Disco infernal..

I recently had the misfortune of going to a night club.

Now those of you that know me and of my age will be asking "why on earth did you go in the first place?".  For those that don't and to give you some idea, when I fill out a survey I have to tick the box '50 - 55'.  But it's not as daft an idea as it sounds, my wife is younger and evergreen, it was a leaving do for one of our fabulous work colleagues (actually about her 6th, but who's counting?  Obviously me..)  and I used to love night clubs in my youth, so I thought 'why not?'.

I guess my clubbing salad days were the 80's - 1980's not 1880's - and the music was fantastic.  A heady mix of The Trammps, Donna Summer, Sylvester, Kool and the Gang, Michael blooming Jackson for Pete's sake, it was epic.  There was melody, lyrics ('burn that mother down y'all' - almost Shakespearian), tunes and variations of pace or BPM - beats per minute - which gave the whole experience variety and tested the mixing skills of the DJ's.

The Trammps, who performed Disco Inferno, a disco hit in 1976 but still going strong in the 80's.  It's not surprising there was a fire with all that polyester around, I mean one spark..

I appreciated that this was probably not going to be the playlist in the night club of 2015, unless it was an 'Old School' night, probably spelt 'Old Skule', which I'm never sure is done to add a sense of some juvenile element to the proceedings or just to annoy English teachers, which it does, immensely, and breathe..  However I wasn't prepared for the assault on my senses that I received upon entering the place.

At this juncture I should add that the club was on a holiday complex which clearly attracts an eclectic mix of weekend clients, in the same way that a tavern in the Pirates of the Caribbean movie might attract a range of different characters. You know the sort, one eyed sea dogs, bling covered nouveau riche, men the age of Keith Richard acting like men the age of Justin Beber, women the age of Tina Turner gyrating like Miley Cyrus, if only I was hip surgeon..  It was mainly a collection of holiday makers of all ages and young men and women from the UK and Ireland who are expats up from Dubai for the weekend searching for cheap booze, which they had apparently found quickly and in abundance.  I think we in the wider world deserve a thank you from the towns and cites of Europe, as by accepting these youngsters in to our expatriate community we are stopping them from projectile vomiting in your high streets every weekend and giving them the opportunity to empty their innards in a warmer climate.  Taking one for the team.

So I entered the room and immediately thought I had happened upon a worm-hole in the space time continuum because clearly I was now in Guantanomo Bay.  The water boarding had obviously not worked and we were now experiencing intense white noise torture. This was music - and I use the term loosely - clearly written by someone who doesn't like your ears, I say 'your ears',  I mean my ears.  Reassured that I wasn't in Cuba by the lack of cigars and vintage cars, I made my way to the area our group had occupied.  I should mention at this juncture that I was, as usual, the old man of the group and no-one else was phased by what they were hearing.  For me it was a metronomic, electronic row.  A sort of electrical version of metal dustbins being thrown down concrete stairs at regular intervals.  But surely this was just one track, soon order would be restored and Variety introduced along with his friend, Tune.  No, not at all.  It transpires that now every thing played has been mixed to within an inch of it's life in to a monotone, mind numbing, teeth rattling assault on your senses.

Edvard Munch, 'The Scream'.  Allegedly painted after going to the same club.  Honest.

Believe it or not, I am not a stranger to modern dance music, or at least I thought I wasn't a stranger.  I have Daft Punk and Pharrell Williams on in the car for goodness sake so you can understand my confidence in thinking was down with kids.  But these dance tracks are clearly not trance, or acid, or crap enough for the club market so they are re-mixed until they all sound the same.  After all, who needs all that song writing and creativity rubbish?

Daft Punk, who wear masks so you can't see them crying when idiots ruin their efforts.

Now I completely understand that every generation has to send a hero up the pop chart, if they didn't we'd be trying to dance to Green Sleeves, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the new stuff is better.  I also get that I am not supposed to like this sort of music, it's not made for my generation.  I'm sure that Mrs Beethoven senior was heard saying: 'Oh Ludwig why are you still putting out that 'boom boom boom boom' rubbish?!  Why not write something cheery like that nice Mr Vivaldi?'  And for some reason I think his mum would have talked like a cockney tea lady circa 1950's.

One similarity with discos of old was the complete inability to talk to anyone as the sound from the speakers was too great.  Hence conversations are attempted at close quarter, enabling you to smell the fags and booze on the other persons breath, mmmm, it's that heady mix of nicotine and stale alcohol á la pub carpet circa 1970.  How come no-one has ever bottled that?  What's not to like?

As was inevitable, one customer got in to a heated debate with a bouncer, who was more at the 'brick outhouse' end of the scale than the 'gets sand kicked in his face', so the youngster was unceremoniously removed from the establishment over the security guy's shoulder, priceless.  I overheard Hades and Dante having a conversation along the lines of 'seriously, how could we have imagined this?'.

So was this my last visit to a night club?  I hope not.  I have fond memories from my youth (can't remember what I had for breakfast yesterday though?) of nights/mornings out with my friends, so I may have to give it one last go, but when the music played is going to be more to my liking.  I want to go out on a high note as I'm sure did Steven Gerrard.  In case you weren't aware he is a football player who made over 500 appearances for his club, Liverpool.  Unfortunately in his last game they lost 6-1, not the finale he was hoping for. If that script had been written by Hollywood he would have headed the winner in the 90th minute, probably past a diving Sylvester Stallone, and if you get the movie reference there give yourself a bonus point.  Nor a French script either, where he would have caught cholera and died on his wedding day, have you ever watched a French movie?!  No, this was an English approach, 'no need to show off old boy'..

Come fly with me..

According to Wikipedia (never wrong..), the first fixed wing airline was formed in 1916 by a chap called George Holt Thomas.  He modified military aircraft so they could carry two - yes, two - passengers between Folkestone and Ghent, in Belgium.  It goes on to say that these were 'relief' flights but doesn't clarify who was relieved, the pilots who were responsible, the passengers or maybe both?  It wasn't until 1919 that passengers started paying for a service, £21 to go from Hendon to Paris.  Either way you look at it, it's less than 100 years since people have had the choice to complete their journeys by air and I don't think any of those pioneers would recognise the industry now.

'First class Madam?  You get to sit inside..'.

There are a plethora of little vignettes in any flight, from check in to collecting your suitcase on the carousel, but if you take the time to do some people watching and keep a smile on your face in the mini adversities that it presents, it can be entertaining.

With so many to choose from, which scenario do I write about today:  having to re-pack your suitcase at check-in as it's 2kg overweight when the guy behind is clearly heavier than you by at least 20kg (don't ask me to re-pack, ask him to run round the airport perimeter..), people rushing the gate when they've already been told it's not their time to board, the Herculean efforts to lift a carry on bag in to the overhead locker when it weighs more than a Volkswagen Beetle, people still texting when the plane is taking off even though they've been told 3 times to switch their phones off, the list goes on.  What makes me chuckle is the in-flight meal.

