OY!

Someone's nicked all my comments!

I had about 50 comments yesterday, then noticed that the last one (quite a good one about my last post) had disappeared. It seems any comments by non-subscribers have been deleted, and non-subscribers weren't allowed to comment when I checked my settings. So, sorry to all those whose comments have vanished. It wasn't me! I've re-enabled them now.

THIS SECTION REFERRED TO THE BRITISH EXPATS BLOG SITE.

But there we go. It's been a while - again. Time seems to be squeezing together like some mad accordian played by Buster Bloodvessel, and all the daily occurences are just falling on the floor and flowing down the drain. We are nearly in February 2007. Yesterday it was June 1996, I'm sure it was. I've already been in Dubai for 6 months, and it's been a veritable BLEEEUURRRGH. It's good to be occupied, rather than bored. Boredom depresses me and makes me want to eat bad, bad things that will make me fat again. With all the time in the gym and with the WIFE becoming a cyber-addict (she's been playing a particularly annoying and addictive game called Zookeeper pretty much every waking hour...she didn't notice what I did to her the other week while she was sat playing...maybe she'll notice when the bump gets between her and the table...) I've had less time to go on the computer. But that's probably a good thing. I spend all day on the bloody things at work.

But yeah, that good old gymnasium. I've been going for a 2 full weeks now after joining up at the local place, and the weight is dropping off. I'm trying a programme I found on a Men's lifestyle website which only takes 35 minutes, 3 times a week, but which leaves you feeling really quite tired, as if you've done an hour and a half of hard work. There is little cardio work, just 5 minutes warm-up and cool-down, and the rest of it is resistance training, on the basis that muscle burns more calories and is denser and more compact than fat. The trick is the slow cadence, and doing a low number of reps till failure (listen to me, I sound like a gym rat). 4 seconds to lift, then 4 seconds to put down. Try it and see - you get a proper burn. So far I've managed to double pretty much every weight that I'm lifting. The only area I'm struggling with is my shoulders, but I'll keep working on it.

The best bit is going to a gym that is quiet. I rarely, if ever, have to wait to go on a machine. And that's 15kg (33lbs) down, 23 (51lbs) to go to reach my target. I like the metric system. It sounds much less. At 1 kilo a week, I should be down to target by July or August. I went to see the heart doctor again last week and he seems to be happy with what I'm doing. Getting drug-free 6 months down the line would be brilliant.

In other news, we finally got the two cars we've been waiting for so long to get our hands on. The actual buying process was smooth and trouble-free. Once the car dealer had the money, they arranged the insurance and registration, and I picked them up the next day. At the same time, the WIFE and kids' residence visas came through, so we got the WIFE her driving licence and got rid of the 2 hire cars. Now, in a weird kind of juxtaposition, I (the large man) drive a little sporty coupe car and she (the little lady) drives a 7-seater MPV.

Worryingly, I'm now driving something like a local. I flash my lights and beep my horn and occassionally weave between lanes when I get frustrated at the chap in the ageing white Nissan Sunny bumbling along at 80kph in the middle lane without a care in the world. But I'm getting to thinking that it's the only way to be, because hesitancy here can get you into bother. Of course, I draw the line at some things. I always strap the children into their seats nice and safely. I never drive on the hard shoulder. I don't send SMS messages whilst driving at 180kph (140 is the limit), and I'll never, ever plaster pictures of my country's leaders on my car's back window. Can you imagine seeing that in the UK? I reckon anyone who put Tony BLEEEUURRGH's insincere grin on the back window would probably get a brick through it. And rightly so.

As I drive around this place and get used to the anarchy on the highways, I'm starting to realise that a lot of the people in this part of the world live in little sealed-off bubbles. It's not malicious, they just don't think about consequences, particularly when other people are involved. The oft-used phrase "Insha'allah" is starting to make a little bit of sense. It's the culture, the upbringing to just carry on regardless, and leave the worrying about it all to God. It was similar in Taiwan. The people were lovely and friendly and hospitable, as they are here, but when they get in a car (or sometimes just in public), they just throw a switch and the bubble surrounds them. They must wonder what these flashing orange light things and shiny appendages attached to the doors are, because they don't bloody use them. Queues? They have a Barbie in front, don't they?

And then, there was the incident with the drill, which completely threw me out of kilter the other night. I think it was Thursday. I was sat at my laptop at home, minding my own business. It was late. The WIFE had gone to bed. From nowhere, the incredibly loud and wall-juddering sound of an electric drill burst into life. I looked at my watch. It was 11.25pm. Someone next door (in the adjoining villa that's been empty for 3 months) was obviously moving in, and had decided that this was the right time to start auditioning for DIY SOS. I can't remember the exact thoughts that were going through my mind, but I think the words "what", "the" and "fuck" were in there somewhere, amongst others.

