The hard-working slacker

Note to self: Never say never

2007-12-20T20:52:00.000Z

Hi all! First things first, my unexpected hiatus was simply that: unexpected. I didn't expect to be so overwhelmed by fatigue after my now-regularized work schedule during the working week and something or another has constantly managed to steal away my time over the weekends. I'm not complaining or anything because God knows I need the money, I just thought I'd give a reason albeit a lame one, once again for my absence. Looking back at my last entry I am left somewhat humbled as I attempted to compare the service (and I'd like to think it is a service) of my little blog to the mammoth task of running the London public transport system.

A big Thank You to anyone who still comes back to 'my place' as I've nicknamed this blog in the hope that it is still Live and Running!

So once again I find myself in the redundant position of trying to pick up where I left off but then again my life so far has been quite uneventful so I'll do what I do best, give a running commentary on what's happening in the world around me and maybe get around to doing those film and book reviews I sort of promised I'd do a few months ago.

Humans weren't meant to travel like this

2007-09-28T16:12:00.000+01:00

Economy-class-syndrome isn't the preserve of airline passengers, anytime you're in a cramped space with little movement for long stretches of time I'll bet your risking a mild form of DVT. Why do I bring this up? Because I'm one of millions of everyday London Underground Tube users who during rush hour have to witness scenes like this:

If you see practically nothing but a bunch of bags or clothes, your guess is as good as mine because that's what my camera phone picked up when trying to take a photo of my feet on the tube amongst other passengers. I live on one of the busiest lines on the tube: The Piccadilly line. It's the only one that services Heathrow Airport to the rest of London, so here we have the world's busiest airport being served by just one line on the London Underground system.

There are alternative public transport systems such as buses and taxis. But unless you have a lot of time on your hands - let's just say an ETERNITY - to get to anywhere into town or you've got the national GDP of a small African country in your wallet to pay for the ubiquitous London Black cab and the patience to listen to the yammering cabbie, I suggest your best and most convenient option is still the Tube.

Suffice to say many a traveller take the cheaper option of lugging their over sized luggage onto the Tube train to and from the airport. Add to the mix those of us who live in the nearby suburbs also travelling into and out of town for work and you've got one long all-standing travelling sauna! Not a great way to start or even end the working day by any one's standards.

And to think there are endless posters plastered around the entire London Tube network publicizing how Transport For London (TFL) are investing heavily on public transport and more importantly on adding extra capacity to Tube trains. If that's the case how come I never get a proper place to stand let alone a friggin seat?! I hope someone from TFL picks this up through some random Googling on their lunch break and at least gives me a decent answer as to why people like me who live four stations from the end of the line can't seem to find ample space after the so-called 'investments'.

Unlike the unreliable service of London transport, service at this blog shall be much more regular, my absence this week is purely due to my being extremely tired or ('knackered' as we say around here) every time I come home from work, and I've been fasting for the whole day, that means no food or water from before dawn to sunset!

It's that time of year again

2007-09-15T13:20:00.000+01:00

Yep it's here and I'm late as usual to acknowledge it, no it's not my Birthday or that my bank wants my student overdraft back...NOW. Nope it's none of that, it is of course the beginning of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, and like fellow blogger Mybrid has pointed out it has coincided with Rosh Hashanah - The Jewish New year - for the third and final year in a row at least for another 30 years. Here's a quick rundown of what Ramadan is.

Another thing that coincided with the beginning of Ramadan is that I got my final year results and I finally passed my friggin degree in Software engineering and due to the sheer frustration and personal angst it has caused me, I've been telling myself I never want to see another computer for as long as I live. And yes the irony of what I just said is not lost on me! So I'm more relieved than particularly elated because it's been one unnecessarily long hard slog for me! I feel I can actually get on with my life and slowly pick up the pace and join the others in this rat race we like to call 'life'.

Anyways, this is going to be a short entry because I've got to go down to Ikea to replace some faulty bits of my bed on my way to my aunt's place to break fast with the rest of the family.

I'm sure I'll find something inspirational to think about whilst trudging through the giant hamster cage that is Ikea. I might just get around to reviewing the books and films I never got a chance to do.

An interesting discussion on the virtues of blogging

2007-09-06T17:36:00.000+01:00

We're running a little dry on blogworthy inspiration today so I thought I'd post this little interesting video from my favourite press club - The Frontline Club - for anyone who might be interested in the power of the humble online diary.

48-hour portrait of Kent

2007-09-03T20:21:00.000+01:00

Well here are the photos of Kent from the weekend, enjoy. As mentioned previously, I was like a Japanese tourist snapping away at anything and everything as soon as I got off the coach at Canterbury bus station, so the following shots are pretty much like my eyes blinking at everything I see in chronological order too...well almost!

Canterbury town highstreet, I don't know what the sand on the left is all about

Face sculpture in front of the Marlowe theater just off the highstreet

A friendly warning to outsiders on campus. Somehow it sounds better than 'Trespassers will be shot on site'.

University students from London can only dream of such luxuries as having an entire old town house to themselves! Of course my friend lives in one of the 9 double bedrooms so its not all his but the location like everything else in Kent is beautiful and well manicured.

I took this photo of the famous Canterbury cathedral from the campus bus stop As we waited for the University bus to take us into town. Maybe I should've Photoshoped the lamp posts and road for a postcard-perfect view

Westgate over the Stour river that delineates the old walled border of Canterbury town. You can see cars going through that very narrow entrance but even our double-decker bus managed to scrape through it with literally a few inches to spare on either side!

Here's a view of the same entrance but from the opposite direction, you can clearly see its very narrow

Westgate from the Stour river (more like a stream if you ask me) with gondolas and their punters on the left

View of the Stour river from the bridge in leading into Westgate

The Old Kings School shop, I'm not sure if it was part of the school but its unusual leaning and bent structure seems to attract visitors

The next day we went down to Herne bay and I did more of the same on our way there.

Some of the international students playing American football with the local ones on campus in the middle of the Kent countryside. Now there's a surreal image!

The beach at Herne Bay, it's no Seychelles or Hawaii but its a beach nevertheless although it doesn't count as a beach in my book. I hate pebbles!

At least the sun was out and it wasn't completely overcast

In case the South-Westerly wind blowing in from the sea wasn't cold enough we came across this reminder of our proximity to the North Pole at one of seaside pubs

A random street leading onto the seafront

A clock tower/monument on the seafront promenade, I don't know what its about but it looked regal enough to shoot

A hint as to what we had for lunch on the beach, suffice to say it didn't feel as healthy to eat as my mussels adventure a few weeks ago and my stomach thought so too.

Well there you have it, that's my weekend getaway to the Kent countryside, and these pics took a looong time to upload so I hope whoever enjoyed reading this savoured all of them!

A weekend break from the city

2007-09-02T10:59:00.001+01:00

I'm in Kent - also known as 'The Garden of England' - this weekend. More specifically I'm visiting an old friend at the University of Kent in the city of Canterbury. I needed to just chill out and forget about the daily grind of London life at least for a couple of days. The air's a little fresher over here and the University campus is beautiful, green and leafy and the great British summer that's been late in coming finally got its timing right!

Kent, a county in the South East coast of England is just outside London but feels a lot further away due to its small town quaintness. Its a lazy Sunday morning and we just got up and are in the middle of deciding which beach to go to to spend the rest of the day before I head back to London in the evening. Will it be Herne bay, Ramsgate or Margate (they're all beaches by the way)? OK Herne Bay it is as it's probably the nearest and we don't have all day.

Right, we better get ready to go so I'll post an update with photos from my visit when I get home tomorrow and it looks like its going to be the last time I do a bit of travelling to anywhere nice for a while so I'll make the most of it by taking photos of absolutely everything like a Japanese tourist.

Words! Uhh! What are they good for?

2007-08-29T09:17:00.000+01:00

The gift of literacy along with conscience is probably what sets us humans apart from the rest of the animal kingdom (more for some than others!). Our ability to play around with words be it in speech or prose can trigger an entire host of emotive reactions whether deeply or superficially. And sometimes what we say and write can be compelling enough to give our audience more than just 'food for thought', it can have the power to mobilize the masses.

Case in point: Bush's ever-escalating and desperate rhetoric about Iran's nuclear ambitions and Amhmedinajad's almost instant rebuttals are equally evocative for their respective followers to the extent that you have what we currently have in the shape of Iraq and its possible far-reaching consequences for the entire region.

But I digress, this post is suppose to be about something on a much smaller yet equally evocative scale. Something that starts from the gritty grassroots of your average community- be it divided by race, religion and now increasingly money - but has the artistic flare and delivery to bring even a small amount of people together for the greater good. That something is Spoken-Word Poetry. I know I know, you're probably thinking 'Is that all?' and you wouldn't be alone in thinking so as I was debating this same idea with a friend of mine recently and he refused to think that poetry has a place in making a positive change in anything and to an extent I'd agree because it all depends on the content.

Granted its all subjective and you either agree with what one Spoken-Word artist has to say or you don't and even though the history of this form of poetry is relatively new, poetry and prose in general has been around a lot longer and has definitely made its mark in human civilization. Perhaps a good example of this is the teachings of the Chinese philosopher Confucius and how his works still have a tangible affect on the everyday running of the huge and growing Chinese economy, an impressive feat not doubt!

Spoken-Word poetry and its public exhibition in the form of Poetry Slams began in America in the 1980's and was a popular way of expressing oneself on pressing issues such as crime and gang violence and it has since spread much further afield to places like here in the UK to Bosnia to New Zealand. Granted too that its sheer international appeal doesn't necessarily make Spoken-Word poetry (and those who perform it) as effective as brute force for the greater good but I really don't think we should all lose faith in the natural goodness of the human spirit. And while it is true that most Spoken-Word poets are activists FIRST and artists second they still have the ability to move their audience in making a positive change no matter how small that change may be. Collectively this can be the kryptonite needed to put an end to the unjust powers that be in the world.

And to all the cynics who still refuse to see this and think I speak of a Utopian dream or sound like a Disney commercial, I don't blame you but at the same time if we don't have dreams or aspirations in life, then what's the point of living? In fact human civilization wouldn't get as far as it has if it weren't for the pioneering few who lead the uninspired and quiet masses to share their aspirations.

People like Martin Luther King, Shakespeare and Gandhi are simply the latest in a long line of influential individuals who just happened to have dreams and aspirations. People of different faiths, cultures and principles follow those because a pioneering person set an example in their life.

As lengthy as this entry is I feel it sheds light on a hugely overlooked and underestimated power of human-beings: The spoken or written word.

Here are a few of my favourite Spoken-Word artists whom I hope will inspire you to do something positive in your life and the lives of others.

Taylor Mali - "What Do Teachers Really Make?"

Brian Dykstra - "Pushing Bush"

Suheir Hammad - "First Writings Since" (revised)

This last but one brings back childhood memories of me and my sister and it's up here for no other reason but to share the innocence of just being a kid.

Rives - "Op-talk"

I'm not a mussel virgin anymore!

2007-08-20T12:59:00.000+01:00

Dear oh dear oh dear, I've been having a rather crap few weeks lately so meeting up with a few school friends from back in Doha (Capital of Qatar) was a nice way to break the monotony that is life in London. We all decided (I use the word 'decided' loosely) to go to a Belgian seafood place called Belgo in Covent Garden in central London. I was quite apprehensive about not only meeting up with these people who I haven't seen in nearly a decade but also the menu...mussels! I was constantly thinking to myself 'Should I try and order something less-adventurous or just go crazy and give these slimy sea-critters a try'.

In case you're wondering what mussels are

Suffice to say I stuck it through and ordered a plateful of steaming hot mussels in a red Thai sauce. I was quickly shown how to eat them by taking one them out of its shell and eating it and then using the empty shell as a tong to get at the rest.

As for meeting up with old friends it was great because two of them were family friends who just happened to know my class friends. It was great just reminiscing about everything from a multi-lingual pet parrot one of them has back home to the crazy speed of urban development and rent hikes in that part of the world. In case you're wondering where 'back home' is for most of us 'expat kids' here are a few photos of the country where we all grew up:

Contrary to this scene from the set of the new Transformers movie, Qatar cannot be summed up as one big Bedouin camp made of mud huts. Incidentally whilst searching for this photo I came across this interesting take on the whole film

A View from Doha bay looking out at the Sheraton (the pyramid-like building) and other developments

A panoramic view of the main business district in the West bay area of Doha

And so even though these oil-rich Arabs still don't know how to drive or wait patiently in a line and that their urban planning leaves much to be desired, Qatar or for the most part the entire Arabian Gulf region does not consist of mud huts, camels, tents and any other romantic notion of the 'Orient' my Western readers might still have.

And to finish off this little entry here's an excerpt of a "You Know You're an Expat Kid in the Middle East or Have Been When..." list as a fitting and candid bit of background information.

1. You can't answer the question, "Where are you from?" (And when you do, you get into an elaborate conversation that gets everyone confused and/or makes you sound very spoiled.)

2. You flew before you could walk.

3. You have a passport, but no driver's license.

4. You think California is cold.

5. You watch National Geographic specials and recognize someone.

6. You run into someone you know at every airport.

7. Conversations with friends take place at 6:00 in the morning or 10:00 at night.

8. Your life story uses the phrase "Then we went to..." five times.

9. You can speak with authority about the quality of various international airlines.

10. You feel self conscious around all white people.

11. You get offended when someone turns down an offer for food.

12. You live at school and go home for vacation.

13. You treasure pork and root beer as highly-valued commodities. (totally doesn't apply to me!)

14. You have ever had to wait for prayer call to be over to finish shopping.

15. You are fascinated by any wildlife bigger than a gecko.

16. You know the true meaning of "football." (and in your mind can hear the shout, "GOAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!")

17. You know that it truly is a small world.

18. You have ever gone to the "hammam" or endured a "shamal."

19. You get all the jokes in Aladdin.

20. Rain is still one of the most wonderful sounds in the world.

21. You haggle with the checkout clerk for a lower price.

22. Your wardrobe can only handle two seasons: hot and warm.

23. Your school memories include duck-and-cover drills.

24. You are used to being stared at.

25. You think VISA is a document stamped in your passport, and not a plastic card you carry in your wallet.

26. You call a chicken burrito a "shwarma."

27. Your dorm room/apartment/living room looks a little like a museum with all the "exotic" things you have around.

28. You've heard of or tried "hubbly bubbly."

29. You've woken up in the middle of the night to watch the Superbowl on cable.

30. You have sat in a "men's" or "women's" section in an airport, hospital, or restaurant.

Can't think of a title for this one

2007-08-14T19:05:00.000+01:00

I find it highly irritating to be left alone with my own thoughts in the mistaken hope that somehow some epiphanous thoughts will miraculously permeate through to the old gray matter. Of course that hardly ever happens at least during the hours of the day that I am at least conscious! I don't know if this happens to anyone else but I find that I tend to get my thoughts of near-perfect clarity just as I am swinging between being awake and asleep or when I'm in the middle of some mundane task which probably is the same thing!

The very fact that I can't recall an example of this is testament to how fleeting these thoughts are, yet I try and make rough notes of these as and when they come. If you're still following all of this well done!

Anyhow I'm sure some of these fleeting thoughts of clarity have somehow translated in blog entries over the years (this not being one of them!). I'll make it a point to keep track of anything interesting that pops up in my crazy head.

--- End of filler ---

On a more meaningful note, here is another helping of random yet interesting things I've come across over the past few weeks.

An amazingly beautiful film I recently watched was Baraka (1992) (meaning 'Blessing' in many languages). I'm a little annoyed that I had never seen this film before now as it came out 15 years ago. It is probably one of very few films that completely captivates your imagination without ever having a single bit of dialogue in it! To call it a cinematic masterpiece is a feeble attempt at fathoming its sheer profoundness. You'll just have to watch it from beginning to end to see what I mean whilst suspending a natural urge to vocalize your inner thoughts or worse: dismiss it as a 'Documentary'.

While I was at work the other day I came across a copy of a monthly health club management magazine (yes I was that bored) and it had some interesting stories on the world of fitness products and services. The strangest one I came across was that of an Israeli snake massage that's suppose to be very therapeutic....

....riiiight.

Anyone want a California King snake to slither away those aching back muscles and dare I say nether regions? Wow and I only need to shell out $70 for the privilege! I'm sure Mybrid will be loving to share this little story with the kiddies at summer camp!

And finally imagine you didn't have to bother with accessorizing your Myspace or Facebook every 10 minutes in order to 'define' yourself and hopefully find like-minded individuals - because lets face it it's too tedious. But instead you make first contact purely by clicking on a series of pictures that best describe a given feeling or situation for you.

This is one of the pages used to compile a 'visual DNA' of you

The site is called Imagini and this is the first step to becoming a part of it. its called your 'Visual DNA'. The idea is to gather a collage of the pictures you instinctively click on in order to find someone with similar...instincts really - and by extension, personality. An interesting addition to the world of social-networking nevertheless. I found this site through a link at a friend's blog so thanks for that 'V', you know who you are.

That's all for now, I'll get back to getting stuck into Imperial Life in the Emerald City and some other DVDs and books I haven't had a chance to watch or read. I'll probably do a mini review of all these once I've gone through them all. I'm currently watching the PBS Frontline special called News war which is compulsory viewing for anyone remotely interested in how media is used and abused by the powers that be.

Airport bomb attempts, rural floods, forest fires...How will you remember Summer '07?

2007-08-09T10:17:00.000+01:00

Well what a strange few weeks its been, we've had a new administration take over at 10 Downing street and then soon after some crazed doctors try to blow up at least the front entrance to a terminal at Glasgow airport in Scotland. It's also been the very wettest summer the UK has ever seen but nothing on the scale of what's happening in South Asia right now. In sharp contrast, Southern Europe has been sizzling in temperatures reaching the 40's (Centigrade).

