen process, with the Factory's finest up there on split screen display, drag queens and naked butts, not to mention some serious needle fascination. The rolling of the opening credits was a pleasing counterpoise to the evening adhan. However after we had seen about 6 of the 8 "characters" - Edie Sedgwick, Nico of course, Gerard Malanga, Joe and a bevvy of boys, and several transvestites, we decided that we had seen enough. It was sexy and fascinating in a bohemian Big Brother on mandrax kind of way. So afterwards you need a beer and a cigarette to wash the taste out of your mouth. This we did, to excess.

It was a bizarre counterpoint to the ensuing National Day excesses too. The fireworks have been fab, and it's been nice to see the flag frenzy too. Much talk on Dec 2 (National Day itself) about maintaining the democratic path and preserving the national identity of the country...We shall watch the programmes designed to ensure these objectives with great interest...another drink somebody?

UAE to attend Annapolis

2007-11-26T11:04:00.000+04:00

With barely an official confirmation, the UAE will attend the Annapolis peace conference in the US. The UAE was a part of the Arab League decision last Friday to attend the peace conference at foreign ministry level. However it is not a part of the 12+1 Arab Committee designated at the May 07 Arab League summit in Riyadh to follow up on the relaunch of the Arab (Saudi) Peace Plan. The UAE was invited by the US to attend the conference at Annapolis, along with 39 other countries and organisations, including a number of other Arab states not represented in the 12+1 Arab Committee. The UAE is also a member of the US-promoted "Arab Quartet" with Saudi, Egypt and Jordan, but had kept schtoom over whether it would be represented at the US-hosted peace conference beginning Tuesday 27th November (see also my "UAE and Mid East Peace" posting below). In the usual fashion, the UAE has waited for the "Arab cover" that the Arab League summit meeting provided before it responded to the private urgings of US officials and of course Mr Blair, the special mid-east peace envoy appointed by the awesome foursome of the US, EU, UN and Russia. Now replete with such "ideological" niceties, the UAE, like big brother Saudi, can travel to the ball in the US having backpocketed the soothing balm of "Arab unity" and support for the "Palestinian brethren", and having played their part in ensuring that Syria was not left on the shelf, even if no-one is really that interested in trying to make them a full partner in the process.

The UAE knows that the journey from Madrid back in 1991, to the Arab Quartet formed last year, has put it in a potentially more exposed position on the Palestine Question than hiding, virgin-like, behind the vanity partition that the shibboleths of "Arab solidarity" allow. A UAE ex-minister told me recently that the Arab Quartet was founded as a "facilitator" for the peace process, and that it is pushing (via the US) for "light at the end of the tunnel" for the Palestinians. If the conference in the US leads to any meaningful interim steps on the ground (ala the resurrected "Roadmap"), and serious efforts at resolving final status issues between Israel and the Palestinians, then the Saudis and the UAE know that they will be expected by the US to meet with Israel periodically at such international summits in order to give their blessing to progress and Palestinian compromise, and to hold out a clearer vision to Israel of what (a fuller) normalisation will look like. Moving from Annapolis to a kind of interim recognition of Israel of the type seen on the part of Qatar, Oman and Morocco is not on the cards for the UAE or Saudi. However the more they have to share a table with Israel, the more a kind of semi-normalisation will have been reached. Short of premature handshakes, much less trips to Jerusalem to meet Israeli officials, this kind of engagement is realistic, and, potentially, helpful in terms of resolving over 100 years of blood and tears.

Limbo land

2007-11-23T08:42:00.000+04:00

It's a strange state to be in, between research projects, awaiting the call to authorise the next phase. I have completed revisions on a major, if imperfect, piece of work related to the Gulf, but it is currently stalled in the company's internal decision-making machinery. Other things understandably have a greater priority, and my manager, I believe, does not know if he has the energy to try to reconstruct the piece of completed work with me. In the meantime I consider ways to preoccupy myself, ploughing through research and interview notes and conducting meetings, calls and on-line searches to prepare for the next piece of work. Until then it's a waiting game, a game of patience. Bigger events preoccupy the upper echelons and personal matters no doubt intrude on people's time. The world does not revolve around my concerns, but there is a distinct feeling of being left in limbo land

Newspeak

2007-11-15T10:04:00.000+04:00

“Inspired” by the article by Iranian dissident Akbar Ganji in the current edition of NewsWeek on "Islamic Fascism", I want to point out something that every single commentator I have seen on this subject - from Ganji to Blair/Bush, and points in between - has failed to engage with. What exactly IS fascism?

Ganji, Blair and Bush engage in reductionist thinking akin to undergraduates the world over who unthinkingly trot (sic) out the word "fascist" as an insulting epithet for authoritarians and/or nationalists, but who seemingly have little historical understanding of what fascism actually is.

Whilst fascism lacks the ideological canon of what some regard as its philosophical twin, communism, there are definitions and characteristics available from original Italian "thinkers" and from the fascist parties in general of Europe in the 20s and 30s. The word "fasci" was borrowed from the undifferentiated sticks contained in the "tribute" paid to a Roman emperor. Hence the indistinguishable whole of a single nation united in reverence for Il Duce, the Reich Fuhrer, et al.

In the fascist thinking of Europeans - akin to communist party organisational thinking it is true - a single united, and of course highly centralised, single party would embody the mission and leadership of one people, one nation, and "revive" their faded glories, and seize absolute control of the state. Its methods and symbolism gave great importance to military and personal strength. In the Italian version under Mussolini it embodied corporatist anti capitalist thinking part borrowed from his Marxist background; in the German Workers Party (National Socialist) an ideological and personal divide on this issue showed that fascism lacked clarity on some key points. Furthermore, Mussolini did not lead an Italian Fascist Party that was initially obsessed with the Jews. Fascism in general in Europe however did embrace ideas of racial superiority as part of a nationalist creed of a people's revival under one true leader. Furthermore fascism's relationship to religion was often distrusting. Christianity was a cultural legacy of the Italian or German or Spanish nations of course. But the catholic (and in the case of Germany catholic and protestant) church in these countries were toughly policed and engaged with pragmatically. While not necessarily the enemy (far from it in the case of the Falange in Spain), the clerics were not ideological partners, much less sources for the leadership or the shock-troops of the fascist movement.

What we can gleam from this is that fascism is a totalitarian ideology that reveres and organises around a single "secular" leader and a single party, and is geared toward mass mobilisation behind national and, to some extent, ethnically pure objectives.

Does this remotely have anything to do with theories or idea of an Islamic umma (NOT a "watan" nor a "qawm") subject to clerical leadership and largely distrusting of political parties? How on earth does anything about the thinking of the current Iranian president equate with fascism when the Iranian political system and constitution that he upholds is made almost inchoate by differentiated power centres with key players far from purely Persian and unable by dint of ideology to clearly embrace Iranian nationalist language or purely national interests? Sure Hitler played to the aspirations of other nationalities outside of Europe as part of a strategic calculation, not least in the Middle East. But his ideological goals and identifiers were clear, and fascist. Sure the Muslim Brotherhood are organized a political parties and the movement’s Egyptian founder Hassan al-Banna found things of interest in Nazi Germany. However the Ikhwan are NOT Egyptian, Jordanian, Palestinian, Kuwaiti nationalists, even though their focus is largely on what used to be considered “artificial” national (“watan”) lines. What is fascist about the Islamist political concept, and supposedly governing model in Iran, the velayat-e-faqih ?

Bahrain Grotto

2007-11-13T07:41:00.000+04:00

Bahrain beach land

2007-11-12T10:23:00.000+04:00

Just spent a hectic 48 hours in the island, and what a relief it was from here. An island (or several) that feels as a Gulf city surrounded by, eh, the Gulf should. Plenty of corniche and unspoilt beach views, albeit more easily viewed from the road rather than the large amount of "private" beach land. Yes, there is a business district et al, but most of Bahrain is still pleasant to look at. The balad (old town) area is interesting and good for affordable hotels. Don't go into the internet cafes however, they suck. Cheap but virus ridden, bit like some of the hotels I didn't frequent.

Interesting politics there too. Not that it's covered in the English language press, but sure as hell is covered in Al-Wasat for example. In Dubai we enjoy plenty of local "political" coverage in the english language press, but little that concerns the structure of power other than stories documenting the difficulties of (some) foreign residents. In Bahrain the nationals are a majority and among the majority politics are rife, sectarian, and pretty public....

Christmas has also come early to Bahrain too...rejoice..who could resist some smurf like santa boys in a Gulf fortress scene, as can be viewed at the airport (see above). Charming.

Counter-Rhythms and Anti-Communist Reels

2007-11-09T17:30:00.000+04:00

The decision to put Gloria Estefan center stage as part of “Rhythms and Reels” at the Dubai International Film Festival in December belies the impression I got when coming here nine months ago that the organisers were going to upgrade the quality of this year’s cinematic bash.

This decidedly average US-exiled Cuban singer, whose commercial success and Miami-fuelled politics have given her a platform that talent alone would not secure, is to be the star attraction at the DIFF, according to the local English language press and TV news. Readers of a certain pedigree will recall her ersatz offerings in the ‘80s when she regaled us with half-cooked disco beats under the label The Miami Sound Machine. Now for the relatively princely sum of AED175, the Gulf News informed its readers this week, we can have the opportunity to see her live in what will be her “middle east debut”. If only this purveyor of plodding rhythms and soppy ballads could have been shipped up the road to join the sexy but talentless Justin Timberlake, local papers would be free of one more unnecessary homage to the doyens of the retirement music scene that wash up on this particular section of the Persian Gulf. Of course one should not forget that Gloria is part of a double bill that also brings us the more interesting offering of 90 Millas, a documentary movie made by her husband about the (exile) Cuban music scene. No Buena Vista Social Club, 90 Millas will give us music from across the pond, in direct opposition to the sad excuse for socialism that is the ailing dictator’s island. But who needs the pet sounds of these gun running, drug fuelled, counter revolutionaries either? The Miami Contra Machine? No thanks….

Part of the DIFF quality uplift was, I thought, to include a greater Arab, nay Emirati, component. Arab musicians could more than adequately fill Mrs Estefan's shoes. Surely the Iraqi musician and singer Ilham Madfai would come cheaper. He is known to an extent in the west and very well known throughout the Arab world, and, lest we forget the preported objective of this film and culture showcase, is actually very good. One wonders about the DIFF platform for UAE film-makers. One or two have garnered international praise and publicity, yet I heard on Dubai Eye news last night that a separate Gulf Film Festival is to be held in Dubai concentrating on Khaleeji talent (and that of Iraq and Yemen, but not that rather large Khaleeji state, Iran).

