In a move to hopefully to improve Dubai cricket, the ICC Global Cricket Academy is reproducing a variety of pitch types from the UK, Asian sub-continent and Australia
albawaba.com middle east news information::ICC Global Cricket Academy Gets Australian Pitches (17 May 2009)
http://www.albawaba.com/en/countries/UAE/245929
Cricket is already the second National sport of the United Arab Emirates, but only due to the expats. It would be nice to see more interest from Nationals.
“Cricket should be introduced and encouraged in all schools of the UAE”
Kapil Dev goes out to bat for cricket at UAE schools – The National Newspaper (17 May 2009)
http://www.thenational.ae/article/20090517/NATIONAL/705169814/1100/SPORT
Another story on the excesses of the rich and famous. This one by Sheikh Mansoor Bin Zayed Al Nahyan from Abu Dhabi. It’s alleged he flew thirty riders and their horses to give a private performance.
Billionaire Sheikh Pays £250,000 For Household Cavalry To Fly To Abu Dhabi – Born Rich
“It looks like the horses are going to get better treatment than we will”
Yet another one.
A WIKIPEDIA hoax by a 22-year-old Dublin student resulted in a fake quote being published in newspaper obituaries around the world.
(19/06/2017 Addendum: It’s interesting to see these kind of posts, clearly before I began using Twitter to share tidbits of information I found interesting.)
Things had became quiet on the accommodation front, to the point where I was just about to contact them to confirm everything was alright.
The last I had heard, from someone inside the move, was that the date had moved out to maybe even July. It was disappointing, but we just accepted it as there’s nothing we could do about it.
However, imagine our surprise when we got advice a couple of days ago to say that we had been allocated an apartment, and we can actually move in around the last week of this month.
I recognise they may slip a little from this date they cite. But I’d expect that it should still happen in June if this is their current advice.
Interestingly, the apartment we’ve been offered is our current temporary apartment’s number with just a 1 in front of it. So we’re going up 10 storeys which my wife is already anxious about. A fear of heights was always going to be an issue living in an apartment. Out of 25 floors, 14 is not too bad though. I believe the view become unobstructed from about floor 10 – for the time being.
We’re certainly looking forward to it.
I was forwarded this story via email. It follows a bit of a pattern. When someone does something you would not ordinarily worry too much about elsewhere, but when it happens in the UAE they have paid a terrible price. I’m not sure all of the others I’ve received are totally true, this one on the other hand looks authentic.
“I didn’t think the consequences of telling the truth would be so harsh,” Darren said. “I’d like other people to be very careful. You’re in a different country and the laws are not always the same.”
The humble car horn is not the perfect substitute for giving the finger, but it sure beats going to jail. It’s interesting how the two things don’t nearly have the same effect here. In Brisbane I’d consider using the horn and giving the finger exactly the same except one is louder. I guess Australians generally use the horn as a swear word. Here it’s really more of a conversation. And it’s a bit of a worry, but sometimes it’s even a two-way conversation.
Addendum
The story’s been confirmed in the Australian press:
Aussie jailed for flipping the bird at driver in Dubai | The Courier-Mail (2 May 2009)
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25412733-953,00.html
Thursday afternoon I picked up our set of wheels. We had gone without for quite some time, but the last three weeks I’ve had the use of my boss’s other car and it’s just way too convenient to have your own vehicle.
I originally thought I’d go through a dealer, but the right second-hand Prado came up at the right price so we saved ourselves some money. This meant we didn’t have to deal with bank loans with lots of interest so it suited us right now.
The whole experience was more pleasant than my experiences in Australia. Over there I always felt like I was getting screwed. Here, the prices are generally so much cheaper it’s hard to see any of the cars as a bad deal.
We went for a 2006 Toyota VX Prado. It’s a V6 with a 4.0 litre engine, but with petrol so cheap it didn’t phase me. I’ve seen a similar vehicle perform amazingly on the dunes. In fact, one guy mentioned the only car here that does better is the same vehicle in the short wheel base. I can’t wait to take it out.
A guy named George from Egypt sold it to me. It was his wife’s car.
The Sharia Law is a major advantage to buying a car in Dubai. This means there is no way to buy a stolen car, or car with any existing finance or fines owing. Well, it would have been a total comfort at the time if I had understood some of the process. The whole thing was in other languages. My seller’s Public Relations Officer (PRO) was speaking Arabic, all the forms I filled out were Arabic, and when the RTA folks did converse with me in English I mostly needed the PRO to translate anyway.
