Chris Saul's Blog

Thursday July 09, 2009

My father is no longer a terrorist

Great news about the Police being reminded there's nothing wrong with taking photos in public, via this article in The Register.

This means my father should no longer be under suspicion of being a terrorist and Mullah Omar's favourite photo blog can continue to flourish in peace.

It's hot outside in Dubtown,so just open the doors!

Today is a momentous occasion - this is my fifth annual 'it's hot' blog post.

It is pretty hot here now, but it's the humidity that make it intolerable.

This heatwave coincides with my having to pay the latest installment of our 'chiller fee', the money we pay for cold air to cool the flat. The electricity that powers the AC fans is metered, but the cold air comes from a nearby 'cold air place'* that supplies the development.

As mentioned here before, for some unknown reason noone thought it would be a good idea to install meters so that residents pay for the cold air they use - instead it's just a flat fee based on yearly average consumption across private and public areas of the development.

This is utterly idiotic - completely wasteful in environmental terms, totally discouraging of any attempt to conserve energy and behave responsibly. Why should I subsidise people who leave their AC on full blast all year round? I might as well just do the same...

Combine the lack of metering with the complete lack of insulation and it's not just the heat that gets me hot under the collar - if everyone else's front door is like mine, during the summer they will have a warm breeze flowing through the gaps between door and doorframe, where damp lumps of sand congregate during the day, waiting to collapse into a small pyramid in the hallway when you close the door.

Is there any incentive to insulate the doorway to save on cold air? Nope, not in our brand new, state-of-the-art development that has no recycling facilities, lights that stay switched on all day, unmetered AC and private and public areas that make a 1950s British council house look like a paragon of insulation-filled environmentally conscientious thinking.**

To top all of this, the nearby hotel has found a new way of cooling down its central courtyard during these hot evenings. They simply wedge open the doors that lead to the adjacent shopping area. This means that all the energy used to cool the 'souk' is effectively being used to waft a cool breeze through the doors and across the hotel's outdoor cafe.

I am going to give up switching my TV off standby when we're out. I don't think it makes much difference, really.

* Not sure what the technical term for somewhere that generates cold air is...

**I do like living here though.

sUnRaY

The main product I sell is a device called a Sun Ray.

Fairly simple to spell and to write.

Despite that, it's amazing how many permutations of 'Sun Ray' that I see, with native English Speakers often being the worse offenders.

SUN Ray, Sun RAY, SunRay, SUNray, SUNRAY, sun Ray, Sunray, sunray, etc, etc.

The ones with superfluous capital letters always annoy me the most, for some reason.

What is your location, hmm hmm hello?

It's been a while since I had a call from a courier company here. I'm pleased to say that the usual routine is still in place - if a process is completely broken, why fix it?

Working for these companies can't be much fun. You either have to brave Dubai's roads delivering documents to places you can't find, or you have to ring up annoying people like me to ask for our 'location'.

Me - Chris Saul speaking.

Courier Company - Hello?

Me - Can we skip the hellos please.

CC - You are Mr Christopher?

Me - Yes, I am.

CC - Hello?

Me - Please don't start saying hello again.

CC - What is your location?

Me - Who are you and why are you calling?

CC - I am calling from courier company. What is your location?

Me - I am driving in my car through Dubai.

CC - Hmm hmm hmm.

Me - Can you tell me what it is you need to deliver, then I can tell you when and where to find me.

CC - I have some document.

Me - I'm sure you do, but who from?

CC - From Company X.

Me - Great. My location is Y, but...

CC - We will deliver. Goodbye.

Me - Wait! When will you deliver it?

CC - Between 5 and 7.

Me - I won't be home then. Why not tell me first when you can deliver it and then I will tell you where I will be at that time? That would be a bit easier.

CC - What is your location? Hello?

...and on it went.

I expect to get 'some document' sometime in the next few days, probably after the poor chap turns up at the flat three times whilst I am out.