DXB Brinkworth

The middle east has been relatively stable since we arrived nearly 20 months ago. Just recently however, tensions have reached breaking point in Lebanon/Syria/Israel.  I am sure that I’m partly responsible.

Less than a month ago I suggested as our family’s first overseas holiday that we “hit” Lebanon. Lebanese people are abundant in Dubai, including my workplace, and they all speak so fondly of the place, all the pictures look lovely, and as the icing on the cake, we get a chance to eat their food quite often. And after a little research it seemed like a lovely place to visit, we even had the offer of a friendly colleague to be our tour guide. But as soon as I put the idea in my head, war broke out!
I subscribed to the Australian Government’s travel warnings for Lebanon, and almost every day for the past week and a bit I’ve received an update with a more strongly worded warning. So our plan to fly to Beirut are now shelved for some time.

I’m sure we can find another interesting location in a similar proximity to the UAE. Sri Lanka looks the most promising at the moment.  Their civil war finished last year, after 25 long years.

Interestingly with the Lebanese conflict, I heard some news which I thought would surely help sort things out. It seemed the US were sending in the Hof - which got me excited that things may still be possible.  But it turns out it is not David “Hof” Hasselhof from Knight Rider fame.  Instead, it was US Diplomat Fredric Hof. 

What can he do that’s nearly as useful as a talking crime-fighting sports car?

Ryan Adventures, Family news, Newsworthy Lebanon, middle east, Sri Lanka, The Hoff, travel

The world’s most popular children entertainers, and possibly Australia’s greatest export visited Dubai over the weekend.  They had quite a whirlwind tour performing just three shows over our weekend. I took my two boys on Saturday to watch the final show in a packed Palladium -  just over the road from our place.

Unfortunately Murray - the red wiggle - was absent, due to a pressing family commitment, so we were introduced to a new red wiggle in Bobby - apparently Australia’s greatest surfer.  But otherwise all the characters were there.

I knew what to expect, Elle had gone to a previous show in Australia, and told me how the event goes at such a frenetic pace. But it must be seen to be believed, particularly when you know their ages.  It was interesting when they did their usual gag of Jeff falling asleep so the kids can scream “Wake Up Jeff!”. However while Jeff was standing there ‘asleep’, instead of telling kids the instructions on how to wake Jeff, Anthony mentioned Jeff ’s tired because he’s getting old. He then proceeded to tell a story of what had happened earlier in the day.  Judging by Jeff’s giggles he knew what was coming. Apparently Jeff got news from Australia that he had received his Senior Citizen’s Card.  Apparently Jeff was dancing around the hotel room repeatedly singing “half price at the movies”. By the end of the story Jeff was visibly laughing, so Sam interjected telling kids that Jeff must be having a really funny dream. Once the kids had succeeded waking him up, Jeff jumped up and hung upside down from a bar, again singing “half price at the movies”.

The Wiggles are a real class act. Even a minor mistake was extremely smooth, and then highlighted to make an even more entertaining moment. It happened when Henry the Octopus couldn’t stand on the thight of a couple of wiggles and fell. Captain Feathersword couldn’t stop laughing, and explained it was just so funny - and they made the three do it again when the song had finished.

They are also expert at seamlessly introducing local influences to their show. Apparently they fell in love with our fruit dates - a traditional local treat - and were re-considering the lyrics of their song ‘Fruit Salad’ so it would become just “Dates”. And after doing “Incey Wincey Spider” quite a few times, Anthony cut it off abruptly and said, actually it doesn’t rain that much here - which received a lot of laughter.

It was good to see quite a mix of people attending. The Wiggles are  a real world wide phenomenon, and it was present in the crowd.  While it was mostly Western looking families, you could easily spot a few locals were present in their Konduras and Abayas.

I saw a couple of guys from the office at the end of the show, one of the guys apparently insisted on going it was just lucky that his wife and kids were interested in coming along also.

Ryan Adventures, Newsworthy Australia, The Wiggles

There have been many murmerings and insinuations previously, but in the last week it was confirmed at the highest level Dubai has an interest in staging the Olympic Games. Both HH Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, and his wife Princess Haya discussed the point at this year’s SportAccord.

I assume the bid if for the Summer games. While Ski Dubai is the world’s largest indoor snow park and field, it probably still isn’t enough to consider the Winter games.

At this point in time consultants are just going to evaluate the readiness of DXB to host the event, then determine how much work would be required to proceed.

One obvious issue is that during the Olympic month of September the temperature doesn’t get much below 30 degrees celsius.

I saw first hand at the Sydney Olympics in 2000 the amount of infrastructure, development and planning that was required to get the nod. My initial thought around the UAE is that we’re not yet ready. However Sheikh Mohammed is always confident on the city’s ability to rise to the occasion:

“if we decide to make a bid for the Olympics, we will be in it to win”

. There are many examples where UAE has proven itself to be able to carry out the near impossible. Most recently the 808m Burj Khalifa should make people wonder.

One thing’s for sure. If Dubai takes the bid on, I’ll be behind it. And another thing is for certain, if Dubai gets the nod, I’ll need to stay here longer than the 5 years I initially proposed. For anyone that’s been to Dubai it will no doubt be a very interesting story to follow.

Who knows, we could be in with a real chance. It seems Hobart, the capital city of Australia’s tiny island state of Tasmania are considering their chances after a radio prank was a little too successful.

http://www.business24-7.ae/sports/other/dubai-evaluates-olympics-bid-2010-04-26-1.236829

Ryan Newsworthy, Ponderings HH Sheikh Mohammed, Olympics, Tasmania

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.

Ryan Adventures, Family news, Newsworthy ANZAC, Black and Gold ball, Facebook, web2.0

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).