I let it go. I ignored it. It couldn't go on all night. Could it? The WIFE, the BOY and the GIRL didn't seem to be overly upset by it upstairs. The kids could sleep on the runway at DXB International Airport (or the suburb of Mirdiff, as it is known round here). It kept going for another half an hour, on and off, and finally ceased just before midnight. It's a good job they stopped, because I was getting more and more annoyed, and was even thinking about going to bed in a bad mood. Again, I put this behaviour down those cultural quirks I was talking about before, you know - that unwitting, unintended selfishness. It was like my first few weeks in Dubai which I spent in that flea-pit hotel that the fleas had moved out of, and the banging doors and shouting and general hoo-hah that occured every night after midnight. It's not malicious. These people have just been brought up that way, and don't know any different.

The next day, as we pulled out of our car port and set off for Al Ain, we saw the culprit getting out of his own car with some curtain poles.

It was a Westerner.

Deeper and deeper

So I got my residence visa last week. It happened quite quickly after the medical. I've also got my driving licence, after another visit to another red-tape nightmare with more multiple points of liaison and more sitting waiting for your number to be called while other people ignore the queueing system and just wander up, even when other people are being dealt with. It probably wouldn't have been half as bad if I had actually had my original passport with me. As it was, I had to drive all the way to work to collect my passport through atrocious weather (the wettest December in eleven years, so they say) and trying to get back without getting stuck in a traffic jam on SZR caused by an awful accident early that morning which claimed 9 lives. It seems that people were driving too fast for the conditions again. "Will the learn?" you may ask. I doubt it.

After getting back and waiting some more, I eventually walked away with a nice new shiny gold credit-card-sized licence. I also got a parking ticket. Hurrah!

Traffic, traffic, traffic. It's really starting to grate now. Almost every journey of more than ten minutes in duration will involve some kind of traffic jam or hold-up, and there are often no tangible reasons for it. I've been trying to get savvy and find short-cuts, but I always end up in another queue when I try to get back to the main route. The confusing thing for me is how it has got noticably worse since the end of Ramadan. Before Ramadan was bad enough, during it was absolutely great with everyone going home early, but since the end of it, the number of cars on the road seems to have suddenly doubled, and with all the rain recently, it has only made things worse still. I don't know if it's because quite a lot of people went away for the summer and are now back. It might be a factor.

So, I think on and on about it. I feel quite lucky to live this end of Dubai, where the traffic going to town in the morning and back out on an evening isn't nearly as heavy as the traffic heading in the other direction. But for how long will this last? You only have to look up a bit as you drive around to see all the tower cranes working constantly, and you can't help notice the giant hoardings going up everywhere trumpeting some new mega-development: Sports City, Falcon City of Wonders, The Lagoons, The second Airport, Dubailand....the list goes on and grows seemingly by the day. I don't know what the projections are, but this place could well be double the size it is now in a decade's time.

There are promises of new roads and there is a metro system under construction, but I can't help but wonder what it will be like to live and work here in the not-so-distant future. And the nagging question that I can't get over (aside from building all these mega-structures on sand) is...Who is going to live here, and what are they going to do?

I'd say 60% or more of those living here now are working in construction, from labourers to the likes of me. What happens when it's finished? A lot of people will have to go home or find something else to do. Of course, there will be service-sector jobs, but what about those being served? Where are they coming from? Who are they? Hey, I'm sure they have a plan here, but I'll be damned if I can see what it is, knowing where they are taking this place in terms of development. There are ports and airports and hotels and theme parks to run, yeah, but that won't employ the population of a four-million-plus city, will it? Will it?

As far as I'm concerned, I can't see us living here more than the originally-planned two years. I think we will have had enough by then, and may want a bit of a quieter life. I'm enjoying quite a lot about the place, really I am, but now that I've been here a while, the novelty and the sheen have worn off and I'm seeing more and more of the bad things that lie under the surface and don't get advertised. Then there's the whole hypocrisy issue. Being a liberal/left-winger/commie pinko here isn't a terribly comfortable feeling, and you end up switching part of yourself off to deal with it when you see the effects and (even benefits of) rampant, naked capitalism. See no evil, and so forth. How long one can keep it up for is an intriguing dilemma.

BUGGER ME...

I got my residence visa today!

It only took 5 and a half months.

The sands of time...

slither grain by grain, inexorably towards an unknown future. With every second that passes, another life is made, another life ends. Somewhere around this rock floating in infinite, inky darkness, someone falls in love. Somewhere in Dubai, my puny skills are no match for the DARK SIDE OF THE FORCE.

Random picture.















Er...

Ahem. Sorry about that. Where were we? Well, I'm still waiting for the visa. I found out today that I haven't got HIV. Which is nice. Now I only worry about black holes and comets. I never worry about curries, unless they're really hot.

