superstitious feeling

Last time I went to see India play cricket on the big screen at Lamcy Shopping Mall in Dubai they lost to a team in green….South Africa, an excellent bowling spell and an efficient run chase was sufficient to beat them. To be amongst 500 Indian fans and experience the deadly silence of seeing their team lose was a joy.

In order to calm my superstitious nerves I will be returning to the same mall tomorrow, to face the same 500+ Indian fans, and support the team in green….this time Pakistan.

Looking forward to chanting the familiar banter “you’re not singing any more”

Wise words

"  Fareed, I thought that I was in trouble; the whole world is in trouble! When I climbed the hill and looked around, I saw this fire in each and every home."

Hazrat Bābā Farīduddīn Mas'ūd Ganjshakar (Sufi saint)

In Dubai there are no hills, but plenty of tall buildings. Today I came across a South Asian migrant worker who was in the local grocery store and thinking twice about spending the meagrely sum of 50 pence (3 AED).  In the end he walked out empty handed, I bought the item in question and gave it to him. I then discovered that he was the sole bread earner and was supporting his family in Bangladesh. He had just learnt that his father was critically ill. Suddenly my crap day did not seem so crap.

Mirror, mirror on the wall

Every morning after I’ve showered I perform my bodybuilding pose in the bathroom mirror and ask the question ;

Mirror, mirror on the wall

Who’s the fattest of them all?

And the reply from my hip hop urban groovy mirror is

“you de phattest daddy for sure!”

Now in case you are not so fluent with the urban street talk, the definition of PHATT is “cooler than cool”, not to be mistaken with the homophone “fat” which implies that you’re a tub of lard.

So I’ve been feeling really good, my mirrors been telling me that I’m a lean mean eating machine and I’ve continued to fuel it to the brim with all the calories I can get my hands on. Fast food, hot food, cold food, spicy food, exotic food from all corners of the world.

Food, food, glorious food !

Now you know where this is ending, the mirror has been cheating me and my camera who never lies finally revealed the truth in all its multi million pixel high definition glory. I’m carrying a spare tyre, and it’s inflating fast.

However I’m not the only one, actually around 70 percent of UAE residents are classed as overweight or obese. That’s a shocking fact and I’m changing my diet and increasing my exercise to get rid of the excess baggage.

So off to the gym, it’s time to burn that fat

At the top

Burj Khalifa - the tallest man made structure in the world, standing at a mighty 828m, and extends to over 160 stories. It is an impressive and iconic building which graces the Dubai skyline like its very own Northern Star. Wherever you are in the capital you can look up and navigate yourself across the bustling city, by this magnificent landmark.

There is an observation deck on the 124^th floor, and the Otis SKYWAY double deck elevator will transport visitors at an amazing 10 metres per second which is very close to 40mph….so my advice don’t hit a child whilst riding the elevator !

The journey to the top is an ear popping experience and lasts just over 1 minute, and then you’re free to enjoy the views of Dubai (smog permitting).

The tallest tower in the world was built by a truly international team comprising American architects, Korean building contractors and not forgetting the south Asian migrant workers.

As you come to realise in this part of the world the chain gangs of little brown men, do not receive any acknowledgement for their efforts and sacrifices in constructing Dubai’s magnificent buildings. In fact they don’t even receive a fair wage, 12 hours in the sun, 6 days a week and for all your efforts you’ll be lucky to receive $4 per day.

Not happy? Then how do you fancy being deported?

This is modern day slavery, I know America was built on the back of the slave trade but I thought mankind had progressed ….but clearly this is not so.

view from top of Burj Khalifa of Dubai fountain

Room with a view

I may be homesick, I may have had a shit day in the office, but every morning when I wake up to the sound of Bill Withers and “Lovely Day”, I feel good. Looking out of the window I can see the sun is shining and I can sense it’s gonna be a lovely day. 

As I get ready and head to work reality hits home and it begins to feel like groundhog day.

Sheikh Zayed Road, with Burj Al Arab & Dubai Marina in the back ground

another veyron in dubai...

Dubai seems to be the area with the highest density of Bugatti Veyron’s in the world. I just arrived back at my apartment block and saw one performing a three point turn in the car park, an Emirati had come to pick up his girlfriend who lives in the tower.

The car is truly amazing as is the price at $1.6m, that’s around £1m Great British pounds, and for that you get over 1180 horses under the bonnet and a top speed of over 250mph.

Impressive car, impressive money, impressive way to transport a lady on a date. But do you know what the most impressive thing I learnt today after seeing a Bugatti Veyron for the first time?

I called out the security guard and told him about the amazing Bugatti Veyron, how this motor was like Concorde a truly fantastic piece of engineering. But the Bangladeshi guard was unmoved. He showed no emotion at the car unlike me, I probed away and discovered that he has not been paid since the start of this year. This is the guy who works 12 hours per night, every day of the week, guarding the property whilst the tenants enjoy a restful sleep. And for his efforts he’s been denied

his rewards, this is the ugly side of Dubai.

I then understand fully why he was not at all impressed by the Veyron, and realised that you can only enjoy the wealth and materialism in Dubai if you walk around with blinkers on.

It's a MAD MAD MAD MAD World

Has the world gone mad, or am I just a cynical old git?

Today I read about the adopt a labourer campaign in Dubai, according to the people behind the scheme “simply by speaking on the phone to a labourer, for five minutes just once or twice a week, you could change their life”

http://www.adoptalaborer.com/

Excuse me, but by paying them a decent wage you can definitely change their lives for the better. It’s not rocket science and you don’t have to be Einstein to figure this out.

Can you imagine the phone conversation?

Me in an air conditioned coffee shop, sipping a latte and tucking into some snacks…the poor worker has just returned to the labour camp after enduring 12 hours of manual work in the hot sunshine and eating a substandard meal of rice and lentils.

It’s crazy, just give them a fair wage, and not some soppy initiatives.

Here comes the Spiderman

Workers cleaning the glass panes of the Emaar Towers, these are located at the entry point to the Burj Al Khalifa development. The towers are 42 and 34 stories high and will mostly house offices.

I remember being 40 feet up in the trees at Go Ape, and my legs were turning to Jelly. These "spidermen" are armed with a rope, bucket and a squeege and daily fight the nasty villian sandman.

Food Chain

Photo of a cleaner in Dubai, he is covered up to protect from the harsh conditions including sun & sand.

Captain's Log, Stardate 050311.5. We have entered a spectacular multi layered social stratification class system in the United Arab Emirates, during our most critical mission of research into the human species. Our eminent guest, Dr Khan, will attempt to outline the sociological order between the federation and the multi ethnic race of workers.

Thank you captain Kirk, UAE is host to nearly 200 nationalities. With a population of 5 million just under 20% are native Emiratis the rest are expatriates. India tops the table with 1.75 million nationals residing in UAE, then the  1.0 million Pakistani’s, followed by  0.6 million Bangladeshi’s, Other Asians including Phillipines, Iran & Sri Lanka at 1.0 million.

The quality of life in Dubai is all dependent on where you sit on the food chain, this is influenced by your ethnicity & tribe. So typically you will not find native Emirati’s working in the private sector. The colour of your passport is also a very important factor on the status and compensation that you can expect in UAE.

If you’re an unskilled Bangladeshi or Pakistani then your net worth is not a lot, you can labour all day on a building site or clean the streets and receive the equivalent of £140 per month. However if you’re a holder of a Western passport and a professional then Dubai is a nice place to live, tax free earnings, sunshine every day, and you’ll never need to do the cleaning, washing, ironing, pushing the baby buggy etc….just leave it to the domestic help & be a lazy slob.

Beam me up Scotty.