The latest from Полнотекстовые фиды для блогофермеров
- Things I miss most..and things I don't
- TA FOLLOWS THE STARS, BOOK CHARTS AND MORE!
- "Christmas" comes early
- Moving on up
| Things I miss most..and things I don't | Top |
| It has been a long time since I last blogged. I could give the excuse that I have been busy. Allah knows how hectic it has been here in Jeddah during the week and every weekend is a blur of catch-up time with friends and family. But that is not the reason. It is simply that when I first arrived, for the first few months, it was all novel. But eventually the novel becomes routine and there doesn’t seem any point sharing the routine. But I forget that my routine probably still is of interest to others. I will write about our visitors and the places we have been and camels and sand and heat and mosques and houses and parties and Bahraini and Saudi culture another time but in the meantime here are the things I miss most... · Sky Sports – just being able to watch football and rugby and motor racing with friends over a pint. · Stars – a combination of light pollution, atmospheric dust and high humidity mean that clear skies are almost non-existent. · Long summer evenings – even now in June, during the longest days of the year, it is dark around 7pm, no daylight until 10:30pm and birds singing at 3am. · Different weather – the sheer pleasure of not knowing what the weather will be from one day to the next, having four seasons in one day, sunshine and showers, wind and rain, morning mists and night-time frosts, variety is such a joy. · Safe driving – being in country where people respect their cars and others vehicles, their lives and others’ wellbeing. · Fireworks – odd I know, but when you don’t have them, you miss them. · Countryside – being in verdant nature, especially in the spring and summer, the most noticeable thing being… · Green – trees, shrubs, moss, clover and flowers, everywhere where the roads and buildings are not, especially… · Grass – growing as a weed, on waste ground and on pavements, down the middle of a country lane, everywhere. · Luke and Charles – who are my friends as well as my sons who have been a constant for so many years, and the rest of my... · Family – my sister and brother-in-law, my nieces, Sarah’s family, my parents. · France – being able to jump on a train and be in another, wonderful culture where the best things in life are enjoyed. · EBay – where you can shop for anything, from anyone, at anytime at a bargain price. · holidays – for no particular reason having a series of Mondays off. · Parks – places to go, get damp, picnic, play cricket with the kids and fight off wasps. · Pubs – wherever you go, finding a country or town pub with faded seats and shiny carpets, lots or wood, locals, log fires and warm beer. · Smoke free restaurants – and offices and bars and shopping centres and airports and taxis etc. · Walking – not only is it usually too hot to walk anywhere here, but also there is nowhere to walk. Streets and pavements are not designed for walkers and it is not a pleasure, but usually a risk. · Trading Standards – being able to buy something knowing that if anything goes wrong you can take it back without a fight. · Service – polite, well training shop staff and restaurant waiters (believe me having people to do everything for you is not “service”) with a sense of “customer service”. · Saturdays and Sundays. - two days off is fine but when the rest of the world is enjoying its weekend, I am at work. Watching the Grand Prix or Six Nations on line while at work is neither professional or satisfying. · Being understood – although English is the common language of the region, even spoken by Arabs to one another, being understood, and understanding, is always a struggle and can be wearing and leads to many frustrations. · Sunday football – watching Elliott play in the mud and rain. · Broadband – that works, at high speed, all the time, without constantly having to reset and complain. · Spring days – those lovely, unusually warm hints that summer might be coming. · Miniskirts – and general availability of on-display young female flesh. · Free press – despite the interminable self-righteousness of the English press, pretending to be the voice of the people, at least they give the appearance of a balanced view. The Bahraini press is constantly reminding us what a wonderful place Bahrain is and what an excellent job the government is doing. · Wimbledon, The Derby, the FA Cup Final, Six Nations, The Grand National, Test Matches, The British Grand Prix, Henley, The Open, Millwall, Harlequins. · London, and most of all… · Friends – yes, I have friends here, very good friends but I still miss my friends that I have left behind. …but I don’t miss · Autumn – getting colder, damper, darker – leading to… · Winter – dark, cold, miserable, damp, interminable, capped off by... · Christmas – the ridiculous over indulgence in false bonhomie, unnecessary consumption, decorations and fake snow and worst of all Christmas songs that no