But work has been interesting. I've been working like a dawg. In an office at a computer, which isn't really what dogs do, to be honest, but I don't care. And yet, my company, who shall remain nameless, still haven't paid me for the month of November. They keep putting me off and saying the equivalent of "the cheque's in the post". I also found out I have to fork out a load of money to sponsor my family. Which isn't nice, especially with Christmas just round the corner, approaching it like a white Land Cruiser with the obligatory blacked-out windows on the SZR, lights flashing manically. So I'm slightly peeved, if truth be told. The administration in my company is somewhat erratic. I don't understand why we can't be paid by automatic electronic transfer on a set date every month instead of relying on the vagaries of senior management's movements in order to get the requisite 2 signatures on every pigging cheque.

The atmosphere has gone downhill of late. We've all been told that we MUST wear ties at all times. Mine gets wet in the shower, but it doesn't wash... (groan) Everyone's up to their eyeballs and panicking and snappy and grumpy and when a few of us sit together for lunch, we invariably moan about work, particularly the management and the administration. They haven't even announced a Christmas Party. Maybe it's been cancelled this year. Maybe I'll turn into Tiny Tim. The sad thing is, a happy ship is a productive ship. An unhappy ship loses its deck-swabbers and its cabin boys like that (clicks fingers). I've lost count of the number of times people have said that they're going to quit. It's not as if there's a shortage of work round here.

Anyway......

I'd better be careful. The ears have walls and the eyes have hills, etc. At least I ain't writing this at work.

Waiver: The opinions stated in this blog are a load of old bollox. Names have been changed (and not even mentioned) to protect the guilty. The writer is a highly-strung muppet with a penchant for self-pity and self-righteous bluster. Please send cash now.

So, I'm still doing the gym thing. I'm going every night of the week, and the WIFE and the BOY are not really happy, because it means I don't get home till after 8.30 or 9.00pm. The thing is, the hotel where the gym is located is just of the SZR, which means it is best to go straight there from work, rather than going home first then driving back the wrong way (with all the traffic heading back to Deira/Sharjah, etc.) because even at 8 or 9pm, the traffic is still a complete bleeding nightmare. I have tried it once or twice, and a 15-minute journey can take up to an hour going that way. I've decided that when my free membership is finished, I'll join the gym here in Springs. Then I can come home, see the kiddies and then go to the gym to get all sweaty.

I had a good session tonight, as it happens. I wasn't keen on going all afternoon, especially after walking around the Cityscape Exhibition at lunchtime (it was HUGE, and some of the buildings and developments looked amazing and staggering - they had an 8-foot high model of the buidling that is meant to emerge from the Big Hole in the Ground), but in the end, after getting annoyed at work, I decided to have a quick blast. The quick blast ended up as a long work-out, with cross-training (yeah, I was cross) and lots of upper-body resistance work. I feel somewhat puny struggling with really light weights, but I'm getting better and stronger and my stamina is increasing. My waistline is shrinking rapidly, but I seem to have stopped losing weight at the fast rate I was before. I suppose that's a good thing, because if it's too fast, it's unsustainable, and as everyone likes to say - muscle weighs more than fat, and I'm definitely putting muscle on with the exercise. I am sort over wavering at about 8 or 9 kg less than I was when I started, which is pretty good going for just over one month.

Crikey, it was a month ago that I went into hospital with my last AF episode! It's flown by, and with the new drugs and eating regime and the exercise I am feeling so much better, and my heart flutters (which used to be frequent) have quietened right down. Long may it continue. My goal is to be drug free, healthy and my ideal weight in a year's time. Oh, and rich and famous would be nice, too.

Clerical and Medical

Fecking hell.

What a bloody palaver that was.

Excuse the language, but BUGGER ME!

I went to do my medical today, which is the compulsory blood test and chest x-ray everyone coming to work and live here has to take. They test for HIV and TB, and if you have either, you get summarily and unceremoniously deported. Being a worrier, I wonder if there's the slightest chance that I could have got HIV from somewhere. Even the minisuclest (is that a word) odds of something occuring will not matter if it's something really bad. I worry about asteroids and wandering black holes and stuff as well. Bibble.

But anyway, the test. It was carried out at the Maktoum hospital (this name is everywhere - do they own the place or something) which is in Deira, which is over the creek. I was told to go early - before 7.30am ideally, so as to avoid queueing for several centuries. I was also advised to park at work, i.e. just this side of the creek, and catch a taxi to take me there and back. My advisors told me that this would only take an hour or so. What does that WRONG noise from Family Fortunes sound likeagain? EH-URRRR!

I drove to work, got the cab, so far so good. The traffic in Deira was a mess. Vehicles of all shapes and sizes crept along the roads, blocking up junctions and roundabouts. The drivers amused themselves with some kind of free-form jazz played on car horns, which provided a constant staccatto of noise in the air all around. Asian and Arab men gesticulated at each other, and I shook my head.