In the Tabloid! section of Gulf News this week another middle aged median propagator of muzak was bigged up. This time it was the apparently best selling female singer of all time, Celine Dion, who has been awarded the Legend award at the World Music Awards in Monte Carlo by none other than that renowned muso Prince Albert. An obviously key contributor to the development of world music, one only has to look at her sales worldwide to justify this assessment, Ms Dion is most famous for the painful emotional manipulation of that song from the Titanic. She has also inflicted a host of other aural offences upon us over the two or more decades of her illustrious career. I was however pleased to see that Patti Labelle got an (unnamed) award too, no doubt also for her services to “world music”. Patti at least can perform and excite, and hey, that recently revived song that first saw the light of day 35 years ago was a classic. What else did she do in the intervening period? Well, a bit more that the Eagles did in the 28 years since they managed to condescend to put tracks to tape. At last however they have treated us with the awesomely named Long Road Out of Eden. The last LP was, I recall, The Long Run, released way back in 1979. So the titles haven’t got too imaginative in all that time, and, by all accounts, nor has the band’s music. This hasn’t prevented the record buying cognoscenti of the Sceptered Isle putting it straight in at No1, however; no doubt eager to find something to buy gramps for Christmas. The good news is that it is keeping Britney off the top slot - for now. But with repackages primed from the likes of Queen (again), Whitney (again) and, I believe, new albums from tiresome old “legends” Phil Collins and Eric Clapton, Ms Spears will get some stiff competition from the stiffs.

UAE and Israel

2007-10-26T16:36:00.000+04:00

It has been interesting to note the absence of comment in the UAE press (in English and what I have been able to see of the Arabic titles) about the US's Annapolis peace conference in November, other than the usual stuff about the need for a serious conference, not a US sponsored photo op. In the western and Arab media several candidates for participation in the peace conference have been proffered. Egypt and Jordan already have formal peace deals with Israel of course, and major financial subventions from the US as well as a strategic alignment. The latest from Cairo is that they will be there. Jordan maintains full level diplomatic representation with Israel and thus can hardly be expected to be absent. Morocco and Qatar have been suggested, two countries that have low level relations with Israel, as does Oman that gets mentioned less often as a possible attendee. Saudi blows hot and cold, but can hardly be expected to blow out the US as long as Abbas is there - and he has nowhere else to go. Syria, with more important business to attend to in Lebanon, has been begrudgingly given an indirect US invite with Saudi, and no doubt UAE, encouragement, but seems unlikely to bite. Bahrain has stepped up de facto normalisation in recent weeks. This more or less leaves the UAE. It is a member of the so-called Arab Quartet together with Egypt, Saudi and Jordan, which meets periodically with Condi to express concerns on the peace process and swap intel stories. While not exactly a normalisation with Israel vehicle, the AQ was encouraged by the Americans and the Saudis as the way to bring major Arab players half way to the table with Israel in order to encourage Israeli movement in their direction too. This was about Palestine but also about containing the common enemy Iran. The partial reaching out to Israel fitted with the Saudi Peace Plan under which Riyadh offered Israel a warm peace in exchange for Palestine, more or less lock stock and barrel on 1967 lines. While the virtual flirting continues in the run up to Annapolis, Condi is trying to get the Israelis and Palestinians (with Arab connivance) to agree an outline that would nail down some principles for a final status deal and offer some kind of timetable (don't say "roadmap") for getting there. This is pleasing the Saudis, but what does the UAE government think? Is there an alignment of view between the key players (player?) in Abu Dhabi and the singular leadership in Dubai? Of this we hear nothing, nada, zilch, nil, sifr, walla ish. This from a country that has built homes in Gaza, discussed buying the old settlements there, and over the longer term held credibility among Palestinians for its "steadfast" position over the historic Question. My guess is they can't fail to come to the Annapolis ball. They were at Madrid after all, but they are they not yet being named as possible attendees at this multilateral bash. What has been said to the roving "peaceniks" Condi and Blair in Abu Dhabi to suggest a coolness about Annapolis that is greater than their Arab brethren? Could it be that the long standing and still close relationship with the largely ostracised Syria is encouraging caution by the UAE?

"Extremists" allegedly threaten Bryan Adams

2007-10-14T11:18:00.000+04:00

It now appears that the Jericho event has been cancelled due to threats from "extremists". However this will not prevent Mr Adams performing at the Tel Aviv event. Sad that the organisers/"artists" felt so intimidated by threats when security dangers are a daily reality on the ground for the locals. According to organisers "One Voice", the event is under threat from Palestinian "extremists", but this organisation is currently sparing most of their factional invective for rivals in the peace camp who have apparently been accusing them of petitioning for a sell-out of the refugee cause.

I must say I didn't think that Palestinian "militants" would have been responsible for the threat to the event in Jericho, given that the performers would probably be seen as "useful idiots", to quote a dead Russian's dictum. I thought in fact that the Rabin killers may have gotten their way in Jericho, and would then be free to threaten the event in Tel Aviv. One Voice seem to be implying that "hardline" (often western) peaceniks have stirred up some dangerous local Palestinian hostility to the Jericho gig. But what do the organisers of the event think would have happened in Jericho? Palestinians suicide bombing fellow Palestinians attending a music event?

Involuntary martyrdom needed

2007-10-08T17:13:00.000+04:00

"Don’t tell me it's not worth fighting for, don’t tell me it's not worth dying for....."

For once I feel that an Israeli Defence Force targeted assassination would be a gift to humanity. This is one Canadian nobody, repeat nobody, needs

----------------------------------------

"Bryan Adams to sing for peace"
Oct 07, 2007 04:32 PM
by Dalia Nammari
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/Music/article/264466

RAMALLAH, West Bank – Canadian rocker Bryan Adams will headline concerts for peace in the West Bank and Israel later this month, with performances relayed by satellite to simultaneous events in London, Ottawa and Washington, organizers said today.

Adams, 47, had a string of multi-platinum albums during the 1980s and mid-1990s and was nominated for an Academy Award for ``Everything I Do,"
his theme for the 1991 Kevin Kostner film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.

The New York-based One Voice peace movement said the concerts are aimed at bolstering its campaign to collect one million signatures from ordinary Israelis and Palestinians demanding that their leaders finalize an agreement on a Palestinian state living at peace with Israel.

The head of One Voice's Ramallah office, Fathi Darwish, said Adams would launch the West Bank event at a football stadium in the ancient town of Jericho, then head to Tel Aviv to perform in the second half of the three-hour show there.

The two venues are about 90 minutes apart by road, though Israeli army roadblocks can make the trip significantly longer. Darwish said Adams might travel by helicopter.

Other artists booked to appear on the Jericho stage are Iraqi guitarist Ilham Al Madfai, Israeli Arab Hip-Hop outfit DAM and Palestinian singers and dancers.

"Our goal is to send a message to the world, that the Palestinian people love life, and hope for life and liberation," Darwish said.

In Tel Aviv, Mashina, Hadag Nachash, Ehud Banai and other rock and pop acts are to perform.

Both events will feature addresses by officials and local peace activists. Hollywood celebrities were expected to send messages by videolink, the organizers said.

One Voice's Hollywood supporters include Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston, Rhea Perlman, Danny de Vito and Jason Alexander.

One Voice said last month it so far had just over half a million signatories to its initiative – split about equally between Israelis and Palestinians – and was aiming to reach the one million target by the end of the year.

Entry to the Oct. 18 events will be free, but concertgoers must sign the One Voice petition to gain entrance, the movement's website said.

A Warning to All You Husbands Out There

2007-10-02T07:09:00.000+04:00

I found this most amusing, especially as my wife has an obsession with Saudi Channel 2 (English language; religiously-based programming)....not for nothing do some clerics call it Sunduq al-Sheitan (The Devil's Box)

Saudi Arabia: “Judge turns down divorce request for [wife] alone with the television”

On September 29, the Saudi Shams newspaper carried the following report by Ibtissam Al-Qahtani: “A judge in a tribunal in Riyadh turned down the request of a Saudi citizen who asked that his divorce be settled under the pretext that his wife was alone with men while watching a program on a satellite channel. The judge considered it was illogical to hold the wife accountable for that and that his wife watching television was not considered an illegitimate seclusion. The judge asked the husband to review his decision… but the latter insisted on the divorce.

“Ali Al-Harbi, one of those who copied the divorce papers at the public notary’s office, said to Shams that the husband asked the judge to state the reason why he filed for divorce and to try her for having disobeyed him by watching television alone while there were men [in one of the programs]… For her part, the wife who was divorced said to Shams she was surprised by her husband’s request… She added: “The judge was very fair when he turned down my husband’s request and explained to him that he was mistaken for divorcing me because I watched a program on TV that is hosted by men. However, my husband’s obstinacy prevented him from understanding what the judge was saying and he insisted on getting divorced”.

“She pointed out: “A few weeks ago, I was watching a talk show on an Islamic channel. I was very worried because I was afraid my husband would come in and see me watching television since I am banned from doing so… Unfortunately he entered the room while I was still watching TV and I tried to turn it off. But he prevented me from doing so, insulted me and asked me to leave the house.”

Live at the Lime

2007-09-30T10:28:00.000+04:00

With the Ramadhan emphasis on culturally refocussing, open mics and the weekly Lime Loft sessions have been necessarily parked. The last time I checked out what was happening was one of the Thursday nights at the recently launched Lime Theatre Loft events near the Fairmont Hotel, off Sheikh Zayyed Road. On that occasion, a mixed bag of accoustic and "unplugged" sets were delivered by Messrs Graham Park, Neil and Andy (?) and Mike Ross. Mr Park and the informally named duo were in their different ways, overtly Brit; Mr Ross was overtly Canadian. Nothing wrong with that on either score I venture. The problem with guitarist and singer Graham Park (isn't that in Hackney?) was the classic English understatement, when cranking up the literal and emotional volume on his often excellent songs would have made a world of difference. As he soldiered on it was getting harder and harder to hear him from fairly close proximity to the stage as he declined to up the ante as the braying of the already beer-sodden exiled Brit bar props gained volume. Neil and Andy had no such problem. Their younger, Oasis style, almost sing-along approach, plus greater amplification given the use of (wow!) electric guitar, proved an easier hit with England's finest. Appeals in the intervals from Dubai Lime's drole comic compere went unheeded at the bar however when Mike Ross came on. His first few songs were nearly drowned out as the Anglo-Saxon chorus made his set a battle for audability. By the end, the mild-mannered Canadian won on points as the emotional strength and vocal power of his performance tipped the scales in favour of musicality over barrack room beery excess. The question for me is what can be done to ensure that a paying gig takes centre stage over just another weekend night in a pub? Perhaps the answer is to hire a louder PA system, get more musicians on the stage, and utilise the big blokes on the doors to mingle with the great unwashed at the bar.

Hi-tech telecom revolution falls flat

2007-09-27T09:10:00.000+04:00

I have become a little obsessed after a recent fracas with the long time monopoly provider. After 10 attempts to pay my bills (as usual) on line and two ignored emails, I finally found the courage and the time to call their erroneously named "help desk". It appears that the reason why I have been getting automated payment receipt numbers and then "payment not authorised" messages is because a decision was recently made by fiat to no longer accept non-UAE credit or debit cards for payment of bills. Apparently it was considered appropriate to only inform customers of this when they ring up and complain, not to put it in the automated email that is sent with the payment "confirmations". (I do not have a local credit card, suprisingly, perhaps, I find a Barclays Visa and a Barclaycard usually sufficient for my purposes).

