According to the copywriter "Standing tall in the heart of Dubai Maritime City will be the new architectural marvel Amwaj. A shining light for conglomerates aspiring to embark on their next business destination, the next level."
Monday, October 06, 2008
World's biggest fish?
According to the copywriter "Standing tall in the heart of Dubai Maritime City will be the new architectural marvel Amwaj. A shining light for conglomerates aspiring to embark on their next business destination, the next level."
Sunday, October 05, 2008
Another glimpse of Dubai life
A follow up to my Better off in Dubai post last Thursday.
The coffee shop I use for my regular morning caffeine hit is in a commercial area so it was closed for four days over the Eid holiday.
The barista told me that they were nevertheless only being given two days off, the other two days they would have to work in another branch.
This morning I asked whether he'd had a good holiday.
"No holiday"
I asked why not.
The owner had changed his mind, decided they shouldn't have a break at all so they had to work at the other branch throughout Eid.
"Did he pay you extra?" I asked.
"No extra."
In an earlier conversation with him he was complaining that he hadn't had a salary increase in the two years he's worked for the company. And a colleague hadn't had one in four years.
His salary? Dh2,000 a month.
I asked him why he didn't go home.
In The Philippines, he said, he would also earn 2,000 a month - but not dirhams, pesos. That's a fraction of his salary here, it's about Dh155 (£24 or US$42 or €30).
So in spite of the salary, in spite of the way he's treated, he's better off here.
I have no reason to disbelieve his figures by the way, there are plenty of reports available. For example, USAID says that the average annual income per person in The Philippines is US$1,170 and that over 40% of the 90 million population live (live?) on $2 a day or less.
USAID.
The coffee shop I use for my regular morning caffeine hit is in a commercial area so it was closed for four days over the Eid holiday.
The barista told me that they were nevertheless only being given two days off, the other two days they would have to work in another branch.
This morning I asked whether he'd had a good holiday.
"No holiday"
I asked why not.
The owner had changed his mind, decided they shouldn't have a break at all so they had to work at the other branch throughout Eid.
"Did he pay you extra?" I asked.
"No extra."
In an earlier conversation with him he was complaining that he hadn't had a salary increase in the two years he's worked for the company. And a colleague hadn't had one in four years.
His salary? Dh2,000 a month.
I asked him why he didn't go home.
In The Philippines, he said, he would also earn 2,000 a month - but not dirhams, pesos. That's a fraction of his salary here, it's about Dh155 (£24 or US$42 or €30).
So in spite of the salary, in spite of the way he's treated, he's better off here.
I have no reason to disbelieve his figures by the way, there are plenty of reports available. For example, USAID says that the average annual income per person in The Philippines is US$1,170 and that over 40% of the 90 million population live (live?) on $2 a day or less.
USAID.
PS to the explosion
About a week ago I mentioned the demolition explosion at the Pearl Dubai site near the entrance to Palm Jumeirah.
I meant to post a couple of photos later, but forgot. So here they are.
It was neither an EXplosion nor an IMplosion, the buildings simply ended up horizontal.
Now they're back to banging on them with machinery trying to break them into pieces. I guess the reasoning is that it's easier to do that when they're lying on the ground than when they're standing vertically.
I meant to post a couple of photos later, but forgot. So here they are.
It was neither an EXplosion nor an IMplosion, the buildings simply ended up horizontal.
Now they're back to banging on them with machinery trying to break them into pieces. I guess the reasoning is that it's easier to do that when they're lying on the ground than when they're standing vertically.
Saturday, October 04, 2008
RTA wants our feedback.
In Gulf News this morning there's more on the new street addressing system, which I was talking about yesterday.
When we say 'new' it means of course new to Dubai, the rest of the world has been using it for hundreds of years.
The report ends: The Roads and Transport Authority is awaiting feedback from the public on the new system.
OK, lines from the story and feedback...
RTA takes stock of new address system
A project follow-up committee has been set up and consists of experts from Dubai Municipality, Police, Civil Defence, Dubai Electricity and Water Authority, Unified Ambulance Centre, Emirates Posts Holding Group, etisalat and du.
My feedback on that - excellent, well done. The organisations involved are talking to each other, something that doesn't happen often enough.
...The new system is clear, concise, simple and easily memorised as it is based on building numbers, and names of road...
Feedback - excellent again. Not new, not rocket science but it's a system that's worked successfully for so long around the world.
But then it goes pear shaped.
