When Michael Jackson Was the World To Bahrain

“After he was acquitted of child molestation charges in 2005, Michael Jackson pulled a disappearing act. At the end of June 2005 he went to Bahrain, the tiny 33-island archipelago in the Persian Gulf known less for its isolation than for playing host to the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet: If Jackson wanted to get away from all things American, he chose poorly”

When Michael Jackson Was the World To Bahrain

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Wanted: Female Lifeguards in Bahrain

Opening the GDN this morning I see another tragic drowning has happened yet again, this time a 9 year old boy. The government here is pushing for lifeguards to be on duty at all public pools and recommends that there should always be an adult who can swim supervising children in private pools. According to the article there is resistance to this because

“…families and pool owners said the presence of men at poolsides would be an invasion of privacy and go against Islamic traditions”

OK, so why not employ female lifeguards then? Just as we are seeing more and more female Bahraini taxi drivers wouldn’t it be great to see Bahraini women training to be internationally accredited lifeguards. Just a thought.

Majority think motorists in UAE ‘drive like maniacs’ – Transportation – ArabianBusiness.com

Majority think motorists in UAE ‘drive like maniacs’ – Transportation – ArabianBusiness.com

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So it’s not just me that moans about this particular little problem although I have to say that Bahrain has the safest roads in the region (12.1 road deaths per 100,000). I never drove in the UAE although as a passenger there was many a time I’d grip my knees til my knuckles were white. However, yet again pure ‘national pride’ has got in the way of common sense. Ishaq Al Falasi writes in response to the article  :

“..this is our country and we do own the roads, the air you breathe and the water you drink so keep on remembering such essential facts, and as said on many occasions, if you dont like it, i will gladly come and pack ur bags and drop you at your flight’s terminal. The problem is that most expats drive as though they still are in their jungles or rugged mountains…”

Sorry Mr Ishaq but I’d rather drive myself to the airport if you don’t mind…with my seatbelt on *lol*

UPDATE 21/6/09. Have a look at the website again, some of the comments make me wonder if there’s some people posting absolutely crazy comments just to wind the ajnarbies up!

Woken from my slumber

Making money out of Swine Flu

Not until Tubli Bay freezes over and Batelco increase their speeds and reduce their prices will Bahrain Taxi blog again!

OK, so it looks like Tubli Bay is not in line to become a rival to Funland but hey, it looks like Batelco might be coming up with the goods. Yes, I know its still lame compared to what we can get in the UK but at least its a start. While BT has been asleep she has mellowed a little thanks to the arrival of a little BT who came into the world last December via Jidhafs Maternity Hospital (a shout out for them, they were great). So I’m just happy that things are moving up a little bit in the internet department at least. All I need is for the driving to improve but a look at last weeks GDN says otherwise..

But I’ve already been there with the driving standards rants and I don’t even hoot the cut-in-fronters on the ‘crossr0ads of death’ anymore, I mean Ave 35 into Saar Ave junction (a well know author friend of mine who lives here calls it that). However, don’t relax too much, I still see enough tomfoolery to make my blood boil!

I’ve been in Bahrain for nearly two years now and I feel I have finally settled down a bit, but rather than being angry at everything and everyone I can see the wood for the trees and have opened my eyes to what a great place this can be. Having a baby makes you mellow…but not that mellow so this isn’t going to turn into a ‘what I did today on the way from Starbucks to Al Osra’ blog! Be warned!!!

If you’re British and you frequent The Aviation Club in Dubai, you’re fair game!

According to Nawaf of Al Ain.

This is his response to the news of our Hummer driver:

The husband and his friends
Posted by Nawaf, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates on Saturday 29 November 2008 at 00:08 UAE time

I wonder what this lady, her husband and friends had said to the young man. Maybe because they are British, their story could be adjusted and filtered as needed. The place where the accident took place reveals enough about the British people and their friends. All of you remember the British lady story, the one who was convicted of having an intercourse with a friend at the beach and have insulted a police man on his duty while he was advising them to go out of the public area.

