The " HE " of this duo found this and its too good to leave festering away in youtube land... hope this guy makes it big. Have a listen

She said, He said nothing!

A good friend rightly pointed out the innaccuracy in the title of this blog. Her brilliant suggestion was to change the name of the blog to " She said, He said nothing ". I'm strongly considering this.
Thanks to cartoon stock.com for this cartoon!

Atlantis Mania

So, we went to Atlantis last night - to the new club , "sanctuary". Now, I declared many moons ago that I was over the club scene in Dubai . Its full of posers, movers and shakers , the " look at me " crowd. Don't get me wrong , I'm not above getting blind drunk and making a twat of myself on the dancefloor but , you know , it gets kind of old !

Anyway , I came out of retirement last night to experience the decadence that is " Sanctuary ". I have to say - the Atlantis hotel looks like it was kind of thrown together in terms of interior design and workmanship . Its as though someone said " Quick , Mr. Trumps helicopter will land in ten minutes - throw up that light there , stick up some stone cladding here. Whats that you say - you only have puke green and sickly paint left? Come on , time is money GO GO GO ! "

I won't be entirely unfair here though - the actual club was nice . In true Dubai fashion - money changed hands so we could put our rears on a seat . We duely complied and settled into our night .

By 1:00 am ,the ladies toilets ( theres only one ladies room ) had flooded , rendering me cross legged. Im pretty sure the dancing girls on the balcony had started to dribble baby lotion from their long , fake tanned limbs onto the open mouthed gawpers staring pervily ( is that a word ?) at them . The music got faster and more rave like - and I realised that my poor choice of whiskey and coke obviously did not blast me into lift off with the rest of the club. Truth be told , I heard more than one person utter " You know what I need right now? An E! " Yes , THAT kind of music.

But , dear friends, the night had a silver lining ! Oh yes , just when I was feeling like : " I'm too old to be doing this " I got asked for I.D. !!! That's right- I might feel like an old granny at times - but hey , I don't look it ! Must be my exercise and healthy eating regime .... !

Anyway , I don't think Atlantis is the club for me - too thumpity thumpity - give me Rockbottom any day Come on , you all know you loved it at some point - and thou shalt return , at some weak moment and weep at the drunken simplicity of it all .Any club where I can wear my flipflops and a tank top without feeling like a fashion failure , or not get an inferiority complex about my lack of tangerine complexion or blonde hair extensions , gets my "yes" vote !

Now , I'm going to see whether or not the recalled Irish Pork products my mother brought for me are really as dangerous as the news reports say .It would be a shame to waste some Irish rashers for your hangover just because of a few measly toxins !

unbelievable...

It is with great disgust that I have to report the total disregard that my mother ship's government seems to have with its peoples wishes . Ireland is supposedly democratic. Europe does not like that the Irish people have voted " No" to the Lisbon Treaty .

Its my understanding that many other European governments did not even put this Treaty to referendum. I was quite proud to learn that the Irish people would exercise their democratic right to vote on the future of their country , while other nations were not given the choice. Alas , it seems we were dooped!

The Irish public voted " No" to the treaty, and whether we , the government , or the EU parliment like it or not , the people have spoken . End of story , right? Its a democracy , right?

Apparently not ! Our Taoiseach ( prime minister ) , Mr. Cowen , depicted in the graffiti above, has decided to override the democratic wishes of the Irish public, by asking us to vote again. we now have two choices , vote "yes" , or , vote " yes " .

I am thoroughly ashamed of our government. BIFFO , ( Big Ignorant F$&*ker From Offaly) as our taoiseach is affectionately known, has decided to put it to vote again - wonder what kind of scaremongering lies ahead in order to produce the desired vote. Oh , the shame of it !

Having said that...

Due the letter below featured in 7days newspaper - I'm going to demonstrate how a real unadulterated whine is done! Gripe of the week ( hour / minute ) - Call centre operators. They don't listen , they don't apologise , they repeat the first inadequate solution to your problem over and over again , as if they haven't heard you the first time while you patiently told them why this "solution " would not solve anything !

My conversation went something like this :

ME : So basically I have been without any money for just under a week and the last 4 times I called you you promised me you would courier a cheque book to me so that I could pay my rent and preferably not become homeless. How is that going? I still haven't received a cheque book or new debit card . Its been almost a week .

Operator: Ok Ma'am , you have two options. You can come to the branch and collect your cheque book , or I can put in an urgent request to get it delivered.

M: I can't come to the branch . I have a job and I cant leave it to travel across the city .

O:Ok , Ma'am , you have two options . You can come to the branch and collect your cheque book , or I can put in an urgent request to get it delivered.

M : But this is the umpteenth time I have called you since ordering that cheque book - and each time you tell me you will put in an urgent request for me - these urgent requests aren't working and I am getting closer and closer to homelessness. Isn't there something else you can do ?

O: Ok Ma'am , you have two options. You can come to the branch and collect your cheque book , or I can put in an urgent request to get it delivered.

I think you get the gist . I also think I was speaking to a machine after this repeated answer was fired at me for the 10th time . Incidentally , all this is holding for 30 minutes . I have repeated this charade with them for the entire week .

