Encapsulating Days 1-11! (part 6 ;)

The Du-man Show, starring Jim Mohammed Ali Carrey:

Dubai is a bit like (i imagine, and i have been told) Vegas. The glitz, glam, fakery, and buffets; and the other day after experiencing a few things that just didn't seem right, I was reminded of the Jim Carrey movie about a kind-0f fake life. In that film Jim "lives...in fact [in] a big studio with hidden cameras everywhere, and all his friends and people around him, are actors who play their roles" [imdb]. In the flic, he guesses something's up when he walks out into the street, and sees a stage/studio light in the middle of his suburban road. General experiences here have also made me wonder whether things here are real or not.

It seems to me that this place is really faking it. Granted the stuff you see IS real - the buffets are real; i can definitely taste their calorific goodness, the traffic accidents are real too, and so on. But here's the point - the idea here seems to be, to make things LOOK like they're all 100% finished, working, and backed-up with sound knowledge, researched fully, etc. when they are secretly not!

One example is the Dubai Mall - opened to a fanfare with a third of the shops open. Who knows if the rest will follow suit given the situation here now. But to the rest of the world - Dubai has just opened the BIGGEST mall in the world.

Another - asking a helpdesk in the second biggest mall (the Mall of The Emirates) when the Palm Fireworks display was starting. I was given the reply of 'Palm?....' (clueless look). 'Yeah - you know 'THE Palm', i said in my clearest English. 'Sorry sir - me no can help'. "You DON'T know the Palm?....o...k...". This guy had it all - a shiny Cherry veneer desk, a suit, a moustache, a pleasant attitude, eye-contact. Did he have anything to back that appearance up - you don'betcha he didn't not have...

So - the place is like one of those Cowboy film sets where all the facades are in place, but peek behnid them and you see rickety amateur framework 'holding' it all up.

Bisoux mes amis - a bientot

ps: By the way "non-veneerists" is one of the things where you search on Google and only one result comes up - I thought the word sort of relates to this posting...

Encapsulating Days 1-11! (part 5 ;)

Architecture - Part One:

'Dubai - what a nightmare city for architecture. Have you seen the Burj - what a nightmare, how inelegant is that? Seen the triangular Emirates Towers.. cough; splutter! So basic... we were doing that back in the 80s.. huh; looks like a bad American city! And that Burj Al Arab; hehe what a joke - how can you build a 'sketch'; symbolism gone mad', etc etc - A.N.Architect, 2007.

Well the reality is that when you arrive here you realise immediately that these buildings that we scornfully snobulise over from our desks in London are by far and away the best of the crop here in Dubai. I mean, the Emirates Towers are VERY successful, the Burj Al Arab is a wonderful symbol that also acts as an excellent marker in the dross of the Dubes skyline, and the Burj (Tower) is actually pretty graceful (shock! - it has the same cladding ALL over it!). 95% of the willy-enlarging towers here are AWFUL - I mean awfully awful, especially when you imagine that the designers were actually probably trying to make their tower individual... It is like the late 80s never happened. Gold cladding, pomo exterior facade make-ups, 'porches', 'bronze'... it's bad i promise.

The Burj Dubai appears like an emerging Terminator from the rubble of its base development, and actually manages to look smaller than it is (maybe it's the context, but I think it's the clever use of the tapering form).

Once you are immersed within the Dubai 'situation' you realise that the Burj Al Arab is actually very smart from the outside; it's the 'postcard' building, Joe Bloggs can draw it on a piece of paper, and it's elegant. Just don't go inside of course.

As someone once explained to me - the Emirates Towers are successful in that they comprise of many different angles - therefore at any one time, one face is pretty much always reflecting towards you, and the other provide interesting glancing light efffects. They are one of the best Dubai buildings in the night time too, when this whole place visually works. Like all of the New World cities - they look very average during the day, and beautiful at night when you can't see their outside faces.

Pretty much all of Paris, London, Prague, etc. look gorgeous night or day. Ciao - Ed Venture

[Interlude - farting Newton laws]

"the law of conservation of energy states that the total amount of energy in an isolated system remains constant" - How do we apply this, or how does this apply to farts?