When you're on a plane for longer than maybe 3 hours, I fully appreciate that you may get a bit peckish and the airlines (non-budget types) are keen to show you how well they cater at 35,000 feet.  The trouble is that in an effort to outdo the competition they maybe try a little too hard.  I need to add at this juncture that we tend to fly economy class, like most people probably, so space is at a wee bit of a premium.  The airline would like to cram in as many people as possible to maximise their efficiency and profit, the public would like enough space for luxuries like breathing, moving your toes a bit, not having to link arms Auld Lang Syne style just to open a packet of pretzels.  Certainly if you are fond of your personal space, economy is not for you.

Economy, everybody inhale, now exhale, easier if we do it at the same time.

So it comes to lunch/dinner/breakfast time.  You've read the menu, decided what you'd like and the smell of freshly warmed up ready meals comes wafting down the aisle, where the flight attendants are passing out the trays.  Their trolley is completely blocking the pathway of course, which means they have the usual queue of passengers either side of them trying to get to/from the toilet.  They reach the row of seats in front of you, you're now pretty hungry and eager to see what your fare looks like but wait, the person in front ordered a vegan nut and squash roly-poly and the crew are trying to serve them a vegetarian tofu and lettuce mélange, it's tantamount to Armageddon.  Some bloke in 12B is already half way through the nut and squash offering and is now considering eating the cardboard lid instead, so it's too late to change.  I can read the steward's mind 'really, is it that different?  What do you want me to do, pop out and get another?  Serves you right for having a fussy diet..'.  But he remains calm and professional and the problem is solved with some cream crackers and a yoghurt.  It's your turn.

First class, a bit awkward if you drool or talk in your sleep, 'of course I'll respect you in the morning Brad..'.

You drop down the little table attached to the seat in front of you, which is probably in the reclined position, restricting your elbow room even more (is it not good etiquette to ask before reclining your seat?  Just asking..) and it's then you realise the food tray is the same size as the little table, so whatever you do everything has to stay on the platter unless you're fortunate and have no-one sitting next to you.  It's an impressive array of dishes, a veritable feast, a marvel of culinary expertise and spacial design as everything is arranged like a edible jigsaw with not a micron of space to spare.  

Therein lies a problem because the food is packed in containers with lids and once you've uncovered your lunch all this packaging has to be put somewhere.  So you commence the game I call 'Aircraft Eating Jenga' (pat and trademark pending) and start to skill fully move items around so that you can get at the meal one bit at a time without causing a catastrophic collapse of the pile.  Smoked salmon salad to start, followed by chicken with potatoes and veg, then a chocolate dessert, then cheese and biscuits, then bread (should I have eaten that first?  Too late.), a drink, a cup for your tea, a tiny chocolate, cutlery, a napkin, a refreshing hand wipe (lemon scented), a cuddly toy, a Teasmaid. The list goes on and I finally realise that with this mental ability and hand eye dexterity I would be quite good at doing a Rubrics Cube if I applied myself to the task. Then when something falls on the floor it's like playing Kim's Game by yourself and in an extraordinarily confined space.

Bon appétit, elbows in please.

Often it's when you're mid way through this trauma that the person sitting next to you asks if you could move so they can get out to use the facilities.  'Move?' you ask, 'I've suspended my heart beat while I do this as it was taking up too much room..'.  The relief when the attendant comes along to take away the remains is wonderful, like the feeling when you have the inset of your shoe scrunched up under the sole of your foot all day and then you finally get to sort it out.  You can now relax to watch the movie, on a screen which is closer to your eye ball that your eye lid, with the headset kindly provided by the airline (has this really been sterilised?) because for an unknown reason it is the only place on the planet where you need twin plugs on your ear wear?

Suffice to say I'm saving up my airline loyalty points for an upgrade to first class, by my reckoning I should achieve this goal in about 20 years, it's good to have a dream.

Call me Lawrence..

Peter O'Toole, the most widely known image for T.E. Lawrence - Lawrence of Arabia, my role model for our time in the Middle East.  Well you have to aim high..

I recently had the opportunity to experience flying out of our local airport using a regional low cost airline.  Nothing dramatic there, thousand of people do that every day. However it did provide an unexpected insight in to an aspect of life here.

Airport check in queues, often so long.  Why are the airlines not prepared for the number of passengers?  Do they not know how many tickets they sold or do they just think 'ah, no-one is going to turn up..'.  Or is it they know you have no choice?  You decide.. 

It's well documented that there are a lot of expatriates here, or expats as the shortened version goes. You often hear the figure of 80% when it comes to Dubai, that's right, 80% of the people that live there are expats.  Up here in the north it's considered that around 70% of the population are local and us strangers only make up the remaining 30%.  

But what or rather who do you think of as an expat? Pictures spring to mind of bloated land owners during the last days of the Raj, sipping a G & T before riding an elephant around the tea plantation to make sure the locals are putting in a full days work for their tuppence pay.  Or do you have a more up to date vision of the comfortably off businessman in Dubai, sipping G & T before touring the building sites where impoverished workers are putting the finishing touches to the latest additions to his portfolio of building investments, hang on, meet the new boss, same as the old boss?

They were probably caricatures that I used to have in mind, but not any more.  There is a huge expat community here who are not from the western Hemisphere or eastern Europe, they are from the Indian sub-continent, the Philippines and smaller countries like Nepal. They do a whole range of jobs including IT, teaching, construction, engineering, shop work, cleaning, you name it.  They are the crucial links that keep the place running and they are economic migrants, but then maybe we're all economic migrants in some respects?  The difference is that some of us could have stayed at home and still had a pretty comfortable life style, not a choice that everyone has.

Most of this cohort is male and they've left their families at home, normally for two year stints, in order to provide for them and often an extended collection of relatives.  Ironic isn't it, in order to support your family you have to move away from them?  For many from the ISC (Indian Sub Continent) there are fewer options. Work at home for them is sporadic and very poorly paid or non-existent and if they don't work, they don't eat let alone find a comfortable place to live.

So they look for work abroad, many working outdoors for long periods in the summer heat.  These men often travel en-masse sponsored by a single employer.  They share the same accommodation, eat together - it's cheaper that way, play cricket, send money home, repeat for two years.  When you see them out and about they don't have the demeanour of an under class, quite the contrary, they have the posture of quiet confidence, emitting the air of someone is getting on with a job and earning money which is making a real difference to people thousands of miles away.  This is not a single gender effort, there are countless women doing the same thing.

This is what I've observed since we moved here, but it was bought to front and centre by what I saw at the airport.  I hadn't realised it was a hub for men arriving from Bangladesh before they take connecting flights all over the region.  On my outward journey I saw a large group, some of whom were clearly excited about their journey, others more reflective but all with a palpable sense of expectation.