Not one to jump on any particular bandwagon, I'd say we've got some seriously freaky weather this year and how funny it's all coinciding with the whole 'Climate change' a la Live Earth lobby. I smell a conspiracy here people!

Oh and who can forget the latest Foot and Mouth scare currently doing the rounds in the national media. All in all it's shaping up to be another memorable summer albeit for morbid reasons. Are there any less depressing bits of news that have fallen by the way said lately? There sure is, behold the return of the DeLorean aka 'The car from Back to the Future'.

John Z DeLorean's DeLorean DMC-12

If you were an 80's kid you'll recognize them gull-like doors anywhere. Its the 'Doc's car' you might even say reminiscing about the Back to the Future films. If ever there was a seemingly bland looking sports car from the 80's that could turn heads nearly 30 years down the line, this would be it. There's something strangely magical about it that makes you think it's going to either fly off somewhere or race down a street at exactly 88 miles an hour before disappearing in a flash and leaving two streaks of flaming rubber in its wake.

And the good news is John DeLorean's one-hit Irish wonder will be back in limited production with 21st century improvements (alas that doesn't include that much coveted 'flux capacitor' thingamajig or trash powered jet engine).

Staying on the theme of time, have you ever wondered why as we grow older there's less and less time to get things done in a day? Well there's a pretty simple yet well researched reason for that according to Personal Development tutor Steve Taylor. The premise is the older you get the shorter your perception of time is. I can especially relate to my summer holidays when I was in primary school or even kindergarten, where 1 month would seem like an entire year for me.

As always I urge readers' input on whatever has been covered in this post, especially on how you'll remember this summer and how you're perception of time has changed over the years.

Another selection of interesting cyber info

2007-07-17T11:08:00.000+01:00

I thought I'd check back at my blog to keep it alive (just about) and put in a few of my personal takes on stories over the last few weeks.

The all-important news that the Beckhams have finally landed Stateside is probably right up there with the will-she-won't-she-stay-in-jail debacle that is the existence of Paris Hilton. On a scary side note I had a weird disturbing dream that I was living with her reality-show-partner-in-crime Nicole Richie in a big mansion and I remember asking her who her father is (its Lionel Richie incase anyone's wondering). What a nightmare!

Brown's politics

A new era is taking shape in British politics with the abdication of Tony Blair and his Chancellor Gordon Brown taking the helm. What I found interesting about the newly shuffled government is that it's got a lot of fresh young faces in very high-calibre positions and the one that strikes me the most is that of Foreign Secretary taken up by a rather boyish-looking 42-year-old called David Miliband. And if his stance on global issues such as climate change and strong views against the goings on in Washington - particularly on Iraq - are anything to go by, he might just be able to single-handedly salvage some of the lost credibility of the UK and by extension the West around the world.

David Miliband: A force for good overseas?

What's more, having a Polish-Jewish background and knowing of his own family's suffering at the hands of the Nazi's he may prove to be an even-handed force for good when it comes to dealing with the on-going Israeli-Arab conflicts. As always only time will tell and with every passing day, this blogger refuses to lose faith in the the human race.

Plane sailing?

A somewhat new era in passenger flight began on the 7.8.07 when the Boeing 787 Dreamliner was unveiled to the world in Everett Washington. The plane's manufacturer, Boeing reckons it will redefine aircraft manufacturing - it's mostly made of carbon fiber composite material - and is marketing it to the mid-range aircraft market as it sees the worldwide market for commercial flight gravitating towards mid-sized aircraft as oppose to larger planes such as the Airbus A380. I must confess my coverage of the aircraft is absolutely nothing compared to the hard work put in by dedicated 787-enthusiast and blogger "flightblogger".

The unveiling of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner in Everett, Washington

And finally I've managed to find work through yet another temping agency but at least it will help me maintain some kind of cash flow and help out with my debts. I'm working in Sales and administration at a gym in the nicer leafy parts of West London so I could do worse and have indeed so I'm not complaining!

As usual I'll have something of more topical substance to write soon. In the meantime here's an interesting little link a friend of mine sent me through Facebook, about Facebook. All of a sudden my qualms about the whole social-networking phenomena aren't entirely unfounded!

Newspapers need to 'forget about news'

2007-07-02T23:28:00.000+01:00

An interesting trend in how the masses get - and to an extent 'make' - their daily news.

Posted: 9 November 2006 By: Oliver Luft of journalism.co.uk

"Newspapers need to forget news if they are going to prosper in the digital age, an industry conference wastold today.Opening the Beyond the Printed Word conference in Vienna, Robert Cauthorn, CEO of CityTools, said that newspapers had lost the ability to tell communities the stories they are interested in.Newspapers are guilty of talking only to decision makers, he said, and people were now shifting to form their own online communities around stories that interested them."

For the full story click here.

Is telling the truth a new way of lying?

2007-06-30T18:08:00.000+01:00

"When I was growing up, my parents always taught me never to lie"

That's something you might hear from a person defending him or herself from a verbal challenge to their integrity and I'm sure it rings true in all families. But can this method be used at government level as well? The recent declassifying of secret records of assassination plots; national espionage etc. by the CIA can be thought of in one of two ways. Firstly and probably the most obviously it can be seen by the world as a sort of gesture of goodwill and transparency OR equally, a blinding smokescreen of said gesture. Given the US government's past and current track record in cooperation with the rest of the world I'm deeply inclined to agree with the latter.

Why would a Government so embroiled in numerous geo-political conflicts - mostly as a result of 9/11 - wish to shoot itself in the foot by releasing decades old yet quite relevant intelligence material. Is this a new trend in the politics of powerful world governments where information that's a little too close for comfort gets released into the public domain? Spilling the beans as it were is not a new phenomenon however, everyone from ex-politicians to C-list celebrities - in need of a quick buck and a career jump start - are practically falling over themselves to publish their memoirs, autobiographies or some other kind of exposé. However what these and many similar entities have in common is that they are no longer in a position of power or much influence at least not where it matters most.

This brings me back to my original question of just why a government that mirrors a lot of the darker methods of intelligence-gathering of its preceding incarnations, chose to release such sensitive information. A possible conclusion this blogger has reached is that this public revealing of potential litigious information can be seen as a political blood-letting exercise in order for the current US administration to dictate to the rest of world - with a seemingly clean slate - about the wonders of Democracy with much more believable enthusiasm.

A little light entertainment that'll bring the message home.

What We Call the News
Funny Jokes at JibJab

Blogworthy or cyber-trash? You decide!

2007-06-26T17:08:00.000+01:00

I've been doing a lot of random surfing lately, partly for research, general knowledge and partly because - dare I say - I need a bit of literary inspiration as pretentious as that sounds. As usual the rather unusual news stories I've come across lately never fail to give food for thought. This post has a distinct Middle Eastern flavour to it for no particular reason other than pure intrigue.

Shadow Company is a film I've been aching to watch ever since I came across it's preview on globetrotting reporter Kevin Sites' website Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone. It's a clear no-BS account of the private military industry operating mainly in Iraq but also around other global hotspots. Among the most striking subjects it covers is the whole idea behind what a Mercenary is and how a ‘Private Military Contractor’ is simply a modern incarnation of this - the highly controversial idea of a paid soldier-without-a-Conscience. If you thought US military presence in Iraq let alone other places it has no business being was bad enough this film will surely throw a spanner in the works!

Mmm…Camelicious!

Dubai, UAE, Apparently according to some research eggheads camel milk is a very versatile source of milky nutrition compared to regular cow’s milk because those with lactose intolerance can drink it and lower in fat too. So thanks to the age-old Bedouin tradition of using it for everything from a nutritional drink to a natural sunscreen, camel milk is going through a sort of commercial renaissance in this part of the world. And why stop at plain old camel milk when you can have camel milk ice cream or even chocolate!

Crazy Freight-dogs

Staying in Dubai, the up and coming transfer hub of millions of tonnes of air freight that is Dubai International Airport, is getting so busy that funny accidents like this are bound to happen sooner or later:

The accident was caused by ground crew loading freight at the tail end of the aircraft first when standard procedure is to always load from the front (where the cargo bay door is open) so the freight acts as ballast.

Who knew an aircraft like an MD-11 were this light!

And spare a thought for these frightened (or should that be ‘freightened’?) poor underpaid South-Asian ground workers.

Of course this pales in comparison to the ridiculous crazy driving style of anyone who lives in Dubai.

The world’s biggest chandelier

10 x 15 meters of stainless steel-covered gold aerial exquisiteness

Yep, you guessed it, just like the world’s tallest building; the only 7-star hotel and the biggest indoor ski resort, the capital city of the United Arab Emirates has decided to commission and install the world’s largest and undoubtedly most expensive chandelier in its main mosque. Not to be outdone by its neighbouring city of Dubai, the authorities in Abu Dhabi have shelled out nearly $8.5 million for the piece which is part of a set of 6 chandeliers. Clearly the meaning of the word ‘extravagance’ is totally lost on these oil-rich Arabs.

Was this worth the read? Do you want to see more of it? Let me know.

At the crossroads (and on briefly bumping into a literary celebrity)

2007-06-13T14:08:00.000+01:00

Not much has happened over the last week apart from the entrance exam I took last Thursday for the 6-month NCTJ course in newspaper journalism. I found out on Monday I passed (which is great!) the entrance exam but it all depends on me passing my degree first so I’ve got that to worry about now. I’m still job hunting – those student debts aren’t going to pay for themselves! I am, in effect left in academic and financial limbo even though I know I’ve invested a good deal of time in my degree and not as much to become a ‘journo’, but I live in hope.

On a lighter note, I arrived an hour early for the entrance exam in a depressing corner of South London and I was still a little bleary-eyed so I went looking for a caffeine hit in a quiet little café where I could do some last-minute revision. I stopped into a cornershop and asked for directions to the nearest café and there stood beside me was the tall figure of literary genius, satirist and general ‘Grumpy Old Man’ Will Self, he was just picking up his morning paper and I was…well asking the shopkeeper for directions to a café.

Will Self: Grumpy old man

Will turned to me and said “There’re so many café’s around here, take your pick mate” (or something along those lines, I was too awestricken to remember what he said) and then he proceeded point me in the direction of a small Portuguese cafe. So that was probably the highlight of the week for me.

I am falling way behind in practicing my shorthand in preparation for the journalism course and haven’t got anything near the required £800 I need for it. Well that’s all for now, back to job-hunting for me. I’ll probably post something tasty and less mundane later on today.

Final year exams: Over (now let the ritual deep inner-reflection commence)

2007-06-05T12:28:00.000+01:00

At times I felt my life has been dragging on for an unnecessarily long time and this past year it seemed like it was more of the same. After just having completed my finals this week I’m left both relieved and oh too familiarly sceptical about my performance. Now I wouldn’t say I’m reverting to the bad old days of summer ’05 because I think I’ve pretty much figured out the beginning pattern of my downward spiral enough to nip it at the bud.

If I allow myself to give a blunt assessment of my performance I’d say these past two years have been both painful and essential to my overall development as a human being as trivial an idea as that may seem.

But I still have doubts (as I’ve always had) on how well I’ve done in my exams and from that stems a lot of the personal problems I know I’ll have to overcome as of now. I know all this talk is like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted – story of my life really – but I felt I needed to put my thoughts somewhere, even if it is in the public domain.

Maybe all this means I’m displaying my weaknesses with unwarranted abandon to an unknown audience including possible future employers! But then I’m the kind of person who’s always been brutally honest about not only myself but of others too. I say poorly-thought-out things that may hurt others and bounce right back at me and I’m trying to at least put a lid on it! I talk more and act less and I’m working on that too and I’m seriously thinking of my future existence on this planet and on things like hope and direction, probably more so than ever before.

The dark side of my conscience tells me: ‘Thws you’re such a slow developer and there’s no way you can cope with the pressures of this world’. And then there’s the positive side telling my I’m a slow developer but its part of my overall learning curve and sure, I might not reach that elusive sense of nirvana but I’ll sure as hell be a better and more resilient person at the other end.

Facebook et al: A reason to get out more? OR the catalyst for a better social life?

2007-05-25T21:48:00.000+01:00

Like the opportune jump onto the last train to 'I don't want to be a social outcast' before the doors shut, I've finally joined up to a social networking site. Yep and it’s the ubiquitous Facebook. I've been trying not to join up to these groups because to me they're just one more way of keeping you addicted to online life (bar blogging of course!) and more importantly sans a real life! And then there's always the possible threat that Murdoch's cold steely fingers could get into this pie (as if Myspace wasn't enough!) thus helping him control another little bit of our lives that might have some shred of independent thought left in it.

But that all changed once I discovered most of my school friends were on it and I've been hooked for a month now! Then there's always pioneering stuff like this that keeps aquisition-hungry media conglomerates like Newscorp at bay. I do feel for those whose generation have missed it, but there does seem to be hope for even them if the latest trends are to be believed.

The other reason I had for avoiding these groups was the fact that I wouldn't have much in common with whoever I'd be adding to my ever-growing and mostly anonymous list of 'friends', again that all changed when I signed up for Facebook. My new dilemma is now that I've re-discovered all these people I knew from school I wasn't sure I have much in common with them either. For starters I never really took part in much of school life (whether or not that's my fault is debatable) and I certainly wasn't the 'Go-to' guy in my year. So to me adding to my Facebook list of friends as great as it is (because only people you know get added and only after they've approved your request to add them too) it all seems in vain, almost like I'm (and I know I'm not alone in thinking this!) trying to relive my school years in the lost hope that I might redeem myself now.

Alas if any of them care enough to actively WANT to know me rather than be my "pity friend" I'm all ears but hey I think I've complained enough - and I realize its a highly unattractive character flaw - so let's get back to what this post was suppose to be about.

Is there really anymore room for more social networking sites, I mean we've got the likes of bebo, meebo, Hi5, Myspace and these are just the ones we recognize as typical social-networking groups! For example some of you might have noticed my "Proud member of the London Reporters and Journalists meetup group" tag on the right, yep that’s another kind of networking group and its sole purpose is to get people acquainted with each other in real life according to interest groups.

So there's none of this "hey thws! I'm doing great, working for a big multinational firm and travelling" malarkey without the distant possibility of ever meeting up in real life unless of course you are socially...well…worth it to be honest. Man am I bitter and insecure about something and I just realized I don't have to post any of this but then again it sure as hell beats therapy!

In conclusion:

Much like life itself, your online social experience is whatever you make of it, if you're a twisted loner and are constantly trying to define yourself in real life, chances are its going to manifest itself in your online profile. And if unlike me you consider yourself relatively less insecure and happy then consider yourself bumped off my Friends list! Go be happy somewhere else!

Aaaaanyhoo hope y'all enjoyed my self-deprecating take on online socializing, I certainly enjoyed putting my uncommon vocabulary to use (or not as the case maybe). I'll have some material to write about possibly tomorrow and I'm hoping it'll be more upbeat, I've got my finals over the next two weeks and I'm still job-hunting so things could get a little sporadic...

First political rant of oh 7!

2007-05-23T02:00:00.001+01:00

One of the most sobering amateur anti-war music videos I've seen, almost as good as the original! I think this sets the tone nicely...

Hey gang! I've got a few bones to pick with the status quo of the world today. I should warn one and all that its 2am and I've been working late and am strangely feeling a strong urge to write about stuff out of pure spontaneity.

First off, what the hell is happening in Lebanon and Palestine...again? If you can't find a common enemy you start a campaign of infighting, is that how it works? I'm going out on a limb here and guessing this aint just an Arab problem and I'm not so sure its a Muslim one either. I'm tempted to call it a territorial problem but that's yet another simplistic label so I'm going to go along with an identity crisis.

A Natural end

When an entire people lose their sense of direction and belonging in life, what we are currently witnessing is its full and natural end. The Palestinians have been pushed into so many different corners by ever-enlarging Jewish settlements that places like Gaza have, for lack of a better simile, crossed boiling point a long time ago. And its only natural for this sentiment to spill over to poor indefensible and easily influenced areas such as refugee camps in northern Lebanon albeit amongst a minority who are conveniently labelled as Islamists/jihadis/Islamist militants (pick and mix folks its a free-for-all on the 'ragheads' right?!) or are in one way or another linked to Al Qaeda. And yes I know not all of them are homegrown, they're a mixed bunch from around the Arab world but thats not what I'm driving at.

Sure they're brutal, sure they're not helping their cause by apparently terrorizing the camps and launching attacks against a sovereign country like Lebanon, but remember this, they are a product of injustice, indifference and rightful indignation towards the powers that be that have kept them there without even a hope of a better life. At the risk of sounding like a religious fanatic myself, I will say this much. If Muslims just once, looked within themselves - as should every other sound humanbeing by the way - and did some serious moral, spiritual and dare I say ego cleansing, we would at least be at peace with ourselves, more than enough to not only be proud of who we are but positively confident and constructive in this world and I'm sure other races, religions and beliefs would...well trust us more as much as we would respect them!

I'm no apologist for outright criminality like the killing of innocent lives and equally when lives are destroyed not physically but mentally. You can read into this what want, but if your belief system is so screwed up and your moral bearings are so off the charts that you switch what's right for wrong and what's wrong for right, then seriously don't blame the mysterious 'other' for what's happening in this world, you've no need to look any further than yourself.

The lost tales of a backpacking slacker...