We had been stuck on one roundabout for nearly 10 minutes, when the driver cheerily announced that the hospital was just round the corner, so I got out and walked. It was 7.35am. I entered the hospital gates and thanked Allah that I was a privileged Westerner with private health cover. The Maktoum hospital is grim, let's just leave it at that. I quickly found the Admin office (this is gonna be a cinch, I remember thinking) and entered through the Female entrance. They sent me packing, even though I offered to show my (now-reducing) breasts as evidence, and I entered the Male waiting area. 5 minutes later I had handed over my documents, paid my money and was in possession of my Government health card and a slip of paper which would get me the requisite tests. But it had to be typed up in the Typing Office first.

Then it started going tits-up. It took me an age to find the Typing Office, where I had to get something or other typed. It was in a pre-fab hut hidden round the back of some other building. I was told 15 minutes by the man who was sat there doing not very much, other than drinking coffee and picking fluff out of his navel. To give him his dues, it was only 8 minutes, and then I got another piece of paper. Go back to the Admin office, was the order, so I trudged back round there and paid some more money and got the proper typed-up slip for the tests. Now go to the testing room. Er...where's that? Over there somewhere (nonchalant wave in some general direction).

After another 10 minutes of fruitless searching I found the X-ray department, but I had to go for the blood test first, so they told me to follow the green line backwards to the blood test laboratory which was over near the side entrance. Well, it could have been the main entrance. I really don't know. I entered the Male section this time and was greeted with a large room full of chairs, set out like church pews, and four hatches at the far end. Above the hatches was an electronic display board, showing a group of three-digit numbers that flashed and changed at random intervals. Sort of like Argos in a mental home. Looking as stupid as possible, I wandered towards the windows and a kindly young chap with a mischevious face told me which window to go to. I handed over my papers and was directed to sit down.

My papers then moved from the first window across to the last one, in some kind of process that had me wondering what was for tea tonight. Then a large group of subcontinental labourer types entered the room and sat together in a tight, protective huddle at the other side of the room. A man with them dumped all their papers at the LAST window, and then all their numbered tickets started appearing as if by magic. I think this annoyed the mischevious young man and his mates. He went to the windows and spoke in rapid-fire Arabic. I reckon "How come they got to push in?" was the gist of it.

Time was dragging on. I resigned myself to waiting a long time. So much for the early start. Then, out of the blue, my name was called and I got my numbered ticket. 327. I sat down again, and 5 mintues later the board changed about a dozen times, bleeping manically each time, then settled on a group of numbers ending in 327. I moved to a smaller waiting area with about 10 chairs in it, sitting amongst Indian and Pakistani men of different shapes and sizes who watched me impassively. The moment they got the chance, they moved away from me. Hey, I showered last week, mate!

Then my number was shouted brusquely from the next room, and I entered a veritable factory of blood testing. There were 8 or 10 chairs with doctors and nurses sat next to them, waiting to take our blood, and I sat down at the nearest free one. As the doctor stuck the cold steel into my vein he made some small talk about where I was from, yadda yadda. I barely felt the needle, I've become so used to the whole process, I could probably do it myself.

Then, with a plaster holding a lump of cotton wool over the hole in my elbow, I walked back to the X-ray department, where there were more windows and seats, but not as many. I handed more documents over, and was soon doing a contortionist act against the chest X-ray screen. Not too bad, I thought, but I checked my watch and it was just after 9.15am. What a kerfuffle. All these administrative tasks could be done in one place, yet they choose to separate them into the smallest components and make something that should be simple really quite complex. Is it to give people jobs? It must cost a fortune!

Anyway, I headed out of the hospital and started the search for a taxi to take me back over the creek. This was the worst bit of the whole experience. Being a man of short patience, I didn't do what I should have done and waited for a taxi to drop someone off at the hospital, I wandered out towards the main roads, thinking my chances were better there. As it was, I saw loads of taxis, but they were all occupied. I saw maybe 3 unoccupied cars, but they zoomed past, ignoring my increasingly desperate waving and shouting. I ended up walking to the creek itself, well the road alongside anyway (near where we parked a while back after brunch at the Hyatt). I don't know how far I walked, but it was over a mile, I'm sure of it. Eventually a taxi dropped someone off at a large office building and I leapt into it, relieved, hot, sweaty and completely stressed out, as is my wont. I just couldn't believe that a place as busy as Deira would prove so difficult to find a taxi in. Lesson for today: stay put.

I expected the drive back over the creek to be horrendous, but it wasn't. It took less than 20 minutes, and I got back to the office at around 10.30am. I was glad to get that over with. This is one of the last steps towards getting my full visa. If everything is OK, I will have it within 10 days to 2 weeks. Fingers crossed. It has been a frustrating first 4 months in the sense that I haven't been able to establish myself fully with my own car and proper banking facilities, and a liquor licence, etc. It looks like we're finally getting there. INSHA'ALLAH!

