Monthly Archives: April 2010

Black and Gold Ball – 22 April 2010

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Elle & I, and a few tables of friends attended this year’s Black and Gold Ball held at the Grand Hyatt. It’s an important Dubai institution around ANZAC day for particularly all expats that hail from Australia and New Zealand. Our mob demonstrated the laziness of Australians and Kiwis when I think back to how we came together and bought tickets. All communications were over email, instituted and purchased between a Brit and a Papua New Guinean.

The ball’s title should be obvious to those from the Tasman. No, they don’t supply weird mixed drinks of Guinness and mid-strength XXXX. For anyone stuck, Black relates to the All Blacks the world champion rugby team, and the Gold is one half of Green and Gold – the proud colours of Australia, world champions in most other sports ;-).

Despite the effects of the financial crisis, and people allegedly leaving the region in droves, the ball continues to grow each year. This year saw 600 people in total, up from 450 the year before. All attendees were also quite generous. Around AED 30,000 was raised for charity during the night.

In one short sentence, the night was fantastic. After paying respect to those ‘who shall not grow old’, there was quite a long speech by organiser, Graham McNally. I heard on the grape vine that Graham completed almost the whole organisation of the evening himself – which if true is outstanding. He tried his hand at some humour, and made me chuckle at a few standard Oz and Kiwi jokes I’d heard before. And yes, having AUS and NZ the focal point of a ball, he felt it was necessary to mention “that” delivery. I believe the subject was changed pretty swiftly after to take the piss out of South Africans.

They played one party game our British friends forewarned us about called head and bums. Since playing the game at last year’s ball also, they have been of the belief it was a common Australian pastime. If you’re unaware of the game – which we were – it’s really simple. Everyone stands and chooses whether to put their hands on their head or on their bum. The announcer chooses one of the options, and if you chose correctly you remain standing to play another round. We were quite hopeless. In fact the only person from our entire table who did well was Bob our resident Scotsman. He made it just about to the round where those remaining in the game move to the dance floor to find the eventual winner. But unfortunately he followed the advice of someone from our table, and chose to put his hands on the option which had more hair. I’ll leave it at that. He was very smartly dressed in a tuxedo and kilt, we didn’t want to go any further.

The Aus/NZ inspired menu and specially imported food was tremendous – although two friends claimed to have inconvenient issues after some oysters. Eating high quality lamb from home was one of the highlights of the night.

The night was like all the balls I’ve been to. There was great company all looking very spectacular, great food and drinks, a real reluctance to get onto the dance floor but once there we danced the night away. Lionel Ritchie’s song All Night Long got us singing more than we ordinarily would when it sounded like the lyrics included a local suburb:

We’re going to Party, Karama, Fiesta, forever, Come on and sing along.

Toward the end of the night it was a mystery where the whole night had gone. When the ugly lights came on to encourage us to leave, we could not believe it was after 3am.

Actually this ball had a few significant differences from the balls I attended previously. Those in years gone by were safely held before the onset of social networking, 3 megapixal Blackberries with WiFi connection, and inconspicuously sized digital cameras with HighDef video recording. This ball, and every moment for ever more is open to the gazes of the web’s population. It was interesting to know that photos of our escapades were getting uploaded to Facebook in near real time.

When I woke up the next morning, I didn’t recap on the night by reading Facebook status updates. I watched an edited video megamix of myself making some terrible dance moves. What ever happened to ‘what happens on tour…”

Unfortunately one thing that wasn’t caught on film was one of the highlights toward the end of the night. We heard The Proclaimer’s, 500 Miles and insisted on getting our other Scottish friend up to dance with us – knowing full well how much she hates the song. Good times.

Bizarre Dubai murder case reopened

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In 1998, two local guys shot a Sudanese man dead in reaction to him claiming he was bullet proof. A bullet in the chest and one in the head is a pretty severe means to prove somebody wrong.

As alarming as this was, the case has now been reopened in an attempt to throw out the life sentences issued in 2007.  The convicted got an agreement from the victim’s parents for leniency. They are now seeking a single year of imprisonment (already served I guess).

gulfnews : ‘Bulletproof man’ case is reopened

Incidentally in other news today, not that it would have helped, a bullet proof t-shirt was announced (http://www.news.com.au/technology/boron-treated-wal-mart-t-shirt-can-stop-speeding-bullet-says-scientist/story-e6frfro0-1225852806454).