I asked the genuinely pleasant person on the other end of the line what I should do to pay my bill, which is now about 2 weeks overdue. I was invited to visit a local payment center. My protest that I do not have the time or the inclination to schlepp all the way down there was met with the helpful suggestion that I send someone on my behalf. Great. I do not have a car, but no doubt I can send a servant to pay on my behalf with the credit card that they no longer accept. You can go to one of the many cash payment places, she helpfully suggested. Sure, I usually carry AED1000 in readies....Just how backward and un-user friendly can the otherwise very generous patrons of the local telecom monopoly be? (I note in this regard their "voluntary" payment to the latest state charitable mobilisation).

Postscript:

Upon schlepping over to the local telecom office today I found that I could in fact pay in person with my foreign-issued VISA card if I wanted (but NOT on-line)...This seems like a security issue therefore. But perhaps there is a credit card war too. I was charged a 2% mark up on a flight recently due to paying with a FOREIGN Visa card. Some residents from a neighbouring country could find cash use the norm over next few months....perhaps we will all be affected by a (US encouraged) tightening of control over financial flows around here.....

Live @ Central Perk

2007-08-28T12:46:00.000+04:00

Arriving at my first ever Dubai Lime music event, having sadly missed the previous night's opening of the regular showcase events that began at the Loft in Lime Theatre, I had little idea of what to expect of an "open mic" event. The term itself suggested a fairly open access, concomitant at least with what hard work had succeeded in facilitating with the powers that be. So inevitably this was not quite "come all ye", but "open microphone" was the term used in the coffee bars of the early 60s New York "folk boom" and the only qualification, aside from the bureaucratic, as far as I could work out, appeared to be the self-confidence to get up there and do it. Of course Greenwich Village this ain't, and initially arriving at a brighter version of Starbucks in the middle of an admittedly almost tasteful Mall (upper Mirdiff), I wasn't exactly full of hope. I knew that the stress for these gigs was on original material played by locally based musicians, and for the most part that was what we ended up getting, which is no small achievement for the singers concerned. And hey, when the covers are as gutsy a version of Knockin on Heaven's Door that an un-named singer and the guitarist Kareem belted out, who's complaining? The acts came fairly thick and fast, all to such a high professonal standard that I found it hard to believe what I was told on the night that none of them perform on a regular basis professionally. I have to say that they all sounded like they do, almost too much so in fact, when a looser feel might have been better. Kareem is an accomplished acoustic guitarist who is apparently aching to play the blues. I think he should. He was followed by 11th Hour, who did immaculate covers; and then two young solo singer-songwriters whose songs, inevitably, showed a debt to contemporary stylists of this oeuvre. This need not prevent strong emotion, and good songwriting, however; and Ramsey Phillips and the guy who followed him (apologies) certainly displayed both. Top marks though has to go the singer-guitarist Jennifer from Canada. I initially found myself going for the inevitable circa 1970s pigeon-holing, and then discarded these thoughts and simply enjoyed the strength of her voice and overall performance. Look forward to more open mic and "Loft" sessions around town like these.

Psychedelic Shacks

2007-08-24T12:00:00.001+04:00

Irish schlep in Deira

2007-08-24T11:48:00.000+04:00

Went to my first genuinely social event in nearly 6 months spent in Dubai the other night. Organized by Dubai Lime, the ground-breaking music and arts facilitators, this was an evening for all Limers at the newly opened “Irish Corner” at the “Al-Khaleej Holiday” (!,) near Deira. Yes! A return to Deira, a must for me, a free beer, and a chance to give some credence to the name of this blog. Things initially didn’t quite turn out the way I had hoped, however, as my usual standard of logistical prep, and seeming inability to retain vital intel, meant that the journey cross the Creek to the Hotel took about an hour. Yes, past spring time evening and even daytime schleps on the East Side had encouraged me to stroll over, initiating the journey via an abra to Sabkha Station. So far, so sweatily good. However Maktoum Road is not exactly a short or comfortable stretch in jeans at the height of Dubai summer, as I should very well know. What’s more, I was convinced (natch) that I knew this Irish bar from previous experience of what a former DJ has termed the “dark side” of Dubai. I strolled on and on, my trendy tight shirt rapidly becoming proportionately more wet than dry, and my feet blistering badly in so sensible fuggin sandals…..Al Khaleej Palace….nope, ignored that, and headed for an Irish place I remembered seeing near the Clock Tower roundabout….Oh yes, the Dublin Castle (not), the Dublin Bar, or whatever, IS still there, but is of course not quite a five star scene. About turn, and twenty minutes later I am inside the Al Khaleej Holiday, dripping wet, dodging the blonde Russian girl who wants me to go straight into the Limers’ party, and heading for the bogs for a desperate attempt to brush up. At this point I am actually nervous quite about this, but soft (ish) lighting and usual bonhomie made sure that the evening was a lot of fun. I did feel like a bit of an old fart at times struggling to hear what people one foot away from me were saying, but hey, I’m 43, and the DJ was way too loud (shud’up grand-dad). Key thing for me was making new contacts, enjoying some very interesting chat. One long-time resident suggested that this bar and the ongoing hotel development around Deira could indicate a trend that may happen in the city as the struggle for affordable space continues, and places like Jumeira and new housing developments way out west are largely (and in my view boringly) ethnically segmented. It also, we agreed, has a very interesting and unexplored, for many westerners, night time scene (see “Southern Rock” blog entry). Whether the delight of south asian bars and night clubs in two star hotel would survive a major western invasion however is debatable. All in all, this turned out to be a good evening, and for me, a major incentive to check out the “open mic” and now Lime Theatre evenings that are being organized by Dubai Lime. http://www.dubailime.com

Psychedelic Creek

2007-08-24T10:27:00.000+04:00

Welcome to Iraq

2007-08-18T15:42:00.001+04:00

Saudis police desert border with Iraq

2007-08-18T14:54:00.000+04:00

I recently visited Judeida, one of five border post headquarters (qiyada) dotted along the nearly 1000km stretch that is the Saudi-Iraqi border. Flying into the nearby Saudi town of Ar'ar from Riyadh, I was reminded of the look of an Iraqi or Syrian town. Certainly this sleepy 150,000 Saudi border settlement is far closer to Iraq in location and tribal terms than the northern Saudi cities of Jowf or Tabuk, let alone Riyadh or Jiddah. Along the border, the haris al-hudud (border guard), a branch of the interior ministry, conduct patrol by "dareeah", pick up trucks with machine guns for cargo, while night vision cameras are used each night by four similar vehicles in response to daily intel feeds. The Judeida Qiyada covers seven markaz ("centres") - sentry posts - where a small contingent of drivers and assistants move between these fixed points in a virtually non-stop procession, aside, that is, from prayer and meal times. Between nine and fifteen dareeah drive all day and night along two tracks that run alongside the three, three metre or so high, sand banks that separate the north of the kingdom from the anarchy of Iraq. The border area from the third to the first and last sand-banked border line (see pic below) is designated as a "closed military area". There are asphalted roads that run into this area and between the sand banks, and, I was told, no check-points to prevent a Saudi civilian driver entering, and, in theory, speeding on to Iraq. However they would no doubt soon be stopped by one of the official vehicles if they tried. It was also pointed out to me that the sand affords detection of footprints from those trying a stealthier approach, and that any prints are observable in the headlights of the dareeah vehicles. This would appear to be reasonably efficient, if possibly rather belated, method of detection. The whole terrain of the northern border area is essentially "sahel" - bleak, flat, and fairly forbidding, with few very inhabitants, save, I am told, a few bedu. (Their loyalty, however, may be as fixed as their postal address). Of course, despite there being no open crossing, it is admitted that Iraqis do get through to the Saudi side, though only "several", it is conceded, make the illegal journey in a given year. Some of course will be seeking work, or to trade in drugs, others will be handed to intelligence officers on the assumption that their purpose is terroristic. Not one Saudi, it is said officially, goes this way into Iraq, however. This makes sense, the terrain and the existence of many local inhabitants makes the Jordan then Syrian crossing rather more amenable, especially as it connects with a potentialy more welcoming reception in western Iraq than the largely Shia south. There is a long-standing haj border crossing in the Judeidah area, and two years ago this was opened for the annual month of pilgrimage for the first time since the 1991 Gulf war. An obvious potential security risk, the Iraqi hajis going from Iraq into Saudi (see above pic) will be greeted by 50 haris al-hudud officers and 200 intelligence officers when they move further down to the haj processing centre. For the rest of the year it is dead, with no one visible on the Iraqi side, and only a locked gate on the Saudi side. For the most part, this was a pretty convincing official tour of border security operations. Although I could not help but wonder at the relatively small scale of the operation at what represents one fifth of the border security operation on a 1000 km stretch for which, I was constntly reminded, there is only one country actually doing anything at all. Of course a far more sophisticated set up is planned, with infra-red detectors et al, to prepare for the seemingly inevitable worsening of the situation just metres from here. Contracts for the first of the hi-tech three phase border security project may be awarded before the end of the year, with Jordan and Yemen following the beefing up of the Iraqi border. For now, the inspection of pick ups and a few mobile night vision cameras seem to suffice.

Viewing Iraq from Saudi perspective

2007-08-18T14:49:00.000+04:00

Al-Fatah

2007-08-11T11:47:00.002+04:00

Visited al-Balad, the downtown area of Jiddah last night, and walked around the nearby muntaqa al-tareekhi, the historic area, where some of the old Jiddah is undergoing reconstruction efforts. A baladiyya official proudly showed by the names of nearly 14,000 locals who were signing up for voluntary work scrubbing off graffiti. This civil responsibility is surely a very good sign, though I could not help by notice that many of those in the queue keen to get the goody back and a number in the lottery, were south Asians. Perhaps they are assuming they can skip the unpaid labour part. The remains of a castle (in the masaluwn area) provides a very attractive focal point in this area, however the surrounding wooden shuttered old buildings are in a pretty poor state. You do not have to walk far in Jiddah, here, or near the souq area, to imagine you are in the “developing world”. That is partly the style of life in a city that is a focal point of haj pilgrims from all over the world. However it also begs the question about local funding and efficiency. The press continues to contain stories of water still being provided by lorry in parts of the city, and that this apparently gets more expensive in poorer areas that are less accessible by vehicle. Walking around last night, close to the historic area for which a new clean up is planned, I saw a lot of trash and broken glass and poorly paved walkways. It is not a shortage of revenues that explains this. ….

One very positive moment, however, was dining in the Al-Fatah restaurant, just around the corner from the Masaluwn. It serves fantastic foul and masuwb for desert, among other delights. Great place, great atmosphere helped by regional and international staff, and almost embarrassingly cheap.

Peace, war or containment?