Nawaf, my friend, there’s nothing like a mouthy Brit to get those anger juices flowing, don’t you agree? Maybe the policeman on Jumeirah Beach should’ve run over that sleezy couple with his 4×4, they did say some rather insulting things to that poor man, didn’t they.

Justice?

Two murders. One in Dubai, UAE and the other in Lowestoft, UK. Both of these men committed murder by running over their victims in a 4×4s. One man was jailed for life which means at the very minimum he will serve 21 years in jail,  the other man got 10 years and his car confiscated.

Now you would think the UAE with its harsher legal system would be the one dishing out the life sentance. You’d be wrong. Lets look at both cases:

The Dubai case involved a ‘young Emirati businessman’ named Omair Al Thani, no prizes for guessing that he’s not exactly scraping around the bottom of the UAE pecking order with a name like that. One night back in May this year he was inconventiently kept waiting for a little longer than he would like in a queue of cars outside the Aviation Club in Garhoud. Poor Mr Al Thani, sitting in his Hummer, was desperate to get going and there they are, in front of him, a bunch of British expats getting out of a taxi and taking far too long to move off. So he beeped them with his horn, flashed his high beams and expected the group to scuttle out of his way. Unfortunately for him, one of the men in the party wasn’t too impressed with Mr Al Thani’s behaviour and gave him some lip. This in turn wound up Mr Al Thani into a fit of road rage which led him to ram his Hummer into the group on order to ’scare them’. While two of the men where sent flying into a fence, the wheels of the Hummer went right over the woman.

Up to this point, you could argue that this was a accident, brought on by a fit of anger and that Mr Al Thani never intended to hurt anyone. However, anyone who would lose it enough to do this simply over having to sit in a traffic queue for a few minutes has some serious anger management problems and really shouldn’t be allowed behind the wheel of a car.

Rather than stopping his vehicle having realised the seriousness of what he had done, Mr Al Thani then reversed over the woman and then drove over her for a third time and sped off!

The judge on this case argued that Mr Al Thani’s ten year sentance was because murder was not premeditated:

“It was clear that the defendant was acting in a moment of anger and loss of control and thus the court rules out the presence of any element of premeditation,” Judge Nizami said.

The National Newspaper, 28/11/08

Surely though, having hit the woman and run over her he must have realised the seriousness of what he’d done and any rational person would not reverse over their victim and then drive over them a third time in order to make a quick getaway!

The Lowestoft case involved a the owner of a building supply firm and his girlfriend.  Christopher Cauter was described by the judge as having a ‘volcanic temper’. Back in July this year, witnesses saw his girlfriend get out of their Land Rover following a row between the couple. He drove into her from behind, knocking her to the ground before reversing over here and crushing her head. He then fled the UK to Thailand, having dumped his girlfriend’s body in the back of his car and abandoning it near Chelmsford in Essex.

The judge sentenced him to a minimum of 21 years saying

“The evidence has shown that you have been violent in the past on a number of occasions and that you are a danger to others”

BBC News online, 14/11/08

It can be argued that this murder was not premeditated either, that the defendant killed his victim in a fit of sudden rage.

So why did one man get a much harsher sentance than the other? What does this say about the UAE judicial system?

I see road rage every day in Bahrain. People become impatient extremely quickly and start to drive in a reckless manner putting life and limb at risk. All for what?

The person that flashes his high beams at you because he wants you to move out of his way. The person who beeps their horn and gesticulates behind you because you won’t illegally enter a yellow box at a traffic signal. The person who drives onto the pavement because they can’t wait while you make a left turn. The list goes on.

In my opinion, the pathetic ten year sentence which probably wont’ be ten years thanks to Vitamin W sends the message that road rage is not a serious problem and that losing your temper and killing someone is not as serious committing adultery. Where’s the logic in that?