Nothing Gets In The Way Of Ssergorp...

Nothing, you hear?

So, if the powers-that-be decide to stop the unrestricted internet access available in the Dubai Internet City areas and subject it to Etisalat and their poxy proxy, that's Ssergorp.

And if they decide that they're going to introduce a trial road toll system next year on the Sheik Zayed and Garhoud Bridge Roads, even though the alternative routes aren't very good and there will be no Metro in place until 2009 at least, that's real Ssergorp.

And, if they decide that they won't renew the 15% rent-increase cap (for what it was worth), thus giving landlords huge boners all across the land, that's Ssergorp again, even if we beg the Great God of Market Forces to bring about the Great Blessed Correction.

Best of all, though, if the company you work for pays you on random days by cheques which take 48 hours to clear rather than electronic transfer, and they take over three and a half months to get you a residence visa, that's definitely Ssergorp.

However, if the powers-that-be decide that the stout fellows who work all hours in crappy conditions and live in ever crappier conditions should have some rights and protection and some health insurance, etc., well that is Progress, and should be applauded.

It's just a shame that it seems to be a case of one step forward and three steps back.

Oh well, at least my hair is growing better in this climate.

Things to do in Doha when you're ...

bored and lonely:

Visit the Pearl Lounge bar attached to the side of the Marriott hotel. There you will be made to feel completely unwelcome, brusquely quizzed like a criminal suspect about your hotel room number and name and hastily ushered to the bar because all the tables are reserved even though the place is emptier than Paris Hilton's head. Even when you manage to convince them to let you sit at a table, by telling them you won't be staying long, they watch you like hawks wearing bi-focals as you slide down the leather-clad low seats with shallow-sloping sides, toying with your over-iced Jamesons and wondering what kind of people come to a place like this, apart from lonely and bored businessmen, of course. The lighting is non-existent, so much so, that the drinks menus have little torches attached to them. There are large Plasma screen TVs dotted around the walls, showing scenes of snowy mountains and trendy people skiing down them on a permanent loop, all accompanied by instantly forgettable chill/trance/technopap. You should probably have more than one drink, just to annoy them, and see if anyone comes in. When people do appear, they look at you like you are sitting there in the altogether. Finally, when you've had enough of feeling as welcome as Timothy Mallett at a wake, the bill appears in your face and you leave, tutting to yourself about the utter absurdity of it all, and swearing never to go that kind of place again. Until next time you're alone and bored in a strange city. Still, you feel slightly amused and smug as a couple of Japanese businessmen (dressed smartly enough) try to get in as you're leaving and get turned away from a 90% empty club because they aren't hotel guests. You think to yourself that the club must resent the arrangement with the hotel.

Which is a shame, really, because the trip was otherwise a reasonably good experience. Well, OK, the plane was an hour late, and there were no taxis to be had when I landed, which meant a 30 minute wait for one, and then after popping into my firm's local office, I had a really interesting experience in the most banged-up, crappy car I've ever been in, because there just weren't any taxis. This car was a wreck. The headlights were smashed in and the wing mirrors hung off, and the rust was just about holding it together. I even had to push it to get it going, and jumped in as it spluttered and coughed into life. The Sudanese man driving it was quite a good driver, but without a working seat belt and a seat set at a permanent 45-degree recline, I didn't feel very safe. When we inevitably encountered a local in a white 4x4 who cut across us, my driver let out a stream of exotic-sounding expletives and gesticulated wildly at the other driver. Getting to the hotel was a relief.

The hotel itself was a smooth operation and they were falling over themselves to help me at every turn. Every corner I turned seemed to reveal another oriental person in bell-boy get-up greeting me with the now-familiar American-accented, nasal whine of, "Good Morning, Sir," or something similar. The restaurants had good food and excellent service. The room was pleasant, and the free use of the business lounge (with 4 free alchoholic drinks a night) was a nice touch.

The aims of the trip were met as well. We had loads of meetings about the Big Hole in the Ground, and how much it was going to cost to build something in the hole and how long it was going to take, etc., and in the end people were satisfied with what I did. I hope. A few of us went for dinner in a nice Italian in the Rydges hotel on my second night, and as if by magic, the conversation turned to politics. We had me, a Brit, a South African, and Australian, an Iraqi and two Palestinians (one Christian, one Muslim) sat around the table, and the Australian broke the shop talk up spectacularly with a question about the whereabouts of a certain Mr. Bin Laden. In the end, some strong (and surprising) viewpoints were aired, but everyone managed to come away smiling and still on talking terms. The consensus was that the British had managed to mess about with and fuck up the Middle East after both World wars, and now the Americans were carrying on where we had left off. Scars run deep round here, it seems.