2007-08-11T11:47:00.001+04:00

Great excitement emanates from the Israeli government at the prospect of Saudi Arabia’s attendance at the post-Ramadan Middle East peace summit as an early and perhaps unexpected prize of normalisation. However in the Kingdom the expectation of its attendance is balanced by the presumption of a firm party line stance by a middle ranking official who will merely reiterate what is wanted from Israel vis-à-vis the Palestinians for there to be truly normalised relations with Saudi. There is also though a sense on the part of some Saudis that the Kingdom has some scope for influencing the US administration, and quiet confidence that it has played a significant part in ensuring that the summit will at least underline the importance of addressing the endgame issues that Bush referred to when announcing the conference last month. However, with little prospect of the detail of these issues being seriously addressed when or before the parties meet in late October, something that Saudi Arabia initially responded to the conference announcement by saying it wanted, then this is not the beginning of a process that the Kingdom any great hopes for. On the other hand the proposed conference is being viewed as having “Madrid” features, the multilateral peace conference launched in the wake of the Gulf war in 1991, which in effect recognised the celebrated “linkage” in terms of ending the occupation of territory, whether Kuwait or Palestine. Under the cover of international support for the planned conference, including that of the UN, then the Saudis will once again lend their diplomatic imprimatur to a multilateral conference. However, while the linkage this time is the slightly more confused one of the US need for a coalition to build success in Iraq and recognising that diplomatic effort on Palestine might contribute to it, this is hardly the stuff that motivated James Baker III in 1992. From a Saudi perspective, the substance on the part of the US (as well as Israel) is lacking. Schemes emanating from Israel involving swapping settlement blocs for parts of the heavily Arab populated Galilee add little lustre to the prospect of attendance. The wider context of Iraq, and therefore of containing Iran, however, is something that seems to have more cache here. In this respect the most significant recent event by far was the US announcement last week of a US$20bn arms package to the Kingdom. This, and the tussle over what Saudi is and isn’t doing regarding the presence of Saudi nationals in Iraq, and how opposed it is or isn’t to the current Iraqi government, were part of the background music to one recent, albeit fairly small, move from the Kingdom to “normalising” relations with Iraq. Considering opening an embassy, however, won’t bring peace to Iraq. Thus small steps, toward Israel, toward Iraq, but nothing that substantive from the Kingdom either. Meanwhile, the Saudi strategic alliance with the US against Iran is consolidated, providing reassurance to the Kingdom and shades of the 1980s, minus Saddam. However, this is not seen as war preparation but as a deepening of a defensive division in the Gulf, and that suits the Saudis very well.

Nafoura

2007-08-11T11:43:00.001+04:00

Jiddah Jive

2007-08-08T11:04:00.000+04:00

First night out since I arrived here five nights ago. With much of the daytime spent in my hotel room working and having spent the last few nights in meetings or waiting to be in a never to materialise meeting, getting the chance to check out the corniche and the city’s famous nafoura fountain was very welcome. Driving in a taxi downtown from my hotel felt good. The Moevenpick, or Al-Amoudi as it will no doubt remain known for years, snuggles up to the main Tariq Medina highway, and is handy for nothing save the interior ministry, and tiresome western clothing chains spread in ugly fashion across the shopping area other side of the busy road. Felt even better to be buying cheap shwarma on the corniche road before checking out the unruly shebab on the seafront. They could do with mutaawa being shipped in from Najd out here. Hijazi liberalism was running riot as kids raced around in those superannuated go karts and boys and girls let off fireworks and bangers with (almost) wild abandon. At one point about ten shabab were riding the silly, unlicensed, vehicles the wrong way down the road at a main junction before then crossing it on red. Don’t let anybody tell you this is a police state.

I strolled around checking out the corniche restaurants, thinking of future evenings as I am here for another five nights. Other delights of this almost funky Saudi city are of course beggars, including old haji women who missed the boat back to Africa after the pilgrimage was over. Real restaurants and real shops are always a delight when you’ve been ensconced in hotel land. I soon found the delightfully named “Meed” supermarket and purchased a plastic snake and a Mars bar, eyed up the local garage with its arresting sign (see pic), before making my way down Palestine Street to catch a cab from a very pleasant disco cassette playing driver from Kerrala back to the Moevenpick. A real delight of an evening.

Garage offer

2007-08-08T11:00:00.001+04:00

Visa collection rituals

2007-08-01T18:48:00.000+04:00

Spent the last three days engaging with the visa collection process at the Saudi consulate in Dubai. My work largely revolves around the Kingdom, so this is not as strange a temporary relocation as it might sound. The first step to gain entry into the Holy Land is to find yourself a sponsor of very high standing. Of course the need to have a sponsor to live and work is the stuff of common currency among residents of Dubai and other Gulf emirates. In Saudi however even a brief visit requires some form of local support. You might, if you're a journalist attending a government-related event, be rushed through the process. However the interior ministry would still have had to sponsor you, while the final “tick” will have to have come from the foreign ministry to which the consulate obviously reports.

On this occasion I have been lucky enough to secure support in the Kingdom and thus received a fax with the crucial visa authorisation number that has to be presented at the consulate in Dubai. However there is no point showing up at the consulate without a typed visa application in Arabic that a handy, round the corner, office located at one end of a supermarket will for a modest fee provide for you. If it is before mid-day, the deadline for lodging your visa application at the consulate, then you will have to elbow your way in alongside the “mandabs”, the attaché briefcase wielding agents who, for a fee, service your application…by the gross, or more. I am, by dint of personality and company budget, a solo operator.

Having got to the supermarket in the afternoon two days ago I found myself enjoying a super efficient service from the friendly and mainly Egyptian male typing pool there assembled. At 830 am sharp the next morning, heaving taken a pleasant late July stroll down there, I sweatily fought to ensure that, having arrived outside the door of the consulate first, that I would be granted the much prized ticket number 501 and thus have a reasonable chance of being served first. I was. I then paid a sizeable fee and was told to return the next afternoon.

This was the second time of going through this process, but I still marvel at its risible elements. Arrive before opening time at 2pm and you can, luckily, sit in the AC cooled waiting area for your lucky number to come up. You can however soon feel the increasing tension as the professional visa agents swoop around, checking for the right body language on the other side of the glass to confirm that their waiting might soon be over. These often big men with thick set features and hands like plates of meat, prowl about, waiting to jump when the passport largesse gets distributed. After 20-30 minutes the grubby plastic trays of passports replete (in sh’allah) with visit visas, are placed in position and the scrum rapidly forms. Those with the right numbers try to elbow their way to the front, past burly mandabs with ethnic and attitudinal advantages over many of the solo operators. My turn came fairly soon. A visa to visit the Kingdom. Free at last, Lord God Almighty, free at last.

Suits you Sir

2007-07-29T22:29:00.000+04:00

Broke free from my usual routine this evening and headed straight for the creek and got the abra to cheap suit land near the Sabkha Station, Deira. Among the array of outfitters in the Twin Towers (sic) Mohammed from Damascus sold me a AED 1,200, 100% lightweight wool suit made in Paris (apparently). It fits me, possibly too well, but as long as the gym where I normally go of an evening doesn’t make too much impact on my impossibly rakish physique, then I will look like 10,000 dirhams. The abra back had taken us alongside the Ruler’s Court and the adjoining souk where they have installed some creek side coloured lights. The effect, on an empty stomach, was decidedly hallucinatory. In then collected a cheap pair of shorts from a shop in Bur Dubai with the friendliest bunch of guys from the "computer state" in India…..they offered me pepsi too, but had to grab shwarma from the friendliest kebab seller in Dubai who stands on the Faheidi roundabout. He hasn’t been back to Kerrala in ten years, and is married with children. Started pressing his buttons and I thought for a minute he was going to cry….but these guys are made of harder stuff than western males….

I am currently preparing for a return trip to the Holy Land, this time spending most of the trip in Jiddah rounding up a few summer sojourners before returning to the capital for some obligatory pain. Actually I kind of like the capital, such a good party scene when you are in with the right crowd. Hope I can find a gym back there as I have just started a routine that will make me irresistible by Christmas. Providing I do the right degree of networking out in Saudi, then I will have an interesting report to offer up to the world audience that my company attracts.

Bar fly country blues

2007-07-29T22:27:00.000+04:00

Recognising that the audience I enjoy here is a tad smaller, I think it is time to start a debate about American Stars n Bars as the greatest and yet, strangely, possibly one of the most ignored Neil Young albums (well apart from, justifiably, much of what he produced in the 80s). Aside from the penultimate track that everyone knows (Like a Hurricane), which still kicks ass, there is all the booze fuelled country rock, that tears up a storm on numbers like Saddle up the Palomino and Bite the Bullet, the sheer romantic joy of Hey Babe, and then one of the most affecting songs in the singer songwriter, declamatory, vein I have heard in a long, long while, Will To Love. Essentially this is Neil Young as a fish fighting against the odds to get upstream on an impossible quest for love, going half mad in the process, and knowing it and not caring. This and the inspired accompaniment provided by the band, including various sound effects, and the crack of the open fire against which this has been performed live (like much of the set I reckon) gets me every time. Oh, and there’s the ode to the greenstuff, Homegrown, and Star of Bethlehem, which is more the classic mid tempo acoustic Neil Young, and still a damn fine tune all the same. There, now I know this debate will run and run…..

Another Day in Bur Dubai

2007-07-19T22:54:00.000+04:00

Arrived back two nights ago after a flight in from Gatwick. An Arab Iranian taxi driver from Bandar Abbas drove me from the airport. A chance to “speak” Arabic, a rare opportunity in this city state of new buildings and mass immigration. From feelings of despair over the first 24 hours I seem to have reached a more even keel emotionally. Pain at missing her, leavened by reacquainting myself with the solo life that I had almost perfected in the Hotel California in Deira. A day of largely indifferent tapping on the laptop yesterday gave way to a rare session at the gym, having collected three etisalat bills en route (why go the trouble of mailing them together?), and a return trip via the local supermarket Al Madina to cook a Rajastani vegetable dish hastily scribbled down from my wife’s cook book. I am consciously emulating her daily routine over the three weeks I was in Saudi Arabia last month, and it certainly lifted my mood, even if the rareness of a solo cooking experience meant I didn’t eat ‘til gone 1030. An evening in the kitchen listening to a Dubai Eye phone-in on labour issues proved surprisingly stimulating, helping me to feel more at ease with my surroundings, after the difficulty of leaving her in London. This pattern, with a more productive work day and the benefits of cooking food in large quantities, made the evening ritual today a decidedly easier affair, even if the gym was a physical struggle and Dubai Eye brought on waves of alternating elation and misery with its “John Lennon Profile”.

At Gatwick two night earlier I had sat despondent, reflecting on how over the previous 2 weeks in London I could ever have complained about anything when the increasingly rare ability to spend time together is pure delight compared to the feeling of being alone at the airport, waiting to return to a white-walled apartment devoid of character in an overheating desert metropolis. From feeling almost indifferent at the prospect of departure, I felt as sad as I had ever done at such moments. Part of me felt glad, however, satisfied that I had plainly not become the cold desiccated calculating machine that I sometimes fear is to become my fate. The previous night we had visited our neighbour, a beautiful man whose ill health has prematurely aged him and confined him to his home, an experience that made me resolve to make more of our time left together. We have less than 25 years until we reach his probable age. Seeing the new British film, This is England, that afternoon, set largely in 1982 (though it says 1983 on the promo) only underlined how fast the previous quarter century has gone by. From the Falklands to file-sharing, a lot has and hasn’t changed, but the conception of time certainly has as we have grown older, largely together.

