Chris Saul's Blog

Monday August 24, 2009

CCTV's effectiveness

An interesting article on CCTV from the BBC.

Whilst back home for two weeks over the summer, I was shocked to see CCTV cameras absolutely everywhere, compared to when I left in 2002. I found myself wondering about the cost involved and their effectiveness.

I don't mind the odd camera here and there, but I found their new omnipresence a little unsettling.

There's a small shopping centre near my parents' house. When I was younger I used to try and avoid that particular area, as it was a bit run down with local yobs hanging around - if you locked your bike up to use one of the shops, you couldn't be sure it would be there when you got back.

The area now has a CCTV camera watching over it. Over the last year or two, the precinct seems to have attracted a fair amount of investment, with a German delicatessen, Italian ice cream cafe and some much smarter shops there than before. Even the fish and chip shop's* pretty decent.

Does the camera's presence have anything to do with this, scaring off the local hoodies, or is this just economic regeneration which would have happened anyway?

* The fish and chop is run by some Kurdish people. Prior to that, it was Chinese owned. I bet you the owners before that were Indian or Vietnamese, then Greek or Turkish Cypriots, with the first owners being British. Interesting how you can chart immigration trends in Britain by who runs the local chippy. I didn't check, but I wouldn't be surprised if the supermarket around the corner had a large Polish section :)

Fascinating shoe update

Thanks to a lengthy search back in the UK this summer, I am now the proud owner of a pair of traditionally shaped smart office shoes. It took a while, but I found them.

If you go shoe shopping in Dubai, the only shoes on sale are 'fashionable' options, where the shoe is twice as long as your foot and culminates in a ridiculous point - rather like what Ali Baba would wear if he gave up his team of forty thieves and applied for a job as a secondhand car salesman.

Whilst on the hunt for 'normal' work shoes in Dubai I encountered some great salesmanship -

- Hello, do you have some more traditional shape shoes? I don't like these points.

- Ah yes sir! You are meaning the boring shoes? This is not coming in Dubai, only fashionable models that are not outdated for stylish people we are having.

...onto next shop.

- Hello, do you have some more traditional shape shoes? I don't like these points.

- This one. (Hands me something extremely pointy)

- No thanks, I want something without the points, the thin end. I want the rounded ends.

- This one. (Hands me something that takes pointy shoes to a new level of pointyness).

...and so on.

Never mind! Loakes of London rescued me and I now have a pair of unfashionable, normally shaped office shoes. Personally I think that particular style is classically timeless, but I am not know for my dress sense.

Hopefully, by the time this pair wears out, the rounded look will have come into fashion again and the next round of office shoe purchasing will be less painful.

Ramadan's here again

Saturday saw the first day of Ramadan for this year.

I enjoy Ramadan, although a lot of Westerners here say they find it frustrating. It's just one of those things - you have to go with the flow. Business will slow down, things will take longer to get done and there's nothing you can do about it except try to take part in the elements you can enjoy and benefit from.

All office workers, Muslims or not, are entitled to shorter working hours. This doesn't really affect me as the Middle East is only one of the regions I cover, so I am still expected to take calls or respond to emails as I would normally. That's fine - I enjoy the flexibility Sun offer in terms of being able to work from home and being objectives based all year round, so I don't feel hard done by. That said, this part of the world does generate most of the revenue for my product set, so work will definitely be a little quieter, which can make things a bit dull.

Mrs Saul will have shorter working hours, so she'll be more relaxed and we'll be able to enjoy the odd iftar buffet here and there, as well as time with our friends.

Unless you're a fasting office worker who has to be at his or her desk during the working day, traffic will be a lot lighter. The rush hour simply shifts to match the shorter office hours, with the roads being a lot less congested during the rest of the day.

All in all, it's a pleasant month, with the fun of Eid at the end.

There is one aspect to Ramadan here that I don't like - a massive increase in dangerous driving. This tends to manifest itself in two ways.

Firstly, you see people driving home at insane speeds just before dusk. This causes accidents every year and is completely unnecessary.

Secondly, driving in the evenings, when people tend to go out more than they usually would, generally deteriorates. During the last couple of evenings I've seen a big increase in the kind of tailgating, headlight flashing, speeding and weaving nonsense that used to be the norm all year round but which has died out somewhat over recent years. I appreciate there are lots of blokes out and about, enjoying driving around with their friends of an evening, but come on guys!

There was a huge accident this evening at the junction that leads out of our development, where two people had crashed head on into each other. Sadly, I don't think it'll be the last we'll see over the next four weeks.