2007-05-19T18:30:00.000+01:00

Ok, I guess I really should post some photos from the remaining days of my travels last year, besides it beats writing a long-winded entry describing all these places, so here they are in sort of chronological order:

At the Chinese New year (2006) celebrations

along the Singapore riverside

Catching my coach ride to Kuala Lumpur the next day, the

AeroLine coach service stops and starts from the Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel in downtown Singapore (Note: I'm not actually running here, I'm just imitating the logo on the coach and it was a good coach ride at around Sing$ 20 one way)

Crossing the bridge connecting the Southern-most tip of the

Malaysian peninsula with Singapore

Important immigration information for travellers:

As you are literally crossing the causeway into another country you will need to have your entry permit slip to hand (the slip you fill in and the half of it you are given at the port of entry into Singapore by immigration) along with your passport if you don't need a visa to visit either Singapore or Malaysia. The immigration points of both countries are on their respective country's end of this causeway and so you'll need to get off your mode of transport twice to go through both immigration points (once for each country when coming or going).

Now here's the important part, when travelling in a party such as on a coach (especially on a coach!) and when you get off at Singapore immigration make sure you fill out your exit permit well BEFORE you are processed by immigration as any delays here will mean you missing your coach ride or equivalent (especially if its a cheap company!) that waits for a reasonable amount of time for most (not all!) of its passengers before continuing on its way across the causeway to Malaysian immigration. That's why they make you take all your luggage off the coach just in case!

I was lucky enough to go with a reputable company such as AeroLines as they were kind enough to wait for me because I didn't fill in my exit permit even though it was given to me when I got onto the coach! The reason? Because I didn't think I would need to go through Singapore immigration, not until I actually FLEW out of the country! Alas I didn't make the same mistake when it came to Malaysian immigration on the other side. But on my way back from Malaysia to Singapore I used a cheap coach company and was left behind because I didn't fill in my NEW entry permit for Singapore before getting processed and had to go to the end of the long line of people and start over again! It was no biggy getting back to my cousin's place because Singapore's so small.

As a side note the Malaysian immigration personnel seemed really relaxed compared to the Singaporean ones (that could have changed by now!). Also if you intend to bring the equivalent of your local Blockbuster's in pirate films/music and any other counterfeit products into Singapore, lets just say its not a good idea. But a few fake designer goods or other things should be ok and if the authorities are reading this I'm not condoning purchasing fake goods in any shape or form.

So to summarize (as if I ever needed to):

Fill in your entry and exit permits BEFORE you get processed by immigration at either end of the causeway and have everything that's immigration-related in order

If you're caught with counterfeit goods in bulk especially DVDs/CDs the penalties are high

My lunch on the AeroLines coach service to KL (this is not standard so you won't get this on a cheaper coach services but I could be wrong)

Welcome to KL! My first night in the city and I made a beeline from my homestay (hostel) to the Petronas towers to see them by night after a really cheap yet quality dinner (It was some kind of Chinese chicken with beansprouts in blackbean sauce) with some exchange students visiting the city

My breakfast (mmm...satay chicken skewers) before going on the official Petronas towers tour, the tour is free by the way but you need to queue up really early in the morning to get a shoo-in

The Petronas towers by day with a touch of the Chinese new year

atmosphere in the form of lanterns hanging across the street

One of the many views from the bridge connecting the two towers,

I was hoping we could go right to the top but security's real tight here

While exploring the rest of the city I stopped by the National Mosque near the old KL train station to pray, it looks pretty plain from the outside but it's really quite pretty inside and this is coming from someone who's seen many mosques and other Islamic architecture from around the Middle East!

I'm no architect but I do love the straight clean lines and how this Bauhauesque theme works well with the functionality of traditional Islamic design (but I could be biased because I'm Muslim!)

The main prayer hall under one large dome

The Sultan Abdul Samad building,

this is where the Federal court was housed before it was moved

Petaling street aka Chinatown where I bought a pair of Levis 501 jeans; Docker's Khaki pants; 2 t-shirts and a seemingly nice pair of blue suede Pumas (they were 1 size too small because my size was sold out and I couldn't resist buying them for £6!) for around £15!

The busy main street of Chinatown

The next day I went to the Batu caves on the outskirts of KL with another backpacker, the caves aren't all that spectacular inside but getting to them is quite a task and is part of worship for many Hindus oh and that big gold statue is apparently the world's biggest Lord Murugan statue

Next stop: Pulau Penang!

I took this shot from the coach en route to Penang island to illustrate how much of the ancient jungles in the Malaysian countryside is being destroyed to make way for vast palm plantations - Malaysia is the world's largest producer of raw Palm oil

Looking Westwards and you can just make out the coast past those mountains

Crossing the Penang bridge/causeway into Georgetown, capital of Penang

The view from my hotel room balcony the next morning (The hotel Mingood - I'd recommend this hotel because the staff are really helpful and homely). The tall building behind those houses is the Komtar and it's part of a shopping complex, its the tallest building on the island

Breakfast at the rooftop restaurant at the hotel and real halal beef bacon rashers!

Artistically positioned antiquated rickshaws at the Cheong Fatt Tze mansion near my hotel

Different generations of transport in Penang in front of a mosque

built by early Bengali settlers

Lunch! Chicken curry, garlic naans, lentil soup (or daal) and a nice tall glass of ice cold Mango Lassi! You gotta love the food here!

My feet started to hurt as I toured the nearby area on foot (courtesy of those ill-fitting Pumas!) so I hired a trishaw for the princely sum of RM16 if I remember correctly, these things are purely ceremonial these days and mostly tourists ride on them

The next day I met some more backpackers to hang out with and check out the rest of the island and so we went to quite a few places like Penang hill (above) early in the morning where you get amazing views of the island and surrounding sea because the air is so clean at that time of day. We also went to the one and only Snake temple aslo known as the Temple of the Azure Sky (its full of poisonous snakes just hanging around !) and the Penang butterfly farm which sounds boring but had some really interesting exotic species of not only butterflies but strangely, tortoises, squirrels and millipedes!

After touring the island in the taxi we hired for the day we ended up just chilling out on Batu Ferengi beach which isn't the most spectacular of beaches - I've seen better - but it served our purpose!

Another shot of Batu Ferengi beach

On a boat in rural Bangaldesh crossing one of the many rivers that criss cross this country, this was taken in my Dad's home district in the South of the country

And to neatly finish off my whirlwind photo tour

of South-East Asia (which really did take 2 weeks) here's a fitting sunset from Bangladesh

Hopefully you can put two and two together to fill in the gaps between the end of the trip and now!

This better have been worth it...Mybrid! It took me forever to get the apparently 'new' blogger to format the pictures and text and even now they're still looking screwed up.

One hell of a sabbatical!

2007-05-18T20:32:00.000+01:00

'It’s been ages' sounds like a bit of an understatement seeing as I practically dropped off the radar since last February. And I kept telling myself I must get back to writing more meaningless crap about myself so perfect strangers can read about it. A strange feeling of loss came over me over this period because I just didn't feel motivated enough to get back to blogging and like an ever-increasing pile of dirty dishes it only got worse as time went on. I sure as hell know I wouldn't be the first or last blogger to feel this way and eventually be banished to the wastebasket of the Internet!

Well this feeling made me even more determined to revive this little niche I etched out for myself on the net. I realize I never quite finished my temporary travelogue that I sort of maintained when I was in South-East Asia so I'll do my best to help bring everyone up to speed on that and everything that followed as briefly and concisely as possible.

I travelled to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from Singapore and also to the Island of Penang just off the West coast of the Malaysian peninsula and I loved every single moment of it because it was just me and the road most of the time and didn't have to stick to other people's timetables although strictly speaking I did have to get back to Bangladesh to join my parents before our flight back to London. I'm tempted to post more pictures but that'll mean I'll have to give context to them all and I did say I'm keeping this short, besides I can’t bothered!

After getting back to London, we came home only to find out the hot water and heating system had completely broken down, it looked like our gas boiler had blown up whilst we were away and this was in the middle of a freezing February. So 2 weeks a small space heater and a £2000 heating system overhaul later we were nice and toasty. I started working part-time and began studying again for my final year retake which would start in October but I didn't want to leave anything to chance.

On the 14th of May my sister had her first baby and I became an uncle for the first time and I couldn't wait to see the little 'critter' so I started making loose plans on going to visit her in Connecticut in the summer.

From April onwards I helped out with two of my cousins' weddings and for the remainder of my summer I volunteered to work as a freelance reporter for my local newspaper for work experience as a career in journalism is where I see my life going and it being the raison d'être for this blog - another great motivator for getting back to blogging! I also managed to finally steal myself away from all this for 10 days and visit my sister and brother-in-law and the new 'addition'.

After quite a productive summer I was back at Uni and between then and now quite a few things have changed in this world, but I won’t bore you by back-paddling through all that because I’m sure all my esteemed readers don’t want to be reading stale news from an armchair warrior, there’s enough time for that later!

Its too clean here!

2006-01-28T10:54:00.000Z

As you know I’m here in Singapore and just exploring this island of many cultures and of that ever-present ‘Merlion’ thingamajig. It’s been a very surreal experience so far but I’ve been trying to squeeze as much out of the short time I have here as possible. I caught an early morning flight to Singapore which meant that I had a few hours to rest at my cousin’s place once I arrived, before heading out and exploring the city.

I’m sort of lucky to have not one but two personal tour guides in the shape of my two younger nephews who know the island back to front. The eldest one lives and goes to the top local school and the younger one lives in Sydney and is in Singapore for a few days before going back to school. As I was saying before, this is one very surreal place (probably not to the extent of Tokyo) but surreal nevertheless. Why? Because rarely do you find such a well developed country in a place like Asia where people of many cultures and backgrounds getting along with each other to make this the one of the most successful economies in Asia.

Granted it’s a very small and rather manageable country, but given what problems nearby countries like Thailand and to an extent, Malaysia are going through with their different ethnic groups, I’d say Singapore’s done pretty darn good. Everything from the bird flu epidemic originating in this region to terrorism, its all kept in check and the Singaporean government isn’t one to be messed with.

It’s a really strange social experiment – if I can call it that – they got going here, very few places on earth can boast total ethnic and religious harmony. Its as if the issue doesn’t really need to be discussed because its understood so well and it’s a given. Having said that you’ll always get a little racism and general backwardness here and there as my eldest nephew told me, referring to a few comments he gets from his Singaporean-Chinese schoolmates probably due to his dark skin.

Mild racial bigotry aside, this is a very – how shall I say – welcoming yet highly restrictive country. Yeah we all know how you’re not allowed to spit chewing gum (no shops sell chewing gum in this country) or throw cigarette butts on the streets here

Signs like this are a common site, no wonder the souvenir T-shirts say 'Singapore is a 'Fine' city!' You'll find out about the 'Durian' if you read on

Public transport

Everything here seems to work seamlessly and the public transport system here is no exception. We took decided to take the train Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) that criss-crosses the island to the more central parts of the city and I’ll tell ya, they got this whole ‘Clean-and-stay-clean’ thing down pretty good (see above picture). All trains as far as I know are driverless.

But I must say I just can’t seem to quite get my head around the idea of every single citizen of this country actually OBEYING the very strict laws here. And the amazing thing is there are very few CCTV cameras around to enforce these rules, this is of course in sharp contrast to here in the UK - I think we have the highest density of CCTV cameras in Europe and it still doesn’t seem to work here!

Downtown Singapore

Our first place to visit was the Padang (A Malay term for large expanse of space usually used for national events) and its surrounding areas next to the Singapore river and the central business district where all the tall buildings are. Just before that we broke for lunch and went to Burger King, and I’ve gotta say the variety of burgers here are so much more mouth-watering and ooze with local flavours and they’re just so ‘moreish’, you just want to have more. The ones back in England don’t even compare to these spicy burgers. Sorry, I just got carried away there trying to relive the taste-bud explosion, after all its ONLY a burger (I’m still trying to convince myself). I forgot to take a photo of it.

The central business district of Singapore

Same buildings but from the Singapore riverside

We also visited the famous Esplanade...

The Padang with the Esplanade in the background

Another view of the Esplanade from the riverside

...(locally called the 'Durian', after the well-known spiky and very smelly fruit)

See the resemblance with a Durian?

It’s a nice multipurpose building used for performances of all the arts and exhibitions, but the young nephews found it boring so I didn’t really get to hang around much to check out what was on that day or catch any particular exhibits etc.

So we settled for messing around with the camera in front of the Esplanade.

I couldn't quite get the camera level right for this picture and the one below, I was trying to go for a 'floating/kung-fu fighting on water' effect

As the clouds were thickening we decided to head underground and catch the MRT to Orchard road and the central parts of Singapore city. Orchard road is like the Oxford Street or Times Square of Singapore, it’s got all the glitzy shopping malls and hotels there and the streets are so clean and spotless I just couldn’t believe it. Since I’m on a tight budget I settled for a little window shopping amongst all the Boss and Armani stores and all that designer spiel.

After moseying all fancy shops we decided to call it a night and headed back home and home’s where I’m typing this up from before I hit the sack. Its so humid here that I need to take a shower twice a day, I just took one now and my T-shirts soaking again, better crank up that AC. That’s all for now folks!

A thousand pardons...

2006-01-26T16:45:00.000Z

Hello all! 'Tis I, your favourite slacker (make that travelling slacker). I am completely aware of my long absence on my blog but I assure you that there's a very good reason for it. First of all the fact that I'm making this entry into my blog is testament to the fact that I now have a very reliable and most of all fast internet connection which is required for uploading all the photos I've taken over my travels to fit in sequence with each entry.

Yes, I'm finally here! I'm in Singapore now and so I think I'll have more to write about.

But the work is not done yet as I'm still a few entries behind but hopefully my backlog of entries should quench your collective thirst to know my whereabouts. What you've got to do is scroll down this page through the back-dated entries I've made to get an idea of what I've been upto.

I'm currently writing this from my nephew's PC which is on a 10 megabyte connection (that roughly translates to 'Mucho rapido' or very fast for all you non-techies out there!) so I'll be having to play catch up on my travels so far as I go along. A proper official entry for this leg of my journey should follow, so you'll just have to bear with me...

PS.

If you haven't already done so, check out my last few entries starting with oldest first:

Welcome to the land of the Bengal Tiger (21/12/05)

Random thoughts from random spots (10/01/06)

'Cha' anyone? (19/01/06)

The ties that bind (21/0/06) - the one below

The ties that bind

2006-01-21T18:27:00.000Z

So we’re all back in Dhaka and as I briefly mentioned in the last post, the visits to the other places in the country will have to wait for another time. Probably cos’ the one thing I hate about visiting Bangladesh is the lack of even mundane things to do on daily basis. If it weren’t for the few sources of entertainment I brought with me (i.e. the books and Mp3 player and access to Dad’s laptop) I would’ve either lost my bearings and/or finalize my plans to go to Malaysia and Singapore.

Thankfully the latter materialized and I got Dad to pick the tickets up for me from the local Singapore Airlines agent in Dhaka because for one my Bengali sucks and I can’t let that get in the way of dealing with the booking agent and risk further embarrassment. Anyhow I’m due to fly out to Singapore from here in 5 days time for a two week backpacking tour of the island and onto Kuala Lumpur and Penang and/or Langkawi in Malaysia. It doesn’t seem like much but I haven’t gone backpacking before and I’ve got a tight budget so this will have to do for now.

Ok so that’s roughly my travel plans for there. After we all got back from Sylhet yesterday (the ‘coach’ was a tin can on four wheels) I sort of had a small succession of epiphanies, I think they were brought on by my experiences of sheer difference between the people I met in Sylhet and the ones in the city of Dhaka! By that I mean the down-to-earthness of the people I met in my Mom’s hometown of Comilla and those I met in Sylhet.

I think what I’m trying to get at is how we’re all insecure in our own little ways but these insecurities manifest themselves more or are at least more visible in city folk than those who lead a considerably simpler lifestyle. And you sort of see it more in developing countries because people’s desires are – how can I put it?, more primitive.
Everyone’s at each other’s throats when it comes to the acquisition of property, land, belongings etc. From the politicians in their daily mudslinging contests right through to the kids playing on the streets everyone has so much contempt for each other.

In the midst of it all – and more importantly as an observer, you realize that all this crazy behaviour is borne out of those more subtle and sensitive parts of the human psyche. Parts such as feelings of intense frustration, desperation and just general insecurity about our own existences.

For me personally, epiphanous revelations like this come and go usually but I refuse to let this particular universal notion of what makes us all human (and thus fragile beings) to just slip away and not have an active and positive impact on my ways of experiencing…well life really.

That’s enough ranting for today, next entry will come to you live (hopefully) from Singapore.

'Cha' anyone?

2006-01-19T17:44:00.000Z

Some children (and young adults I guess) wait with baited breath for their birthdays every year, you won’t find such behaviour with this fresh (yet very jaded) new 23 year old! In fact I completely forgot it was my birthday on the 17th of this month (donations would be much appreciated!), probably because A) I’d like to think I’ve grown out of it and B) We were all too busy enjoying ourselves with friends in the beautiful North Eastern district of Sylhet which is 150 miles outside of Dhaka, here's a refresher.

We stayed at the bungalow of the father and little brother of a close family friend from back in London, it was right in the sticks south of the local river Shorma. It was quite a nice scenic area with rice paddy fields as far as the eye could see surrounding the little village. I love how everyone seems to be related to everyone here and nobody’s a stranger, actually that can't always be a good thing over here.

Our main purpose for visiting Sylhet was to see a real working Tea estate where all you tea-guzzling people especially back in the UK get your morning and/or afternoon fix of this herbal beverage (locally known as 'Cha') from. I’ve always seen these tea gardens in pictures and packets of Typhoo tea but I wanted to see and get a feel for how the whole industry works.

Watch out for the snipers!