I’d give anything to have known her then, or perhaps when I was a bit older. To chat, to drink, to have fun. I know she has always been sweet to those who are sweet to her. Of course she may have found me uninteresting at that age, a recovering Christian with hard left tendencies (testicles? Ed.), and therefore her natural sweetness may have been offset by decided boredom at the suburban blandness of a late flowering virgin. We first set eyes on each other, I think, at her parents’ house in Christmas 1987, although she does not remember the experience. We didn’t meet properly until a folk festival in Sidmouth (where else?) in the summer of 1989. She had interested me a lot then, but I was camped out in a far flung field and I think she had other things on her mind. I remember her that first year though. We entered a large pub near the seafront, with manifold would-be folkies in tow, got drinks (she probably paid), and for some reason began talking about a mutual love, David Bowie. She adopted a decidedly serious tone and stated that he was a very good looking man. I remember simultaneously feeling a bond with her, while feeling somewhat chastened at that remark.

Hidden history

2007-06-27T23:50:00.000+04:00

A Foreign Affair

2007-06-27T23:45:00.000+04:00

Have moved out to the east side of the kingdom in an effort to find a different perspective on developments of late. Assessments of the differences of opinion within the family largely follow assumptions found elsewhere as to the usual suspects opposing the assumed urge for domestic political change emanating from the very top. However, when looking at affairs outside the kingdom’s borders, views alter from those that tend to be found in the capital. A sojourn on the east-side can see starker views on what is motivating policy among different key policy actors. An essentially consensual decision-making model motivated by the desire to project the kingdom’s Arabism without antagonising Iran whilst rigorously policing those in the family who over step the policy mark is a common explanation in the capital. Eastwards, one also hears that there is a consensus behind policy, however one based on more sinister machinations, apparently designed to re-export radicalism in advance of sectarian aims, partly in a bid to contain Iran and, in the process, some say, Egypt, which supposedly motivates the Saudi projection of strength in the Gulf. Around this, senior figures are apparently united. A brief Saudi flirtation with Palestinian unity is acknowledged in the capital and its eastern detractors as having been genuine. However both see little scope for any bold renewed effort to once again oversee national unity efforts in an ill-fated land for which most Saudis in the capital have little patience and those eastward have little knowledge. These views, if right, essentially leave the leadership watching and waiting, lacking any substantive vision, and preoccupied with subterranean tactical positioning in neighbouring disputes rather than any real desire to contribute to a way to resolve them.

Designer salafi

2007-06-18T20:13:00.001+04:00

In the office of a reformist cleric I waited. My irritation at a sweaty attempt to locate the place gave rise to a modest conflagration with his Amani suited, salafi bearded, assistant. As soon as I walked in, he strutted toward me, refused to indulge my weak Arabic, and displayed an almost effete but bitchy manner reminiscent of an office queen sensitive to their petty rank. Moments later he demanded my business card for presentation to the office director. Once he had thankfully departed, I slipped into the toilet to great my dearest friend. Upon my exit, the start of the call to pray had seen the waiting area fill with all the office’s foreign staff as the rolled up carpets I had previously spied were pressed into action and the nida was answered. I stepped between genuflecting devotees and stood awkwardly at the back as the prayers continued. I noted that those Saudis still present in the office (it was 330pm) continued to chat as their underlings got on with the serious business of respecting what is almost mandatory in the kingdom. Before long, a friendly Pakistani bawab ushered me into the meeting room where my things had been arrayed in anticipation for the arrival of the cleric. With prayers still continuing as he arrived, indifferent to any need to join in, he apologised for being late. I guess the hadith on exemptions to the imperative to observe the call to prayer and the cultural imperative to honour guests did not obligate his participation. I wondered also if, for all his religiosity, there is resentment with the regimentation that is officially required from the religious establishment, as opposed to the popular enactment of religious principles that he wants to see. He proved to very impressive, and highly pleasant to boot. I am intrigued by the scope of the transformation that would be wrought, should power be as consensually based as he wants.

Disorientation technique

2007-06-17T14:37:00.000+04:00

It’s strange to be in Riyadh and to be reminded of my three month Hotel California incarceration back in Dubai. It’s not that I am wondering if I will ever leave my current hotel, off the Olaya Road, it’s just the familiar breakfast room scene. This time no over-attentive waiters I want to stab with my steely steely butter knife, but the same dismal selection of instant coffee, tea, cold egg and cardboard corn flakes lightly dusted with sweetener. Unlike the HC however, these guys don’t offer any kind of cold drink, not even tap water. On arriving in the modestly air conditioned “mezzanine” I had to engage in a complex exchange in Arabic and English with, I think, a Vietnamese guy, who I thought was telling me that water was "tap", to which I said "no problem", only to find that he was actually saying it was “charge”, a rather different concept to which my reaction was an angry “la”….I expressed to him later how appalling it was to offer your guests such a sumptuous selection of food and hot drinks, but to deny them complementary water. The next day I got them to bring me some chilled eau d’tap, a privilege, only upon request, I was treated to the following morning as well, albeit at more like room temperature. Yesterday, however, was a write off. I had previously been told at reception breakfast did not start until 8, but rang the desk anyway as I had woken early to see if this really the start time for the most important meal of the day. "Akeed".. 7'o clock it will start, I was assured, and arrived at the mezzanine to find only empty tables. This morning, deciding it was safer to arrive at 8, it was the same, however I discovered that breakfast had been relocated and in fact always begins at 7….."maloom". However not only was cold water still not standard, but the hot water for making tea was cold too. I placed my finger in my freshly made cup of tea to accentuate the point to the waiter

My first hotel upon arrival in this dustbowl was The Riyadh Palace. It took the driver an eternity to find as he wanted to take me to a backstreet three star. However this dubiously described five star was too far from where I needed to be. On reflection I wished I taken the three star as I am currently still in dispute with them about an extra night’s charges that they have deducted from my bank card – without authorization. This house of ill repute is in hiya’ al wazaraat (ministerial area). Be warned. (After 36 hours I have just been told that I will be credited what was taken in error…)

It’s great to be in my present abode, however. Huge apartments without natural light and subtle over-head strip lighting have always been the best places to relax in. However the ample kitchen allows much room for storing cold drinks and Saudi salami, so I am most delighted. Less thrilling was my failed attempt to let in natural light, which made the ultra thick blankets that cover the windows impossible to unroll again, and a two day battle to get a bulb for the single bedside light. All is now resolved, however, and I am in accommodational bliss. Natch.

Saudi circles

2007-06-15T14:00:00.000+04:00

The weather in Saudi Arabia is actually noticeably more hospitable than in Dubai. The dry dusty heat of landlocked Riyadh is more bearable than the humidity of the Gulf city of Dubai, although I know which I prefer.

Have been speaking to a mixture of officials, political analysts, and journalists so far, with the objective of further understanding internal and external developments in the kingdom. Relative progress is being made, but more interestingly perhaps have been the unexpected, almost off the wall, experiences. Visiting an office of a reform-orientated Islamist lawyer took me, thankfully, away from the mall scene of where I am based and allowed me to peruse an open street market where more ordinary folks come to shop. Highly observant in the mainstream religious tradition, and wearing his hatta in the loose manner of the like-minded, this man can amuse with the variety of the sources for his conspiracy based understanding of western politics. Although my facial reaction made him concede that the Da Vinci Code had some flaws, he was quite sure that this book captured the flavour of the secret powers of the Catholic Church. On his home turf, as it were, he is a more informative source, expressing the frustrations of those who want a more religiously orientated but apparently pluralistic model of authority, with legislative power held by an elected assembly and the powers of the executive clearly defined. Genial and generous to a fault, he asked if I would join him and one or two others of like mind for the maghreb (sunset) prayer when they would pay their respects to the family of a recently deceased senior government advisor. We set off in his beaten-up BMW, a measure of funding problems for this wing of political opinion, and arrived shortly to the melee that was the entrance to the departed patriarch’s home. My friend made his way to the mosque – I had assumed he meant that prayers would include me and all those paying their respects at the home – while I unhesitatingly stepped past the morass of police vehicles and limos to enter the grounds. I was the only westerner there and practically the only one not wearing regulation dish dasher and hatta. I was very soon approached and asked my business there, but in the most courteous manner. This was as much about curiosity about me and the desire to ensure that I could be properly received as an outsider, as an attempt to protect the relative solemnity of the occasion from a possibly inappropriate guest. An English speaker was produced, although I did not really want one, as my rudimentary Arabic really sufficed for the occasion. I proffered details about who I worked for etc, but emphasised that I too wanted to pay my respects and this was keenly facilitated as my “handler” introduced me to the two senior sons of the deceased and light-bulbs flashed and the crowds parted as I exchanged firm hand shakes with the two men and somewhat nervously made suitable obloquies about their father’s highly respected status and influence. There was genuine appreciation for the fact that this westerner wanted to join such an occasion. My handler, presumably satisfied that I was what I professed to be, was happy to leave me to the attention of the reformers who had invited me, and I was introduced to a more senior figure from the trend. The occasion proved to be an instructive flavour of how this “movement” seeks inside allies in its gentle but sometimes quite public effort to advance its case. That said, there had not been any insider encouragement of their recent initiative to propose changes, and arrests had followed. That though was a development that can seemingly be blamed on more conservative parts of the authority structure. It is also a measure of how those with radically different political views seek to find entry via official doors, not all of which are firmly closed, and how social and religious ties maintain a kind of unity, especially when the departed can garner relatively wide political sympathy.

The next day I had an appointment with a foreign national, but long resident, journalist. Urbane, he proceeded on a long discourse about what he saw as the conflict of societal opinion in the kingdom’s modern history. More usefully he then related this recent events and how openings were occurring for popular grievances to be expressed against targets that some of the leadership want to be reined in. I scribbled away, feeling this to be a meeting providing genuine insights from a good, ear to the ground, journalistic source. The seriousness of the exchange would inevitably be punctuated by bawabs bearing tea and phones ringing, but, more unexpectedly, climaxed in an alarm call from his desk clock to the tune of My Way. I swallowed hard and kept focused on the hints of top family intrigue.