Apart from everything else, I found myself thinking how lucky I am to be living in Dubai. Doha is trying desperately to catch up with Dubai, but the general feeling around here is that they are about 15 years behind at least. There are few things for tourists and expats to do, and the infrastructure is seriously poor. People who work there constantly tell me they wish they didn't. Some even fly to Dubai every weekend. On the other hand, I bet they don't spend as much living in Doha.

The Asian games that start on the 1st December are looming large now. It's quite obvious that Doha is going to struggle, because hotel rooms are just impossible to get now, and traffic is getting heavier and heavier whilst they attempt to finish all the new roads and tart up the airport and the unfinished roads and buildings and erect huge scaffolding structures covered in plywood advertising the games. The taxi situation sucks, truly sucks. It seems that they are all being used as chauffers now, driving officials and dignitaries all over the place, because public transport is even worse here than it is in Dubai, and that's saying something. Even so, I wish the city well. I hope they pull it off and show the continent a good time. I hope the games give the place a good kick-start towards catching up with its bigger, glitzier neighbour.

So I left Doha after 4 days, looking forward to seeing my wife and kids again. The week had gone a lot quicker than the previous one in hospital, that's for sure. The plane out of Doha was 40 minutes late in departing, and I spent the whole flight quietly fuming as men in National dress sat in their seats sending text messages all through the flight, despite the many in-your-face reminders to turn off all mobile phones. I try to be understanding of cultural differences, but this annoyed me. They knew they were doing wrong, because they hid their phones when any cabin crew passed close. Some, I stress SOME of these people just don't give a fig about rules, regulations, common courtesty and cultural norms and believe themselves to be invincible and above everyone else because they wear a dish-dash. It's a shame, because a few bad eggs end up giving everyone else a bad name.

Anyway, despite all this, we landed safely, and despite some of the strangest and most worrying mechanical noises I've ever heard on an (supposedly modern) aeroplane. I am getting better at flying, and I don't have a choice but to do so, with all the flying that is done round here. My fear levels are reducing every time, but I still have my little superstitions and routines that I have to go through. I always read the safety information card on both sides, I invariable end up praying to that God who must be pissed off with hearing from this agnostic again, and I always find my imagination running riot with the infinite number of ways a plane can come to harm on the ground and in the air as we taxi out to the runway. Statistics can say what they want, but there's just something unnatural about hurtling at just less than the speed of sound, 6 miles up in the air in a pressurised tube.

It took me just an hour to pass through Dubai airport this time. Passport control was a chew as ever, and will continue to be until my company get my residence visa sorted out, and there was a long queue as ever. I remembered to pick up some duty free goods this time, though, so it eased some of the earlier frustrations. I even managed to find a taxi quite quickly, as you would expect at an international airport, and less than an hour later, I was home, and my kids ran with outstretched arms to greet the bags of goodies I'd brought them. It's good to be home again

Rain, Rain......COME BACK!!!

We nearly, NEARLY saw rain on Friday. It's strange how you start to miss these kind of things. I'll be missing cheeky-chappy chavs standing outside the shops asking politely for a cigarette next. OK, maybe not. The point being, we haven't seen any since we arrived here. For me, that is 3 months without a hint of precipitation, which is something totally alien to someone hailing from the United Kingdom's verdant, lush, frequently-irrigated-from-the-sky pastures.

Anyway, to make a short story long, we headed to the border with Oman on Friday with the express purpose of getting our visit visas renewed. They run out after 60 days, which meant we had to leave the UAE and come back again, so we drove out through the desert and past loads of camels towards Hatta, carrying straight on over the fort roundabout and between the mountains towards the border, which is about another 10km along the road.

As we approached the mountains, we noticed that there were big cloud formations just beyond. They looked like rain clouds - big, bright and bulbous with a menacing grey under-belly. Excitement grew in the family unit. We were actually looking forward to seeing some rain, maybe even going outside in it and dancing like madmen. As it was, we missed the rain. We arrived at the Omani passport checkpoint facility about 20 minutes late, I reckon. The ground was wet all around from a recent downpour, and the clouds were busy making their way into Oman. Ho-hum.

The border crossing and visa renewal process was, well...frustrating. We passed through three seperate border control points on the way to Oman, and the same three on the way back. There was a UAE passport point, followed by an Omani customs point and then the Omani passport checkpoint, about 5 kilometres after the customs point. We weren't actually sure if we could drive into Oman, because our car hire company had completely bamboozled us by trying to sell us insurance to drive there then telling us we couldn't drive in Oman with UK licences. The border points themselves had very little in the way of visible information about what to do and where to go, so there was a lot of guesswork, stupid-question-asking, and gesticulation from heavily-armed border guards, whose presence is a blessing to parents with fidgety, whiny kids. "See the man with the gun? If you don't shut up...."