But first we visited a place called Zero point on the Bangladesh-India border, its more commonly known by the collective name of Jaflong-Tamabil and its famous for the large sized pebbles that roll downstream from the streams and rapids that hug the heavily forested hills. These hills serve as a natural border between the two countries. Rumour has it that if you try and cross the border into India you’ll get sniped at by Indian border guards from high up on the hills. A comforting feeling no doubt I think you’ll agree especially when you’re only yards away from the border!

Here are some photos for your viewing pleasure.

Approaching the Bangladesh/Indian border by rickety old boat, the indian border starts at the foot of the hills

Me on top of a mound of huge pebbles, these are naturally found here but get exported to India after being crushed to make cement

An educational birthday

The next day was my birthday (yay…) so we set out for my cousin’s house about 20 miles away from Sylhet town, her husband who is a doctor and professor used to be the resident doctor at a nearby tea estate until recently. Since we were late in arriving at his place and there wasn’t much daylight left we decided to go straight to that very tea estate in a place called Shamshernagar where his best friend is currently the serving doctor for the estate workers.

Enroute he filled us in on the various tea industry-related stories that I personally wasn’t aware of. I took my handy MP3 player along to record the conversations we had because I knew it was no short story.

He quickly cut through all the romantic notions one might get of tea estates on rolling hills - perhaps the ones from colonial times, right through to the bleeding heart of the sad stories of the tea workers. These are people who have been ‘imported’ from the economic backwaters of Orissa and other similar areas of India back in the 19th century during the days of the British empire.

Incase you didn't know what a tea worker looks like

The descendants of these workers still work the tea gardens and lead pretty lonely lives. Although not outcasts, they hardly ever venture into the nearby towns and villages. Because they are not properly integrated into the rest of Bangladeshi society their own language is somewhat left intact albeit with a few local dialects and vernacular. All their simple needs are met by the tea estate management who make sure the colonial tradition of economic dependence is intact. For example many of the workers have become quite addicted to some kind of local brew of alcohol.

This alcohol is heavily subsidised for tea estate workers – namely the tea-pickers, with one sole purpose: As long as they are hooked on this stuff, most of what little they earn from tea-picking goes on the booze thus keeping them on a short leash. The tea companies who run these estates I’m told, are pretty much forced to uphold these practices to prevent the simple-minded estate workers from wondering off and finding out there’s a better life outside of the tea-picking business.

What’s more, ordinary Bangladeshi folk won’t want to work in tea estates, its as if these poor simple people are simply a continuation of the long line of ‘specially bred’ tea-pickers brought over by the British.

This is just a tiny snippit of this huge tea estate

This is - I'm told, the brew from this particular tea garden

A Brief History of Tea

If my cousin’s husband’s correct, tea – as we now know it, was first discovered by Genghis Khan back in the 13th century who used to order his troops to only drink boiled hot water. Now since there’s only so much hot water one can drink before getting sick of it, the soldiers decided to add something for flavour, no prizes for guessing what that was. Granted, there are a few variants of this story but I can’t be bothered to look them all up! If you’re not satisfied with this one go to wikipedia.com.

The tea-picker’s wage

The average tea-picker on an estate gets paid around 32 Taka (approx 46 Cents) for 26 Kilos of green tea leaves per day, thereafter for every extra Kilo of tea leaves plucked, the worker gets 1 Taka (suffice to say that doesn’t even register on the currency exchange rate!). I can imagine picking 26 Kilos of tea leaf is no mean feat, and to imagine having the strength to pick another few extra Kilos is beyond my comprehension. Nevertheless when you’re very survival depends on it, I think THEN you’ll find the strength!

And when you blow a good portion of your earnings on cheap liquor, I guess there isn’t much left to do but twiddle your thumbs and wait for the next working day.

Divide and Rule

There’s a certain system that’s been lent down from colonial times till today and that is of the hierarchy system effectively dividing the upper management and doctors of a tea estate and the workers. If, for example a tea worker needs to visit the doctor he/she is not allowed to sit down in the doctor’s office, no matter what. This is purely because he/she is the worker and he/she is the doctor. This idea goes across the board and this particular legacy still exists today.

As my cousin’s husband explained to me, when he was stationed as the doctor at a tea estate the management of the tea company running the estate told him in very explicit terms that ‘you are to accept the 7 maid servants we provide you’. Can you imagine having 7 servants at your beck and call at the age of only 24?! What’s more is that they can’t do anything BUT serve you even if you have no need for them!

And now in this day and age of supposed equal rights for all, we’re told by the pricks who laid out these legacies of subservience in the first place that we need to ‘do more to improve the quality of life for those who live in such conditions’. And yet we still want cheap affordable tea, like coffee, like chocolate and like a whole host of other ‘quaint third world charms’.

I say YOU REAP WHAT YOU SOW!

Anyways I’ve digressed enough on this entry, but I must say the highlight of my trip to Sylhet, or Bangladesh was visiting a tea estate and if I had time I’d even go to the other places I alluded to in my 'Welcome to the land of the Bengal Tiger' entry and probably wax lyrical about them too. But if its not the Eid rush to the various beauty spots in the country it’s the weather that’s eventually played havoc with my original plans.

Random thoughts from random spots

2006-01-10T17:26:00.000Z

Getting things planned and put into action over here is near impossible, I’ve pretty much been stuck here in Dhaka since I arrived. I’ve had to set back my plans to go to Sylhet because I got struck down with the mandatory bout of Diarrhoea the day before we were suppose to set off the next day, it’s practically a rite of passage when you come here. Once it’s over you’re ok to eat just about any kind of funky food although I still wouldn’t recommend it.

So its been over two weeks since we’ve been here, and my Mom’s sister’s not doing so well back in her hometown of a place called Comilla, it’s a small town about 60 Miles East of Dhaka, so Mom and I went to visit here and keep her company for a few days. A little known fact about Comilla: It was once used as a strategic Airbase by the Indians under the British during World war II to keep the advancing Japanese at bay, otherwise we’d all be speaking (and living like) Japanese by now, which in retrospect isn’t a bad thing given the lack of efficient and incorrupt governance you’ve got here today.

Having nothing to do out here can be a good thing or a bad thing, it’s a good thing when you want to ponder away life’s little intricacies and get some ‘me’ time, it’s a bad thing when you think a little too much about your place in life to the point where you’re left ineffective. I try and find myself somewhere in the middle of the two extremes because I’ve been at both ends and its never a good thing to be at any particular extreme.

So now I find myself lying in bed at night with nothing to read but at least I’ve got my MP3 player handy, its definitely a life-saver when you can’t get to sleep easily. The lyrics from some songs stick longer than others maybe because I guess I can relate to them on some level. So I thought I’d list a few excerpts from my favourite songs in no particular order probably because I’m feeling a little philosophical lately and these lyrics seem to sum up my view on life in general.

‘Someone right now is looking pretty tired staring at a laptop tryin’ to get inspired
Somebody, livin’ right across the street just wrote the best thing that she’s written all week’

- 'Right now' by Fort Minor

‘Somebody right now is droppin’ his vote inside a box and tryin’ to not get shot in his throat for the act of freedom,
Right now somebody’s stuck in Iraq hoping that he gets shipped back breathing in a war that he’s not really sure the reasons,
So we show our support when the press mislead ‘em’

- 'Right now' by Fort Minor

‘One is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do,
Two can be as bad as one it’s the loneliest number since the number one,
No is the saddest experience that you’ll ever know,
Yes is the saddest experience that you’ll ever know’

- 'One is the loneliest number' cover by Filter

‘I am a man whose dreams have all deserted
I’ve changed my face I’ve changed my name
But no one wants you when you lose…

…Don’t give up cos’ you have friends
Don’t give up you’re not beaten yet
Don’t give up I know you can make it good’

- 'Don’t give up' by Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush (probably one of the most inspiring songs

I’ve heard in a while)

‘I need some time and I want some space, I gotta get away from the human race’

- 'New York New York' by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five

‘If only I could sleep for ten more minutes I might find the strength to make another day,
If I didn’t have to get up and do my thing I would probably sleep my whole life away’

- 'New York New York' by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five

‘What you watch on TV tells you what life is suppose to be,
But when you look outside the only thing you see is the poverty-stricken reality’

- 'New York New York' by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five

‘I dance to the beat and shuffle my feet,
Wear a shirt and tie and run with the creeps cos’ its all about money aint a damn thing funny,
You gotta have con in this land of milk and honey’

- 'The Message' by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five

‘A child is born with no state of mind,
Blind to the ways of mankind,
God is smilin’ on you and he’s frowning too because only God knows what you gonna do’

- 'The Message' by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five

‘…And now your eyes sing a sad sad song of how you lived so fast and died so young’

- 'The Message' by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five

And finally here’s one to mull over…

‘If you knew that you would die today and saw the face of God and love would you change, would you change?
If you knew that love can break your heart when you’re down so low you cannot fall would you change, would you change?
How bad how good does it need to get?
How many losses how much regret?
What chain reaction would cause an effect?’

- 'Change' by Tracy Chapman

Pessimistic and gloomy my choice of lyrics may appear to be but you can’t afford to not acknowledge the fact that these are everyday stories of everyday lives in this world of ours. Don’t worry everyone, Emran hasn’t gone suicidal on you, I just wanted to use this entry to help put my (and maybe your) everyday worries into perspective.

The gap between rich and poor is getting wider than ever, and its ever more apparent in poor developing countries like Bangladesh where the difference is blindingly obvious. Sure there are good people trying to make a difference but they’re usually few and far between. I guess the fact that most of the world’s NGO’s are working in this country must surely have a positive impact but the effects seem to be slow to come to fruition.

As always with societal ills the only suitable method tends to be Education. But it’s a tough battle seeing that you’ll always have some government and/or foreign fat cat official in his shiny chauffeur-driven BMW X5 driving past an old man rummaging around in a heap of rotting garbage on the roadside looking for scraps of food for him and his family.

So the next time you’ve got something to whine about REMEMBER, life’s much bigger than you, your wife (or husband or partner); 2.5 kids; that 25-year mortgage on the 4-bedroom house you just bought in the suburbs and other things we over-caffeinated, insatiable and self-indulgent fools like to gripe about.

Welcome to the land of the Bengal Tiger (or the other reason why that Nike T-shirt cost you £20 instead of £50)

2005-12-22T16:45:00.000Z

Tourists? What tourists?

Well, I’m finally here, welcome to Dhaka, capital city of this tiny South Asian country we call Bangladesh. On arrival at the airport from Dubai I was slightly amazed by the doubling of terminal space especially at Immigration because its usually pretty crowded. I however wasn’t surprised at the different tourism board (not the one above) billboards practically begging the occasional pleasure-seeking tourist to ‘avail’ the city’s tourist facilities. I’ve got to admit if there’s one thing this country is really good at its institutionalized begging!

If its not the tourism board it’s the government asking foreign countries for financial assistance. Hell, Bangladesh is home to the largest Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) in the world (in terms of staff numbers) which more or less does what the government should be doing – developing the country!

I’ve tried promising myself that I won’t verbally abuse this country by pointing out all that’s wrong with it whilst knowing very well that its still in its infancy – the country only gained independence from Pakistan in 1971 – visit this link for a concise history of the country. But what else is there to be said for a country that’s been voted the most corrupt not once, not twice but five times in a row.

Here’s an interesting viewpoint: Due to what appears to be the extreme backwardness of the country, one must learn to do without certain things we take for granted back home. For example, if your skin colour is a considerably lighter shade of brown (i.e. you look foreign) your best bet to not be picked out from the crowds on the street (probably by pick-pockets or street-side hawkers or worse...kidnappers) is to take a plunge in your fashion-sense (what IS fashion anyway?) and wear very crappy clothes be they hand-me-downs from the cousins here or the crappiest trouser-shirt combination. I guess it’s the same old story in many developing countries cos’ almost everyone’s an opportunist on the street!

I’m just so frustrated with the pace of change here, every time I come here its like going back to the 80’s if not the 70’s and I don’t just mean the local equivalent of elevator music (or ‘Muzac’ to give it its proper name) or the upscale stores all still playing Chris De Burgh’s ‘Lady in Red’ or something of that era (yuck)!

Still, things are changing albeit at snail’s pace, I was here back in 2002 and I guess very few things have changed in Dhaka city, of the few the most noticeable must be the absence of the black and yellow three-wheeled ‘Baby Taxis’ or tuk-tuks as they’re known elsewhere in Asia. I remember just how much noise and air pollution they’d produce and how dangerously ill-balanced they were.

Now, all of these baby taxis have been replaced by green-coloured larger three-wheeled ‘CNG’s (or Compressed Natural Gas) baby taxis. They run much cleaner and quieter than their predecessors. This still hasn’t had much of an impact on the smog situation in the city but it’s a definite improvement. Most vehicles in the country are slowly being converted to CNG as its proving to be more efficient than petrol or diesel and its cheaper.

About my visit to Bangladesh this time around, I’ve made it a point to visit as few relatives as humanly possible as I’ve planned to travel around this allegedly beautiful country. Staying with the ‘rellies’ – as I like to call them, is the social equivalent of sinking sand, once you step in you can’t step out! Hence my previous decision. Of course there will always be the initial chorus of gasps from them but I’ve managed to hold my ground so far with the further aid of Mother dearest who usually has her way of smoothing over the cracks my explanations leave behind (my Bengali leaves little to be desired and it can get me into sticky situations with people here).

So the shortlist of places to visit this time around is as follows:

- The Tea Gardens of Sylhet in the North East of the country

- The dizzying heights of the Hill tracts of Chittagong in the South East

- The worlds longest uninterrupted sand beach in Cox’s Bazar and hopefully the

beautiful Island of Saint Martin in the Bay of Bengal

I sort of had an idea to go to the protected forests of the Sundarbans where you’ve got the best chance of spotting the native yet highly reserved Royal Bengal tiger and possibly the world’s largest mangrove forest but that plan got shelved due to the lack of time. In fact the whole trip to Oz has been shelved because my best friend from school Mo won’t be in Melbourne in time, so I’ve had to reallocate the time spent there to here in Bangladesh and to Singapore and Malaysia.

Oh well like the stand-up comedian Steven Wright once said, ‘You can’t have everything, where’d you put it?’. I’ll be posting more of my views as and when I get time and as usual they’ll not always be of much informative significance, just my usual two Pence (or Cents depending on where you’re reading this from).

In the land of Syriana doing the the Touristy thing

2005-12-20T15:19:00.000Z

Just got back from a desert safari that I felt almost compelled to go on as I was so damn bored towards the end of my stay in Dubai. It was interesting, amusing and damn cheap to say the least! Our driver and guide, Jasim came around to my place at 3pm just like the company said he would the day before when I booked the tour.

In Jasim's Landcruiser I met Amanda and her mom from London and we went to pick up 2 more passengers at DragonMart, a huge series of warehouse-looking buildings arranged in the shape of a Chinese dragon when viewed from the air. You’ll find just about everything Chinese at DragonMart and our last 2 passengers were no exception!

We waited for them outside the complex for what seemed like half an hour and Jasim was getting restless as we only had about 3 more hours of daylight left. When they finally did show up they could barely speak a word of English – not surprising as many of the people who work at DragonMart are ‘fresh-off-the-boat’ Chinese – so they stayed quiet for pretty much the whole time and kept smiling a lot as you do when you don’t know any other line of communication.

Whilst en-route to the dunes I did ask them what their names were and they politely asked me if I wanted the Chinese version or the English version, I knew I’d never be able to remember the former so they said ‘call us Jefferson and Lawrence’, not in so many words of course!

Once at the dunes we stopped briefly to deflate the tyres to spread the weight of the car on the fine sand so we don’t sink. The dune-bashing itself was to put it plainly KICKASS! Rollercoasters don’t even come close to it simply because they’re a little too predictable, but with dune-bashing and other extreme pleasures in life you just don’t know whether or not you’re going to tip over or get stuck. We did, however get stuck in between two dunes and Jasim’s brother who was in one of the other Landcruisers bailed us out.

I should be getting some kind of royalty for this pic shouldn't I?

We stopped at the top of one of the bigger dunes to take in the view of the miles and miles of auburn sand around us and then we messed around with some old snowboards and did a little sandboarding down the side of the dune before we meandered our way down to the camp.

On a side note: Readers may be interested to know that most parts of the new George Clooney Political thriller Syriana were filmed right out here on the outskirts of Dubai city and the desert. After watching the film I recognized the buildings in the marina area and it just seemed so damn surreal to be out here.

About the film well, I think by now most people know what my current tastes in films are so you’ll also know that this film is totally highly rated by yours truly! And the fact the George Clooney is the executive producer of the film which definitely puts him in my very short list of favourite Hollywood actors who have any kind of moral credibility.

Bottom line…go support this film (preferably by watching it!) and its creators because they work for a Film house called Participant Productions which is (hopefully) working to promote towards noble causes around the world! For a quick run down of my favourite films of probably all-time – even though they all seem to have come out in 2005, are and in no particular order:

Crash
The Constant Gardener
Lord of War
and Syriana

Back to the desert safari…

At the camp some people chose to go for a rather subdued camel ride whilst some others went on the quads for a bit of dune-bashing of their own. Suffice to say I shelled out the 50 Dirhams (friggin expensive if you ask me) for the 15 minutes of amateur petrol-powered 4-wheel action. Word of advice when riding on dunes with a motorized vehicle: Scout the ridge of the dune you want to jump off of or go over before actually doing so, and NEVER HESITATE when you’re at the edge. I, however found this out the hard way and got bucked off my quad.

After all that crazy tourist activity we sat down at camp for some shisha, dinner and some belly-dancing by a very pasty looking Eastern-European lady (so much for authenticity eh?).