Touchy-Feely Bahrain Taxi

Bahrain Taxi is back on the road having been alerted to a feature in last month’s FACT magazine. Apparently I’m not for the sensitive or conservative readers among you. Sod that, I’m still going to rant about the driving here until you all behave yourselves!

Anyway, in order to keep my more sensitive readers on side I’m adopting a more caring and delicate way of putting things. Here’s my first stab…

Dear Driver,

Please be nice and obey the traffic rules, stop tailgating and overtaking when you shouldn’t. Take your finger off the horn and chill. You will get to your destination soon. Oh and you might even prevent a fatal accident in the process. I can tell you that for free.

BT x

Blahrain

A few weeks out of Bahrain and I’m appreciating how easy it is to get things done back in the UK. Need to contact my bank? Just give them a call and everything is sorted. No need to drive down there just to request a new pin number or change my address on the credit card. The same applies to getting together with friends or planning a project. It gets done.

After a year in Bahrain, I was getting very tired and demotivated. Don’t get me wrong, there are things I love about Bahrain but one aspect of life that was really winding me up was how long it took to get anything off the ground and how demotivated people are. There were always excuses for this not happening and that not happening and it began to rub off on me.

No doubt I will feel fatigued once more as I try and organise networking opportunities when I get back but I will persist!

F*** the environment, I want my plastic bags!

So say the majority or Geant shoppers when they heard that they would have to pay 20 fils per plastic bags. Yes, Bahrain is well on its way to putting itself on the map as the worlds most enviromentally unfriendly people. Even the citizens of Dubai have reluctantly embraced the move towards ridding the world of plastic bag scum. So whats up Bahrain? Nobody likes to fork out more money when things are tight enough as they are these days but you don’t have to dig deeper into your pockets if you

A: Buy a ten or so ‘jute’ bags which you keep in the back of your car ready for every shopping trip. When you’re not using them for shopping they can be used for other things too. And they very strong..

B: If you don’t want a jute bag then why not use the same bags you used for shopping last time. When you (or your house-gimp) unpacked the shopping, where did those bags go?

I would love to see one of the complainers wake up one morning to a house full of plastic bags.

So why are plastic bags so bad?

The bags can take between 400-1,000 years to break down, and like all forms of plastic they do not biodegrade. Instead they photodegrade, breaking down into smaller and smaller toxic bits that contaminate soil, waterways and oceans, entering the food chain when ingested by animals.

Many plastic bags end up as waste on our beaches, streets and parks. When a plastic bag enters the ocean it becomes a harmful piece of litter. Many marine animals mistake plastic bags for food and swallow them, with painful and often fatal consequences. Nearly 90% of floating marine litter is plastic.

It’s time that the government of Bahrain did something about this. If the supermarkets are too scared of implementing change then its up to the government to legislate against free plastic bags so the retailers have no choice but to toe the line.

Dilly Club riders go naked!

Okay, okay. As you can probably see from the abundance of greenery in this photo, this wasn’t taken in Bahrain. What you are looking at is a shameless publicity stunt for a shamefully bad film.

‘Lady Godiva‘ is a vanity project from a young director answering to the name of Vicky Jewson. She can’t direct for toffee so how the hell did this project ever make it to the silver screen is beyond me.

These days talent does not count for everything. Connections and good old fashioned gift of the gab does. What this woman does possess is pure bare-faced confidence and a few connections thrown in. However, when I found out that the film cost 1.4 million pounds to make I couldn’t help think of other ways this money could’ve been spent.

Go and have a look at the reviews. Anyone with a skin thinner than a rhinos would be crying their eyes out. Instead, on the release of the DVD today, Jewson staged a publicity stunt that would make Jordan blush. She found fifty women to ride through Hyde Park starkers. Disguising the whole thing as  a charity event, she promised to donate to 5 pounds to a cancer charity for every woman who rode. That works out at 250 quid! Wow.

I wouldn’t be surprised if her film career is over. However, there’s probably a very good job waiting for her at some PR company. Sorted.