On the return it was a different story.  Most were pushing trolleys laden with their belongings and packages which contained everything they had accumulated over their working stay.  Unfortunately virtually everybody had more than the one item of hold baggage and they all looked heavier than 20kg.  This is partly what was causing the traffic jam at check in and therefore the huge queues that were building up behind us.  Every time one of the passengers arrived at the check in desk there ensued an animated discussion with the staff, which I can only guess was centred around the amazing amount of packages they were trying to force across the scales.  These contained, amongst other things, gifts for the loved ones at home;  sunglasses, mobile phones and perfume seemed to be popular.  'Forget gold, frankincense and myrrh, they're so anno domini.  Bring us Ray Bans, Samsung and Chanel, real or fake we don't care, no-one can tell the difference these days'..  Some were being turned away to re-pack their loads or get rid of some weighty items, which they were trying to give to their friends who were already loaded to the gunwales themselves thus moving the problem further down the queue rather than away from it altogether.

As I wasn't in a rush - I couldn't go anywhere after all - I was just an interested observer in all this, all be it one that stood out like a sore thumb.  Apart from a dozen or so Emiratis trying to get on to the flight there was me and then the entire working male population of Dakar, although that may be an exaggeration.  It was one of my fairly regular Lawrence of Arabia moments where I definitely am not blending in with my surroundings no matter how hard I try.  Just as well I wasn't rushing, because the second reason behind the painfully long check in process was becoming apparent.  Whilst there was a semblance of a queue in the lead up to the desks, it disintegrated in to a melee at the head.  Other than the amount of luggage quandary, this was also partly due to people's enthusiasm to check in with their friends, particularly when their mate had made it to the front and they were still #32 in the other line. However the handling agent's staff were made of stern stuff and promptly sent them away, but place #32 had now been taken by someone else so they had to go to the back of the line again, consternation ensued.

When driving in England I was always surprised by the ill manners of the Company Representative, often in an Audi, who would skip down a line of cars who patiently queuing for roadworks or whatever, then try and cut in with an air of innocence that didn't quite whitewash what was clearly part of a premeditated 'I'm more important than you' endeavour.  I often mused as to what would happen if people did the same thing in a supermarket queue?  You know, walk down the side of it then edge in without making eye contact.  Now I know what happens, they get told to go away.  But with my co-travellers at the airport it wasn't bad manners, it was just the way they rolled.  There was no 'my journey is more important than yours' attitude, it was just 'ooh you've left a centimetre between you and the person in front, that's just enough space for me and my luggage'..

Then again, how many other nationalities are as obsessed with a queue as the British? Have you ever been in the line for a ski lift in France or Italy or at a bus stop in Holland? It's all elbows and survival of the fittest rather than 'after you madam'.  I'm sure some Brits would rather miss the train than throw themselves in to a wall of humanity and squeeze in to such close proximity with strangers.

Since when have Polaroid made TV's anyway?  Is it actually a television or just an enormous camera where the photos come out immediately on A3 paper, imagine the disappointment..

I say 'some' because I've just seen footage from the black Friday events in the UK.  I've never seen such a collective lack of dignity or decorum, all for a cut price big TV to watch the EastEnders Christmas special on, really??  How do people allow themselves to be slavishly influenced by big store marketing and the desire for pointless upgrading of something that I'm sure they already have?  Then to top it all, you have some of the customers filming their escapades on Go Pro's or mobile phones.  I'd like to see Go Pro use that in their marketing.  Normally their posters have surfers catching a perfect ride through the blue-green tube of a huge wave.  If instead it was a bloke in a puffa jacket falling as he leaps over four stumbling, avarice motivated sale seekers to get to a pile of boxed up electrical goods I'm not sure they would be so cool?

At least the men I was observing in the airport had a good excuse for their behaviour, it's just the way it is where they're from.  What are your excuses Black Friday shoppers or I guess you don't need one, perhaps it's just your view of society these days?  As Blur once commented 'Modern Life is Rubbish', I'd rather hoped that we still followed Sting's advice ' an Englishman should walk and never run', obviously not.

Maybe that's one reason why I like living in the Emirates?  In government offices ladies don't need to queue, that's just for men, women can go straight to the front of the line and if they need to wait they do so in their own, more comfortable area.  How civilised. If you want a big TV, a man from the shop will carry it out to the car for you, no need for any Kung Fu.  If it costs £20 more so what, it's not a deal breaker and your stress levels remain at Antarctic rather than volcanic, a heart attack would definitely be more expensive.

Chill out people, 'tis the season to be jolly, you don't need a new kitchen to cook a turkey (a food you don't eat any of the other 364 days of a year..), you will be able to buy a cheap sofa in January, the Vicar of Dibley looks the same on a 42" screen than it does on a 50" whopper.  This doesn't have to be 'the best Christmas ever' it can just be a really nice Christmas, much the same as last year and probably similar to the next one.

A whiter shade of pale.

Like most blokes these days, I'm a sucker for creams and lotions that promise to keep me from cracking up under the strain of the sun and other natural phenomenon, collectively determined to reduce my body to the appearance of dried corn flakes stuck to a an over-weight skeleton.  Don't get me wrong I've not gone down the whole 'Metro-sexual' route, I can still get in and out of the bathroom in fifteen minutes, but if you look at the shelf in there it does look like a research centre for the Laboratoires Garnier.

Naturally you have the shaving gel (not foam, it has to be gel), face cream, hand lotion, foot softener, hair gel (not really a cream), after shave (again, not really a cream..), sun cream (x2, winter and summer) and toothpaste.  Not too indulgent really?  I put it down to living in the middle east and the Baz Luhrmann song from 1999 Everybody's free (to wear sunscreen).  There is no doubt that sun + wind = dryness, hence the desert, so I feel obliged to protect myself at every opportunity.

Seeing I was running low on the face cream recently, my wife kindly offered to pick some up during a shopping trip.  I'm no slave to a brand, unless the brand is called 'Special offer' or 'Buy one get one free', I'm not even convinced that these various lotions are any different to each other, so she had free reign with regard to choice.

Upon her return I was initially confused as to why she had bought a diminutive tube of toothpaste?  Not wishing to complain, as let's be honest, if someone does you favour and buys something for you, saying 'it's not the right thing?' is a quick way of wearing the entire contents on your head, with immediate effect.  So I took a closer look, '10x whitening effect', must be toothpaste?  But no, it is face cream, designed to protect and lighten the skin, an entirely new concept to me.  

It does exactly what it says on the tin..

I should mention that when I'm filling out a form and I get to the bit at the end which asks 'This is not a compulsory question, but where are you from and what colour are you?', I tick 'White European'.  Becoming whiter was not on my to do list, in fact I'm aiming for the opposite.  Let me give you an example.  When we first got here we had to produce a bundle of passport style photos for various I.D. cards.  My wife was called in to the office and asked if she could get more photos of me looking 'a bit darker', as my white face was blending in with the white background?  You see my problem?