(belly dancing with an obviously inept and uncomfortable-looking German tourist)

I didn’t let my investigative (some might call it being nosy) instincts go by the wayside just because I was enjoying myself, I got to know some of the people working at the camp who were answering to our every whim thus making it a memorable day for us tourists. I found out that most of them were from Bangladesh and the Indian subcontinent (surprise, surprise). I asked them about their life out here in the middle of nowhere and I found myself enthralled in their stories of the day-to-day hardships they face.

They seem to live on a salary of about 400 Dhs a month, that’s £30 or $55 - I spent half of that on the whole safari!, and they’ve got to sleep rough in the flimsy sheltered areas of the camp site come rain or shine. Venturing outside of the camp area to, say the city is not prohibited but with the amount that these guys are paid its financially impossible, that coupled with the fact that roughly half of what they earn usually gets sent back home to help their families build a proper house or put their siblings through school.

Here’s the result of the least I could do ‘for’ them:

That’s right, I could only take a photo with them to give them the recognition they deserve lest I should forget the hardships people go through for the comfort of others. I had nothing to offer them but words of comfort and understanding and yet I wish I could give them something of tangible benefit.

I could go on about all this for another few web pages but I’ll spare you the unnecessary heartache you may feel for people you don’t even know and hence who hold no particular significance.

This’ll have to be my last entry before jetting off Eastwards to Dhaka, Bangladesh. Once I’m there and if I get a decent Internet connection I’ll put my introductory entry with interesting facts about the country.

And finally I leave you with this, a breathtakingly beautiful desert sunset…

Remember that rental car?

2005-12-14T11:46:00.000Z

Hey everyone how's life I know not much has changed in the space of a few days, and if it has I hope its for the better. Does anyone remember how I was whining about that crappy Nissan Sunny all them moons ago (...actually it was the last entry), and does anyone remember how I was going to hopefully upload some pics of that banged up piece of you-know-what? Well the thing decided to die on us the day before yesterday not once but twice that same day! It wasn't the battery, it wasn't the lack of fuel, it WAS however the lack of servicing of the alternator and dynamo that charges the battery for the next time you start the car.

The worst thing is that the rental company doesn't seem to see things from our point of view, people like them make me sick, they expect us to sort out the problem and take the car down to their office instead of them coming to us! Can you imagine the nerve?!! Rental companies like this wouldn't last a second in the UK, watchdog agencies would be all over them. Infact its not even a matter of where in the world these people would be held accountable, its the friggin principle! Why do we (people who are completely new to Dubai or at least don't know the roads at all) be expected to be responsible for taking the car back to the rental office for the second time?!!!

Anyhow I've come to the conclusion that I want to limit the number of pictures I put up on my blog as I believe it 'cheapens' the quality of my overall material and does nothing more than make it look like the countless number of cheesy cloned personals or friend's networks sites out there.

I hate to disappoint but for those who know me through my blogging or just those who know me, I'm sure you'll understand where I'm coming from. Ok I'm hopefully suppose to meet up with Jaco to go to Jumeirah beach at noon and its noon now so I'm running late so I'll be back soon, hopefully I should be able to sort out some kitesurfing whilst we're all still here so if I get pictures from that I'll put them up despite what I just said about flooding this blog with photos.

Dubai on four wheels

2005-12-10T14:05:00.000Z

Finally I got my first taste of what its like to drive in this place even though the car that we rented was on the serious side of abused to say the least. It’s a 6 year old Nissan Sunny with horrible wheel alignment so I keep veering too the right if I’m not too careful in compensating for this dirty little snag. The breaks squeal like (not squeak) and they’re as sensitive as hell. On the upside its an automatic and we’re paying about £10 a day for the…ahem ‘privilege’ as its next to impossible to get around this city without a car.

Getting a UAE license was pretty simple given the horrendous load of bureaucracy you’ve got to go through in this part of world for anything that’s remotely official. Dad and I just had to show our UK licenses and the traffic department officials did the rest on production of some moolah (approx £17). As I’m not a resident of this country I can only get a 6-month license, Dad’s already a resident so he gets a near-permanent 10-year license, no driving test no nothing for both of us…brilliant!

Since the car’s an automatic, I don’t need to worry about shifting gears but even so I find myself reaching out with my left hand only to find out that I’m in an automatic jalopy that takes a decade to shift up a gear (plus I think the exhaust’s gone) - the steering wheel’s on the left side like the rest of the world I guess, I thought I’d have trouble staying on the right side of the road but it was fairly straightforward.

When it comes to the national pastime of driving I think this place is pretty much up there with the likes of Qatar where I grew up and any other country in the Arabian Gulf (or ‘Khaleej’ as its know in Arabic). Also you’re pretty much roadkill if you don’t drive certain models of vehicles or at the least, you’re asking to be treated like crap. So you can imagine what the driver of a banged up old Nissan Sunny must be feeling like when crawling down Sheikh Zayed road during rush hour surrounded by brand spanking new BMW 7 series’, Ford Mustangs, Toyota Land Cruisers and Range Rovers. (Sigh) Some day eh?

Ok, ok now the actual driving experience of this region goes something like this:

- Expect to get cut up, a lot!
- Don’t expect anyone to give you space to manoeuvre from lane to lane
- Don’t expect people to indicate which way they’re turning
- Expect to cuss at the crappy driving/walking of your fellow road users…
- …Don’t expect to be heard or noticed though

I knew I’d expect all this as I recognize it from when I was in Doha. It’s the kind of driving experience that you can either bravely fight against or like the 99% of everyone who settles down here ‘do what the locals do’ as I guarantee you, you will lose your sanity if you try and maintain the former!

A lot of westerners (ok white people, there I said it) live in my area and I’m constantly amazed at how ‘localized’ their driving habits have become, I really can’t tell them apart from the Emirati arabs. That reminds me of a point I don’t believe I made the last time I was in Dubai. There’s not a single local arab person on the streets, ok I exaggerated so you see one or two but that’s it! Most of the people here tend to be Indian, they should rename this county the United Indian Emirates, after all most of this country’s present wealth (be it in tourism, property or any other industry) is being generated by them! Oh well I shouldn’t complain too much seeing as I could be seen as a pretentious moron living in an upmarket residence dispensing his idle thoughts on all the wrongs of the world.

I’d rather not be seen in that light, so if a member of the Inland Revenue is reading this I am just a poor humble University student carrying out research work on the social and moral decay of the modern Middle East for my final year Journalism thesis and am not just lazing around poolside soaking up the rays and squandering the tax-payers cash. Infact I'm not squandering any money (seriously), I'm too skint and I just managed to scrape together enough for this trip.

Oh my will ya look at the time and cousin’s here to pick me up to go to the beach…to review the ills of a proposed designated nudist area of course, must dash.

(I hope to put some pics of the rental car for your amusement in the next entry, actually by British standards it could be seen as a luxury...)

IKEA’nt believe its here!

2005-12-07T13:22:00.000Z

Before going further here's a random pic of the balcony from where I write my blogs whilst in Dubai, there's really no particular reason why I put this here but I thought I'd just stick this up here.

Although I can pick up around three wireless hubs in the vicinity of the apartment, the signals are usually too weak to piggyback on so strictly speaking I don't directly blog from the balcony although that would be a nice thought.

Ok bad title not to mention its probably been used a million times, but I’ve got mixed feelings about the furniture we ordered. First the plans that my sister and I meticulously drew up for the furniture and design layout were almost trashed by mom and dad’s unbelievably infuriating frugalness in the face of the masses of potential this apartment has when furnished and furnished well!

Also, the high ceilings in the living room and bedroom have some major cheapo bulbs in very basic bakelite sockets. I couldn’t stress enough how important lighting is in a place you eventually want to rent out. Suffice to say that my idea for some nice low hanging ceiling lights in both rooms never even got a decent hearing.

We still haven’t got any curtains and if it wasn’t for the old man’s ever-changing moods about whether or not to furnish the apartment in the first place I’d still be sitting on the floor writing this friggin entry.

Ok I’m seething…again, I’m going to start thinking about the millions of people on earth who have nothing over their heads and nothing to eat, hopefully that should calm me down.

Right I’m still mighty pissed off, this is definitely the last time I help them out when it comes to choosing stuff for the house…any house!! Here, enjoy some photos I took while I go apeshit thinking of the numerous ways my spirit has been crushed time after time by my parents.

The living room, it looked small when we first got here but now its growing on me and it all seems fine and dandy

This is the other corner of the room looking from the couch to the small dining table and chairs, yeah I know it looks very bare but its suppose to be a blank canvas for whoever moves into the apartment

The Ikea bed all dressed up so it looks good enough for a brochure or something...

By the time I got to uploading this bathroom photo I thought to myself 'I really don't know why I'm sharing these pics, they have no particular value to anyone who reads this' oh well at least you can see that I dressed the bathroom with - thats right you guessed it, an Ikea shower curtain and I must say it does certainly go with the scheme.

Well that more or less should give anyone who thinks that the UAE or indeed other Arab states are very backward and that these people are too busy riding camels and making tents to be in the real estate business let alone the oil business.

And the pool’s great too…

2005-12-06T16:41:00.000Z

This entry goes out to all the dudes at VMC (Mr. Bloyce I do believe you’ll be a tad bit displeased and I truly hope this does not affect our working relationship…). I ventured out the central courtyard swimming pool, gym and playground area. I took my trusty camera with me to take some choice shots of the area. I was tempted to snap away at a couple of chicks on the poolside but I restrained myself (probably to the detriment of all the people at work watching over Simon’s shoulder as he reads this!

Thats the view from my front door, looking into the courtyard and pool and gym area

Boy that tripod sure came in handy...

I don't want to rub it in but the weather really is this good even in December (approx 30c)

As I know no one around here - and I didn’t want to trouble anyone to take photos of me (which I never like taking) I brought my little tripod down for some nice poolside shots. While I was setting this all up a friendly South African girl (steady now boys…) came up to me and offered to help me take some photos, I declined because I figured I had the tripod and I didn’t want to bug anyone. A few seconds later I thought to my slothful self ‘hey maybe I can capitalize on this here situation and make some friends while I’m here stuck a million miles from civilization as it were.

So I went up to her and a guy who seemed like her boyfriend lazing on the sun beds and just struck up a conversation explaining why I was taking the pictures. As it turned out they were both visiting their parents from South Africa and they just happened to meet at the Rugby Seven’s tournament that was held here last week They only became friends as they found out they both lived in the same apartment complex. I introduced myself and they did likewise as ‘Jaco’ from in between Pretoria and J’burg and Natasha from Cape Town.

So I spent the better part of the afternoon chilling by the pool with them, I didn’t expect much to come of it so I proposed we meet up at the pool again the next day and plan a day out or something seeing as we’re all here for limited amounts of time. Since communication is a problem here I told them my apartment number and gave them my email address as that seems to be a rather lasting way to keep in touch these days.

Ok that just about all for now but I’m trying to sort out a bit of a desert outing and dune bashing with my cousin Eaymon (who I forgot to mention earlier) this weekend so I guess I’ll have more pics then.

Dubai Dubai Duplicitous Dubai (part Deux)

2005-12-03T18:48:00.000Z

Just arrived at our new one-bedroom apartment in a nice but mostly deserted part of the overall new ‘upmarket’ housing developments in Dubai called ‘The Greens’. Its not that far from ‘The Springs’ villa which we bought into just over a year ago. ‘What about the weather?’ I hear you ask, its absolutely ideal this time of year for anyone more accustomed to European Summer temperatures, during the day the mercury hits the lower 30’s (that’s centigrade) and in the evening it gets to around 25C plus, the calm and cool breezes blowing in from the Arabian Gulf make for a nice pleasant climate especially as I write this from the 3rd floor balcony (pictures to follow).

The city’s as a whole is under constant change and development and if you think a GPS navigator could help you out over here, think again. The road layouts here change faster than you can say ‘Slave Labour’ (for more on what I think about life in this part of the world click here ). We’re thinking of renting out a car as it works out a lot cheaper than hiring a taxi to go anywhere at approximately £8 a pop. Considering we live about 15-20 miles away from downtown Dubai where groceries and general shopping tends to be cheaper because the newer developments like ours on the outskirts tend to fall under the category of what I like to call a ‘Freshly Arrived Lamb to The Slaughter’ or FALTS ( I just made that up as I type this!).

Anyhow the surrounding area as I’ve mentioned is still under construction so it pretty much looks like a bad weekend getaway to a sleazy hotel in Majorca when you look out the balcony or just have a wander around outside. But apart from all that the actual apartment complex where we’re at is pretty nicely manicured and peaceful.

Ok I’m sleepy now as I’ve usually been towards the end of my entries lately so I’ll call it a day.

'Going over to Michael's house...'

2005-11-28T23:46:00.000Z

The title of this blog's a slightly different take on the lyrics of an Eel's song called 'Susan's house' because I just happened to remember it and thought I'd rip off the name of the song, a most excellent song in my opinion.

So anyways I've sort of been bumming around at home moreso since the sister left for Connecticut last Saturday. So I thought since I'm not working today - nor does it look like I'll get any work before I leave in the next two days, I might as well go up to see an old school friend in a place called Horsham which is about an hour's train ride from london, its basically in the English countryside in the county of Sussex.

Michael's the only person I know with too much free time on his hands just like me, so any time is a good time to visit him and while away the hours in each other's company.

So he picked me up from Horsham station and we just went to his place to chill out and listen to some funny odd music (and pretty random music in my opinion, although he'll hate me for saying that). Especially music by the Bonzo Dog band, a rather bohemian sounding 60's British band....I really have nothing more to say about them. We messed about on his PC and I helped him install a P2P file-sharing software that I've used....yay!

After all that strenuous activity we decided to go and grab a pizza at Pizza Hut and then watch a movie. Once we sat down to our table and ordered our pizza I decided to have a bowl of salad so I went down to the salad bar and I suddenly felt like the only brown person in the whole of Horsham as my paranoia got the best of me and made me think that all the white customers were looking at me. I wonder what gave me away, was it my disheveled look combined with brown skin and the standard issue military skrim warm neck band that looked a bit like a skimask? I'll let you be the judge of that, observe:

Do I look like a threat to society? Note: I just took this picture now for authenticity

Horsham's a very white area but NOT bigotted but nevertheless I felt a sudden chill in the air. Again I can be very suceptible to bouts of paranoia so don't take any notice of what I just said, infact look at it as filler if anything.

So after we had a few interesting short debates over media consiparcy theories and the other social ills in the world over our pizza, we made a bee line for the cinema across the car park and watched a gem of a film called 'The Constant Gardener'. Its an independent film directed by Fernando Meirelles who also directed City of God - a film I've yet to see, but its right up there with Lord of War and Crash in my opinion and will probably be up there with Syriana when that comes out here in March. The film is an amazing present-day thriller with a real axe-to-grind storyline about the corruption of drug companies and how they abuse the third world by paying western rich governments to turn a blind eye. Its the kind of all-encompassing universally hard hitting message that really attracts me to films of this genre.

It really makes a change from the Hollywood crap we must endure, and if it gets people thinking and taking positive action against the status quo then all the better! I don't intend to sit around working for bluechip companies for the rest of my life thereby making the rich richer and the poor poorer in some indirect way. Once I get my immediate priorities straightened out I'm going to at least make an active effort to do something more worthwhile with the little time I have on earth, I think we all should.

This isn't me ranting on about some obscure humanitarian cause and it sure as hell aint a passing fad or phase. There's far too much wrong with the world for this to be JUST a 'phase'! Don't get me wrong, this isn't my ultimate mission statement its purely how I've been feeling about the world that I've found myself growing up in over the past 10 years.

(Sigh...) I'm going to have to shelve these thoughts of peace and justice for now and get my life back on track, besides I need to catch some serious Z's.

But before I go, I've been meaning to give a mention to fellow blogger and school friend Nafie aka 'random culture' for a long time now. His mother died of cancer a few months ago now and I'd like to think that he still checks my blog and knows that my heartfelt prayers are with him Inshallah! Take care bro and I hope you've come to the conclusion that this is simply a part of life as that should help to ease the pain for everyone in your family.

Da Sistah's in da house

2005-11-22T21:42:00.000Z

Yay, my big sister's come over from Connecticut for a week's break which is nice especially since we found out she's expecting and hasn't been feeling 100% lately so its nice having her around! She's my only sibling so we make the most of each other's company especially since we only see each other about once a year these days. I must say I first met the news with a pretty lukewarm response because she never struck me as the maternal type, also the fact that I'm an uncle to so many other of my cousins' children sorta wore out the novelty ages ago. Nevertheless this little 'jellybean' (I came to that conclusion on viewing the latest ultrasound snaps) is my 'own' flesh and bone moreso than all the other kids I'm an uncle to, so that in it self is probably cool.

I must say the most surreal thing about it all is knowing that the little jellybean shaped being is actually in her at this very moment in time, I mean think about it, its just really amazing how the body can accommodate something like that. Oh well its all uncharted territory for me so thanks for bearing with me so far.

Anyways I'll be leaving for Dubai next Thursday with the folks and start furnishing the apartment we just bought on a shoestring/Ikea budget of around £1000 which my sister arrived at while putting her pretty dormant interior design skills to work. It'll be interesting to see how far we stretch that in reality but I'm sure mom's going to find a few bargains here and there, I mean its Dubai - The Hong Kong of the Middle East, we're bound to find some good stuff up for haggling.

I'm still working on getting through to my man Mo in Melbourne to find out if he's going to be there when I go because he's one of the very few good old school friends from my Doha days I still keep in touch with and I'd like to keep it that way.