one in their right mind would play or listen to at any other time. · Wasps – even when the weather is (rarely) nice enough to sit outside in England it is spoilt by plagues of buzzing marauding insects (I have never seen a wasp since arriving a year ago). · Big Brother – why, oh, why is it still going on? · Early winter nights – the opposite of the long days of summer, early evenings, night time by 4pm.. · Housework – having to keep the house maintained, clean and organised without help. · Rain – especially that rain that lasts all day and is cold and driving and comes from low, grey skies. · Dog shit – not as bad as France or Spain but still bad enough. · Barbecues ruined by cold weather or rain. · Doom and gloom – reported constantly in the “free” press and repeated endlessly on TV, in news and fiction, an English obsession. · The Recession – and the fear that family and friends have for their homes, their savings, their investments, their jobs, their future. · Petrol prices – enough said (another English obsession). · “Little Island-ness” – the belief that the world starts and ends with England. · Expensive labour – even the simplest job costs a fortune to get done so you have to do it yourself or seek the cheapest option with shoddy results. · Ironing – the most boring activity ever imposed upon a civilised race. As this makes it all sound rather one sided, I feel another blog is needed to say all the things I like about Bahrain. Keep an eye out for it soon. Source | |
| TA FOLLOWS THE STARS, BOOK CHARTS AND MORE! | Top |
| NEW MOON FAN-MADE TRAILER: EMPHASIS ON ‘FAN’. As a Twilight guy who is having the time of his life seeing each of his favorite comic book characters gracing the silver screen, I have had a few run-ins with the die-hards who nitpick about everything they see ‘wrong’ in the movie adaptation. I guess I’m just happy as a vampire in a blood bank when I get to see the characters that shaped my childhood come to life, with all the awesome CGI to support them. I don’t care that Wolverine is being portrayed by a 6+ foot tall Jackman (Wolvie is really supposed to only be a bad hair day over 5 feet), as long as I get to see a REAL actor play him! TA FOLLOWS THE STARS: ASHLEY, DANIEL, CHARLIE AND BOBBY We have a great edition of TA follows the stars for you. Ashley Greene, Charlie Bewley (Demetri), and Daniel Cudmore (Felix), and Bobby Long who co-wrote, “Let me sign,” by Robert Pattinson were all in Berlin for a Twilight Fan Party. VAMPIRE BASEBALL VIDEO CONTEST - WIN TWO TICKETS! Last week we introduced you to three new contests we are putting on with Fan Trips Travel for the Vampire Baseball event (view them here ), and now we have more details to share with you about the second contest! STEPHENIE SATURDAY: ‘NEW MOON’ OUTTAKE - ‘NARCOTICS’ In today’s edition of Stephenie Saturday, we will have to say a sad farewell to the outtakes we all love to read, for the simple fact that there aren’t anymore to share. Have no fear though, as we still have one more to bring you. This week’s final outtake originally came from the end of chapter 2 in New Moon but ended up being removed for the final draft. It’s a short outtake, but gives us a funny little alternative to how Carlisle treated Bella after she sustained multiple injuries from the paper cut debacle. BOOK CHARTS AROUND THE WORLD: STEPHENIE MEYER It’s Saturday again, so here are this week’s book charts! For up to date news, videos, and pictures, visit us at Twilightersanonymous.com! TwilightersAnonymous.com can now be accessed through: • New Moon the Movie: www.NewMoonTheMovie.org • Twilight Series Books: www.TwilightSeriesBooks.com • Twilight Films: www.TwilightFilms.org Source | |
| "Christmas" comes early | Top |
| “Well what a nice surprise I had this morning. We have 3 days holiday this week to mark Eid-ul-Fitr which is the Muslim festival (Eid) to mark the end of Ramadan (Fitr meaning “to break the fast”). So I had a small lie in and got up just after 8:00, had a shower then came down for breakfast. Every morning, before I am up, the Gulf Daily News, an English-language newspaper, is delivered and is lying outside my door. My daily breakfast is spent reading it. And the headline this morning was “ Eid Alert ”. So why was this a nice surprise? “You knew the end of Ramadan was coming and that Eid followed,” I hear you say. Well Eid-ul-Fitr, like all Muslim festivals, is literally a moveable feast. It starts with the first sighting of the new moon after the ninth month (Islamic months are lunar months, which is why the dates move compared to western Gregorian months). The ninth month is Ramadan and the tenth is Shawwal. If you look at a calendar, the new moon is shown as tomorrow. But, despite the fact that scientists have been able to predict the cycles of the moon since the ancient Egyptians some 6,000+ years ago, the actual start of the month is down to a bunch of Islamic clerics. The point is that one synodic month is approximately 29.5 days. So, the moon may be new largely in tomorrow but could possibly be