I did what I could and just matched my name to my license number to the car’s registration number, and so on. I probably wouldn’t be too surprised if George drops in to take one of my kids away as a result of the forms. Or alternatively leave me with a whole brood of his kids.
Unfortunately the car has never been serviced in its 52,000km life. Almost ironically the inside still has some of the protective plastic on the duco, so it’s at least been partly looked after well.
Just like every other time I’ve bought a new car I notice only after I buy it that there are a billion other ones on the road. We’ll need to be on our toes when we park at shopping centres, cause there’ll usually be a dozen other models exactly the same.
The price of home and contents insurance here is cheap as chips. But for automobiles it’s a hell of a lot dearer. And with good cause. Less than three days after getting the car we had our first traffic incident. On a routine trip to Deira City Centre (shopping centre), we were stuck in quite a bit of traffic. Nobody was going anywhere, yet as we sat there I heard a bump next to me, and low and behold a police car had hit my mirror as he tried to struggle through the traffic! It was at very slow speed so there was no damage, except to maybe the police man’s ego. He looked a bit embarassed by the incident. An added plus was his mirror was folded back, where as ours was proudly unaffected.
Friday morning a bit before the schedule of 5:45am local time my wife and two boys touched down in Dubai. From Melbourne that was 16 hours of mayhem my wife does not want to repeat alone.
I booked a driver to pick me up on the way to Terminal 3 Arrivals. The coordinator was adamant I should be picked up at touch down time, then drive the 15 minutes to the airport from my place and still have plenty of time to spare. But I couldn’t do it. I made it 5:30am, and even then I felt a bit jumpy if they were already there. In fact, the night before I had a very disjointed sleep with similar scenarios playing in my head. At times I woke up probably ever 20 – 30 minutes just to check my alarm.
When I arrived, it was around 5:40am and the board said the plane had just touched down. As Elle would have her hands well and truly full I booked the Marhaba service, which provides a meet and greet service. Apparently the extra flowers thrown in were well-received. It’s a good idea to book this when coming to Dubai to avoid practically any queues. The porterage service is very convenient also for someone weighed down with rugrats.
It felt like an eternity waiting at the Meeting Point for arrivals. I had a relatively clear view of everyone coming, and was in a constant state of readiness for when I spotted them. Each time I saw the shape of a young boy in the distance I would get my hopes up that it was Myles and co., but when they got close enough for me to see it wasn’t them, I’d swear under my breath. All the while, I’m expecting the absolute worst, that the Marhaba people never met them and they’re walking around totally lost and helpless. Almost 40 minutes later, I spotted them. Myles was holding the hand of a young Filipina Marhaba lady. Although he was 70- 80 metres from where I was standing, it was already clear he was talking her ear off. Elle was following with Lewis in a pram. It was quite emotional finally seeing them after five weeks away from them. Thankfully I had my sunglasses.
As they got to the door from Arrivals Myles finally broke sentence with the lady to look out and see me waving frantically. He looked so cool. He had new jeans & shoes, dress shirt (he still avoids wearing anything else), jacket and there was also a kids Emirates backpack they gave (full of toys) diagonally across his chest. He ran up to the glass barrier where I was standing on the other side where we did a brief high five through the glass. Then we walked out to the opening where I got a huge hug from him, once he saw it was alright from the Marhaba lady for him to run off. Elle had a huge smile, which you could tell was 90% relief. And Lewis was looking very curious. And HUGE! My goodness!
I called the driver to swing back around and pick us up which gave Elle enough time to down a rapid fire handful of cigarettes to calm the nerves. I gave the driver a MYLES sign to hold-up, but there were so many cars parked in the pickup area we did the dodgy and just jumped into the car when security weren’t watching. We’d probably still be there if we waited for a car to leave. That situation would never happen in Brisbane. There they make you feel guilty if you take more than a minute to drop someone off. But here I think the cars had been sitting there for hours, the engines weren’t even running. Our driver Zafir displayed the MYLES sign nonetheless, but the effect wasn’t the same.
We got back to the apartment and Myles was immediately curious about the place, and asking where his room was. I pointed out he was staying in the kitchen. He’d usually know I was joking, but in this strange new environment he watched me closely to see if I was being serious. I gave him a clue, that there was a present on his bed, which made him go through each room. He was eventually wrapped to see his room, already with a few of his items that I had packed with me. He was quite impressed with the Emirates Airline Boeing 777 I bought for him. However, he proudly countered it with a complete QANTAS airport set they picked up in MEL. No loyalty at all.
It was probably about 10 minutes later that my nice clean and relatively bare apartment was converted into a very busy and messy, free for all. There were toys EVERYWHERE. And it was absolutely wonderful.