Right well I've more or less exhausted my mental faculties for tonight and I'd like to think I have more interesting less self-obsessed things to talk about in the next entry.....hang on this is a blog is it not?!! If I can be self-centered here where the hell can I be!!! Ok I'm tired now. Laterz y'all!

Supermarket tunes

2005-11-09T19:44:00.000Z

Is it just me or are supermarkets getting more in-yer-face when it comes to self-promotion? My local superstore is Tesco (for the benefit of all non-UK residents Tesco is the biggest supermarket retailer in the country) and on every aisle there's at least one little LCD screen looming above from the top shelf. Their seemingly soft low-volume non-threatning jingles playing alongside promotional spots for the latest Pot noodles just drives me nuts hours - sometimes even days after my last visit!

They stick to your brain like shit to a blanket its unbelievable! Talk about product placement! Subliminal doesn't even begin to describe how obscenely ingenious these marketing people are. Who needs cold callers while you're in the shower when you got annoying jingles to remind you of an omnipresent supermarket chain subtley encroaching on your buying habits if not your nearest national heritage site.

I'm no anarchist, not by a long shot (I'm far too lazy for that) but this thing we call 'Globalization' really is sucking the soul out of communities by killing off smaller businesses and services e.g. local pharamacies, coffee shops, grocery stores etc. Maybe this the trade off for the global population explosion we've been experiencing over the past century or so and its only natural that the powers that be come up with a solution to satisfy the masses. Except as far as I can see the masses who need to benefit the most from globalization are the biggest losers and in juxtaposition these very people are the biggest contributers to lining the pockets of fat cat company bosses who in turn lobby the most powerful governments in the world to partake in some of the most heinous acts against humanity and the planet.

Yes that Big Mac really does come from rather unsavoury cow parts and the cattle graze on increasingly large areas of once-virgin Amazonian rainforest, all so you can get a normal hamburger for 99p and get another totally free and rest assured that your favourite fastfood joint is 'giving back to the community'. Mmmm I'm Lovin' it!

Well thats one extra thing to think about when you're waiting in line for your latte at your 'friendly neighbourhood' Starbucks whilst listening to the latest Bob Dylan album playing in the background.

I know where I'll be shopping next week, thats right Tesco because they wield the power of economies of scale and I, like my fellow beings in this rat race love getting my £1.20 loaf of bread for 70p at 7pm. Having said that I haven't bought Marks and Spencer stuff for years and have sworn off Burger King and McDonalds not only because I hate their hypocrytic work ethics and everthing they stand for but I'm trying my best not to have a corornary at the age of 22.

Ok so the moral of my rightfully placed angst-ridden observation is: Think about how you caught yourself humming a completely ridiculous tune in front of the computer at work or at home.

Emran: The story so far

2005-10-17T21:04:00.000+01:00

Ok, for the regulars of my blog, you'll know that a little while ago I was looking to join azafady - an animal conservation organization in Madagascar (based here in London), and then there was the fact that I was trying to look for some kind of work at local newspapers or publications so I can pursue a career in Journalism, thereby proving to the nay-sayers in my life that I actually AM capable of taking control of my own life!

Alas, none of that has happened, although both projects are still on the general agenda, I've just got a little pre-occupied with other stuff that's come up in recent days. Stuff like my pretty much impromptu decision to go to Dubai to check out some more properties then visit the 'rellies' (thats 'relatives' for those not in the know) back in Bangladesh and then go to Australia to visit my cousins and a good friend of mine from my school days in Doha. All this is going to happen towards the end of November and the end of January next year. So I've been saving up especially for my trip to Oz as I've never been there and I want to make the most of my two weeks in the nice hot Aussie summer! So I'm pretty much stuck doing the games testing just to save up for all this.

Hopefully, inshallah (God willing in Arabic) this trip WILL happen. I'm also hoping to go and visit my big sister in May and go to my friend 'Hamsta's' graduation to name a few things that have also suddenly crept onto my agenda. I've thought long and hard about the volunteering thing and I think I'll probably take another gap year after my final year and totally dedicate my time to that rather than do it in a half-baked fashion this year.

The journalism job searching will still go on regardless because I need the experience no matter how little it is as I simply don't see myself spending endless hours in front of a screen; answering calls or just generally sitting down in one place for the rest of my natural life. Although someone's gotta do that kind of job to make this IT-driven world of ours go round, I'd rather it wasn't me. Modesty aside, I think I have better purposes to serve in life.

Anyways now that y'all are pretty much upto speed on my life I thought I'd share a few cartoons I read in some recent papers which I found quite funny.

Note: I'm not trying to make any particular statment with these cartoons, I just find them generally funny, click on them to view larger versions.

Also I thought I'd stick in a Tracy Chapman song called 'Change' that happens to spell out how I'm feeling lately...enjoy)

One month of spiritual detox, a lifetime of implimentation

2005-10-05T20:13:00.000+01:00

Ramadan Kareem, Ramadan Mubarak or just plain old Happy Ramadan!

Whatever way you say it, if you're a Muslim you'll know what I mean! Even if you're not, you may have even heard of this word 'Ramadan', or even better you actually have a good idea of what it means. If its all Greek to you then here's a very short and compressed description of what exactly Ramadan is:

Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar (there are 12 months in all) which follows the lunar calendar

Ramadan is the month during which the Quran was first revealed to the Prophet Mohammed (Peace Be Upon Him) by the Angel Gabriel ('Jibreel' in Arabic), it happened on the 27th day of the month

Consequently the current Islamic year is 1426 as it is calculated from the year the prophet Mohammed (PBUH) made his journey (or Hijra) from the city of Mecca to the city of Medina on the east coast of modern-day Saudi Arabia as he and his followers were being persecuted for preaching about 'this strange new religion' there

Muslims around the world must fast from a few hours before dawn till sun down, that means you can't eat or drink anything for this entire period

Ramadan typically lasts for approximately 30 days depending on the sighting of the new moon

The festival of Eid-al-fitr marks the end of the month of Ramadan when for 3 days Muslims around the world are in a celebratory mood but are never more than a thought away from remembering the less fortunate of thier fellow human-beings and so all Muslims who are able to, must give a certain portion of their and their dependents' wealth in charity which is known as 'Zakaah' or 'Zakaah-al-fitr' before or on the first day of Eid. This compulsory 'wealth-shedding' excercise is as Dr. Bilal Philips (a well known scholar) explains a method whereby 'The rich are obliged to come in direct contact with the poor, and the poor are put in contact with the extremely poor. This contact between the various levels of society helps to build real bonds of brotherhood and love within the Islamic community and trains those who have, to be generous to those who do not have.'

The philosophy behind fasting during Ramadan is to purify one's soul; strengthen it spiritually as a fasting person must abstain from the regular evils of daily life e.g. partaking in immoral acts such as using bad language, lusting after the opposite sex be it in thought or in action. On a practical and more scientific note, it gives the digestive system a well-earned break. And lastly but not least, you get to experience what your poor hungry fellow human-being must endure on a daily basis in the poorest parts of the world

I hope that's cleared a few possible misconceptions up, I've endevoured to dispel any possible or potential misconceptions as much as I can. I also don't profess to know more about Islam than the next Muslim you might meet as I am on a constant journey to learn (and perhaps re-learn) about my spiritual identity in addition to the wordly one that has manifested itself in so many different ways over the years.

If this has gone some way in intriguing your interest in Islam and you would like to know more, I'd humbly refer you to islam-qa.com which seems to have balanced answers to just about any questions Muslims and non-Muslims alike have.

Anyhow, I'd like to wish everyone, regardless of your religion (or lack thereof) a Happy and prosperous Ramadan and I truly hope you find the contentment that every one of you yearn for whether conciously or subconciously. Thanks for bearing with me in this entry, normal irregular service shall resume uhhh soon.

Yes you're seeing correctly....this is a NEW entry

2005-09-27T16:37:00.000+01:00

My oh my this has been a long hiatus, never did I think I'd shy away from writing regularly to my blog. The reason? I couldn't be bothered and was also working quite a bit and couldn't think up anymore tripe to talk about or at least embellish. I had simply lost my train of thought and motivation. Now, that's just about changed so I'm back on the spiel wagon and I come bearing gifts of the photographic kind...lucky you! So as I'm easing back into the regularity of blogging I'll stick some nice little shots of my trip to Alton Towers (as filler), a well-known theme park about 150 miles north of London.

We rented a car for the day and there were 4 (Joe, his girl Christine, Moses and I) of us so it was a pretty smooth operation getting everyone to be free in the middle of the week. The cool thing was that no bratty school-aged kids were there and so the lines for the rides were pretty short consisting of only Uni students and tourists which was cool.

So without much ado here are the pics:

Me taking advantage of a photo op with the rental car pretending its mine...

Mos and I infront of the post office in Alton where we stopped for directions to Alton Towers. I, subsequently found out that the shorts I'm wearing here were torn which Joe kindly took photographic evidence of here:

All pictures of me that follow this 'wardrobe malfuction' have me wearing my cargos which I thought were too warm for the day, incase one is wondering

Once again I've sold myself cheap! Ummm any takers? Thanks I'll be here all night! Hey what can I say, we were bored waiting in line for 'Air' which is a rollercoaster where you're lying upside down thus giving one the opportunity to make spit bombs in the hope that one would land on the person behind's face while moving at nearly 60 mph (I managed not to get a fresh one slapped onto me incase anyone's wondering)!

I like this sign at the Air ride so much that I just had to take a pic of it, I think you can see the great irony of the sign and what's been done to it pretty much makes itself evident

In front of Rita (not to be confused with the recent natural disaster in the States....ok crap joke I know), its bascially highly acclaimed rollercoaster that is known for its speed (0-60mph in 2.5 seconds!), so thats me on the left, Joe, Xtine and Mos being a monkey behind us (what is up with the 'victory' sign or is it suppose to mean peace?)

Us infront of some random castle in the theme park, I can't remember the name but its a genuine castle...how quaint. Next stop: 'Oblivion'

This is what Oblivion is known for, its sheer drop into a black hole in the ground, I caught these poor bastards at the moment they rolled over the apex and were about to go vertical

Me showing Joe, who exactly is gonna be driving through the hedges and farmland on the way home with a subtle gesture of waving the friggin car keys at him!

Ahhh sunbathing in a car park, then again I could just be posing for yet another self-glamorizing photo op...man do I feel gay!

Ok well that's all folks, for now. I had problems loading these last few pics and I just couldn't be asked to mess around with this entry until tonight so you'll have to excuse me as there's pillow with my name on it, and I believe its screaming my name out as well! Hey, if socializing isn't your forte just talk to random bits of furniture, after a while it starts to make sense. I have a feeling I'm gonna regret writing that last sentence, probably cos' I'm half asleep right now.

Anyhoo ciao for now!

Aaaah so this is what 'tagging' is...

2005-08-24T10:50:00.000+01:00

I've been tagged by Mybrid/Hybrid (did you just change your blog name?) so here's my list cos' I've got nothing better else to do so this is a nice bit of filler for today...just when I was feeling lazy too! (Note: these are in no particular order of preference/importance):

Seven things you plan to do before you die:

1) Learn to truly live and be content with myself

2) Meet a girl who's as beautiful on the inside as she is on the outside, and who isn't afraid to role up her sleeves and get her hands dirty or (GASP) break a finger nail!

3) Be the first to discover something or some place

4) Experience zero gravity

5) Meet all the nice friend's I've made online one day

6) Fix my Dad's laptop (that's right I'm still struggling with it!)

7) Learn Arabic, Spanish and oh what the hell Japanese! (I believe Mybrid's got me down for Hebrew as well!)

Seven things you can do:

1) Tie my own shoelaces on my right foot

2) Tie my own shoelaces on my left foot ;)

3) Think with reasoning and perspective (believe it or not)

4) My good friend Mohammed (you know who you are, Hamsta!) just told me I'm funnier than all his friends, so I guess I'm a good laugh - whether my audience is laughing with me or at me is another matter

5) I eat as much as I want and still never get fat (hmm maybe I'm tempting fate by saying that, guess its the metabolism and not me so I'm not sure if it really counts)

6) Ok now I'm really scratching the bottom of the barrel but my spelling and grammar's pretty good (kudos to MS Word LOL!)

7) The ability to verbally demean myself infront of people at very crucial moments (must work on that one)

Seven things you can't do:

1) Fix my Dad's laptop (really its friggin irritating!)

2) Watch reality TV shows, the corn factor just makes me break out in hives BLEH!

3) Not check my inboxes everyday looking for genuine e-mails

4) Sing or dance (which aren't the worst things about me I assure you!)

5) Drink alcohol or eat pork (doesn't bother me in the slightest really)

6) Grow taller

7) My inability to stop using parentheses (Have you realized yet?)

Seven things that attract you to the opposite sex:

1) Someone who's appropriate at the right times

2) Tomboyishness and can give as good as she gets

3) Someone who's rough around the edges and doesn't care cos' she BELIEVES in who she is

4) Minimal or no makeup OR that 'natural look' (I hate caked-up makeup)

5) Great skin (is there room for vanity here?)

6) Nice defined facial structure (ideally)

7) Someone who's easy to talk to and unpretentious

Seven things you say most:

1) 'Crap' (I'm trying to cut down on swearing in the traditional sense)

2) Scheisse (pronounced 'Shy-za' = Shit in German, hey swearing in a foreign language doesn't nullify my endevours from point No. 1 ...does it?! )

3) 'Hey how's it going?' (I'm gonna get so haunted by this now everytime I say it)

4) 'Why me?'

5) 'I'll do it later' or even worse, 'tomorrow' (you wanna know how to procrasitnate, you come to me!)

6) 'AAAAAAAAArgh' (the non-pirate version)

7) 'I forgot' as my parent's will be only too happy to testify (can't be too good once you're in a relationship LOL!)

Seven celebrity crushes:

1) Jessica Alba

2) Jennifer Garner

3) Liz Hurley

4) Jolene Blalock

5) Monica Bellucci

6) Eva Mendes

7) Jennifer Esposito

There ya go now do I have to send this to someone within 10 hours otherwise something 'Bad' will happen to me?

PS. Just surfed onto journalism.co.uk and found an interesting link about how to get people to read your blog and become regular visitors, pretty good stuff and the article's called 'How to: Run a Sticky blog'. Thought some readers might like it.

'Please insert Recovery CD # 2'

2005-08-23T13:11:00.000+01:00

Ahhh if only life was as easy as an instant system recovery disc to quickly erase all past crap memories and reinstall a fresh copy of Life 2.0! I just want a fresh start dammit! Yes I'm still reeling from yesterday's crappiness but I've got lots of things to be doing today so I guess fixing dad's laptop by resintalling all the pre-installed software is somewhat closer to living the above dream!

Then its onto the main rig I'm writing this entry on to replace the Power Source Unit (PSU) - without it your PC will not work...at all, cos' I'm running it on the spare 330Watt one temporarily and I got Joe (pause for a pic of him muwahahaha!)

This is Joe at his 22nd a couple of years ago and I know he's gonna kill me for putting this up!

Note: The Barbie cake we bought him as an 'afterthought' nyuk nyuk (what are friend's for eh?)

to buy a decent 460Watt one for me on Ebay cos' he's that kinda guy! I have no patience for online bidding and stuff like that, to me its total mind-F***k. I just wanna make a straight up transaction like on Amazon or Play.

But I've digressed yet again, so where was I, oh yes after installing the PSU I gotta sort out the piling junk thats overflowing from my drawers, I've got an unhealthy infatuation with post-it notes (courtesy of my sister supplying me with a lifetime's worth from the numerous drug reps she sees and all of 'em conventions she goes to). So my mom's yelled at me to stop leaving all these annoying little scribbled notes all over the place and just get a little notepad or something.

Then I'll try and phone the MD of Azafady, a non-profit volunteer organization which specializes in conservation work in Madagascar. I've been meaning to volunteer for a long time now and I thought since I'm taking a gap year I might as well put my time to some use by helping others and maybe I'll feel a lot better about myself as a person and if I gain a few extra skills here and there then all the better! So as I'm still looking for a good stable job I'll start off work in the London office of Azafady and then they'll help me raise the £2000 I need to make the trip to Madagascar.

So there you have it, that be my itinerary for today, its pretty mundane stuff but I thought I'd share it with y'all cos' I'm sure you've enjoyed the ride so far! Oh Mybrid, I'm having trouble with posting pics on my blog entries and I wanted to know how you did with your pics in your recent entry. I tried the 'Add image' function when I was typing this but the pic just doesn't show up in the entry. Anyways holla back at me.

Adios!

'The jokes no longer with him, its about him, at him, on him....'

2005-08-22T22:31:00.000+01:00

Why why why?!!! Why must the big G mock me like this?!! I've been feeling so crappy over the past couple of days and it all finally culminated in a great ol piss-down on me during the whole day. I thought I had my whole day planned out today, but I started feeling all sluggish from the morning onwards, breakfast time rolled into lunch and lunch ended up being my brunch. I watched crappy daytime TV and conveniently missed my creative writing class today and just ended up going down to Kingston to see Joe and take my Dad's F'ed up laptop to backup the hard disk up at his place. It's been raining all day and in typical shitty british (I'm denying the use of a capital 'b' here cos' I'm pissed off!) fashion, the sky clears up in the night when there's no sun no light no nothing!!! How F'in useless is that?!!

Anyways I only managed to make copies of his essential files and burn it all onto DVD and then bring back the laptop to sort it out at home so umm that was fun! The bus ride home was shitty, I was reading a copy of 'The Guide' a weekly supplement from last Saturday's Guardian, cos' I have nothing better else to read and its not exactly like the scenery outside's any better! I was reading a review of a local band called The Magic Numbers and I must confess I've never heard of them nor have I ever heard their music but I did sorta like their spirit from what I read. The reason? - because they totally dissed Richard Bacon (I'm not gonna even allow this prick the dignity of a link) this asshole of a TV presenter on Top of the Pops recently by being the first band/act/group to walk out on the show!