Moreover, we visit the beach most weekends and every time we see a host of tourists trying their hardest to change their white skin to brown, it had never occurred to me that some people may want to go the other way?  I always thought that whole Michael Jackson thing was a modern myth?  I appreciate that there is a host of products available to change the colour of your hair, but your face??

But fair (get it?!) enough, whatever floats your boat, but now a moral dilemma, do I use it, throw it away or give it to someone else?  It has been said that I am careful with money, I'm paraphrasing, I think the actual words were 'tighter than a duck's chuff', so throwing it away is not an option.  Difficult to give it to someone else without seeing the sub-text of 'he thinks I'm too brown, what a racist'..  So I'm using it, which explains my current translucent state.  A friend (you know who you are JK..) suggested that I use it on only one half of my face, so we can see a before and after effect, I say friend..

Besides, I'm not in possession of a colour chart showing me the different shades of white?   How would I know if I was 10x lighter, how does anyone know?  I've been using toothpaste which promises to make my teeth whiter in 15 days, but I've never checked to see if it's worked.  So I think I'm going to have to take it on the chin (oh there's another!) and buy some ordinary cream, or soon I'm going to be rocking the Elizabeth I look.  

Besides my skin is getting confused, 'whitening during the week, sunning himself at the weekend?  Make your mind up mate!'.

In search of the elusive unicorn..

We've just got back from a visit to a zoo, which is quite a common occurrence in our household.  Our five year old is animal crazy, so a visit to see some in a zoo is always high on her 'to do' list, which leaves me with a dilemma.  I've always been a bit of a conservationist so zoos give me a conundrum.  Having said that I can't claim to have any detailed knowledge of conservation.  For example it's beyond me how a country (no names, no pack drill) can have a whole fleet of ships for whaling, purely for scientific research?  What are they researching?  Other than '101 uses for blubber' it's difficult for an ignoramus like me to comprehend the scope of their studies?  If they want to find out how whales communicate or navigate the oceans with such accuracy I would have thought it best to do that while they're alive?  Ah, my naivety..

Giraffes, nature's way of pruning the top half of a tree.

Most zoos these days will have part of their website dedicated to telling you how much of a conscience they have, how they are the guardians of the world's species and the fact that the public is admitted to have a peek at the animals under their protection is a positive educational side effect on their conservation.  I see their point, there is no doubt that since mankind came to dominate the globe its ceaseless persecution of every other species has been shocking.  So much so that the only way to preserve some animals is to take them in to protective custody as such.  We have visited some zoos that do this very well and create an environment that is as near as realistically possible to the breed's natural habitat.  I say 'as near as possible' because there is only so much you can do to twin Cheshire with the jungles of Borneo.

However we have also visited some which fell more toward the cash cow option rather than towards the preservation aspect.  Rows of small cages containing primates that would far rather be swinging from tree to tree and terrariums that are devoid of any greenery, and in fact are of lesser length than the snake they contain, are not an edifying sight.  It's more reminiscent of Stalag Luft III from The Great Escape rather than the plains of the Serengeti from Born Free.  From the point of view of the customer, I can appreciate that if you've paid to see animals it's animals you want to see, not areas of greenery with rustling leaves where they move around freely out of your line of sight.  But small cages and the absence of any aspect of a habitat that facilitates natural behaviour seems so, well I guess Victorian.  Showing us a cheetah and saying how it can run at speeds up to 75mph is great, but they forget to add that in its compound, which is 20 meters square, it can only get to 15mph.  I would far rather they built it a home in the shape of a greyhound track and feed it by attaching lunch to the electric hare, now that would pull in a crowd. Ah, there speaks the Victorian in me.

Steve McQueen escaping from Stalag Luft III circa 1945, dressed as a resident from Malibu beach and riding a bike that wasn't built until 16 years after the event.  Still, accuracy isn't everything.  (I'm being sarcastic, obviously it is..)

But there are other dilemmas that visits to the zoo bring.  Our daughter's favourite animal is a unicorn, so we get the inevitable question while we are walking round, 'where are the unicorns'?  Naturally we do what any good parent does when confronted with a tricky question, we work out which lie is going to give us the least amount of grief later (after all good parenting is all about sincerity, if you can fake that you've got it made).  For example if we respond 'they have the day off',  then she'll suggest we come back tomorrow.  So rather than tell the truth and rain on her parade, we just explain that they don't like living in zoos.  She looks at the other animals and you can tell she's thinking 'I don't blame them'..

Eid mubarak.

I was going to write a light hearted piece about shopping, but events in the news made this seem very light-hearted and trivial, so I'm changing tack.

We are fortunate to live in a very interesting place among people from a variety of nations and with an indigenous population who seem happy to share their space with the world.  I understand that there is a quid pro quo, but on the whole it seems to work, a win-win situation.  

However if an alien were to land and read the paper or watch the news they may think that the majority of the world is not like that.  They could think that most people are doing their utmost to ruin the lives of anybody who doesn't see things the same way as them and that it is the norm to act with great savagery and prejudice.  But to go away with that impression would be shame, as I believe the opposite is true.

I'm currently struggling to come up with one word to describe a group of people who are smaller than the smallest of minorities, is microcosm sufficient?  A group whose actions push them to the forefront of the news ahead of any features which concern work which is for the general good of mankind or encourages bonhomie, two areas that encapsulate the vast majority of human endeavour.

So my good news report is about a day of joy, as today is one of the Eid celebrations.  I'm not going to explain in detail the origins of the festival, mainly because I don't know much about it and I'm not about to re-cycle a load of information from Wikipedia, that you can look up yourself if you feel so inclined.  All I'm going to do is outline what I've gleaned from discussing it with people who celebrate the occasion.

In that respect it seems the same format as special days throughout the world, including time spent with family, special food and a day off work/school.  More recently it would appear that consumerism has begun to creep in but that is inevitable I guess?  If the big loser at Christmas time is the humble turkey, an animal that is left alone by the majority of people for the rest of the year yet eaten with abandon for one day only, the beast of choice over Eid is the sheep or goat, depending on who you ask.  As we live in a rural area, many local families still raise and despatch their own animals so there is still a direct connection with the source of their meal.

The turkey, in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Big, slow and tasty, it's never forgiven the Founding Fathers or whoever it was who first sought out a regular supply of meat for a celebration in North America.

A great deal of emphasis is placed on looking good at the family gathering so new clothes are an important part of the preparation.  Elaborate collections of sweets are prepared by the local stores, sometimes to be given as gifts but always it seems shared with family and friends. Street decorations are evident but subtle and there are no noisy outdoor manifestations of celebration like we see on National Day.

It seems like an understated day of private gathering, sharing and of goodwill, messages which in my opinion should be on the front page of every newspaper and on every TV station.