After getting stamped out of the UAE, which involved getting out of the car and queueing at the window of a little white hut, we just sort of muddled our way past customs, buying insurance at the little office over on the wrong side of the road, then driving onwards not knowing what to do next. We finally came across the passport control checkpoint, which is a large, brand-new building in the middle of nowhere. Again, there were no signs telling us what to do, so we parked the car in the puddles created by the recent rain and entered the building to find a large gaggle of confused-looking people queueing at various windows. Most of these people were expats doing the same thing as us. There were more border guards, with even bigger guns, milling around, keeping an eye out for naughty children.

After standing in one queue for a couple of minutes I struck up a conversation with the British chap in front of me, and learned that I had to queue at a different window to get some forms and pay the visa fees, then fill in the forms and queue at another window for the stamps, then get in the car and queue up to get into Oman. This is a common feature of this part of the world; nothing can be done in one place or in one go.You invariably end up queueing at three seperate locations to get anything official done. It was the same when I had to go and open an account with DEWA for the electricity and water, and it's the same for a driving licence, or so I've been told. I'm surprised I haven't had to queue at four different windows and fill in a dozen forms in triplicate just to get some baked beans with pork sausages.

Eventually we got our forms, paying 240 dirhams for the pleasure (the man did say 120 to begin with, then sort of changed his mind), filled them in, queued for the stamps, got back in the car and then drove to the wrong window. They let us through anyway, and we did a quick u-turn through the car park on the Oman side and queued again to get the exit stamps. That was the easy bit, and we were back in no-man's land after our shortest visit ever to any country - all of 2 minutes.

There was more standing and queueing at the UAE border, but the actual process was fairly painless. The man behind the window at the very basic checkpoint stamped us back in without any searching questions, and we finally re-entered the United Arab Emirates nearly 2 hours after leaving. We were ready to drop, so I'm glad that we had had the foresight to book ourselves in for the night at the Hatta Fort Hotel, which I've mentioned before. 5 minutes back into the UAE we pulled into the Hotel grounds. A smiling, short man called Maxwell brought us delicious and refreshing fruit punch drinks while we checked in, before showing us to our chalet-style room with a great view of the mountains. The WIFE and the kids took the opportunity to go for a ride on a huge camel that happened to be at the hotel, and we spent the rest of the day at the swimming pool, splashing each other and enjoying the cooling of the day with sunset approaching before eating a pleasant meal and retiring to bed for an early night. The kids went out like lights, even in strange beds in a strange room. They have their moments.

The next day, we ate a hearty breakfast (missing the real pork bacon that was hidden around the corner at the hot buffet), played a game of mini-golf in remarkably hot morning conditions, then headed back to Dubai city. Of course, we still had to do the weekly food shop, so we headed to Geant at Ibn Battuta and on the way out I spotted a stand for a local hospital offering free health checks. The inner hypocondriac couldn't resist, so I went and asked for a check, which was basically just a blood-pressure test. Surprise of surprises - it was high. Shopping with kids? Well, duh.

Drunk and Dirty in Doha

Well, folks, I have now seen another place in the Middle East. On Wednesday I took the 7am flight from DXB to Doha, Qatar, for a meeting about the Big Hole in the Ground (which is supposed to turn into the Tallest Building in Doha). I was, as ever, over-cautious and boy-scoutish in my preparation, and got up at 4.15am to get to the airport. I arrived just after 5am and had a long, sleepy wait for the plane, taking in the delights of the crowded departure lounges (even at that time) and the crappy service at Costa (Bomb for a ) Coffee. The flight itself was only 45 minutes, about the same as Teesside (sorry, Durham Tees Valley) to Heathrow, if not shorter. Barely enough time to get nervous, but I still managed it.

I arrived in Doha at 7am, Qatar time. The passport control involved some brusque questioning about the nature of my visit and the payment of 55 Riyals by credit card. With time to kill, Costa bleeding packet was my only option, so I had another drink and sat there wondering what day it was and what my name was.

Eventually I got a taxi to the site office, which the taxi driver seemed unable to locate despite 20-foot-high hoardings bearing the name of the project being placed along the road we were driving along. On the way, I took in the delights of Doha, Qatar. It is much more Middle Eastern that Dubai (which isn't hard, frankly). There isn't anywhere near the amount of building work going on, even though they are busy preparing for the Asian Games which start in 2 months or so. There aren't half as many huge, over-designed buildings sprouting from every available scrap of land. There isn't as much neon. They still drive like maniacs, yes. There are lots more what you would call Arabic buildings there. They seem to be obsessed with a horned animal called an Oryx, and even have a cuddly animated version as a mascot for the games. The other local obsession seems to be pearls and oysters, with references galore in bar names, development titles and giant sculptures sitting in the middle of roundabouts. Oy, mate! Your Venus is missing!

