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'...