Art scene

2007-06-03T17:52:00.000+04:00

Room with a View

2007-06-03T17:49:00.000+04:00

Art trip turns violent

2007-06-03T17:41:00.000+04:00

Went and checked out the Sharjah Biennale yesterday. The bus from Bur Dubai to Sharjah was a synch, though walking out to the Ghubaiba bus station at Shindagha was more of a challenge. The heat has shifted up several notches these days, and is akin to a broiling for much of the day. The breeze that the creek throws off can bring relief, though in the middle of the day this doesn’t seem to ease the discomfort. In Sharjah, a mere 15 minutes to the north once the driver got underway, we attempted to walk to the al-Ta’ayun street location for the Expo building, before coming to our senses and hailing a cab. The exhibition there was essentially installations related to environmental themes. Some, like the huge, billowing arrangement of gold and red metal, largely generated from whisky bottle tops and coffee packs (interesting cast offs), made a striking impact. Others, like table tops of sand in which you could draw a roadmap to peace were total bollocks. Our efforts to navigate our way to the Sharjah Art Museum for more Biennale delights proved fruitless. Asking a taxi driver in Arabic or English, or any of the “locals” where a major street is, proved equally pointless. After walking through the broiling heat, we decided to bail out and headed to the sprawling bus station near the Heritage area. Chaos never witnessed on a Friday in Dubai or Abu Dhabi could be seen, and for no apparent reason. South Asians fought each other to get on a mini bus, as the heat and exasperation overcame the relative queue discipline witnessed elsewhere. Having been shoved from behind, I mistakenly gave a mouthful to an old Haji who, it turned out, functions as the local enforcer. He waved his rather fetching hooked stick unceremoniously at the young guys who he had just single handedly hauled off the bus for daring to enter without his say so. Luckily I was with my wife, otherwise I would probably still be there now, as opposed to going straight to the front of the bus to sit in the Ladies’ seats…

Deira fridge fiasco

2007-06-01T13:58:00.000+04:00

(May 25) Apologies for the lapse in communication. Firstly I was seeking to find some furniture for an apartment that was devoid of any furnishings, save for fitted wardrobes and kitchen cupboards, and then my wife arrived five days ago and we have been trying to refamiliarise with each other, as well as get more furniture, not always an easy process on either count. We had a day together, which involved an overpriced but very tasty Lebanese mezze selection in a hot little café, and a romantic stroll down creek-side Bur Dubai, before the next day I returned to keyboard pounding and phone calls intended to ease, ironically enough, my passage out of here to spend a few weeks researching on one or two neighbouring countries. This didn’t help our situation, but now with the local weekend upon us we have been able to get closer to each other and, as I put it to her, she has “unblocked the drain”…..

It is strange to now be living across the creek from Deira. However there has been one key event to remind me of my old home. Before she arrived I purchased a couple of white goods from Deira Souq, having hopped back over on the abra. Given the financial situation, buying seriously second hand items have to been to an extent forced upon us, but of course the reason why you wouldn’t do that back home can soon seem oh so clear. After nine days, and only shortly after my wife’s arrival, the fridge went kaput. A brief inspection of the receipt given to me in one of the back allies off Musallah Road Deira revealed the legend “NO GUARANTEE” emblazoned across the document. I rang a number on it and asked for “boss”. To my surprise the bloke who answered offered to replace it with the same hi-tech model that very same day. Too good to be true? Indeed. Lateness is one thing, but on checking when the exchange would in fact take place, to be told that “pick up” charges would be at my expense, sent me through the roof. My usual strategic skills in the course of the ensuing argument over the phone ensured that I had no way out other than to back down and agree that I was probably not going to go to the police armed with the receipt and would in fact pay the fridge collection charge. Said item arrived at nearly 11pm and was filthy. "Boss" had plainly found his way to the back of his storage depot of ageing white goods and found the most dirt encrusted item he could to remind me of who, in fact, was boss. Two hours later and much back pain, the design classic was almost gleaming. A couple of smuggled mini bottles of schnapps and a game of Scrabble later (the kind of gig one looks for these days), and we felt brave enough to switch the machine on…….sounding good……

Today’s exercise is to get to Times Square, that being one of a plethora of malls, and to check out some white goods etc…..money suddenly having become less of an object…..

Med quintet play Blue

2007-05-19T22:15:00.000+04:00

Managed to get out of the empty shell that is my new abode in Bur Dubai and met a journalist friend at the Blue Bar at the Novotel in Za’abeel. I was pleasantly surprised, even if there wasn’t much Belgian beer on draft, there was Belgian beer. And then the Olivier Collete Quintette kicked in, a mix of a Lebanese rhythm section, Belgian keyboard player, Spanish guitarist and I think a French sax player. And they started with Footprints (from Miles Davis’ Miles Smiles album)….From there it was Herbie Hancock's "Watermelon Man" and then a third number that grooved along nicely but which I still can’t recall even after we quizzed the band in the interval. Footprints, like even the shlocky numbers they covered later, would begin in the tradition and then go off into a funky jam that was essentially ‘70s, driven by the electric keyboardist who gave it a period movie soundtrack feel. As my friend observed, an approach not unlike Coltrane covering “pop” from his era, though I kind of prefer the original Inch Worm to one or two of the lamer disco tunes they jammed around. In many ways the performance established a standard that could only go downhill in the second and third sets, but the band remained tight and engaging, and gems were still to come in the form of Mercy, Mercy (Canonball Adderly) and a blues cover (name unknown to me). We left as they headed into Knockin' on Heaven’s Door in the third set, though by this point the beer had made me more or less capable of being impressed by anything, short of the fat women with bare backs and plastic bra straps that cut swathes into their ample flesh. In general the drawbacks of the Blue Bar are few, aside from the name (if you tell your wife) and the food. The latter does enable you to stay in place though, which when these guys are playing, most weekends I gather, is worthwhile.

Deira souq

2007-05-13T21:50:00.000+04:00

Hotel California

2007-05-13T21:39:00.000+04:00

You can never leave?

2007-05-13T21:15:00.001+04:00

Back at the California Hotel, it was as if I had never been away, so pleased were the staff to welcome me back to what has become home. I am on the second floor this time, that much closer to the music action on the lower floors. However I am also labour camp side again, which means less early morning traffic hassle and marginally less mosque…..how have I come to feel like I am going to miss this place? Have I like some long stay in-mate, become institutionalised? In simple terms, two months is the longest I have spent living abroad since we lived in Jerusalem, and in this area you get a greater exposure to the life. Even if you are obviously a complete outsider, who isn’t? Most people just know their patch, and many little more than that. Spending time eating in many of the local food places, chatting to those who work around here, and shopping in the local shops, I have more familiarity with this area than I acquired in E17 after more than three years…….

Today I finally secured a flat. The property is in Bur Dubai, west of the river (creek) in the so-called OPC area (Al-Hamriya). I am feeling like I have somehow sold out. To me the creek is a real divider of life in this city, and part of me revels in the underbelly that is so alive -n the Deira side of the water. Still, the creek itself has its charms, either side of the divide, and our new place will be within walking distance, so there can still be plenty of nights down by the riverside. It’s funny, I’ve sat on the beach and looked at the Gulf, and caught glimpses of it from a speeding taxi going down Mina Road, but I don’t have any affinity with that rather more strategic waterway, compared to the old trade route that provides one of the more interesting features of the city. I will miss the madness of the Nasser choc (square), even though lunchtime walking around there can leave you almost feeling you are going to drop, especially as the year careens toward June. Still, Khaled ibn Al-Walid street in Bur Dubai is a pretty buzzy place whenever I have walked down it. Even if it is not the same buzz of this area, it is seemingly more of a mix of business and clientele. I don’t, however, recall it having the bizarre quality of a fur coat store catering mainly to overweight Russian women in unflatteringly tight and or cropped clothing alongside shops selling broiling chickens….Where the hell I wonder are the coats made, cant surely be Russia, or perhaps they’re Pakistani fakes….they sure as hell don’t look it…..I need to check them out before I, finally, check out of the California Hotel….Looks like this blog is going to have to have a name change….”Bur Dubai Diary” just won’t be the same…..

Emotional trip

2007-05-13T21:13:00.000+04:00

On the plane back from Europe, after a week of meetings at head quarters, I spent much of the time fighting against exhaustion and attempting, pointlessly, to read material related to my work. It was a definite downer after a pleasurable time meeting the staff at base and finding meaning in the organization that for so long had been just a collection of names, a number of whom I had simply harbored resentments against and yet many of whom could have done little more to have eased the long haul that has been setting up shop in Dubai.

On the plane I could not resist listening to a BBC recording of a Van Morrison performance at Glastonbury in 1987 which was available as part of the BA in flight entertainment. For some strange reason I had not been there, though almost felt like I was listening to it now. Missing my wife very much, “In the Garden” almost made me breakdown and I struggled to hold it together over the airline meal on which I was feasting. The emotion that the counterpoint of vocal and melody express, even if some of its overt religiosity is uncomfortable for some, surely has a universal resonance in its celebration of love whose intensity, devotion, and spirituality can make you feel “born again”.

Southern Rock

2007-05-04T00:14:00.000+04:00

At the California Hotel just off Nakheel street, there were, on the last count, four so called night clubs, at least three bars and at least two restaurants. None of these start up til at least 830, save for the Indian bar which is open all day. I headed to the latter round about 7 on the basis that it was Thursday night and the weekend somehow should start here. Killed more than 90 very slow minutes drinking Heineken draft waiting for the basement nightclub to kick in, watching three screens, eating tasteless popcorn and trying to read Gulf News in the dim, seedy light of a bar that, were it not just inside the entrance of a three star and policed by the manager every ten minutes, would very nearly be cool. I have lived in this place two months and tonite is the first time I have very checked out any of the music venues that actually the hotel very popular over the weekend. Trouble is, visiting these places at 8 or 9 o clock in the evening means that you’re catching the performers in rehearsal mode. I stumbled into the Omar Khyam night club, the Pakistani venue in the basement, and found myself in an audience of six , of whom four were staff. Around a discrete corner an African woman nursed a beer while the tubby male singer seemed to be singing at me while heavilly made up young girls in brightly coloured saris and head scarves for the most part did desultory moves while occasionally one would step up and make a reasonably serious effort at dancing, throwing off the head covering and concentrating on shaking her very long locks around like an extra from a hippie dance troupe. At one point the oldest, plainest, female grabbed the mic and matched the male singer for commitment, and more or less for volume. This was essentially for these singers, dancers and musicians a tepid warm up. Overly amplified, were two tabla players, very average in competence, but the sound of their instruments was exciting to hear in additon to the commonplace south Asian keyboard heavy music.

Heading for a food break on several pints is always a disappointment and hotel food, especially in this place, is never good as I, surely, should know. What I consumed was at least a means to fill a gap, before checking out the other venues in this hotel. Heading back down to the bowels of the building I had a choice of the Indian nightclub or the Bollywood dancers revue. Opted for the latter and soon wished I had had the detachment that allowed several other punters to check out the scene and promptly leave. The male musicians in this place did nothing except play tapes and the girls danced, or rather moved occasionally in a stiff unenthused fashion to whatever was played. At this point, I was reminded of Bowie’s "Queen Bitch", knew for sure that “I could do better than that”, and texted my totally sober wife to inform her of this revelation. I then reminded myself that I do not have pert breasts and that is what the young men in this audience are paying AED20 a can of Heineken for, and seemingly giving the maitre d one dirham coins to lavish on the solo dancer for. I soon made my excuses and headed back to my room for a tap water, and a blast of southern rock on my MP3 player c/o Neil Young, before writing these observations in a less than able state. These places needs checking out after midnight, then it fills out, and then I suspect the musicians have to play, regardless of whether the girls can dance….