I finish with a profound reflection from one of my students who is of the wise old age of 12 years:

Me:  'What do you think of Eid'?

Him:  'I don't like it, lots of old ladies come round the house and talk all day.  I have no-where to sit as they take all the chairs'.

Me:  'Who are these old ladies'?

Him:  'I have no idea'..

Well everyone is entitled to their opinion.

Leap and the net will appear!: Picking up my boots, it's all about my roots, yeah...

Leap and the net will appear!: Picking up my boots, it's all about my roots, yeah...: We've recently returned from our first trip back in a year to the countries from whence we came, France and England.  For me in particul...

Picking up my boots, it's all about my roots, yeah..

We've recently returned from our first trip back in a year to the countries from whence we came, France and England.  For me in particular, who had never lived outside of the UK before, it was an event that I couldn't mentally prepare myself for, it being the first time and all.

When we first came to the Middle East I had quite a strong idea of where I was moving from, a small village in West Sussex, and how I felt about the project of living abroad.  It was a sojourn, a temporary move all be it for some years perhaps, but there was not much doubt that before I knew it we would be back.  When you are doing something completely new and unknown you can only guess as to how it's going to make you feel or act.  Time spent playing out your new life can quickly change your point of view.

East Preston, a jolly nice place.

The first thought provoking moments about my roots came when we met new people out here, who invariably were from different parts of the world and all four corners of the UK, or if you're reading this after the Scottish referendum, perhaps all three corners.  I found myself explaining where our previous home was as no-one has ever heard of the village, then describing life there in a nutshell.  However it soon dawned on me that I wasn't satisfied with that answer.  It was where I was from most recently but I wasn't born there.  I didn't consider myself an adopted son of the county nor an outsider, it just happened to be where I had ended up living and a very pleasant place it is too.

It dawned on me that when you consider where you're from the only thing you have absolutely no choice in is where you are born, although there are probably not many five year olds who get to choose either.  So my answer changed to the city where it all started for me, 'I'm from London', if pushed I could list the places where I've lived since leaving there, but that's the essential truth.  It's also an answer that needs less explanation as to its' geographical location.  If further detail was required, I could reveal that I'd lived in the cheapest place on a Monopoly board, thanks Parker Bros., still traumatised by that.

Luv a duck, it's Laaandon, cor blimey guv'nor.  As Dick Van Dyke may have said..

The next epiphany (are you allowed more than one?) was when we were back in England and people would ask 'how does it feel to be back home'?  My first thought was 'I'll need to let you know when I'm back there'.  Sub-consciously our life and existence here has become more than just a base for a couple of years, it's actually where we call 'home'.  Strange to think when you consider that people of my age are often beginning to plan for their retirement and create an environment that they hope to settle in to ad infinitum. But this affinity to what will always be a non-permanent place to live doesn't make me feel insecure.  I'm happy that I still feel comfortable in East Preston as well as a small village in France where my in-law family live.  Instead of feeling isolated my thoughts are more of how lucky we are to have the opportunity of spending our time in several places, although obviously not at the same time.

Ultimately what this has re-enforced in me is a belief that life is not so much about the place where you reside at a given time but more about the people you're spending your time with, at work or on holiday.  If you're fortunate to have support from people who care about you and who you care about, location is just a formality.  I would never have really appreciated that without experiencing the adventure we've enjoyed for the last year.

Vive la difference..

It's all a question of perspective.

Please forgive me repeatedly writing about similar subjects, but sometimes you find such a rich vein of interesting material you can't help but mine it again and again!  And so it is that I once more report on driving in the Middle East!  I say Middle East but to be fair I've not carried out an exhaustive survey and when we discuss this topic with colleagues from all over the world they say 'if you think it's bad here, you should see they way they drive in ...(insert name here, you could choose from, Egypt, Jordan, India, Bangladesh, the Philippines, England, France..)'.  That's my  point really, we think it's a crazy place to drive, but maybe there is another perspective and maybe it's not that unusual?


We live in the northern Emirates which are a lot more tranquil than the throbbing metropolis that is Dubai or Abu Dhabi.  I was reading another blog, written by someone who was living in Dubai at the time and who had started carrying around a camera so he/she could photograph misdemeanours when they saw them happen.  The photos included snaps of the usual things we see on a daily basis;  cars going the wrong way round a roundabout to queue jump, people driving at breakneck speed along the hard shoulder of a motorway as the other lanes are moving slowly, cars cutting across four lanes of traffic to make an exit they had suddenly remembered they needed to take, no-one using indicators, drivers drinking coffee or on the mobile phone, or maybe doing both at the same time, all of the usual suspects.

Dubai traffic, no cycle lanes yet..

The bee in his/her bonnet (no pun etc..) was the hard shoulder racers.  When the motorways  grind to a halt in Dubai, the hard shoulder becomes the lane de choix for the driver in a hurry.  But instead of driving cautiously, giving them time to react to any unexpected intrusions in to the lane, they go at Formula 1 speed.  The local papers often have reports from horrific accidents where someone has ploughed in to the back of a broken down car they simply didn't see when carrying out this hard shoulder game of chicken.  The blogger was saying how irresponsible it was and how you wouldn't see it in Australia, where they were from, and I was quietly agreeing with this view when I started to read some of the comments made by other readers.

On the whole it seemed that his expat community agreed, but there was a diametrically opposite response from other writers.  They were incensed that he (we'll assume it was a bloke) had the temerity to criticize their actions.  In fact they called him a downright sissy as he didn't have, and I quote, 'the courage or the skill to drive they they do'..  You see, just when you think there couldn't possibly be a reasonable explanation, there it is. So if you happened to get a puncture and needed to pull on to the hard shoulder, only to get tail ended by a bloke using it as a short cut and exceeding the speed limit while talking on the phone, it's clearly your fault for not being skilful enough..  Silly you.

There is another regular topic in the letters page of the local newspapers.  A correspondent had written how she had the wing of her car taken off by someone doing a three lane sideways dive in theirs as they needed to turn left but somehow had managed to be in the right hand lane.  The aggressor's first instinct (in fact only instinct)  was to blame the person who got hit for not allowing him to cut across, even though he was coming from her blind side.  Thankfully the police sympathised with her view.

This is a very common occurrence.  If you're used to driving in much of the world, including the UK, when you approach a three lane traffic light junction you normally make you choice of position based on which was you want to go.  The left lane if you're going left, middle for straight on etc.  Here there are some drivers with a different view, they always choose the lane that has the least amount of cars in it, It's how water would drive, always following the line of least resistance.  Then when the lights turn to green they make their move, hence it is an everyday sight to see a car aggressively carving across the traffic causing chaos and anger, which you're not allowed to vent as any sort of road rage is verboten.