‘Green Shaikh’ says it’s time for Ajman to make changes

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It’s good to see the environment is starting to get some attention in the UAE. Shaikh Abdul Aziz Bin Ali Al Nuaimi, from the ruling family in Ajman calling himself the Green Shaikh, helps promote the cause.

“two-thirds of the youth in the UAE — Emirati and expatriate — have no idea about their carbon footprint and what they could do to minimise it.”

http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/uae/environment/green-shaikh-says-it-s-time-for-ajman-to-make-changes-1.610192

From the mouths of babes

My wife is still on cloud nine. Myles really made her day yesterday. He sweetly said to her, “Mum, I love you, even more than a camel”. While all her friends liked it, and commented on how sweet he is, isn’t anybody worrying about the feelings of the poor camel?

There was another funny moment when we were at a friend’s house. She got their pet tortoise out to show us, Myles was initially a little frighted, But he became more brave when it was put in my hand, and he even started to pat it. But right at that point of time it began to impressively urinate all over my hand, and onto Myles’s shoe and foot.

“Oh, gross!” was the response. And as I took him to the bathroom to get cleaned up, he protested that he should have been told it’s a Weeing Tortoise (perhaps it’s Indian name?). And he added, the tortoise definitely should have been labeled a “Weeing Tortoise” at the pet shop.

Toilet training hiccup

We’ve started toilet training Lewis, from around 1 year and 3-4 months of age. He has been a real natural. From the first time I put him on the seat, he’s been pretty much able to Number 1 on demand.

This afternoon he went without a nappy for a while. It’s interesting how he seems to dance a lot more when he’s nude.

I was a little paranoid he was going to wee on the floor, so I asked him if he wanted to wee on the toilet. He nodded with conviction. So we went to the toilet, where he managed a little trickle, which I applauded in the interests of encouragement.  Incidentally, he occasionally sneaks into the toilet when Elle or I are in there doing our own business, and it’s interesting to see when we’re done he now claps us too.

A little while later he was running around the couch I was sitting on, and when he was standing behind me I asked if he wanted to wee on the toilet again. I turned around and saw him nod again, and was excited that he’s starting to communicate it so well. But then I spotted him looking down. Oh no! I looked to where he was looking, and yep – he wanted to wee alright. He wanted to wee all over the floor. There floor was covered in litres of yellow. It caused me to think the first one on the toilet was him actually holding it in, so he could get maximum effect later.

Oh well, we’ll keep trying. It’s all progress I guess.

Your Indian name is what?!

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Yesterday a number of Tecom families gathered downstairs on the Floor 1 terrace to celebrate Easter.  We had a well-received egg hunt for the kids – large and small, as well as a BBQ lunch and a few drinks with good company. Interestingly some of the kids didn’t go crazy with the chocolate. Lewis was the obvious exception, he had half his face, and pretty much his entire t-shirt covered in a mixture of chocolate and baby slobber.

It’s probably the first time my kids participated in such a big Easter egg hunt. And a few good lessons were learned.  Probably none more important than Myles learning no matter how full your basket of eggs becomes, NEVER put chocolate eggs in your pockets if the temperature is warm.

The kids enjoyed playing football, hide and seek, and chasing each other on bikes.  But once they grew a bit tired of these games, they seemed to go their own ways.  It was interesting to see Myles walking up and down the garden speaking some “foreign” language. I had to ask what he was doing, to which he replied he was being an Indian. He was equipped with a spear made from a frong from the garden, so I figured he was the American variety of Indian.

Trying to fit the theme I told him about traditional Indian names (without mentioning the standard two dogs joke).  We started with the animal, which he chose a Rhino. I was pleased, as it’s my favourite animal.  But I would soon regret the whole activity. As he’s just five I simply asked what is the Rhino doing, as it would be the first part of his name.  He responded it’s Pooing.  So “Pooing Rhino” it was for the afternoon.

Some friends set out to eat fish, in compliance with the tradition. It encouraged me to also get some prawns for the BBQ which was a very nice touch.  But the longer we stayed down there, the hungrier we were, and they conceded that fish was just not to cut it.  So they walked across to Carrefore and bought a full leg of lamb to throw on the BBQ.  It was delicious, even if a little heathen.