This system will replace district names used in the old system
Feedback - no no no! Totally wrong, misleading, confusing, unnecessary.
You need to keep the district names and they need to be what's on directional roadsigns.
When we're driving around the already confusing road system trying to find our way to, let's say, Umm Suqeim, we need a sign that directs us to Umm Suqeim.
The last thing we need is a sign that doesn't mention the suburb but instead tells us it's the way to Ali Baba bin Abdulaziz Street.
PLEASE DON'T DO IT.
There's another little RTA piece on the same page and this one has me back in the land of the bewildered.
Here it is in full:
The Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) recently organised a training course designed to upgrade the profile and efficiency of its employees on etiquette and international protocol.
According to an RTA press release, more than 21 employees from different departments took part in the course which lasted for one week.
Among the etiquette skills gained by participants were etiquettes of communication, speech, introduction, dress, eating, gift presentation, telephone etiquette, social visits, banquets, visiting patients and decorations.
Look, I know it's a bizarre suggestion but instead of teaching them eating and gift presentation skills, wouldn't it be more useful to teach them about road planning? Teach them how to erect road signs in the right place? Teach them the importance of giving motorists advance warning of road changes?
(I was going to ask whether the visiting patients skill they're being taught refers to patients of road crashes, but as that would be facetious I won't).
You can find the stories here and here.
When we say 'new' it means of course new to Dubai, the rest of the world has been using it for hundreds of years.
The report ends: The Roads and Transport Authority is awaiting feedback from the public on the new system.
OK, lines from the story and feedback...
RTA takes stock of new address system
A project follow-up committee has been set up and consists of experts from Dubai Municipality, Police, Civil Defence, Dubai Electricity and Water Authority, Unified Ambulance Centre, Emirates Posts Holding Group, etisalat and du.
My feedback on that - excellent, well done. The organisations involved are talking to each other, something that doesn't happen often enough.
...The new system is clear, concise, simple and easily memorised as it is based on building numbers, and names of road...
Feedback - excellent again. Not new, not rocket science but it's a system that's worked successfully for so long around the world.
But then it goes pear shaped.
This system will replace district names used in the old system
Feedback - no no no! Totally wrong, misleading, confusing, unnecessary.
You need to keep the district names and they need to be what's on directional roadsigns.
When we're driving around the already confusing road system trying to find our way to, let's say, Umm Suqeim, we need a sign that directs us to Umm Suqeim.
The last thing we need is a sign that doesn't mention the suburb but instead tells us it's the way to Ali Baba bin Abdulaziz Street.
PLEASE DON'T DO IT.
There's another little RTA piece on the same page and this one has me back in the land of the bewildered.
Here it is in full:
The Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) recently organised a training course designed to upgrade the profile and efficiency of its employees on etiquette and international protocol.
According to an RTA press release, more than 21 employees from different departments took part in the course which lasted for one week.
Among the etiquette skills gained by participants were etiquettes of communication, speech, introduction, dress, eating, gift presentation, telephone etiquette, social visits, banquets, visiting patients and decorations.
Look, I know it's a bizarre suggestion but instead of teaching them eating and gift presentation skills, wouldn't it be more useful to teach them about road planning? Teach them how to erect road signs in the right place? Teach them the importance of giving motorists advance warning of road changes?
(I was going to ask whether the visiting patients skill they're being taught refers to patients of road crashes, but as that would be facetious I won't).
You can find the stories here and here.
Friday, October 03, 2008
What needs testing?
I simply don't understand the way the people at the RTA think.
Just reading again the story from The National I posted about yesterday concerning the new street addressing system, the way they go about things baffles me completely.
Here's part of what they said:
The signs from main roads like Sheikh Zayed Road are being changed...It’s a test phase being carried out between interchanges two and four...Whenever you introduce a new scheme like this in a test phase, there’s always going to be some confusion...Dubai’s new addressing system – which is undergoing a pilot testing in Jumeirah 3 – will replace the system of numbers for minor roads with unique street names.
It's a perfectly normal addressing system, used around the world for, what, a hundred years or more?
You give streets names and you give the buildings sequential numbers. What needs testing?
If, unbelievably to me, you don't understand how it works you can check very simply by asking the appropriate authority in another city which uses the system.
You don't need to test it.
But the RTA do.
Astonishing.
Just reading again the story from The National I posted about yesterday concerning the new street addressing system, the way they go about things baffles me completely.