As it gets warmer, other letters to the editor ask whether it's the adverse effect that the heat has on tyres and brakes that is causing accidents.  No-one asks if it's the 'drive it like it's stolen' Grand Theft Auto style of driving that may possibly at the root?  The old adage that 'I must be a great driver as I never have accidents, see a lot in my rear view mirror though..' springs to mind.

If you're thinking of driving in the area there is another thing you need to look out for, the red light crashers.  For some, traffic lights are just there for advice, so it's not uncommon to find yourself moving forward as the ones facing you have changed to green only to find a car crossing the junction in front of you like a meteor having just ignored their red.  It certainly makes you pay attention when behind the wheel.

Then there is tailgating.  Another letter in a local paper asked what readers' thought was the correct distance to be following someone on the free-way.  One response was 'close enough so you can't see the number plate of the car in front'..  They were being serious. Think about it, not only did they consider themselves correct, they were so convinced about the sensibility of their actions that they emailed their thoughts in to a newspaper. Another said 'drive as near to me as you like, if I think you're too close I'll slam on the brakes and you'll drive in to my reinforced tow bar', touché..

Abu Dhabi seem to be making inroads (no pun blah, blah, blah..)  in to traffic management.  They have far more cameras and seem to enforce the data they get from them so generally speeds seem to be lower and the standard of driving higher.  Although I do love the signs on their motorways which tell you the maximum speed is 120 kph but you can go up to 140 kph if you like.

Having said all of this, I don't mind driving here.  There is a predictability in the mayhem, if you assume everyone is going to lane change without indicating, when they do it's no surprise.  I think there is an organic, shoal like quality to the experience.  When was the last time you saw two herring collide?  Outside of the main cities it's not unusual to find yourself alone on the motorway, a driving experience of extremes.

A shoal of herring, compare and contrast with the picture above of traffic.

Finally, a true story.  On the way to visit a friend who lives on the 25th floor of a block of flats in a busy part of Dubai, we ring to get directions.  'Turn left now', he said 'I can see you'.  'How do you know it's us amongst the thousands of cars on the intersection?' we replied, 'you're the only car using indicators, figured it must be an Englishman'...

Boules to that..

 Let me tell you about the time I played in my first (and probably last) boules tournament.

We were on holiday in France, staying in a small village in the Haute Loire département.   It is the annual 'vogue', a four day fête where you can enjoy such delights as a fun fair, travelling circus, car boot sale and several music events.  But the highlight for the more competitive residents are the two tournoi de boules.

Hats were compulsory until 1959, then the Beatles came along and changed all of that..

Now you may think that boules is just a jolly pastime that you've dabbled at while on holiday and that you've seen locals play over a pastis and Gauloise, but that simplification would be like saying all football is about a bunch of blokes kicking a ball around with jumpers for goalposts (which is in effect what it is..), what you are really seeing is France's national obsession, their beautiful game.  Have a look at French TV, they regularly have televised games and many towns will have a Bouleodrome, a boules centre which often includes indoor facilities to allow year round enjoyment.  Suffice to say some people take this very seriously and travel around their region in the summer months making a few tax free euros, if they're good enough.

Hence there are two boules events at the vogue, one strictly for people from the village and another more serious event for all comers.  So my beau père and I enter the village event after clarifying that I qualify due to my close association with the place and more importantly that as an Englishman I offered little threat of appearing in the latter rounds and therefore stealing the prize money.

We duly turn up at the registration time, casually eyeing up our competitions, wishing them a friendly 'bonjour' with an undertone of 'I hope you lose'.  Most seemed to be family pairings, father and son, mother and daughter, nothing to dent our belief that we would at least give a good account of ourselves if nothing else.  The organisers took our entry fee then noted our names on a flattened out crisp carton, adding to the ad-hoc 'it's just for a laugh' ambience.  Then as time moved on, the more serious players began to arrive, noticeable by their natty little 'Obut' ball carriers and their sporty trainer/white socks sports combo, as opposed to my flip flops.  Please note I didn't use the word 'bag' in describing the ball carriers.  I'm trying to avoid any double entendres so you don't descend in to Sid James style sniggers at every turn, so get it over with now and we can move on, matron..  This was beginning to look like a serious competition, for a start these guys had their own kit, always an ominous sign, and it looked as if they had used it fairly recently. We hadn't played for a couple of years and the boules we had in the garage were turning a nice shade of rust.  I've had this feeling of impending doom before when I was the holder of the annual tennis club 10 pin bowling championship.  The following year a guy from the club turned up with his own ball, shoes and hammock like ball polisher.  Suffice to say he won.  After a delay of about an hour, waiting for the bandits to turn up, we started our first round match and I began to learn what this game is really all about.

Like most casual players, I had assumed the idea of the game is to get your ball nearer to the jack, or cochonnet as it's known in France, than your oppenents',  and indeed that is the concept but it's not quite the same as green bowling in the UK.  In that game, if you want to remove one of the opposition's balls (really, come on..) you have to fire it out along the ground, whereas in boules you have the third dimension of aerial attack. Although while watching some green bowling in England lately I noticed that some of the more mature players were using a sky-borne Barnes-Wallace approach, forced on them by arthritis or general maladies in the back/leg department.  I can imagine the banter over tea later about the validity of Earthquake Ethel's 617 squadron approach on the last end of the game..

We won the toss, which was about all we did win on the day, so the honour of throwing the cochonnete and taking the first shot was mine.  Thankfully I managed to get my boule to within about 4 inches of the target and stepped back, comfortable in the thought that this end was as good as won, rule Brittania.  Now please take the time to visualise a news clip released by the RAF of a target, a warehouse perhaps, being used for some nefarious purpose by an unseen enemy.  Next thing you know it's obliterated by a smart bomb, launched from thirty thousand feet, the warehouse is gone but the surrounding play school, hospital, pet sanctuary and old aged person home are untouched, not a tea cup displaced. Hooray for lasers.  

Now picture a grainy black and white picture of my boule, resting smugly in it's place next to a little white ball..  Boom, now it's gone but the white ball remains.  'That's a lucky shot' I'm thinking as I step up to try again.  Once more I am close to the target and once again Dead Eye Dick, as I am calling my opponent, launches another 'smart ball' to violently move mine away and so a pattern is established.  It transpires that this forcible removal of other people's shots is what the game is about, rather than the accurate placement in the first place, which is beginning to look like the easier bit.  We were therefore being given a boules lesson and resigned ourselves to a quick defeat.

It's fair to say our opponents were not overly chatty, but did reveal that they were not from the village but a large town some 30 miles away.  Ha!  But this event is for local people, maybe we can get them with a technical knock-out.  However the conversation with a rules official then played out in my head - 'Excuse me Monsieur, I do believe these players are not from round 'ere, I expect you'll want to disqualify them under rule 5 subsection 'C' regarding the lack of proximity of their abode?'.  'Bien sur Monsieur Rôti de Beouf, just remind moi of your address?  The Middle East you say, ah, tant pis...´.