actually new during today. So it takes a panel of religious astronomers to determine the actual start and end of Ramadan (or any month for that matter but for Ramadan and the Eids it is crucial). As you can understand, Eid could start in different days in different places. For example, the new moon may not be sighted in the USA until tomorrow so Eid starts there tomorrow. The problem is that the prediction was that Eid would start on 1 st October. But it does not actually start until the scholars say so. And they said so last night – which means that schools, government offices, mosques, businesses and, most importantly, hotels and licensed alcohol sellers, did not know until this morning that today was the first day of Eid, not tomorrow. Can you image the chaos in the West if the actual day of Christmas Day was not decided until Christmas Eve. How would Sainsbury’s be able to cope?. Now can you see the reason for my joy? It is not only about being able to buy alcohol again (although I have to admit that I did go out to the shop and buy a case of wine and a case of beer, the first can of which is just being finished as I write this sentence) but it is about a return to normal life. As I described before, normal life ceases in Ramadan. Muslims stay up feasting and celebrating all night and fast and hardly work all day. This means that the shops and businesses change. Many restaurants close for refurbishment. Only a very few places serve lunch, usually behind closed doors in some of the international hotels. My clients have been only available for half a day most days and almost all of them have been on holiday for the last couple of weeks. Fasting all day (from around 5 am to 6 pm) which includes abstaining from eating and drinking (try not touching water for 13 hours in this heat) means that people don’t function well. One noticeable effect of this is the number of road traffic accidents that increases during Ramadan. The roads are best avoided in the late afternoon although, after about 1pm most people have gone home, and most shops and businesses close. Because everyone needs to eat and drink at sunset, shops (except supermarkets) do not reopen until after Iftar (the first meal after fasting) usually around 7 or 8pm. So you have to shop early or late. Cafes remain closed all day until just before sunset, even the 24 hour ones, so life becomes very different. But today people are sitting in cafes, smoking in the street, eating lunch and (possibly, although I can’t confirm this) having sex during daylight hours again. Of course, being a pessimist and new in the region, I was not sure that Ramadan had really ended. My first confirmation was when I drove past the nearby alcohol shop and saw its door open. The second sign was the people in the café next to the supermarket drinking coffee. Eid had arrived! I stopped for the novelty of a cup of tea in public and went to the alcohol shop to indulge myself. For Muslims, Eid is also about something other than eating during the day and being able to have a cigarette after sex at 4 in the afternoon. It is a festival, akin to Christmas, that it is marked by family feasts and present giving. Jewellery is a common gift but children look forward to it like western children look forward to Christmas as families bestow gifts upon them. So their “Christmas” came early, as well as mine. Eid-ul-Fitr is a three day holiday, starting today and ending Thursday. The downside is that many businesses close, just like in the West at Christmas. But unlike the UK and USA, they do not go overboard. Cards are sent but not by the truckload. Shops have special offers but no tinsel, lights and special Eid songs played constantly. There are no decorations and no houses with plastic models of prophets and flashing crescent moons on the roof. Gifts are lavish but not unnecessary (you would not dream of giving gifts to business colleagues or your next door neighbour). As I say, normality has not quite returned. I still will have to wait until probably Thursday or Saturday before I can buy the spare bed and kitchen table and chairs that I need because the main shops are closed although the supermarkets remain open (nothing stops them). And businesses and bank s are closed until Sunday so I still do not have my chequebook or ATM card. But tonight I will probably go out for dinner with a glass of wine and tomorrow some of us are meeting at JJs Irish Pub for lunch and a serious drink. So, Eid Mubarak - have a blessed Festival! Source | |
| Moving on up | Top |