'But why?' I hear you say, because Mr Bacon's intro line before the band were to show up on stage was and I quote 'A big fat melting pot of talent'. Now according to the band members its not so much the fact that he was taking pot shots at their non-conforming commercially-unfriendly podgy figures but its the tone with which he referred to them. After all they openly admit that they take the piss out of each other's 'fattiness' on a regular basis.

Anyways with all the talk of controversy out of the way, is the band any good? I really couldn't say cos' I still haven't bothered to sample their musical talents as I'm gonna hit the sack in a few minutes and I really can't be asked to download anything right now especially as it won't prolong my life or general well-being in any way shape or form. But I'm sure they're a good band seeing as they consist of some pretty cultured folk (two sets of 2 brothers-and-sisters) 2 of whom grew up in Trinidad and then moved to New York and then back to London to meet their future band members who were at the time their neighbours.

So back to the crappy bus ride, I was feeling mighty queasy whilst thoroughly engrossed in these entertainment reviews, it must have been the horrible musty air quality in the top deck of the bus - this is usually enough to make me feel sick and reach the point of almost hurling onto the floor, so I just had to stop reading and just sit back and breathe in and out. I just couldn't wait to get out of the bus and into the somewhat fresher air of South West London (insert vomit here) and get drenched in the process. So I finally got off and on the tube home I was sorta feeling a little more relieved, I guess I felt the world was closing in on me today and I must say I have had these little bouts of travel-sickness, anxiety and clostrophobia all rolled into one before.

There's probably a medical term for what's taken me two paragraphs to describe but hey I like to elaborate. Anyways didn't I say I was gonna go to bed now? So go away and leave me alone to curl up and revel in my sorrow at least for tonight :(

Got Chi power?

2005-08-19T10:24:00.000+01:00

Ni Hao!

So ya think ya got your karma in order or your chakras in check? No? Well then shame on you! I discovered this little gem of a game (still in development) by way of subscribing to the 'Steam' service of Valve software, the people behind the best gaming franchise of all time Half-life and Half-life 2. Anyhoo the game in review I guess is called Ragdoll Kungfu and its gotta be seen to be believed! Who would've thought that playing with a bunch of dolls albeit in a virtual environment could be so much fun!

I should point out that as the game is in development still I haven't had a chance to try it out but I will be one of the first to do so when it finally comes out! The sheer simplicity of the idea of toy mannequins used to beat each other up is just genius to me and why didn't anyone think of this before?! You control the doll with strings just like in real life but UNLIKE real life you don't have to worry about the strings getting tangled up during play thus freeing you to experiment with endless amounts of unique moves! Street Fighter, eat your heart out!

It takes me back to my days in primary school (Doha English Speaking School) when we used to play with Transformers and them ever-so-popular Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and we'd play fight with them as one does when one is a kid (nyuk nyuk nyuk).

I guess the market for a game such as Ragdoll Kungfu is gonna be pretty restricted at first but I can deffinitely see it catching on, on PC's around the world where kids and 'big kids' alike will just love playing this game. It's funny as hell to watch (with no gore at all) as well just incase you still think this is a blood sport!

Ok I got nothing else to talk about so I'm calling it quits for today. Download the game when it comes out or something if you're into general randomized silliness like me.

Zaijian!

Verdict on 'Crash'

2005-08-14T21:37:00.000+01:00

Wow just wow! My god when did Hollywood suddenly get all grown-up? This film just blew me away, I mean I knew it was a deep film but little did I know how deep it was! Paul Haggis sure knows how to spin a yarn! Of course I shouldn't be too surprised seeing as he is responsible for the likes of Due South - what a kick ass cop show/series, and Million Dollar Baby (I must confess I still haven't seen this yet but it looks pretty good).

Back to 'Crash', this is one tasty movie, I followed every single second of this masterpiece from beginning to end (yes people, even the credits!). I let the whole film just sink in and it felt good! I could relate to it in so many different ways its unbelievable, from the way the Iranian shopkeeper treated the latino locksmith with contempt and suspicion to the way the upper-class black film director felt when him and his wife were racially mistreated by the LAPD.

I guess I really shouldn't give away much of the film cos' it's a film that really needs to be seen with fresh eyes and unadulterated preconceptions.

Hope to have some more interesting stuff to report this coming week.

The day salad saved my life

2005-08-11T22:29:00.000+01:00

Mmmmmmmmmm crunchy, green, sweet and juicy salad consisting of mangetout sugar snap peas, baby carrots, little gem lettuce, green peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes a dab of salad cream and some Onion Salad Crispies for that extra crispiness.

Yes I have truly been saved by some good ol' homemade fresh salad, never have I looked forward to a bunch of everyday vegetables with so much glee...never I say! The reason for this sudden conversion to the ways of the herbivore? - I guess I was really craving some good greens today more than any other time in my life. My hands were literally shaking from not getting those crunchy veg's in me quickly enough. I must have been reacting to the 4 can's of fizzy drinks I had at work (cos’ they're free) after what like 3 months now!

Plus I'm sorta getting sick of the whole eat-meat-all-the-time regime. Anyways I was craving this salad during the whole day of work today I was like chanting a mantra inside me while I was munching away on Pringles and my salami sandwiches (Yuk meat!!). Oh well I guess this blissful feeling can't last for long, I wish I was always this addicted to vegetables, I mean I usually love vegetables but I gotsta have my meat too!

Besides I've got blockage and I need some good old roughage to get me regular again, there I said it!

Well as I can't seem to delve into what I did at work today courtesy of this entry I'll just move on and give you some interesting facts I learnt from today's Guardian:

Fact 1: Wikipedia- The world's largest free online encyclopaedia has a staff number of just ONE person, the founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales (here's his blog if you're interested). 'Wikipedia has become more than just a hobby - for some it is almost a religion.' reports 'Online', a weekly techie supplement in The Guardian. Thats't not surprising seeing that there are nearly 4000 regular users who actively partake in sharing their knowledge by making around 100 edits a month to the millions of Wikipedia articles, each! The nice thing about about the Wikimedia movement is that it strongly advocates the free flow ('Free' being the key word here) of information in the name of education...now isn't that a novel idea hmmm Microsoft?

Oh boy I'm so bushed now, I guess we'll just have to leave it at Fact 1 for today people, I need to take a shower and get some sleep before I wake up again at 4:30am to get ready for work. I might fill you in on more interesting things I learnt today.

Oh Mybrid I just read your entry for today, sorry to hear your frustrations of your workplace, see blogging's good for ya cos’ it helps you vent and hopefully in the process see some sense even though your husband sorta took care of the 'sense' department for you this time! I was sorta surprised to hear about it all especially after how you described it to me in such pleasant terms before and how you're getting on so well and enjoying it all.

Maybe you should look at my entry on getting into trouble for blogging about your workplace (August 9th), it’s my shameless attempt to get you to read my blog even more but can ya blame me?!

Ok its 12am now and I don't really see a point to writing an entry at this time of the day (or night…its all the same to me), suffice to say I don't have the luxury of a PC at work like SOME people cough cough Nafie! Righto I need to catch some Zee's.

Its time to get Lost

2005-08-10T13:20:00.000+01:00

Ok so I've been looking forward to this show since I heard about its very existence and to put it plainly I just wanna know what all the fuss is about! The show is of course Lost and the pilot episode starts today in the UK on Channel 4 - the connoisseurs, in my opinion of 'real news', quality documentaries and quality entertainment barring Big Brother of course and its ilk!

Anyhoo here's the scenario:

A passenger aeroplane has crashed on a deserted (or is it?) tropical Island and they have to deal with not only each other's cultural, social and/or political backgrounds but also with the whole staying alive routine.

There's apparently a whole women's volleyball team in it so umm that should be interesting ;). And don't think you ladies have been left neglected cos' there's a hunky hero in the shape of Matthew Fox (the big brother from Party of Five).

There's also a typically shady dude from the 'Middle East' (although he looks nothing like an Arab, just cos' ur brown and you're the only actor who can fit the role of everybody's favourite bad guy isn't an excuse for bad type-casting by the largely ignorant/biased production studios!!). Anyways his name in the show is Sayid Jarrah (wow how Arab-sounding NOT!!) but his real name is Naveen Andrews (oh the irony!).

So thats my little input for the show...I'm expecting my commission from ABC anytime now...I SAID ANYTIME NOW!

Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those who die or have a coronary if they miss an episode of Desperate Houswives or GASP! 24. Which sorta leads me to a little impromptu list of my all-time favourite TV shows in no particular order of importance:

Due South
McGyver
Mission Impossible (the series)
The A Team
BUGS
Farscape
Stargate
Party of Five
ER

That's all I can remember for now but it should hopefully get some sort of a debate going between me and my two esteemed regular audience members Mybrid and Nafie.

Tokenism: The word of the present

2005-08-09T20:58:00.000+01:00

Yes its been a pretty uneventful week and I'm pretty strict on what I and what I don't include in this blog now more so than ever. Ya see I came across an article online titled 'Can you be fired for blogging?' and seeing as I do pretty much work for one of the most secretive organizations on earth albeit on a part-time basis, I'd do well to steer clear of divulging on what I do for 8 hours a day other than the fact that I test the latest X-box titles and equipment.

Yes you guessed right I work for Microsoft and yes they will personally make your life a living misery if you dare to cross them. Other than that they're the nicest bunch 'o folks you could hope to meet...no really they are! I'm not sure if I've said too much or not, I guess I haven't said anything worth remembering or making a buck out of.

Moving swiftly on I went down to Kingston today to sort some stuff out for Uni and as my friend Joe wasn't at home I went down to blow some dough on some Haagen Dazs and a movie at the Odeon there. It was War of the Worlds if you must know and it pretty much sucked as only Tom Cruise knows how to suck. I was this close to buying a ticket for the much hyped about Skeleton Key courtesy of my man Nafie's blog, I'll spare you the link there cos' personally I think the film plot line stinks and if you're still interested in knowing the plot...you aint gonna find it here!

Hey I'm allowed to have strong feelings about the glossy airbrushed crapola that passes for a film in Hollywood these days! Besides I don't think I quite got the gist of the film from watching the trailer for Skeleton Key the first 500 times on TV! Its not so much a trailer as Kate Hudson isn't so much the daughter of Goldie Hawn, FFS! get it together people!

And I also wanted to watch Charlie and the chocolate factory but I sorta copped out at the last second cos' I thought It's better watched on DVD. Oh well maybe I'll watch it soon, that Crash film doesn't look too bad either, infact its JUST the kind of thinker of a film I'd like to watch cos' I've watched far too many no-brainers at the big screen and I'd rather watch something with a more meaty storyline.

Ahh about the title of this entry - Tokenism that is, its a subject thats at the forefront of my mind these days and I guess everyone to a certain extent is guilty of it, here's a few high profile examples to get your mental juices flowing:

Bush practices it when his adminstration decided to 'hand over' power to the so-called interim government in Iraq

Blair practices it when his government decides its high time it started listening to the Muslim youth in Britain by first inviting a choice few 'leaders of the Muslim community' to 10 Downing St to 'discuss' the London bombings and how to 'deal' with 'Islamic extremism in Britain' (Have I used quite enough quote marks yet?)

Michael Jackson practices it when when he promised not to invite boys back to his Neverland ranch (I honestly don't know I thought of this example cos' its pretty weak and as always I need filler)

Husband's to an extent practice it when their wives ask them 'Does my butt look big in this?'

Ok I think its pretty clear that my random thoughts are beginning to seep through so now's a good time as ever to conclude this entry and stop talking a complete load of Bollocks as the English say! But I think y'all know what I'm getting at.

'I'm gonna flip out like a ninja cos' that's what ninja's do...'

2005-07-31T16:13:00.000+01:00

Man this aint good....I'm feeling pretty emotionally good of late but I'm just afraid that it'll all fizzle out if I just mope around at home and do nothing. Although having said that I did download a few nice Coldplay tracks today...woot woot! I like 'Talk' (I didn't know there were two different versions of that song with completely different lyrics so thats cool), 'A message' and 'Hardest part' which are probably the only decent tracks I think on the new X&Y album. Whether this counts as something constructive is another story but I guess its something.

Was visiting a site on my favourites list that I forgot about for a while, I don't know why I added it to my favourites list. I shortly found out why though, its filled with the type of rancor for the utter crappy triteness of modern pop culture that I so adore to hate! This guy says it all for me and in a more articulate and eloquent manner. I think you'll find this site pretty random and basic-looking but you'll soon find out thats its more to do with substance rather than visual panache. So here it is The Best page in the Universe! I should warn you that this guy completely lets loose on all sorts of subjects and political correctness is not something he takes seriously.

Another site I love visiting just to top up on my random spurts of happiness from time to time is rathergood.com, contrary to the name however its another pretty bland rubbish looking site, but again as always with me its more to do with substance rather than preeesentayshun! Before I go any further I want to stick this little link in cos' it's the only thing that actually links to the title of this entry so here's the one for the ninja song I just love (yeah I know its crap)!

Some of you British visitors might recognize the material especially the disturbing headbanging kittens on this site from late night shows on Channel 4 some time ago. And don't think you Yanks have escaped the wrath of Joel Veitch's crazy looking mutated/mutliated (use as required) gerbils from them wierd Quizno's TV commercials advertising the sheer freshness of the 'toasted bread sandwiches', here's a little uhh explanation about why this restaurant chain used these 'things' as their marketing mascots.

Anyhow I'm just using these links as filler for the lack of anything of 'substance' (ahh the irony) I could say. My weekend's been another one of complete boredom but I guess in the famous words of that Beatle's song 'I just don't know what to do with myself' or something like that, if I got the words wrong....BLOW ME!

No love for the jobless

2005-07-27T11:10:00.000+01:00

Ahh the joy of not having any set routine in daily life, boy does it make you one lazy ass mofo! Anyhoo didn't manage to go to the council yesterday and its getting a little desperate cos I need to let them know I'm still a student and that I shouldn't need to pay local council tax and stuff before the end of the month. I just looked out the window and its pissing down so I think I'll just have to do it all over the phone thats if I get through the automated services!

On the upside I did manage to find some interesting looking jobs at the local job center yesterday, one that really caught my eye was for a local newspaper as a journalist, and I didn't even need any experience just a good command of English - hopefully my English isn't too bad - and good keyboard skills. And the other jobs were just some boring run of the mill type part-time jobs.

Nothing else happening today apart from the mechanic coming over to fix the wheel bearing on my car today. Don't know if he can do if its going to be pouring down all day today, guess I'll just have to wait and see.

On the attempted bombings last week, I believe they've caught 6 guys but I don't think any of them are the bombers. Either way Blair's pissing his pants right now, so much so that he's thinking of putting phone-tapping measures into law which is nice cos there's nothing more I like than having MI5 listening into everything that I DON'T say on the phone. I guess If I had to choose between this and having 7 slugs buried into my skull by 5 over-zealous Met officers IIIIIIIIIII think I'd choose the former.

Taskforce Tuesday!

2005-07-26T11:47:00.000+01:00

Right hopefully this little spurt of serotonin in my head this morning will last long enough for me to make it out of the house and get some actual work done today! First stop, the bank and then the local council office for 'studenty' stuff. I just don't seem to have the amount of intelligent creative crap to write at this time of the morning like my good friend Nafie does! Somehow he just seems to spew it out by the bucketloads!

I personally find my stimulating crap writing abilities kick in sometime around my next episode of utter frustation with daily life, which is why my entries so far have been somewhat irregular and pretty much an impulse-driven affair. Whoa what a mouthful, hey now I see how he does it! Anyways I better get going and who knows I might just add to this here entry later on today depending on my mood!

ciao for now!

Ode to the one called 'Pesado'

2005-07-22T21:10:00.000+01:00

Note: This really isn't an Ode but I felt like using the word.

So here I am again frolicking in my self-imposed state of denial of reality, and to be honest it feels pretty darn good - I guess ignorance really can be bliss. Anyways I recently caught up with my good online penpal/friend Vivian, she's Ecuadorian and a nice person....hey I don't know her too well apart from the fact that she loves Yuca bread! Vivian agreed to teach me everyday spoken Spanish on Skype and in return I teach her everyday English Slang, I'd say its a pretty fair exchange ;)!

Well anyways she asked me to post some pictures of her on my blog in the mistaken notion that she'd actually become famous because lets face it, who hasn't heard of 'http://www.thws.blogspot.com'! So without further ado - World I give you the amazing, the Glamorous Viviaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan! Ahem.

I presume this is Vivian in her bedroom

Vivian, her sister and future brother in-law going to a football match...I think

Vivian, her boyfriend Ivan, sister and future brother in-law going to a football match and in an elevator...I think

Open season on brown people!

2005-07-18T21:07:00.000+01:00

I've been feeling really down and depressed lately so that should neatly explain my absence. Well part of the reason for my feeling this way was sort of brought about with the bombings and an overall sad feeling I've been having because I've been dreading getting my final results for my degree. And my fears as far as the results go were somewhat realized as I have officially failed but at the same time I have been given the chance to retake my final year with it being counted as a 'first attempt' which means that the examination board won't take into consideration my first attempt at final year which is great (if that makes sense)!

On the down side I'm still going through the depressive cycle and because of this I'm really not feeling ready to retake my final year this October. On top of all this I'm taking heat from the folks who don't seem to see what I'm going through inside. Now I have tried explaining things to them but it aint working and its not likely to anytime soon. Anyhow I guess its all a test for me so I shall just have to take it in my stride.