Ryan Interesting, Newsworthy arrest, courts, murder

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

Ryan Newsworthy Ajman, environment, Green Shaikh

Australia’s leading consumer advocacy group, Choice, have surveyed Aussie air traveller’s levels of satisfaction, and the results are in. Dang it, Singapore Airlines came out on top for best airline covering the the UK leg, with my employer Emirates taking third place only (URL: http://www.news.com.au/travel/news/australias-favourite-airline-revealed/story-e6frfq80-1225848328840).

I’d like to add, British Airways was voted last.  And it seems there’s more than enough negative QANTAS press around presently to keep them out of the top places, e.g. A380 tyres bursting, and engineers striking over the Easter break.

One positive result, Emirates was deemed best for travel between Australia and “Unzed” (Australia’s neighbour, New Zealand).  Thanks Kiwis!  This is fantastic considering the huge number of carriers crossing the ditch these days and the fierce competition amongst them.

Come on Australia, get with the programme.

Ryan Newsworthy airline, Australia, best, Emirates, New Zealand

This evening I learned that His Highness Sheikh Ahmed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan has been confirmed dead, regrettably too early at the young age of 42.  For the uninitiated, Bin (or occasionally “Ibn”) means son of - so from his name alone you can tell he was the son of the founding father of the UAE, the late Sheikh Zayed; and the last name, Al Nahyan is Abu Dhabi’s ruling family’s surname. It turns out he was the younger brother of Abu Dhabi’s current ruler, and President of UAE, Sheikh Khalifa. 

Sheikh Ahmed’s body was missing for 3-4 days after his glider crashed in Morocco, so it was pretty clear the story was not going to end well.  I figured out that news of his body being found had broke as soon as I got in the car this evening and turned on the radio.  All of the English stations were playing morbid classical music, and all other stations had Arabic prayers being sung.  Within the UAE they routinely do this out of respect to the family. Depending on how closely they were related to the ruler, it can go for days.

Earlier this year one of the elder Al Nahyan family members passed away, which took all modern music off the radio for a couple of days. We kept the radio turned off to avoid falling asleep when driving. And after waiting for a while, I thought I’d just switch the radio on just for a second to see if the mourning period had ended, the moment I switched it on Lady Gaga sang “I wanna take a ride on your disco stick”, so yep, it had finished - although, it was no improvement to the musical choice.

The question now arises, will we get days off.  Apparently it’s quite common for public holidays to be issued when a royal family member passes away. And again the number of days off depends on how closely related  the deceased was with hthe royal ranks.

One of the minor things we looked at when we were sussing out Dubai and our potential move, was the comparison of holidays between Dubai and our home city of Brisbane.  At first glance it seemed they were very close in number. UAE misses Christian holidays such as Easter and Christmas, but they have many single days off for Muslim occasions.  And when you add the days off that happen when people die, it seems Dubai’s working days per year could be quite less than Brisbane.

Ryan Newsworthy death, mourning, Muslim, radio, Sheikh Ahmed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan

One of the things that sealed the deal for us to agree to moving Dubai, was their love of sports.  And horse racing is one of the more preferred sports.  The weekend just gone was the Dubai World Cup - the $10M horse race - apparently the richest race in the world.  Incidentally I thought the ‘Race that stops the nation’ - the Melbourne Cup had that title.  We didn’t attend this year’s world cup, but it was hard to miss.  The sports section of the paper was 12 pages, with 8 or so devoted to the event.  It was hosted for the first time at the magnificent Meydan facility.  I’ve only seen images on TV and in the papers, but I’m sure you’d have to see it to believe it.

Myles enjoyed marking off the horses that would win.  Unfortunately we lost his picks, it would have been interesting to see his results.  Besides since we couldn’t have a flutter on the event it didn’t seem the same.  Myles’s criteria was the horse had to be Australian or American, and the owner had to be a Sheikh.  I’m sure he would have more success with that system than I would have trying to follow their form, using statistical probability, and their odds.

Maybe next year.  Although we seem to be saying that so much lately, 2011 may be overwhelming.

Ryan Newsworthy horses, Meydan, sport

Contrary to a lot of advice I was given before coming to Dubai, it does in fact rain in the middle east. We first saw some rainfall in Deira when we were staying there. It was plain to see how ill-equipped the city was for rain when a few mils of drizzle would fill the streets for a week or two.

The rain has been a lot more solid in the past week, now that we’re into what they call winter. It’s interesting to see how quickly some English colleagues have forgotten what it was like back home and complained on their Facebook status about the rain. On average, December is likely to see 15mm rain from 3-4 days. Not much to write home about.

But the city still acts like it’s a monsoon. The terrible driving on our roads gets even more terrible. And this makes the terrible traffic, even more terrible.

In fact one night this week when I was on the metro heading home, Elle called to say she was caught in traffic. So I caught a taxi from my station at the Mall Of Emirates. After driving through a few deep creeks which were formally roads, we hit a bad section of traffic that was not moving at all. It was under a kilometre from our place, so I cut the taxi ride short and got out - sporting my new Emirates umbrella - to set off to walk the remaining distance. Probably not the best idea. The footpaths in our neck of the woods are appalling. There was no room besides the cars for me to cross the busy intersection, so I set off to find a break in the construction of the overpass. An even worse idea. The place was full of mud, and while I did my best to only step on solid ground. On two occasions I stepped into a mud puddle and stepped out without a shoe. Fortunately there was just enough light to see and rescue the shoe before they were totally consumed by the puddle.

After this debacle I made it home in one piece, a little wet but so muddy, the dry cleaner’s going to wonder what happened.

The schools also struggle at this time. Poor Myles had an Achievement Assembly cancelled on account of the rain. I remember a couple of times while I was at school wishing that the rain would cancel school, all to no avail. Here it seems to be the norm.

Ryan Newsworthy rain, winter