Miraculously , today , somebody actually put me through to their supervisor - who also told me she couldn't do anything because it was Ramadan and everything was closed. But she will call me back tomorrow . I wont hold my breath ! Meanwhile - today was the day I was supposed to move apartments . But its ok , because apparently ,I have two options.....

Now we all know that customer service is Dubai ( while improving ) is shocking at best. A colleague of mine lived in Malawi for 15 years and said it was oodles more efficient than here. I tend to believe her.
There is something about customer service employees such as the ones in my bank that sees them just blindly following rules that serve absolutely no purpose whatsoever. They do not question why this inane rule is in place ,or why the system can't respond to a customer's most common query. And why do things remain the same? Because the style of management in Dubai is so pedantic , so "how dare you question my authority" that nobody wants to think outside the box and draw attention to themselves. Hence mediocrity reigns in Dubai .

I have no wasta whatsoever, and it seems that in this country , the lack of the latter means you will be sitting pretty for some time while employee blindly follow rules that don't fit ! You can build all the fancy towers you want Dubai , but if the simplest of things becomes like rocket science ( it has to be signed off by four people before an answer is given , no matter what the request ) you are still trailing behind a third world country in terms of actually getting things done !
Cant wait to see what happens when I try the monumental task of ( gasp shock horror ) registering my car!!!!!!!!!!!!!

perfect comment

I saw this letter in today's 7days newsaper. The thing about living here is , there is always something to get up your nose, but because you know that there are plenty of people in a far worse situation than you - you have to preface your complaining with lots of "don't get me wrong" 's and " I realise that .. " and so on and so forth .
I think that the author of this letter was trying to do just that , however I dont think he counted on the wise ass comment that soon followed. priceless! :)

Eye Opener to the kindness of strangers

We all know how easy it is to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of life , particularly here in Dubai . We rush around, trying to sort out our own problems and its generally a "me, me , me " existence. Well yesterday, one of the guys who works in our admin came to me and told me I had a puncture just as I was preparing to leave and start my weekend .

The next 5 ( count 'em , 5 ) hours were a nice lesson in patience and empathy for me ! It seems that the spare wheel on my car is more than just a little complicated to access. Changing the tyre on the car is the kind of thing I don't practise - and I will put my hands up and admit it - I simply don't want to / cant do it !After one hour where my boss and several of or security staff and cleaners had their heads stuck under the rear of my car , I finally called 24 hour assistance - and they headed home - genuinely deflated ( pardon the pun ) that they couldn't fix my problem !

And so I sat , in my school's car park - for about 2 hours , watching the comings and goings of the neighbourhood. In that time , I was brought countless cups of coffee by our stellar security guard with whom I have never had much more than a passing "hello" relationship. Turns out that this guy , who hails from Madras in India , has a B.A. in English Literature, a penchant for country and western music , and gets up in the morning at 3.30 ( yes, you read that correctly ) to prepare for his 12 hour working day.His is such a wasted mind in this country , and it has everything to do with his passport! He was telling me that of his 1000 dh pay cheque , 700 dh wings its way home to support his parents, wife and to pay for his sisters M.A. This is the same guy I whinge to when I arrive after my battle with traffic each morning . I get up at 5 and am at work by 6.15. He gets up at 3.30 and is at work by 6.15 thanks to a bus that wanders everywhere. This intelligent and grateful man lives in a room with 8 other men and has taken to sending all his valuable possessions back to India after he got tired of them being pilfered in his own accommodation . Incidentally, I have never once heard him complain - on the contrary , his disposition is positively cheery !

At long last , to the back drop of the iftar call to prayer , my knights in shining armour came and speedily sorted out my spare wheel . I happily set off , thinking my "hardship" was over. I drove for long enough to get onto the main highway , when I smelled burning rubber - yes, my spare tyre has burst . Discovering I had no call credit and very little battery on my phone- I decided to stay put and hope for another knight in shining armour. I didn't have to wait long - two young local guys skidded to a halt and reversed back up the highway ( I couldn't bare to watch ). They immediately set about jacking up my car again and tried to remove the spare wheel - making their dish dasha's filthy - before I finally got it across to them that I needed to get to a tyre shop. I made the necessary calls and they went on their merry way .

Next helpful passer by was a South African man , who was gung ho and ready to work - pulling up his sleeves as he hopped out of the jeep - I again explained the situation and he too went on his way.

By the time the recovery vehicle arrive ( take 2 ) I was jetted off to a repair shop in Rashidya , where I opted to have a new tyre. The tyre shop was small, grotty and had no AC , the Pakistani repair guys were so helpful and efficient.The recovery guy kindly drove around the area trying to find a bank machine that didn't reject at least one of my cards ( a big thank you to citibank for not telling me they had cancelled my account due to the security breach ! ) Finally , 5 hours later , I was on my way home , got lost twice , was harassed in the lifts by an over zealous Egyptian and fell in the door where I found a clean apartment and a cooked dinner waiting for me .

I really need to stop whinging ... life could be a lot worse and when I put my head down on the pillow last night , I felt more than just a little embarrassed about my excessive whining about petty things that bug me here.