On a slightly different note, I guess they've ID'ed the 4 London bombers and how they prepared for their missions. I'm sure you all know where I stand on this but I thought I'd add this interesting little link to a weekly BBC Worldservice radio show called 'The Interview' which I heard in the wee hours of last Saturday morning when I was dosing in and out of sleep. Its basically a 30 minute topical interview with interesting guests.

This week it was the turn of British-Pakistani Journalist and film-maker Naveed Akhtar, and the reason why I'm putting this link up now is because he so eloquently explains the entire background and environment from which the 4 bombers appeared it just begs to be understood without a doubt!

I hope you get a chance to hear (and/or record) the show before the link gets updated for the next show this coming Saturday (July 23rd). I guess this is what's been on my mind for the last few days and the general uncertainty of my own future as if things weren't 'interesting' enough already!

And with that bitter taste in your mouth I shall leave ye!

Nothing to report

2005-07-12T20:43:00.000+01:00

Yes you heard me...I got nothing to say but I thought I'd fill the void as I'm sure you're getting slightly uncomfortable by the silence...or perhaps not. So ummmm....uhhhhh....have you lost weight?

Ok ok I really haven't been out today cos apparently most of the bombers have been caught or there are some still on the loose and I don't really want to make myself a target by going out unnecessarily. Nice time to be unemployed I'll say! Having said that I might just go for a jog after doing this.

There's an annoying kid from the neighbourhood riding around in his 'fartmobile' aka a Moped, the sound of which never fails to irritate me. I dread the day he manages to afford a banged up Ford Fiesta which he pimps with all his pocket money so it ends up looking like P Diddy's maid's car.

Right I'm babbling now so I'll call it quits but bascially this has been an uneventful day, one I'd say is in a long list of uneventful days. Oh before I do go, I was at the Osterley Park Pharmacy (my local pharmacy) picking some stuff up and I found out that my pharmacist died of bone cancer a couple of weeks ago so that's sorta brought down the mood for me today, she was a good person who always gave us some extra insight into the medication we'd be buying from her.

Oh well thats it for now.

Laterz y'all.

PS. Notice how I've used orange to make this entry look half as interesting as the others.

London's burning

2005-07-10T12:49:00.000+01:00

It finally happened, the authorities have been saying it since 9/11 it was bound to happen sooner or later and there's no doubt that this is only the beginning if you know anything about the goings on in the Middle east and on Islam as not just a religion but an entire way of life by which 1.2 billion people on earth would ideally follow.

Alas this is one brush by which many (without deeper insight) in the West will paint all Muslims no matter what their politicians say and to me thats what's more important. Getting the message across to the billions of lay persons who simply don't know any better about this 'strange religion' they find themselves hearing of every time a bomb blows up in one of their major cities.

Now don't get me wrong, I am in no way condoning what happened here last Thursday and that killing innocent people of any race, creed and cultural background is completely wrong and what's more there's nothing in Islam that says you should do such heinous acts.

Having said all that, this seems to be the only platform from which these people will get their voices heard no matter how deplorable their methods of attention-grabbing are. I know what they're trying to say and there are many like me who know what they are trying to say but there are also high-ranking powerful people who hear what they're saying and just decide to ignore it and simply put a bland PC statement of spin thats acceptable from all quarters into the public domain.

This may not have anything to do with the war in Iraq, it might not even have anything to do with the war in Afghanistan or the current 'War on Terrorism' but one thing's for sure, these people have a lot of pent up anger within them and its an anger and a feeling of distrust that needs to be HONESTLY addressed and given some serious airtime. The terrorists who planted these bombs or flew the 2 aircraft into the World Trade center aren't 'Attacking our way of life' as our leaders put it, infact they couldn't care less how we choose to lead our lives.

All they want is for our governments to stop meddling in their countries and bleeding them dry of all their natural resources, now tell me is that too much to ask for from any person who simply is concerned about the well being of their own country? Before answering this question seriously think about this and REALLY put everything into perspective for once in your life.

If you still have any doubts about where my true feelings lie, they lie on the side of pure and unadulterated justice, I am not partisan on this very important issue, I just don't want to see the endless practice of double standards (when dealing with terrorism in poorer countries) by the rich and powerful countries of the world which just happen to be in the West.

All this unecessary carnage can end tomorrow if the strongest nations on earth will simply stop decieving the billions of poor and innocent people on earth by 'installing' puppet governments and thus fuel further hatred for those governments and in the end the West in general.

All this will do is give these powerful nations just another excuse to come and 'rescue' or 'liberate' the people of 'rogue states' from the governments they helped to install in the first place. I say to anyone living in the UK or US and any of the other member countries of the so-called 'coalition of the willing' to rally against the policies of your governments and what they deem to be rogue states just because they don't happen to agree with Washington's or London's idea of what a democracy should be!

Come on people wake up and smell reality, stop sleeping your whole life away, as long as there are people suffering in the world who are being ruled by unjust rulers regardless of being a bi-product of the West's foreign polices make your voices heard!

Rally against these governments even if they turn on you and threaten to kill you or your families.

This isn't just the Muslim in me speaking this is the Humanity in me as well and they are both very much intertwined ideals that I hold onto dearly!

Conclusion to my visit to Dubai

2005-07-06T10:40:00.000+01:00

I thought I'd make a conclusive report to what I've seen and done in this pretty spectacular city rising from the desert as it were. So here goes nothing.

To visit Dubai is great as the novelty is not likely to wear off at least for another week, to live in Dubai simply drives the nail of self-obsessiveness and boredom further into one's head. I agree there's quite a lot of nice scenery here but at the same time I get the feeling that this place just tries way too hard to get your undivided attention by throwing money in the direction of major new developments such as the 'Burj Dubai' - the world's tallest buidling apparently.

Everything's a competition for these people, they have to have the biggest, tallest, most luxurious and expensive of everything. Anything less is simply not considered. Of course most of these developments are being built by the government through their development arm EMAAR so they can afford to splash their cash as it were.

And guess who has to toil away in the 45C degree heat day in day out building these superstructures without the possibility of ever being able to set foot inside these huge projects that their two hands helped to build and just admire their work. Yep you guessed it those same labourers I spoke about about 3 posts ago. What's more is that they may not even get paid for years of hard labour they put into making Dubai what it is today!

To me Dubai is really nice and beautiful, but it has no soul and probably will never have one because of the sheer fact that the powers that be are interested in one thing and one thing only...Money! They don't seem to see that you can't simply manufacture entire communities overnight and think that people will flock from all corners of the globe just because your flogging a few hundred square kilometers of land around in the middle of nowhere.

It all seems really artificial and contrived to me and you see it in the way the middle to upper classes behave there, none of it is real. So the bottom line is Dubai is a whole lot of nothing! Still I think it'll only manage to be a playground for mostly people without any idea of what stories of misery are made in this part of the world on a daily basis. If you thought slavery has gone the way of the DoDo then all you have to do is visit a construction site in the the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and I'm not sure about Oman but I would'nt be surprised if it were there too!

Doha to me still seems like home and it still has a sense of that 'small town charm' that Dubai seems to have lost somewhere on building its way to international glory, one that will probably be short-lived if the arab mentality is anything to go by.

Well thats all for now, hope my flight tomorrow is nice and smooth looking forward to taking some inflight pics and vids, don't know if you can post shorts clips here...oh well nevermind,

Ciao for now

I'm one bad ass son of a Beach!

2005-07-05T19:56:00.000+01:00

So with my stomach now stablized and behaving itself time to go to Jumierah beach woohooo....albeit with a bunch of non-english-speaking people from the hotel who were Eastern Europeans (mostly Russian) and a few Iranians. I, being new to Dubai and not knowing anybody (very sad) had resorted to making a friend on the bus by the name of Ali, man did I regret making that decision for the rest of day!

The dude's from Iran and can barely speak English which I'm not holding against him but boy does he sound retarded when he opens his mouth and he seemed pretty slow. Anyways my making the hastened decision to choose this guy to hang around with was founded purely on the basis that there weren't any lockers to keep my stuff in at the beach and so I was hoping we could watch over each other's stuff and take turns to go swimming.

Little did I know how much of a repressed horn dog this dude was, I found us a nice spot just under the lifeguard's watchtower for some shade and this guy wanted to go off and aimlessly run after as many Russian chicks as he could find. Man that Mohammed Khatammi really knows how to keep his hairy subjects dry.

Ali asked me (more like strongly insisted) as I was looking for a nice spot on the beach: 'No no we go there, there are beautfiul Russian gerels there'. So I let him run off after them cos' I just wanted to chill at the beach and go for a swim while Ali was one hairy penis running around on a dead end mission on Jumierah beach.

And then when we met up later on he asked me if I could hook him up with a Russian chick because...now get this...I speak English! I mean WTF! Imagine an English speaking guy translating between an Iranian and a Russian none of whom speak English. Anyhoo I made a quick exit from that little conversation of ours....phew....

I was lucky enough to bump into some nice South London ladies at the beach which really helped because I didn't know a single person from the bus and really couldn't be bothered to make friends on the beach for the purpose of having someone to watch over my stuff, anyways thank god I stuck with my spot on the beach as it was right next to there's.

They were a mother and daughter and an aunt visiting Dubai for the first time, the mother's name was Joanne, the daughter's Kiya and her aunt's name was Marleen. Anyways it made it bearable having people to talk to whilst at the beach and we went swimming as one does. They're from Croydon to be more specific and they said they visit my University town of Kingston quite frequently which is pretty cool I guess. Who knows I might bump into them sometime.

So without further ado here are the pics I took at the beach, some of them are naturally gay looking but I guess that quality comes with the wet crotch-hugging shorts I was wearing then....uhh enjoy....

A panoramic view of the beach...sorta

Me chilling out on zee beach! Can you spot Ali?....no?.....goooooooooood!

Joanne, Kiya, Marleen and Me with crap hair

Doin the funky Chicken....Shawarma

2005-07-04T18:10:00.000+01:00

Ever done the 'Funky Chicken Shawarma'? No?! Well here's how it goes:

1) Add 1 part hungry person to 2 parts chicken shawarma and falafel
2) Get over-zealous greasy Egyptian shawarma-selling guy to make you the sandwiches
3) Add lots of man-handled salad without gloves
4) Add 2 parts mayonnaise masquerading as 'Garlic sauce' that's been left in the 34C Dubai heat to shawarmas
5) Eat shawarma

And thats when the all-round funkyness started to sink in, I got up in the morning in earnest haste due to the severe bubbling sensation that I thought I left behind. The room was spinning and I'll say this: If projectile vomitting was an Olympic event I guarantee you I could take any one of your asses!

Anyhoo I know how I've set the bar really low by starting off with a round of overall nastyness with graphic precision in my blogs so far but thats only because my bodily functions have managed to keep me highly entertained and I thought I'd share a bit of love with everyone. Something tells me I've got a skewed sense of humour and that many won't share it...oh well tough funky Shawarma Y'all!

Right now for some completely random pics I took over the past few days.

Some gay ass pic I took while messing around with my camera on the first morning in Dubai around 6am

Traffic jam on 'Skyscraper avenue' or as the locals call it Sheikh Zayed road. Its the main road in Dubai that leads to the neighbouring city of Abu Dhabi its probably apples and apples to you guys anyways...

This place reeks.....

2005-07-01T19:40:00.000+01:00

First of all, whoa! Talk about development in this city, its turning into a nice little metropolis (my first oxymoron woohoo!) with a building shooting up like a mushroom every few weeks! Sometimes I feel that there's far too much wasted wealth here, far too many people leading their daily lives without a care in the world and the only places where you can get a semblance of inner peace it seems is when you're lying in your bed at night (that's if the thumping noise from the nightclubs 2 floors below don't get to you) and if you're the praying type then in the mosques as well. You could say this place reeks of all the wrong things!

I'm sitting in an internet cafe as I write this and I've got that annoying Crazy Frog playing in the background to keep me company. This seems to be one of the few fun things to do in Dubai (surfing the net in a smoky internet cafe that is) other than getting pissed in a seedy little nightclub and taking a hooker or two back to your place after shakin' yo booty for a few hours.

But I digress, I was talking about the amount of development over here, we already spent almost an hour looking for our home that was completed since July last year at the 'Springs' development on the outskirts of Dubai because of new housing and buildings being developed in the space of a few months in the area. We drove around taking pictures of the surrounding developments like the 'Meadows' and the 'Lakes' and yes yes I’ll put the shots up all in good time, the things that struck me the most is how few photos or videos have me in them because I'm too busy taking them in the first place! So today I put an end to that when we went to visit our tenants at our 'Springs' villa. Spent most of the time just taking pics of all the cracks and defects in the house to show the housing developer (EMAAR) who will hopefully be gracious enough to repair them gratis of course! The tenants are a nice Kiwi family who've seemed to keep the house in a good condition so far.

On a different note we had dinner at a friend's house last night and she brought in some professional chefs to prepare the food which was typically Asian. But I must say the highlight of the night was the dessert which was a really mellow strawberry terrine, and I had it with a fresh chocolate cake from Costa Coffee. Don't know what that does for the readers of this blog but it certainly made my day!

Righto this crazy arab bitch next to me is smoking like a friggin chimney and God knows I want leave this joint before my lungs give way so I'm going to get my 5 Dirham's worth of Internet time, check my e-mail and go.

Diaryahhhhhh...

2005-06-28T17:54:00.001+01:00

It all started with a deep bubbling sensation, bubbling the likes of which I had never experienced before, but I knew then as I lay in bed this morning that it signified the early symptoms of my bowls getting a mind of their own thus prompting me to dash for the bathroom bypassing the plate of breakfast on the dresser table I ordered room service to bring.

Anyhow I think this morning’s ‘session’ was probably to do with the last remnants of that ultra questionable curry house I went to back in London a day before flying down to Dubai.

Right well with all the doo doo talk behind us now I’ll proceed with today’s blog. It’s been a pretty slow day today, just went through a few facts and figures with dad for some project he’s getting involved in. Apart from that its another crappy one where we’ll be invited to a family friend’s house tonight, for some catching up on ‘old times’, basically I’ll be bored for yet another day talking to a 14 year old and his 10 year old sister. Ok I guess that’s all for today our little meeting with the owner of the hotel is about to take place…getting uncomfortable.

Dubai Dubai Duplicitous Dubai!

2005-06-27T17:47:00.000+01:00

Well I guess something interesting has finally happened to me to warrant an actual entry into my blog (dare I call it that), man this feels just as gay as the first entry! Anyhoo I’m down in Dubai checking out job prospects and doing some other stuff that’s probably less fun than the fact that I’m actually in Dubai cos’ I’ve gotta stick around with the old man which basically means I’ll be doing more of the same boring shit I’ve been going through for the past 2 years of my life…I think they call it work..

Anyways we did some dull official stuff today after our 6:30am wake up call for our villa here. Good thing I picked myself up a decent camera in London cos’ despite not knowing Dubai like I know Doha I’ll probably get a few choice photo ops here and there. I’m still learning how to use the damn thing still but I’ll post some photos up soon depending on where I can get a decent internet connection etc.

Right now for a little explanation on the title of this blog entry. Over the years as I’ve (hopefully) matured and had time to mellow and understand the world around me a little more I’ve come to the understanding that my life here in the middle east was really one long dream. Now I’ve always tried to be honest and self-righteous (in a good way), but one thing really struck me and struck me harder than it has ever done before.

As soon as I got off the plane yesterday I saw a few groups of Asian low-paid labourers/contract workers (mostly from the Indian subcontinent as you usually find here) being herded around like sheep by a fat local arab security guy, its disgusting how he treated them with so much contempt like they were merely crap stuck under his shoe, he yelled at them and just asked them to come to him rather than him bothering to take his lardy ass over to them and explain to them nicely where they need to go. It really hurt me to see this and really made me think whether or not investing in this apparent lap of luxury was such a good thing. ‘Welcome to Dubai now get the F**ck outta my face!’ that’s exactly what it felt like when I saw them dismissed like that.

After all, all we’re doing by investing in property or whatever in this country is just adding to the eventual misery of thousands of poor workers who simply come here not to have a better life but to make a better living and hopefully be able to send back whatever they make to their families back home. But alas they rarely get paid properly or just don’t get paid and then are simply deported back to the miseries they tried to make good upon in the first place! Seriously WTF!!!

And while all this is happening you have the wealthy passengers coming in from the West and waving their passports at immigration and being treated like royalty. Money’s flowing around this city like the Asian Tsunami but its simply a case of ‘water water everywhere but not a drop to drink’ at least not if you’re poor; have no rights whatsoever and have a family to keep alive.

The bottom line to my seemingly inarticulately written blog entry and the result of my current seething temper and outrage at all this is simply this: The incentive to work for a poor worker in this part of the world is to keep his family back home from dying before he gets back from his 10, 20 etc year ordeal ahem 'Construction company contract', the incentive to work for wealthy citizens of these countries is to keep Daddy’s Rolls’ tank full.

That’s it I’m pissed off! Pictures to hopefully follow.

Woohoo first post

2005-06-03T01:58:00.000+01:00

Well its 1:16 am GMT (but I'm guessing it'll be 3am by the time I figure out how to post this damn thing) and I've finally got around to doing this blogging thingamajig that only interesting clever people seem to use to give their lives any meaning and purpose. Oh well if ya can't beat 'em join 'em. With this I hereby declare my first foray into the posh online world of the blogging literati......actually I'm just trying out a social experiment to see how long it'll take me to get bored of doing this. So I'd check my expectations when reading this blog if I were you.