And yet, and yet...the influence of Dubai is slowly coming to the fore. There are new building projects, including the one which I am involved in, and they are building a Pearl Island, rather than a Palm Island, just off the coast. It still has a lot of catching up to do, and I sincerely hope they reign this ambition in a bit, because if everywhere turns into Dubai, the whole Gulf region will turn into a giant Vegas wannabe. Who wants that?

Maybe some people do, actually, because the expat people I met there seemed to be somewhat bitter about the fact that they were in Doha rather than Dubai, which meant they had the choice of a handful of hotels and bars to frequent, and not much else. It was difficult not to feel smug about the fact that I was going back to Dubai. As it was, I ended up staying more time than I was meant to, because the meeting about the Big Hole in the Ground ended up spawning more meetings about the Big Hole in the Ground, and the client decided I was needed there the next day. Oh, joy. So they changed my flight and booked me into a well-known chain hotel.

I was given a lift to my hotel by the chain-smoking South African site QS, and then I had to spend an bizarre, exasperating 20 minutes in the hotel gift shop, buying a shirt and some socks and pants and the like. Another notable difference - there was airport style x-ray machinery and a metal detector to go through when I entered the hotel. Slightly disconcerting, to say the least. To me it said, "Western Hotels are potential targets". A bit like when I was in the USA and had to go through similar levels of security to enter a Social Security office.

So, a night was spent in this hotel, in the company of a few hardened expats, and we ate and drank heartily and talked about Big Holes in the Ground until my day caught up with me and I headed for my room, only for me to do what I always do in hotels and turn on the telly. I laid and watched The Fast Show on BBC Prime (a real gem of a channel for expats), then the first hour of the film Gladiator (which I've seen many times, but I still love it) on another channel, before my heavy eyes made it impossible to watch any more, and I gave in to my need for sleep.

Next day, after a leisurely breakfast and shower, I put on the ill-fitting clothes that I'd bought in the gift shop and jumped into another day of intrigue. Our meetings concluded quickly, and I was conveyed back to the airport where I watched the surprisingly busy Doha airport runway, where planes of all sizes took off and landed to and from various exotic locations, including Bahrain, Kuala Lumpur and Manchester. On boarding my plane I wondered why they were using an Airbus A340, which is a large plane for such a short flight, but it soon filled up, mainly with sub-continentals who seemed to have incredible trouble with taking the seat they were allocated. This, along with the late arrival of about another 50 people, meant we took off about 20 minutes late. Oh well.

I found myself glad to be back in Dubai. And despite the searching questions of the passport controller and the temporary loss of my car, I drove away feeling quite good about stuff. I even went back to the office for half an hour and caught up with the boss before he left for 2 weeks holiday in the UK. I'm worried about it all. I'm enjoying the job. I'd almost given up on QSing, but coming here has shown me that it can be (reasonably) exciting and dynamic, especially when you're dealing with jobs of this nature, and you get to jet round the region. I think I'm doing OK. The boss seems happy with me. Fingers crossed, or Insha'allah as they say here, it will continue!

They're Here!

Not the Magic Camels of Nad Al Sheba, or the Mystical Maniacs of Sheik Zayed Road - no, my family! Woo-hoo.

I tell you what, though, what a bloody going on getting them in the country. It took almost 2 hours for them to get from the plane to meeting me. Sheesh. And with the phones not working, we were unable to communicate, so I must have turned about 4 different colours while I was stood waiting for them.

Anyway, they're here now, and it's like a whole other chapter of our lives has begun. The chapter involving my time alone in this crazy city is over, and now the chapter with my family begins. I hope that they like it. They seem to be getting into it. The BOY is taking to his new school like a duck to hoi sin sauce. The GIRL couldn't care as long as she gets her dose of mind-numbing kids TV and regular food. The WIFE is just bamboozled, trying to learn how to drive on the wrong side of the car and the wrong side of the bloody road, surrounded by fecking eejits.

And then work kicks off big style. It would do, this week, wouldn't it? I've kind of been sitting on the sidelines up until now, like a spectator watching a really fast and scary ride at the fairground, such as the waltzer. Now I've suddenly been pushed onto the ride and getting spun round as fast as possible by the biggest, hairiest, tattoo-adorned gypsy you've ever seen. Wa-hey! This is fun! You see, the jobs over here are just immense. All these piddly little buildings back in the UK I used to work on are just small fry, like the kiddies rollercoaster shaped like some Caterpillar with a drugs habit. This work is like the Oblivion and the Nemesis at Alton Towersrolled into one, followed by a kick in the bollocks by Roy Keane for good measure. You stop to look at the figures on the page, and realise that you're shuffling around 100s of millions of pounds. Best not to think too much about it, really.

So, onwards and upwards. I just hope to the heavens above that my health holds out here. My heart arrhythmia has had a couple of moments so far, but I think I know how to control it. The downside is, I can't drink too much. The upside is, it will save me money. But then again, maybe it won't. I'll just eat more. Friday brunch tomorrow! Yippee!