| Today marked a milestone in my time in Bahrain. I moved from new boy to old lag when a new employee arrived from the UK and deferred to me for my experience of Bahrain. Suddenly my opinion matters and I realised that I have already accumulated knowledge that is useful to someone else. Edward joined from the UK with his wife just having given birth to twin girls at 32 weeks. He delayed his start when she went into labour early and so he joined after me and I am no longer the new boy. If she had hung on, he would be teaching me. Such is fate. I have taken him around a bit, advised on accommodation and car hire and places to eat and I am still wet behind the ears myself. It made me realise how quickly I have got used to Bahrain; customs, geography, places to go, things to buy, how to get a phone and a bank account, how to work with bureaucracy, layout of the city and other ways of life. I have introduced him to Glen at the Guest House and she now has another customer. If I get fed up with the new job then I can always go in to guiding and real estate here in Bahrain. We went for a meal, couldn't find where I wanted to go and went to Monsoon - a very nice Far Eastern fusion restaurant - two good noodle dishes and a couple of beers each for £25 so by no means cheap but highly recommended for the ambiance alone. Tomorrow I will go and speak to car agents again as I am now thinking about an Infiniti coupe or perhaps, at a pinch, a Volvo C70. I really need to get this sorted soon so I have the finance and an order organised before I leave for August. I listed out my travels for the next few weeks out today as I was getting confused. 9 flights in the next month which I am in danger of getting wrong, missing or double booking. I spoke to Gulf Air today to cancel my flight to the UK in late August and the guy on the phone said it was all OK and I would get an email to confirm. I think I have just learned a new thing about Bahrain. What someone tells you on the phone and what happens in reality are two different things. I may be proven wrong but I suspect he just told me everything was sorted then hung up and screwed up the piece of paper. The problem is I have cheap (relatively) flights booked to the UK (I am starting to not call it "home") which I need to revise as I have to fly to France with business so Argon can pay for me. The tickets say they are not flexible but the guy on the phone said for £25 they could be changed/cancelled. Hummmm! What do you think? I also tried booking a car from Heathrow to Devon to get there for Sara's wedding. It is crazy that to book a one way car for one day is twice (yes twice) as expensive as hiring a car for 3 days from Heathrow and back. There is something wrong there and I think there is a business opportunity to help the car hire companies organise their car location logistics. If one can do it they can make a good business proposition over the competition. I regret missing Elliott's 13th birthday today but I just Skyped him and saw him and his mates laying waste to my living room. Perhaps I am in the best place - God help Sarah. So now all my boys are no longer "children". He pays full fare on a flight and is formally a teenager. Look at his Facebook page to see how grown up he is becoming (complete with a profile picture with beer in hand – that will change when he gets here!). Last time I saw him tonight he was playing with his new Wii and lording it over his mates. The weather for the boys' 18th and 21st party for this weekend looks a bit iffy but if you are coming, get a cab. I have a shed load of wine and beer all of which needs to go as I can't bring it with me! And you can always sleep in the marquee afterwards. I am now thinking of Christmas - yes I know I never mention the "C" word until December but this year I need to plan. Already BA is almost fully booked and Gulf and Qatar are filling up fast so getting us all here in time for Elliott to start school on the 4th January needs planning to start now. And that will be the "big move" with everything needing to be packed and shipped. So it will be a bit of a strange time and a bit fraught. I know all my friends will rally round but if you can do anything to help Sarah then there may be an old coat or table lamp in it for you. I know how persuasive that last sentence will be! Considering how much time I should have on my hands I have still not completed my Gazette, done my expenses, submitted my tax return, sent any of the official letters that are needed or updated the Hartley website. I keep telling myself that once I have a place of my own all this will change. Somehow I am not sure. I saw a house yesterday on the canals at Amwaj and will look again on Thursday during the day. It is quite difficult to choose and I will also look at a compound house on Thursday which will be very different. With prices rising as fast as they are here, if I like these I will bring pix back this weekend to make a quick decision if possible. Not what we had planned but it seems as if we wait we will end up paying a couple of hundred pounds more if we wait. I hope it will be right decision but at least if we are renting we can always correct an error this time next year. If anyone wants to contact me my address is PO Box 1745, Manama, Bahrain. Yes, really, that is all you need to write (as well as my name). Money and gifts are definitely welcome. I will see some of you Saturday and I will be doing my bit to reduce the wine excess at Old Downs. Source | |
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