So we retire to the bar area for a drink and to await the draw for the next round, and it became apparent that this was also part of the event, the drinking that is.  In fact, if golf is a good walk spoilt, boules must be a good boozing session interrupted by flinging a ball or two.  The break went on for the best part of an hour and seemed to be of an interminable time.  Some players who we're sitting next to us seemed to suggest we could go and have a practise while we were waiting which after our first match seemed like a good idea.  They were also from out of the area, I'm beginning to see a pattern here..

They won the toss and in time put their first ball close to the cochonnet. I thought this would be a good opportunity to get some training in so I attempted to fire it out, with great success.  In hindsight, this was the only time during the whole afternoon I managed this feat but from small acorns..  The rest of the game went their way, with me trying out a variety of shots in the hope that I found a technique that worked and generally not paying too much attention.  Game over, we strolled back to the bar in order to find our second round opponents, only for me to be told they had been those players and we had just been defeated again, lost in translation.

I should say that I do speak reasonably good French, but family and friends make allowances for my short comings by speaking more slowly and clearly.  I have often found than when engaged by random people the nature of a casual conversation without knowing the context and often including slang is often unfathomable.  Hence when asked a two word question by our second opponents I was completely flummoxed.  All I could hear was 'more balls?'.  Did this mean he wanted to carry on playing or was it an observation on the poor standard or our play?  It transpires he meant 'do you have any more balls to play in this end?', but the complete lack of any grammar and virtual lack of vocabulary just didn't give me enough to work on.  It's not unfair for me to add that the chap asking me this question was probably not France's answer to Stephen Fry, but a man who seemed to think that he'd only been given a limited amount of words to use during his lifetime and didn't want to waste too many on me.  Add to that the fact he didn't move his lips while speaking and you can understand why I was confused.

Another immense wait for the third round and then then draw, where we get a father and son combo and a closer, more enjoyable game.  Still lost, but the manner of losing was more agreeable.

So what did I learn about boules?  Well you need a laser guided smart ball and eye to go with it, we were the equivalent of a Roman siege machine, the only guaranteed thing our balls were going to hit was the floor. 

OK, it's not accurate, but whatever we hit will have a big hole in it..

Secondly, mark your balls (hang on in there with the sniggers, we're nearly at the end..). Ours came in a value set from Carrefour some had markings and others were plain.  I played with the latter on the assumption that everyone else would have lines on theirs. Not so fast Mr Bond.  I would estimate that 75% we're plain like the ones I had so at any given time I had not the foggiest idea of what was going on.  The only way I could pick them up with any certainty was to wait until everyone else had taken theirs and assume the remaining three were mine.  Even now I'm not sure I bought the same set back that I'd taken out.

As a footnote to this episode, the following day the 'open' event took place.  It started at 2pm and finished at 11.30pm, and my wife thinks golf is a time consuming game.  We also learnt from some neighbours that there was a bit of controversy about the number of players in our event who were not village people, that is people from our village rather than members of the disco group.  In our experience two out of our three opponents came in to this category, so if they were disqualified we would move from relegation zone ignominy to top third respectability, result.

Nice work if you can get it..

Let me preface this entry by saying that these are just my own opinions and musings, please do not rely on anything mentioned here as you would a verified fact.  I'm not making this stuff up but it is purely based on my own perspective and experiences, which as far as I'm concerned are factual..  You can trust me, I'm a teacher..

I'd also like to add that whilst the events that follow have taken place in la belle France, I'm pretty sure it would be the same in the UK or pretty much anywhere in the 'developed' world, I'll let you decide whether it should be called 'developed' or not?

So to begin at the beginning.  We are on holiday in France and to make the most of our visit we hired a car.  If you've ever hired a vehicle you'll know that this is not as simple as you might think, partly due to the desire of the hire company to make a profit and also because unscrupulous customers try to rip them off.  In between these two opposing forces are the ordinary folk that just want to drive around a bit and end up paying the cost associated with these two self interested camps.

I guess the best story I have to illustrate what clients can get up to is the one about a guy in the Middle East who hired a Bentley then took it dune bashing.  You may not know exactly what a Bentley is but let's just say it's not an off roader.

Like I said, not suitable for off road use.  Please be aware this is just a stock photo picked at random from the internet so if you are the proud owner of  DK57 CXV fret not, you won't be finding sand in the glove box.  Also I'd like add this was not our hire car..

Then there are my personal experiences of rental cars which include one occasion where the previous user had obviously used the back seat as a mobile dog grooming parlour, or another time where they had left enough vapour in the petrol tank to get me 200 yards away from the hire office.  From his perspective an excellent piece of planning, from mine enough to go and see a witch to get a spell put on him.  I hope he enjoys his time as the cuddly toy on the front of a dust cart..  Mind you the phone call to the office was priceless - 'I've run out of petrol in the car you've just loaned me!', 'where are you?', 'look out the window..'..

So I can appreciate why car hire companies like to dot the i's and cross the t's, but it does make a simple transaction in to something akin to writing the Magna Carta.  Much of this paperwork is based around insurance.  Insurance to cover you should you not being the car back with a full tank of petrol (this is a western thing..), 'extra' insurance should you have an accident - 'what do you mean 'extra' insurance?!  What do I need 'extra' for?  Collisions that include royal personages?  A no fault bump with a dragon?'.  Then at the end of these discussions you're asked to sign a four page contract in triplicate that would take a team of lawyers no less than a week to interpret.  I mean really, has anyone ever read the terms and conditions before ticking the box?

I'm a cynic about insurance, I've always believed it is a way for insurers to make money rather than a safety net for the insured.  This outlook is supported by my experience that if you ever need to claim on it by the time you've taken in to account the caveats and excess payment, you normally end up with about a tenth of what you thought you'd have.

Where was I?  So we hired a car and had a marvellous time in Provence, which was going to be the subject of my blog until we were cruising back down the motorway and bang, something had clearly made an impact on the underside of the car, and it didn't sound helpful.  I don't know if you've ever been on the autoroute doing 130 kph and wondered what would happen if your tyre had a sudden and calamitous deflation? No?  Just me then..  In my mind there was going to be an explosion and then Jason Statham like I was going to steer the car around the school bus, past the minivan full of nuns and park it safely on the hard shoulder. Later, when collecting my OBE I was going to modestly wonder what all the fuss was about, I'm just an ordinary guy with an inbuilt ability to be at one with motorised transport. But every bloke has probably had that daydream. No? Still just me then.. 

I can reassure you that thanks to the marvellous engineers in companies like Hankook (for instance) nothing much happens right away.  However over the next two seconds or so you get the idea that it would be better if you pulled over.  Thank you unsung heroes that are tyre scientists.

It became immediately obvious that this was a dead tyre, it had shuffled off it's mortal coil, it was now an ex-pneu.  But dreadnought, this is a hire car from a national company, surely they will have contingency plans for this sort of common occurrence? And they did, just not the sort I had in mind.

