Queues again

How can you tell my phone's working again?

Queues: you can't beat them. Well I can't anyway.

Khartoum: boarding the plane in a normal and orderly manner when the family immediately in front of me caused a five minute hold up. I then sailed through. The security guard who then inspected our passports looked rather bored until he riffled through mine and beamed at all of my UAE, Kuwait, Oman etc stamps.

Doha: same situation. I joined the queue in a sexist manner, immediately after an attractive young lady. Our queue took a flyer and was easily beating the other queue at our gate. Until, you've guessed it, it came to someone just in front of me. Then it would have been better if I'd joined the other queue.

Dubai: I backtracked for some reason just before security and then got behind the most dithering man I've seen in a long time. Then a minute before I finished the transit desk between 50 and 70 Chinese men in identical grey boiler suits turned up go through security. How did THAT happen to me? We'll, in that case I pushed in and promoted myself significantly. I got away with it too.

Hey ho!

DW
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Phones ... Hardly

I am in Dubai Airport duty free and have just noticed the Vertu range of mobile phones. They're labelled exclusive. They're tagged as phones for the discriminating chap.

There's phones with gold. There's phones made from titanium, in an 800 ton press of course.

You can pay 112,000 Dirhams or so for the gold phone and as little as 24,000 Dirhams for the titanium version. A snip in my opinion.

Just in case you haven't traded in Dirhams for a while, a rough guide is to divide them by 7 and you will get Pounds Sterling. So, that's about £16,000 for the gold phone and just £3,428 for the more ordinary titanium phone.

There are cheaper phones than the titanium phone but one wouldn't would one.

The most interesting aspect of the sales pitch is the complete lack of reference to its functionality as a phone. They have incorporated the letter V into the shape of the screen so that's a bit of a downer for a start. Rather vulgar to think about this end of things though isn't it?

And here's me jipping at the thought of paying £200 or so for a BlackBerry. Pshaw!

DW
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More on the UN

I found out today what the multi million Pound car park at the hote was all about. The hotel was home to, get ready for this, a UN SENIOR MANAGEMENT RETREAT. Poor wee lambs: can you imagine the stress they must be under?

These people can't even respect the country they have retreated into. This country is really called THE Sudan. On the presentation slide that I managed to take a look at these clowns had called it just Sudan. You know, some people are deeply offended by such ineptitude.

DW
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Feel part of the Community

I went back to the Afra Mall today to change some money. I went into the exchange place and started doing the deal. I was given a scrap of paper and a pen that almost worked. I needed to divulge my name, address in Khartoum and telephone number.

Almost as soon as I started my deal I was joined by someone who felt the need to stand right next to me. Another man decided he would do the same. Now, I didn't feel threatened, just hemmed in. As I stood there I thought about that woman in Oxford one day who was offended when I got to within 6 feet of her in a similar situation!!!

Then other people moved in and I was truly part of a crowd. Once I'd finished I turned round and found 15 - 20 people around me.

The concept of personal space did not transfer to this part of the Colonies. Maybe that's why they gave General Gordon such a hard time. :-)

DW
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Oil Prices Again

This is a Simulcast

 

They are at it again: those people trying to convince us that the financial markets are working efficiently and fairly and have nothing to do with speculation.

 

So there was a financial “expert” blethering away on BBC World yesterday: he was EXPLAINING why the Dollar has surged and why the Pound is falling in value. He didn’t mention speculation in this context and yet we all know that 95% of all deals in foreign currency are to do with speculation.

 

Then this Expert said that because of the “... collapse of the oil price ...”. I must repeat a post I made a couple of weeks ago when I talked about the language of the oil price. Why do they say the price has collapsed? By using the word collapsed they are suggesting that the high prices reached up until about two months ago were normal or expected or acceptable. When the oil price was surging from $90 a barrel to almost $150 a barrel, they said the price was unsustainable ... because of speculation ... because of the disequilibrium of supply and demand. All nonsense of course: it was all because of ill informed speculation.

 

I proved with the example of the cutting of production by the UAE for annual maintenance having no effect on prices that supply and demand had nothing to do with the oil price.

 

So this expert did his best and he mentioned a number of possible factors: interest rates in Australia, the need for changing interest rates in the UK, collapsing oil prices, the threat of recession in the UK. All laudable words and much of it pure drivel. I keep meaning to make notes of the names of these experts so that I can name and shame but I think I am always just overawed at their bare faced effrontery. One thing you should notice is that the BBC doesn’t use the same non BBC expert very often. Wonder why?