When worlds rarely collide

2007-05-03T18:15:00.000+04:00

This place continues to fascinate me. It can seem like hell on earth when you’re walking back to your hotel via Sabkha street where the pavement narrows into a stand off between chickens being kebabed and south Asian workers digging the Nasser Square metro stop. As you walk the narrow, furnace-like, gauntlet of where these two competing attractions meet, you could not be further removed from the Dubai conjured up by the ubiquitous image of the Burj al-Arab. You will often be accompanied by tourists, although these tourists are of a very different kind to those you would encounter in the five star hotels. Here the visitors are Russian shoppers, poorer Arab and Iranian tourists, and women working one of the newer routes of the oldest profession.

------------------------------------------
Yesterday I paid a visit to the Saudi-owned MBC satellite broadcasting network’s headquarters. Like a significant portion of the region’s media, MBC has set up shop in Dubai Media City, and it is from there its programming, including the Al-Arabya news service, is broadcast. This was a chance to bear witness to a phenomenon. There is a huge range of regional and international media corralled into a free zone which is regulation-lite. MBC is effectively in exile, operating in a cosmopolitan environment more in tune with the realities of much of the Arab middle class, where women are playing an active role and are not wearing hijab. This is a fascinating scene to witness. Tellingly, however , Saudis in general are not thick on the ground at MBC, and female nationals seemingly non existent. Domestically based media outlets in the kingdom will feature Saudi women broadcasters in conservative regalia but they rarely perform key roles behind the scenes. MBC is being run on a day to day basis by ex-pat Arabs, including a significant number of women. These ex-pat Arabs are of course working in the ultimate ex-pat enclave, Dubai.

I and a colleague chatted with a Lebanese manager of day to day business at Al-Arabiyya, and a Palestinian news editor, as well as a Sudanese interviewee booker who is threatening to draw on me, though possibly more for comment customs and currency union than Saudi foreign policy, which would be my preference. On our way to join another Sudanese reporter for “lunch” at around 4pm, we ran into the man whose job title suggests he is the hands on figure who directs the operation. Yet this Saudi national, with a background at the heart of the system back home, is more the PR voice of the Al-Arabiya news service, penning thoughtful pieces on the Kingdom’s direction and, it would seem, ensuring that the political slant of the news service doesn’t stray too far away from the al-Saud’s essential interests. He is a suave operator, in keeping with the impression I had previously garnered talking to him over the phone; he is also an efficient but considered analyst of regional affairs. I left impressed by the personnel I had met at the company, but reflecting on MBC’s operation as another contribution to the virtual reality of this emirate. In Dubai presentation is key. The realities of the physical environment in which the mass of foreign labour toil rarely intrude on the professional or social lives of those for whom Dubai is largely orientated. For many Emiratis or Europeans it is only when walking to a waiting vehicle or watching from tinted windows that this other Dubai can be felt or witnessed. The image of infinite progress continues to be nurtured by the buzz of media activity at DMC, and the seemingly infinite selection of shopping malls and residential blocs that continue to be built. The reality among the members of the service sector who are not seated at a computer is rather harsher.

Moral collapse of one time Arab leader

2007-04-28T19:54:00.000+04:00

I attended a rooftop showing of the film The Yacoubian Building in Abu Dhabi on a warm but breezy late April night with a group of ex-pats. Our wonderful hosts had treated us to good Lebanese food, French champagne and German beer, so were in the right mood to enjoy what initially was a very funny adaptation of Egyptian writer Alaa Al-Aswamy’s book. The author, a dentist by profession, pulled no punches in his highly popular original novel. Egyptians, fully conscious of their country's decline, were seemingly therefore drawn to his no holds barred account of seediness in high and low places. An Egypt once used to seeing Gulf Arab leaders kow towing to what passed for Arab political correctness emanating from its capital, is today increasingly giving up any profession to Arab leadership. The high oil prices and real estate booms that have helped cement the shift in the centre of gravity in the Arab world to the Gulf followed disenchantment with the stale rhetoric of social and political change. This film helps explain the internal reasons for the country's decline. This internal dissolution has in turn fed off the lack of political direction of a leadership that sought to exchange war and economic stagnation for peace and economic sustainability, and has barely secured either.

The different social strata represented in "The Yacoubian Building", itself resonant of a by-gone age in Cairo, form the focal point of interconnecting narratives around which the film is constructed. However, from initial belly laughs, the characters’ stories soon become almost exclusively bleak. A surviving pasha, or at least pasha’s son from the pre-revolutionary Egyptian era, cannot for all his inherited wealth find respect or meaning in contemporary Egypt, while a nouveau pasha - they have proliferated in recent years - cannot gain access to the upper echelons of society without repeated pay offs to an seemingly insatiable state that, in this depiction at least, is akin to a mafia. With connections or the right pedigree being as important in the very post-revolutionary order that is today’s Egypt, perhaps as much as they were in the pre-1952 era of the original pashas, then there is much source for Islamic radicalization. Thus one very bright young man whose academic grades and admiring fiancé have seemingly set him on a career path in the police service, turns to campus agitation when his father’s employment as a bawab (door man) disqualifies him from this option, and to militant violence when an angry demo leads to him being sodomised at the local police station. When his desire to extract revenge sees a bloody, indeed gory, denouement outside that same institution of dispassionate justice, then Islamist radicals and the republican state end up looking equally unappealing. The fact that the young man’s appetite for violence had been further whetted by a generous taste of paradise when he enjoys an arranged marriage at an Islamist hideout, only adds to the sense that, at least in the movie’s telling, radical alternatives to the regime look as distinctly unappealing as the authorities themselves. I was struck by the fact that these scenes presumably made it past the Egyptian censors, although the DVD version we were watching, purchased in Abu Dhabi, has presumably been “cut” to suit the Gulf market. This presumably reduced the sexual content, albeit this is unlikely to be graphic in the on screen version in Egyptian picture houses. It cannot, although I do not know for sure, have cut out all the anti regime sentiments without being lop sided. If I am right, and I stand to be corrected as lop sided, crude censoring is hardly without precedent in the Middle East, then this would perhaps suggest a mature censorship policy operating from the ministry of information in Cairo. However a recent interview with Alaa Al-Aswamy in “Egypt Today” suggests there is something far less sophisticated in contemporary Egypt, with the clerics of Al-Azhar can neutralize an author’s, and presumably a film maker’s, career.

Ultimately the lives of all the occupants or associates of the Yacoubian Building come across as sad as well as sordid. A homosexual editor of a French language newspaper (what else?) meets a grisly end with his latest tryst, but then his exploitation of a simple man from the country for carnal gratification, who moves his wife and soon to die child in the same building, had hardly set the viewer up for sympathy. The film's seemingly happy ending of a 65 year old pasha’s marriage to the beautiful former fiancé of the Islamist fighter has a decidedly desperate air. There is genuine feeling between them. However the woman has been driven to extreme measures to earn her place in modern Egypt. Thus the marriage option ends up being merely a better financial risk than the other scams she has engaged in since trading love for the slippery moral slope that the film tells us awaits a woman seeking economic advancement without the right background. Marriage is depicted as being as much about sexual gratification as the seedy back room goings witnessed in the shops and businesses, let alone the gay newspaper editor’s apartment. The film’s portrayals undoubtedly pile on the extremes, but the end result is a convincing depiction of a capital rife for upheaval as legitimacy and order appear elusive and the economic demands of the burgeoning population seemingly cannot be met.

Bloody Creek

2007-04-27T13:04:00.000+04:00

Down by the Balladiya

2007-04-27T12:49:00.000+04:00

Banking blues

2007-04-27T11:07:00.000+04:00

Friday; not an easy day in Deira. Always tempted to get out to avoid the lunchtime obloquies but the heat is on these days, and I am not keen on solo beach treks. Will later be back on the bus to Abu Dhabi. Not a journey I relish as I have been doing it every few days for several weeks on the visa trail. Finally secured the residence visa on Wednesday, meeting a contact at the bus station for the (totally legal) exchange. Was quite elated after all these weeks of struggle, having chosen one of the more circuitous routes to getting a visa in the UAE, when I saw the three year stamp in my passport. Things were set back again shortly afterwards however as I hit bank hassles. I knew that obviously I could not re-enter the flat hunt maelstrom without a local bank account. However my reference from an employer was addressed to only one bank and subsequent research revealed that I should have maximized the options as some do rather better deals than others. That said, trying to pass over a tip-exed letter from my employer to one bank that had previously been addressed to a rival, was the act of a masochist. I am now waiting for a Fed Ex package two days after an urgent request back to base (Do Fed-Ex work on Fridays out here?)….In addition, it could take another week to get the prized cheque book. Without the latter you can’t commit to 12 months rent on an apartment. My, the most mundane things get so important don’t they? In short I am flying out of here in 9 days time and it looks rather like I will be returning to this hotel, having checked out for the second time. It really is living up to the song. …..

Speaking of songs…the hotel has taken its pop music as psy-ops policy to a higher level. Not content with assaulting punters with poor Indian covers of usually piss poor originals on a constant 24 hour loop, for the last three, four days in succession we have, or I should say I have, been subjected to a handful of Abba’s minor hits by Abra, or whatever the tribute band ought to be called. Not that there aren’t other punters in this place, even poorer, obviously non-Emirati, Arabs of late. But nobody else, of course, notices, including the staff who are based here, day in day out…..

Yesterday’s banking difficulties met critical communiqués from HQ full on, and left me on a decided downswing…clearly I am having difficulties shifting into a new mode of working. This may be understandable in the circumstances, but is also about shifting from one so-called intellectual approach to another. The new one is on the one hand more rigorous, on the other is exhausting in its dependence on extensively sourced local opinion. The struggle continues.

Last night I went for a long walk to try to think about something else, going north from the Sabkha abra station for once, looking over to Bur Dubai souq. Found the public library, which turned to be a pleasant place. Possibly an over heavy focus on the local leadership but then this was hardly a surprise….Found myself strangely switching from a William Burroughs “cut up” novel to a coffee table tribute to genuine local heroes….found more interest in the latter….surely a good sign…..Headed back via Deira Old Souq….I hadn't really encountered this part before, the more traditional covered area though was largely empty at nine at night…..need to return to check out the spices and the gold…

Creek side

2007-04-23T21:56:00.000+04:00

Arab taxi drivers

2007-04-23T21:44:00.000+04:00

Last night I returned to an Iraqi restaurant, Al-Hawler Kebabs, that I had encountered early on in my stay here. It's located in Al Muteena Street, quite a nice area, with a park that is the focal point for resting workers and in the afternoon, and for strollers in the evening. The kebab place is staffed by Iraqis, Syrians and Egyptians, and is one of the rare features of Dubai, an Arab restaurant serving largely Arabs. And being in Deira, and not in one of the five stars, there are not likely to be any emiratis among the Arab clientele. I had an Iraqi kebab and Arab salad. Nice when you’re really really hungry but half way through you just feel full and somehow not satisfied. Was good to speak some Arabic to Arabs though, and of course they found me rather amusing.Wondering back taking detours from al Nakheel I walked the usual gauntlet of car spares, and wholesale goods shops that doinate the Deira backsteets – it's what passes for a shopping buzz round these parts. Chanced upon the fantastically named Al-Buraq car park, before passing Bin Laden’s double trying to park his vehicle. The Al-Buraq was the winged bird referred to in the Koran that bore Mohammed as he made his hijra from Mecca to Jerusalem.