Here's part of what they said:
The signs from main roads like Sheikh Zayed Road are being changed...It’s a test phase being carried out between interchanges two and four...Whenever you introduce a new scheme like this in a test phase, there’s always going to be some confusion...Dubai’s new addressing system – which is undergoing a pilot testing in Jumeirah 3 – will replace the system of numbers for minor roads with unique street names.
It's a perfectly normal addressing system, used around the world for, what, a hundred years or more?
You give streets names and you give the buildings sequential numbers. What needs testing?
If, unbelievably to me, you don't understand how it works you can check very simply by asking the appropriate authority in another city which uses the system.
You don't need to test it.
But the RTA do.
Astonishing.
Thursday, October 02, 2008
The RTA gets it wrong again
Back in July I posted a sarcastic piece about the street address system in Dubai.
Not for one moment do I think it had anything to do with our beloved RTA doing what I suggested.
Nevertheless, the RTA has news of the new addressing system they are introducing on their website, here.
They're doing the right, the obvious, thing. Giving streets names and buildings sequential numbers.
Great, well done, it's what we need.
Then comes the implementation, which takes us on to another avoidable problem I've talked about many times before - inaccurate, misleading, downright dangerous road signage. Signage which contributes to crashes.
As a report in The National tells us:
...the first phase of implementing the new system of street names has confused motorists and even caused a few road accidents.
Signs along Sheikh Zayed Road, the city’s main thoroughfare, which previously displayed the names of well-known areas such as Umm Suqeim, Al Safa and Jumeirah, have been replaced by boards directing traffic to the areas’ main arterial roads, some of which have been given new names.
They've named various roads, names which no-one knows because they haven't told us. Then they remove signs which show the way to suburbs and replace them with signs showing the way to the roads we've never heard of.
Mistake number one: motorists need signs showing the way to suburbs, the name of the road at that stage is irrelevant. To change them is a mistake.
Mistake number two: the signs have been changed with no warning, confusing motorists:
...motorists on Sheikh Zayed Road have been baffled by the new signs...'I nearly collided with another car the other day when I was trying to decipher these signs to find my exit'...hit another vehicle as he craned his neck to read the new sign...
We do need the new addressing system. But we don't need it translated to road signs on our major highways. They need to be signs to suburbs.
The road names simply need to be prominently displayed on the roads themselves, so that they can be easily seen and read by motorists. And the owner of each building needs to be informed of its street number so that the number can be prominently displayed on the building.
The National reports the story here.
Then another example of bad planning. The two month gridlock in Dubai Marina which I've been ranting about since the end of July.
All roads but one closed, so drivers trying to get out of the Marina, to any destination, were jammed onto one small local road. It took literally hours every morning to move two kilometres.
It was unnecessary. There were two things which could have been done. One, the perfectly useable bridge which was closed off could have been opened. Some drivers were getting around the barriers and using it anyway, so there was no reason not to open it.
More importantly, the exit onto Sheikh Zayed Road to Jebel Ali/Abu Dhabi should not have been closed until the alternative exit was opened.
After two months of frustration, lost work time, missed appointments, added pollution, it is now open.
It's part of the new giant Interchange 5.5, as it's currently called, at the Jebel Ali end of Dubai Marina.
A flyover takes you across SZR and loops back in the direction of Dubai. A slip road joins SZR in the Jebel Ali/Abu Dhabi direction.
This interchange was always needed, it was a serious omission when the Marina was designed and full marks to the RTA for correcting the mistake.
If only they'd planned the changes properly to avoid the problems of the last two months.
Not for one moment do I think it had anything to do with our beloved RTA doing what I suggested.
Nevertheless, the RTA has news of the new addressing system they are introducing on their website, here.
They're doing the right, the obvious, thing. Giving streets names and buildings sequential numbers.
Great, well done, it's what we need.
Then comes the implementation, which takes us on to another avoidable problem I've talked about many times before - inaccurate, misleading, downright dangerous road signage. Signage which contributes to crashes.
As a report in The National tells us:
...the first phase of implementing the new system of street names has confused motorists and even caused a few road accidents.
Signs along Sheikh Zayed Road, the city’s main thoroughfare, which previously displayed the names of well-known areas such as Umm Suqeim, Al Safa and Jumeirah, have been replaced by boards directing traffic to the areas’ main arterial roads, some of which have been given new names.
They've named various roads, names which no-one knows because they haven't told us. Then they remove signs which show the way to suburbs and replace them with signs showing the way to the roads we've never heard of.