One should notice that the world of farting this law is particularly evident and relevant. In any given fart (and this is obvious before release) the energy is shared amongst 4 different outputs:

1. Sound energy (the 'raspberry')
2. Smell energy (not actually sure this exists.. but let's assume it does!)
3. Kinetic energy (power of the fart, which hence gives noise and smell projection qualities)
4. Heat energy (forgotten the tech' name for this! - the 'warm fart')

Therefore certain things can be said:

-A slow, moving, sneaky, hot fart WILL smell
-A noisy, cold fart will often NOT smell

Etc. etc. Just thought you'd like to know...any further contribution very welcome

Encapsulating Days 1-11! (part 4 ;)

Next subject: Drink

After a long, hot day, in this kind of environment with plenty of stresses and confusions thrown at you - what does an Englishman hanker for? Yep - an open-air, terrace, feet-up, cold.. BEER. Well - t'aint that simple....

To drink alcohol (as you may know) in this country (or this state to be exact), you need a licence, right. That licence can be held by you as an individual, or also commonly by a bar (in a hotel). If you want to BUY alcohol, you need that licence. To get that licence you need to be a resident, or on a working visa. So that means that your drinking possibilities are pretty much limited to the hotel bars, where a G&T costs typically 12 quid, and a beer 5!

I'm sure this will all change when i get my licence, and an apartment, but for now, out of necessity, I am on a beer-free (virtually!) diet; probably losing weight.

One must (I s'pose!) talk of other drinks: typically juices are great (like most of the world these days), Moroccan type tea is everywhere, some weird soft drinks (like Root Beer, 100 Plus, "Something Sweat"... etc.), and many zero % beers (not actually too bad, considering).

Drinking & Driving: It's a big NO NO. You get caught - you go in the slammer; pretty much without exception (unless you know Sheikh Bin..... Zayed Mohd....). So everyone plans their night out with that in mind. It's tricky for us Europeans... but yep; it's a good thing overall of course.

Tea or Coffee, Tea or coffee?
At my place of work (a site office on a construction project in the middle of nowhere), there are Tea Wallahs - yes, Pakistani/Indian guys ready to make you a cup o' tea or a coffee at the touch of a buzzer. Problem is... tea needs to be made very particularly for us English men, coffee i suppose less so, and these lovely guys have a very very basic grasp of English. Anyway - the conclusion is that I'm kinda getting used to very sweet tea made with powdered milk... i hope I don't get totally used to it!

Signing off... The Ed Venture

Encapsulating Days 1-11! (part 3 ;)

Next subject - very dear to my heart: FOOD!

Well; as it's probably the most important thing about a country for me, I made sure that I verified the quality of grub in this possibly-McDubai place. My reliable food source, Kish, told me not to worry, and so far - he has been dead right; very high quality tasty stuff for ok prices.

There seems to be a selection of food as wide as the Indian Ocean, and most of it inspired by India/Pakistan. Fortunately for a Brit like myself, who was worried about missing my good ol' "English" curry, the lovely stuff is everywhere; gawd bless the influx of Pakistanis who build all the projects we design AND bring the best food here as well! The legendary place here for ExPats to get a fix seems to be Ravi's in Satwa - it is brilliant! You know from the wafting walk beside the tandoor and meat prep that the food'll be great. The obvious high turnover of European and Indian customers is a classic sign of top-notch nice nosh. It doesn't dissapoint - slightly different to UK (i.e. Bangladeshi curries) style 'Indian' food; everything seems to be a hit. There's lots of bone used, which gives more flavour and a bit more thickening to the gravies; ooh I'm hungry right now! Try the Chicken Peshwari (nothing like a Peshwari naan)!

Beyond my Indian subcontinent obsession, there's every other type of food available. The horror that is the air-conditioned food court (which feels like you should be shopping at Poundland just before) is actually quite a good experience, adn something to get used to in Dubes. There are some bad restos and some great ones - it's early days, so I have a very limited knowledge!

Meals are usually not enjoyed with a cool beer - a great shame, when the temperature is PERFECT! But then, in this hyprocritical society, where you can be greedy, have many wives and make them dress restrictively - you're not allowed to enjoy a nice cool beer au plein air... hmmm

I could write and write and write about food (and i will do in the coming months), but I'll leave it here for the moment, and let you imagine... ciao

Encapsulating Days 1-11! (part 2 ;)

Weather:

'Everyday; hot 'n' sunny...ain't that neat?!', Bill Hicks. Well, Bill was talking about L.A. and what a fake, 'neat' place it is. Well - if you've jsut come from the UK and you were anticipating the usual grey 5 months ahead, Dubai's autumn temperatures are just what the good doctor ordered. We arrived early November, and it's been around 30 degrees C every day, sunny and perfect. Sure - after a few months, we'll prob yearn for a cold frosty morning; solution? Go to the Ski Dubai - ONLY JOKING!