After at least we moved the suitcases into the rooms they belong to, I got Elle and Myles to lie down and catchup on some much needed rest. Lewis on the other hand was not interested in sleeping at all. This was fabulous Daddy and baby time that I had missed so sorely. He’s the same baby, just bigger, stronger and much more intense. He used to love flapping around, but this has been taken to a whole new level. I think he was actually tired as well, but he was so keen to showoff his new tricks. I put him down on a rug to roll around while I started organising a few things around the place. Each time he spotted me walking past where he was, the legs would kick furiously, and the arms would flap up and down with no sense of personal safety. It reminds me of footage I’ve seen of a turtle when they’re caught and lifted out of water. Although Lewis always has a huge grin, which now has two bottom teeth! He’s also on the verge of another accomplishment with him at six months very close to crawling.
Although it was their first day, Myles and I still went for a walk over to City Centre where I had to pick up some final things – including the cot which arrived for pickup. We also walked to the local shop. Myles had asked about sand as soon as he got here, and where I’m staying in Deira it’s quite built-up so you don’t see much. Occasionally though we would pass a little plot where it was clear there was a sand base instead of grass or dirt. To this Myles would screech SAND! with an excited and hysterical sort of look.
The night was interestingly topped off with a minor emergency when I bought Indian takeout. Myles was not too excited with the Rogan Josh, Tikka, Biryani or rice, so he proceeded to make a “pizza” from putting some of the salad onto a Naan. We were just happy he was eating something on top of the snacks he had in the afternoon. However, one thing we didn’t notice was the “green bean” he put on was actually a chilli. As soon as he took a bite I knew what it was from his reaction. I bit a piece also to check it, and it was ___ing HOT! Immediately I got him to wash out his mouth with the OJ he had. Then we went into the kitchen where we each skulled as much milk as we could stomach (almost 2 litres). It was kind of a relief. However, still not enough so I smashed up some ice in a little bag and he just chewed on that until it got back to normal. Elle and I felt absolutely terrible, but the chilli looked so much like a bean, even after we knew what it was. He got an advance on his ice cream, with extra, which helped even more. But we’ve learned our lesson.
Today my two boys were baptised at Wavell Heights Uniting Church.
Myles has not had much exposure to religion, except for perhaps some disparaging comments from me from time to time – which made me quite anxious if there’d be any embarrassing moments.
A fortnight ago Myles and I visited the reverend in her office to organise things. Myles was quick to grab a book from her bookshelf and ask questions. The reverend answered his questions well. She’s clearly worked with kids before. But perhaps something she wasn’t expecting was Myles matter-of-factly saying he doesn’t know anything about the Jesus guy she mentioned. She had a perfect answer, saying that’s what getting baptised is all about.
Today was the day of the service, and I’m glad to report it went well. We were off to an interesting start when we gave him some change to donate to the offering when the bowl went around. But that would take too long, so as we walked into the church he ran straight up to the minister and tried to give it to her.
Among his more interesting questions were why Jesus wore sandles all the time, and if he could use his Baptism candle to hunt for cane toads.
He’s a big fan of the Blues Brother’s movie, which has a scene in a church complete with an African-American choir and James Brown as the evangelical minister. I’m glad Myles didn’t appear disappointed like I feared. During a hymn or two though, his foot started tapping like he was about to embark on a full dance number. But we managed to distract him. I nearly couldn’t hold back the laughter when my brother – the godfather for the day – started making the sound of The Crazy Frog at the time. (Very worryingly, Myles has started copying the antics of the said frog which is essentially him naked, jumping forwards pretending to ride an invisibly motorbike while singing the annoying song. As I said, very worrying. It’s quite funny also, but we try not to encourage him.)
It seems the Baptism has certainly worked. Myles received a present of Thomas the Tank Engine flash cards from one of friends. Tonight he read them to us, and instead of citing the individual words that appeared ont he cards, he said they were God stories. Each separate card he’d pull out of the pack, and recite the alleged God story, which all made mention of the spirit. Even that the spirit was dead. No matter what the stories were, he recited each with a sort of quiet yet stoic voice. Perhaps this is the start of a career quite different to the police car/train driver, or the paleontologist.
The past few weeks has seen a fair amount of attention given to the plight of Australia’s elderly. The federal opposition have been applying pressure in parliament over how inadequate their pensions are.
Possibly in answer to this, news broke today of the arrest of a 67 year old, along with a 74 year old accomplice for dealing the illicit drug ‘Ice’.
I wonder if the pair will include in their defense that the scant pension has left them with no other choice but to begin their million dollar operation.