 

DW

The US Presidential Election and Sarkozy

US Presidential Election

 

I woke up far too early today and switched on the news. BBC World of course, so that meant hearing NOTHING at all about the World but learning something about America. The vast majority of BBC World’s supposed international coverage is really only American coverage and that gets on my nerves. Nothing wrong with America but if I wanted to learn all about it I would watch CNN.

 

So, they were showing Rudi Giuliani speaking at the Republican Convention: sorry Rudi but you were rubbish. At one point, despite listening carefully, I thought you were attacking McCain rather than praising him. After about three or four minutes it became clear that you were talking about Obama and not McCain. Maybe I dozed off a bit after all!!

 

Anyway, that speech was just emotional nonsense: it got the crowd going, of course, so cheap and cheerful works.

 

Then Sarah Palin came on and I thought I’ll take a listen. I gave her 30 seconds! I am sure I am not the first to say it but it was more Michael Palin than Sarah Palin. I am sorry, by the way, that the US press has homed in on Palin’s private life and her daughter’s private life ... typical, normal gutter press that we in the UK also thrive on.

 

I couldn’t watch the woman though!

 

Sarkozy

 

Speaking of dead ends, have you seen how Nicolas Sarkozy is hopping from country to country these days? It’s classic political style. Fail at home so start travelling and work on your foreign policy. How cheap can these people be? Why not stick it out and face your public? Look at Prime Minister Samak in Thailand. At least Mr Samak is staying put and not trying to do something like solving the so called Tibet crisis instead of trying to resolve his domestic political problems.

 

These people!

 

DW

Keggy

This is a DW special for Kevin Keegan.

I admired Keggy as a player for his spirit and attitude. He was over sold as a player as any discriminating observer of the game of footy knows. Even Keegan himself admits he was never anywhere near as good as the hype would have us believe.

When Keggy was appointed as manager of Newcastle United for the second time following the sacking of Sam Allardyce I said that sacking Sam was a big mistake but not as big as the mistake of appointing Keegan.

Who could have foreseen the nonsense that was then to unfold at NUFC? It beggars belief and if Keggy does resign, who could possibly blame him?

DW

Khartoum Update: weather, Ovaltine and Cocoa, the UN and Kofi Annan, Margaret Thatcher

It was very sunny and hot when I got here on Friday but now it is overcast and very warm. Reminds me of many days in Malawi all of those years ago! It’s not a problem, just a report!

 

Here is some news for you. I have just been to the shopping mall next to the hotel and can probably EXCLUSIVELY reveal, ie no one else has ever told you this, that they sell Ovaltine and Cadbury’s Cocoa there. Now, that is news isn’t it? I have run out of Marmite but didn’t see any of that, I am sad to report.

 

I am still seething, too, over the UN vehicles. I took some photos of just a few of them this morning: all 4x4s and all pretty clean looking. Well, this afternoon there were more than 30 of those big beasties in the car park. All clean too. Why do they need so many very expensive 4x4s to drive around town? I know someone will write to me and say they are helping in Darfur and in the South of the country ... well, I think they are working more against the country than for it. Moreover, for any doubting Thomases, why are there so many people in so many huge and expensive vehicles here at a five star hotel? Where is the cost conscientiousness? What about the opportunity costs of sitting here at what is probably a huge expense when there are people here who are dying of starvation; people who need these clowns to sort out the mess they are part of? I really don’t like this outfit.

 

I said this before but I will remind you. Apart from having spent 5 years in Malawi in the shadow of these people, I was utterly shocked when Kofi Annan got to Sri Lanka after the tsunami of 2006 and refused to visit victims in the Tamil Tiger area. Where is the humanity in that man, then the Secretary General of the UNITED Nations? Following his retirement from the UN, Annan went on to ensure that the illegally elected “President” of an East African country could stay in power by helping to cobble a deal with the Opposition Party. In the meantime hundreds of ordinary people from that country died in Political riots following that bogus election. What a sham of a man. Then his son surfaced from under a big black cloud of alleged corruption. Rotten from the core as Neil Kinnock prophetically said about Margaret Thatcher’s Administration.

 

Speaking of Margaret Thatcher, I have read a couple of times recently that Thatcher is suffering from mental illness: now that’s not news is it? Thatcher was mentally ill long before she became Prime Minister.

 

End of erudite rant!

 

DW

 

 

 

Are Aid Workers all Gay These Days?

Sitting in and around the hotel here in Khartoum, I am wondering if the oddly dressed men and the many men who speak with a lithp or some kindred impediment are all gay.

Is it a requirement now to be gay to be an Aid worker?

DW
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