Apparently - you DO get fog some mornings (hence the horrible 200-car pile-up), and the pollution varies in visibility, but generally it's awfully nice to wake up to sunny, blue skies, when you come from a country where blue in the sky is a rarity.

The sun sets and rises ar around 6am and 6pm, which is actually ok, because the whole place looks 10 times better at night, when you can't really see the cranes, the sand, the barren building sites, or the pollution!

We have arrived at the right time of year; the temperature is gradually going slightly downwards, and then upwards towards the hell that is summer in the UAE. 50 degrees and humid is not something we look forward to!

Encapsulating Days 1-11! (part 1 ;)

WELCOME TO MY FIRST ATTEMPT AT BLOGGING!!

What a time/place to start writing a blog - a move to the place of moment, the only place that seems to be reasonably immune from the recession rocking the world (and my chosen industry - construction). My new wife and I moved here both with jobs to earn some cash, get out of depressed Europe and experience something new... let's see how we get on. Hopefully in this blog you'll read about this place, life, ideas, philosophies and other such stuff, and be amused... i dunno; take it as it cums.
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The arrival at Dubai Int'l was not exactly as written out in the Fairytale book of arrivals: I lost my iPod, SLR camera, and Lonely Planet - and after trying to report the loss in Dubai airport and failing, we got home into bed at 7am (3.30am landing.....)! Naiiice.

Terminal 3 is a pretty smooooth introduction to Dubai, and the enorrrrmous arrivals lounge (like some Pyramid basement littered with 1m wide columns) i guess says 'this is Dubai - we're f-in serious'. The security did not (contrary to popular wisdom) search my laptop and hard drive for topless shots, nor sniff me for a milligramme of cocaine, but stamped us for 60 days, and welcomed us in. All cool and groovy so far!

OK - so first subject: Driving! - Driving is something i love, i look forward to, i have done a fair bit, in lots of different conditions (sand, snow, etc.), but boy oh boy it AIN'T fun in Dubai... at ALL! If you've ever been/lived here, you'll understand that it's a nightmare; from the american junction layouts, to the poor signage, to the psychos in massive cars, the place is not-suprisingly the accident capital of the world - FACT!

General roads and signage: OK; the roads aren't finished, therefore they are still building,changing, modifying, realising they f*****d-up, altering - the road layouts. Therefore - the signage has to change almost everyday, and you never know (each day) whether you'll be going the same way to work. On top of this, there may be no actual sign for some enormous building that you need to get to (it also doesn;t help that: (i) taxi drivers don't know the city, and don't try, (ii) you can be 50m from a building and have to drive 2km to get there). All European towns, villages and cities pretty much evolved in their street plans and weren't designed - they work; is it because the progress is too quick that this place's road system is soooo up the shitt*r? If you miss a turn (for say a sports stadium or a mall, etc.) you have another 5km to drive, and another 15 mins to waste; i.e. it's a nightmare that you have to get used to.

Styles of driving: Errr... there's only one; dangerous. EVERYBODY undertakes, there seems to be no law governing undertaking (at whatever speed!). I have seen (from the traffic lights) taxis pull away at a green light, and cut across two lanes to go left in front of me when I am going striaght ahead.!... psychos! Dubai is the accident capital (road) of the world - imagine 7 lanes of jam-packed traffic going 130km/h, each 5m behind the car in front. If you check on you-tube there is a video of the massive 2008 pile-up: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coM5MikLQy4

Taxis: ... are a nightmare: If you're used to UK black cabs, you'll be depressed by the taxi service here. Granted, they are being paid around 1/20th of my (fairly average) UAE salary, but that doesn't excuse: (i) Rudeness - they don't basically speak, (ii) Ignorance - they have NO IDEA how to get anywhere, except airport, trade centre, old town, etc. Give them an address? No hope (iii) they drive like psychos... You need a car; get one; it's better that way.

The cars: The logic is - i suppose - get a bigger car, you'll be safer, and your penis will get larger when everyone sees how much money and ego you have; i dunno. You can also increase your girth/length by: (i) tinting your windows to the max, so you appear exclusive/msyterious, (ii) leave the keys in the ignition in a car park to show how confident you are (example case 1 - a black/yellow, brand new Hummer parked with keys in the ignition - wtf!?), (iii) Beep at people in front of you when the lights go green, to show how 'dumb' everyone else is, and you'rew the one who spotted the change from red-to-green. Perhaps it IS safer to have a big, tough car, that means that in that next 200-car pile-up you'll be only slightly dead, and reasonably fashionable.

OK - that's me done for today on the subject of driving in Dubes - see you next time folks for some more Dubai dissection ;)