Tonite I had what is the best meal I have had since arriving in Dubai. From Safiyas on Nakheel. The princely sum of 6.5 dirhams bought me lamb kebab with very tasty pickles and chillis on the side, washed down with banana milk shake. Incredible..and such good guys… Things picked up by later afternoon in fact. Before that the day had been spent drifting….chasing Arabic lessons, seeking confirmations of this and that, and feeling down. Eventually I took the plunge and went for the Arabic lessons option over at al-Karama, which happens to be an area I am interested in finding somewhere to live if Bur Dubai doesn’t work out (Satwa apparently is becoming tantamount to an open labour camp – no wonder prices seem competitive). Met Ahmed the Egyptian teacher, nice guy, and all being well we’ll be under way later this week. I felt very good about having this to focus on before other stuff picks up. It seemed almost too good to be true that straight afterwards I would then meet an Iraqi taxi driver. I told him I'd not had a ride from an arab taxi driver in 2 months. He told there are 100 Egyptians and 100 Sudanese tax drivers in Dubai, and he was one of very few Iraqis..can’t get the visas he explained, and in his case he can’t get his visa swapped. He is an engineer by trade, from Basra, where he would much rather be but is registered as a taxi driver…he left Iraq in ‘98….and goes back every six months to visit his family…….Nice guy, says there are no problems in the southern port city, save those Iran is creating...as for Sheikh Mohammed, he is number 1…..

The Good Shepherd

2007-04-22T21:46:00.000+04:00

Aug 21

“The Good Shepherd”, showing at Deira City Center Mall....

I was hungry when I walked into this two and a half hours long movie, and no less so when I walked out. Despite this, I found it totally engrossing. A life of suppressed emotion in the service of what became the CIA, leads to Edwards’ (Matt Damon) home life becoming his greatest security liability as his son’s careless pillow talk blows the gaff on the planned Bay of Pigs invasion, and his father appears to approve of the erasure of his son’s black fiancée just hours before their wedding. Sounds far fetched; absurd even? On paper I guess, but thoroughly watchable all the same. The film is essentially an exploration of how an institution lacking the democratic oversight that was originally desired by congress and supposedly desired by its creators becomes a law unto itself as the US emerges from WWII into an apparent international struggle with the USSR. Other unwieldy security institutions such as the FBI are on hand to ease Edwards’ particular dilemma, however, as he is able to benefit from inter-agency rivalry and the corruption of his boss, take over CIA, and in the process seemingly neutralize the enquiry into who fouled up the Cuba operation. Or at least this is how it seemed, as in the process of Edwards taking over the Agency, and his KGB equivalent deciding to do him the seemingly redeemable favour of eliminating his soon to be daughter in law, suddenly the very domestic reasons for the greatest US intelligence blunders until, well, Iraq, are irrelevant. This shift of events proved a little to fast for me, but would not I think leave most viewers unsatisfied, more interested perhaps in piecing things together after the credits roll.

There are a number of striking portrayals in the course of this Robert De Niro-directed film (based on an Eric Roth novel). He also stars as the US's overseas intelligence service's irascible founder with both period racism and integrity, as opposed to Edwards, who is portrayed as having the former without the latter. Practically anybody who is anybody is in this film, including Angelina Jollie, who is actually quite good as Damon’s wife, if a tad too distracting to look at. Michael Gambon proves a suitably sinister UK agent (fronting it as a Nazi English don), as does Billy Crudup, both of whom are gay, or the academic character is, and Crudup’s character appears to be. Not a security risk with which any of the Americans are afflicted of course. However, while Gambon meets a shocking but necessary end, given his compromisable sexual predilections – there was a war on after all – Edwards’ failings as a father led a love-starved son to seek solace with a woman the other side of the world who turned out to be on the Soviet payroll but somehow falls in love with her prey. The price of covering this up leads Edwards, as Gambon’s character predicts, to "lose his soul". He doesn’t have the “cowardice” of his father, a former naval secretary in Roosevelt's wartime administration, who killed himself when Edwards was but a boy, providing the context for an emotional shutdown that his own son could not manage. When the motivations for Edwards’ father killing himself are explained as his son faces the destruction of his career, we wonder if the son will take the same exit. The prospect actually seems honourable, not cowardly, on the part of a man who had never loved his wife and whose son was surely destined to hate him for the fate that was to befall his wife to be.

Saddam's oil man

2007-04-20T19:50:00.000+04:00

I need to get some comments down about some of the people I have been speaking to in my line of work. While discretion necessitates that I don’t divulge their details or too much about my activities, I think some outlines would be of use. Early on in my period here I was reconnecting with some old contacts, but also openly embracing new ones and the recommendations of others too. This process led to me meeting in the lobby of one of the plethora of five stars, a former Iraqi oil minister and then oil advisor to Saddam who lived in Baghdad up until the invasion in 2003, when redeployment seemed to make tactical sense. Burly, this gentleman had a bearing that reminded me of those on the intelligence side of the ancien regime. He proved however to be a convivial person to have coffee with. Obviously his observations on the rise of the Shia in his country lacked at times a little tact, but one was at least getting a for real feel of how the dispossessed see developments back home. Not that life in the Emirates is treating him that badly, but well-funded consultancy is hardly recompense for the throwing overboard of a state and, for him and his family, a whole way of life. The US, he opined, has allowed a regime of ayatollahs to take over when they had seemingly sought to weaken one to its east. It is understandable how Sunni Arabs, whether from Iraq or the Gulf, struggle to find a “rational” explanation for this shift, and cannot accept that events were not so intended. Certainly the fact that many of the US and UK’s discussants among the opposition in the Saddam days were Shia Islamists with connections to Iran ought to have created warning signs. I think on balance there was an almost willful naivety in the war planning and the assumption that somehow those Shia of a more secular bent, or those assumed to be thus, would be able to take charge of the situation, in a country without a secular base other than the remnants of one the US sought to destroy, even after the regime had been overthrown. Yet the factions created or at least trained by Iran were the ones with an organization and sizeable forces, aside from the Kurds who for the most part shape events in their relatively stable northern territories. Riding roughshod over the strategic risks takes us to where we are now in Iraq.

Next time, Saddam’s oil man wants to hear my opinions. This will create some sharp differences as it’s hard to swallow all of what is, by the western liberal standards to which I have some attachment, essentially a sectarian secular nationalism, which has little purchase in Iraq, and which was, for at least the ten years prior to the invasion, already in a state of collapse. Still, with any luck, there will be some Johnny Walker Black label to ease any discomfiture.

Hungover Holy Day

2007-04-20T18:48:00.000+04:00

Hungover Friday. Was good to make fresh contact with a journalist who I knew in London and hadn’t see since he got married six years ago….we met as I was leaving a job in Whitehall and he was about to tie the knot. He had been distracted then, perhaps understandably. On this occasion he was totally engaged, an effusive married man, father of two boys, and 6 years Dubai experience under his belt. Was quite a contrast being in the Jumeirah area, and sipping beers in the courtyard, five to be precise. Being in cabs a bit pissed is in my experience fun if you’re traveling back late at night as the journey goes pretty quickly and the pacey drive down Sheikh Zayed road, whistling past the Burj al Arab, the Mall of the Emirates, and the construction free fior all that one US guy I met described as a war zone down by the Hard Rock café, can be a bit of a thrill. However this was 730 ish in the evening and still plenty of traffic to make it a time-consuming journey just to get to the Creek. By the time I got to the Old Souk abra station, a deft move to save taxi time and money, I was busting. A sensible option would have been hitting the modest pizza place on Beniyas Road, Deira creek side, and maybe investigate that place called The Pub that I had previously derided. However I schlepped on to the hotel via Maktoum Road and Nasser (Beniyas) Square, walking against the Thursday night shopping traffic. In the hotel I made a quick change and decided to head back to the Indian Bar in the hotel. Different feel altogether than 2 weeks earlier, same crowd, minus my Afghan friend, but I was knackered and a bit pissed and incredibly hungry. Downed the Heineken and headed down to the creek again, deciding to detour to my favourite restaurant. Safriyeh on Nakheel Street. Great shwarma, dirt cheap, good kebabs, and I am sure excellent shakes. Basically friendly Indian guys that run it, and a weird mix of clientele. It's right next to Nakheel Mosque, so gets devotees, Nigerian workers, and occasionally Eastern Euroepans. Going in there a bit pissed is strange. Somehow not right. Down the creek, I decided that this time I was going to explore "The Pub". My theory turned out to be more correct than I could have imagined. Not just an Anglo haunt, but of course one of those ultra kitsch “reproductions” of an English pub, replete with beefeater teddies and a red phone box outside. I didn’t go in. I would have to have been without a beer for a year and for that to have been the only place in town to have been remotely tempted, and even then it would require powers of disassociation that I really should but don’t have. Back in my room read emails drunk, bad news from home. Plumbing disasters on two fronts and my wife communicating with an efficiency that makes some of her emails akin to missives from a colleague who has been left minding the shop.

After a day of work related stuff on the computer, I decided to go out hunting for the “Time Out Dubai” recommended, “Afghan Kebab House”. Apparently situated near Naif mosque, it proved, of course, to be highly elusive. Policemen and worshippers alike could point me in the direction of other mosques but none in Naif Road or Naif souq were really just called Naif Mosque, although no doubt more than one of them is known popularly as such. I may yet track it down though, the mosque on Naif Road closed to my hotel is al Futaim mosque, but I am reliably informed that it’s also known as Naif Mosque. Nobody yet has heard of the much reputed Afghan Kebab House, but hey, you never know…there is also an Iraqi place in Muraqqabat street area that is strongly recommended….

Feeling decidedly at a low ebb earlier, and conscious of its being Friday in the UK, I emailed a good friend thus:

"Bet your looking forward to some kind of bonk fest weekend…with a mere handful of hours to go before you can deploy those wheels of steel on the wild streets of east London and head on down to love land….Think of me alone in the hotel. My wife ain’t too happy, waiting for me to sort out the situation here (visas and a place to live), while, meanwhile, she is enduring major plumbing problems at our place in London and very little help from any of the co-freeholders. Friday here of course is like Sunday where you are, which is followed by Saturday (a recognized fact), a day off here too, which doesn’t really feel like a Saturday or a Sunday. Then again, I’m not kickin it down on Jumeirah beach with my 4WD and my picnic hamper…might go for a hot schlep round dusty Deira in a mo’….. "

Which I did and now I am back.. killing time and wondering if the manager will agree to cut the room rate again as I conscious that the company is not going to shell out for all of what could be well over two months in this hotel by the time I find a place to live…..A decision is expected at 8pm (what’s happening, a hotel planning meeting?)