This is when I learned a lot about spare tyres in a very short space of time.  Mainly that modern cars don't have one.  This is one of the genius side effects of the global warming con.  It's given companies the opportunity to offer you less and claim the moral high ground at the same time.  You can imagine their reasoning - 'you see if we don't give you a spare the car is lighter and uses less fuel, manufacturing costs are lower, you pay less road fund licence and the environment is saved, hooray for us!'. Brilliant, unless you get a puncture, in which case the whole scheme falls apart.  You need to have a less fuel efficient truck drive twenty miles to pick you up and take you the twenty miles back to their base, which means you are  now further away from your destination than you were when you started, take that environment..  They do supply a puncture repair product designed to get you to the nearest garage, but it doesn't work in the event of a tyre  being deformed in a high speed blow out on a motorway, they've not really thought that through have they?

However their recovery insurance got us off the motorway curtesy of a breakdown truck - tip #1 definitely get insurance to cover this, I think their minimum charge was 122 euros.

Now we could relax, the hire companies emergency strategy would swing in to action.  We called them, 'l have a puncture in one of your cars', 'that's down to you mate..', 'surely you have an agreement with a supplier?', 'nope', 'what do recommend we do?', 'sort it out yourself.'. Wow, those hours spent on the customer service course weren't wasted..  

This is where we had our crash course in how the system works. The following information was given to us with the headshake, shrug and intake of breath through teeth that only true professionals can manage.  'You see you can't change one tyre as the pair have to match and guess what we, don't have one that matches', so we're now looking at two new tyres. 'Oh and we may struggle to get one that size and type'.. Hang on, we're driving a Citroën in France and you don't think you can find a tyre for it?  Would you rather we bought something more common place next time? Maybe a £1.5m Bugatti Veyron or a 1923 Rolls Royce Silver Ghost?!  Either way it was now 12pm and the garage was closing for two hours so nothing was going to happen soon.  They dropped the Jolly Roger and sauntered off for a leisurely lunch.

After the break, it transpires they could get hold of two tyres, what luck.  Bad news was the whole business was going to cost roughly twice the normal price, why, because it just does if you want to be on your way.  Stand and deliver.. 'What if we shop around?' we thought. 'Good luck with that, feel free to ring my mates in local garages who will tell you the same thing..'.  How did he read my mind?!

Maybe it's worth involving the enormous weight a national car hire company could bring to the negotiations?  So we ring our man in their office - 'nothing I can do to help, it's your problem, oh and don't forget if you're late back tonight we'll charge you for another day'.  We were feeling the love..

So we got two tyres when we needed one, at twice the usual price, on a car that we didn't own and were giving back that evening, still we'd had a nice lunch in local restaurant, silver lining anybody?

Tip # 2; next time you buy or rent a car see what sort of spare it has.  Especially if you're buying, as the only thing that will make manufacturers think twice is if they lose sales as a result of heir actions. Like me not buying a car is going to make any difference.

Tip # 3; check with rental companies before you travel and make sure you know what you are liable for.

Tip # 4; you can't help where you break down but if it's on a motorway you may have to brace yourself for a big bill.  

Tip # 5; if you're in garage trade get a contract to pick up motorists from the motorway, it's a licence to print money.  We weren't alone in the two hours that we were waiting in the yard, at least another 5 cars were bought in and we saw another 3 broken down on the hard shoulder later on.

It may sound like I'm being overly critical with the two businesses concerned, so in the interest of fair-play let me summarise by saying the following.

When I drove leased cars you were responsible for paying for punctures, fair enough, however they had national agreements with tyre companies which ensured you got new rubber fast and at a discounted rate.  Would that not seem logical for hire companies too?

I appreciate the breakdown company have a lot of costs in running their super-expensive trucks.  I just didn't realise that when they pick you up you have to buy the wagon..  I remember reading a newspaper article once about why all of the products, including petrol, at motorway service stations are more expensive than in other locations.  The answer given was that it was dearer to get delivery lorries out to the them.  But don't lorries use the motorways every day?  Aren't they passing the outlets that are more expensive? Their argument would be more understandable if you were talking about Land's End or the Mull of Kintyre.

The truth was, of course, that they were more expensive because you have no choice, if you're up a creek, the first paddle that comes along is going to be welcome at any price.

School's out...

for summer, as the song goes, and with it also goes our first year (ten months to be precise, I'm nothing if not a pedant..)  of working and living in the UAE.  It has been a wonderful experience and I'm going to try and summarise how I feel about the whole thing.

I guess the best place to start is at the beginning and that would be the weeks we had in between being offered the job and leaving the UK.  It was hectic, what with making sure all of our affairs in England were sorted out and with the preparations we had to make for our arrival here.  Virtually every logistical task was a first for us so the learning curve was incredible, we had to keep reminding ourselves that we were choosing to do this, we weren't being deported.

There were three standout events during that period:  1.  Our farewell party where many of our friends and family came to say their goodbyes.  2.  The day we say the 21 boxes containing our shipped goods get swallowed up in to a van and drive off.  3.  The trip to the airport, not quite the same feeling as going on holiday! Then the arrival at Dubai airport, 2am and hot as a rattlesnake's bum, as the saying goes.  However we soon met our group and they all seemed to be on their first visit to RAK too so we felt in good company.

Then came the acclimatisation both  to the environment and the culture.  Our collection of cards started:  health card, I.D. card, driving licence, car registration card, hospital number card, health insurance card, Carrefour loyalty card, bank cards, I'm still not sure we have a full set?  As the primary person in this adventure it fell upon my wife to get her admin first before she could facilitate mine.  Her joy at signing the letter allowing/authorising me to have a driving licence will never diminish.

So what have been the highlights?  Firstly the people we have met, they are an amazing bunch and we have learned so much about their backgrounds and home countries, interesting information that you can only get by spending time with indigenous people.  The fact seems to be that whilst people's experiences and up-bringing is so different, their hopes and expectations tend to be the same.

Our wish list of things to see and do in the first year has been pretty much met.  Dolphin watching, dune bashing, going up the Burj Khalifa, marveling at the Sheikh Zayed Mosque, picnics in the mountains, visiting deserted ghost-towns, camel riding, jet-skiing, the list goes on.  And there is more we hope to do or re-visit next year!

What are the downsides?  It's not nice living far away from your family and close friends, but modern communication takes the sting out of it and we've been fortunate in having some visitors, with hopefully more in the future.

I guess that doing this sort of thing is not for everyone, there is not a lot of job security in this line of work as the contracts tend to be for two years.  so if you're looking for work that takes you up to your pension in yen years time this probably isn't for you.  However it does tick the box that says 'have an adventure' along with those that read 'experience a different culture' and 'push out the envelope of your comfort zone', and that seems to suit us.