Mistake number one: motorists need signs showing the way to suburbs, the name of the road at that stage is irrelevant. To change them is a mistake.
Mistake number two: the signs have been changed with no warning, confusing motorists:
...motorists on Sheikh Zayed Road have been baffled by the new signs...'I nearly collided with another car the other day when I was trying to decipher these signs to find my exit'...hit another vehicle as he craned his neck to read the new sign...
We do need the new addressing system. But we don't need it translated to road signs on our major highways. They need to be signs to suburbs.
The road names simply need to be prominently displayed on the roads themselves, so that they can be easily seen and read by motorists. And the owner of each building needs to be informed of its street number so that the number can be prominently displayed on the building.
The National reports the story here.
Then another example of bad planning. The two month gridlock in Dubai Marina which I've been ranting about since the end of July.
All roads but one closed, so drivers trying to get out of the Marina, to any destination, were jammed onto one small local road. It took literally hours every morning to move two kilometres.
It was unnecessary. There were two things which could have been done. One, the perfectly useable bridge which was closed off could have been opened. Some drivers were getting around the barriers and using it anyway, so there was no reason not to open it.
More importantly, the exit onto Sheikh Zayed Road to Jebel Ali/Abu Dhabi should not have been closed until the alternative exit was opened.
After two months of frustration, lost work time, missed appointments, added pollution, it is now open.
It's part of the new giant Interchange 5.5, as it's currently called, at the Jebel Ali end of Dubai Marina.
A flyover takes you across SZR and loops back in the direction of Dubai. A slip road joins SZR in the Jebel Ali/Abu Dhabi direction.
This interchange was always needed, it was a serious omission when the Marina was designed and full marks to the RTA for correcting the mistake.
If only they'd planned the changes properly to avoid the problems of the last two months.
Better off in Dubai
We talk very often about the sub-standard accommodation which the lower paid, labourers in particular, endure in Dubai.
There's no doubt that too many are not housed appropriately, but while I in no way condone people being treated in any way other than decently I believe that it's important to always put things in context. People from different parts of the world have a different view, different culture, different standards, different expectations from each other.
(I'm struggling with this a bit, I need to be very careful with the words so that what I'm trying to say is not misunderstood).
I couldn't live with ten or more people in a small room. I couldn't live in a broom cupboard. I couldn't leave my wife behind and see her only for a few weeks every two years. But I'm from a prosperous western society and inevitably I look at things from that background.
But as I posted here back in January, people do and can live in a way that I and most, if not all, westerners wouldn't accept.
In the conversations I posted about then I asked 'why stay here under those conditions, why not go home'?
The answers were 'it's better in Dubai'.
Mrs Seabee has just come back from a business trip to India, the camera chip full. A lot of the photographs are of the modern buildings, the five-star hotels, the smart offices reflecting the booming economy.
But she also took a lot of street scenes, which help to explain the 'it's better in Dubai' answers.
The shots were taken from the car as she was being driven through Mumbai and New Delhi.
Thousands of people living on the streets, under bridges, in doorways, in drainage pipes. And in hovels cobbled together from cardboard boxes, bits of corrugated iron, plastic bags. Surrounded by garbage.
She asked her driver about the people who lived like this and he told her that a lot of them were construction workers.
Here's a handful of the shots showing accommodation in which people in Mumbai and New Delhi are living. You can enlarge the photos by clicking on them, to better see the awful reality:
They help to give the view from a different perspective, to make some kind of sense of why people are prepared to live here in a way that I couldn't. Living in a broom cupboard in Dubai is actually better than back home.
There's no doubt that too many are not housed appropriately, but while I in no way condone people being treated in any way other than decently I believe that it's important to always put things in context. People from different parts of the world have a different view, different culture, different standards, different expectations from each other.
(I'm struggling with this a bit, I need to be very careful with the words so that what I'm trying to say is not misunderstood).
I couldn't live with ten or more people in a small room. I couldn't live in a broom cupboard. I couldn't leave my wife behind and see her only for a few weeks every two years. But I'm from a prosperous western society and inevitably I look at things from that background.
But as I posted here back in January, people do and can live in a way that I and most, if not all, westerners wouldn't accept.
In the conversations I posted about then I asked 'why stay here under those conditions, why not go home'?
The answers were 'it's better in Dubai'.
Mrs Seabee has just come back from a business trip to India, the camera chip full. A lot of the photographs are of the modern buildings, the five-star hotels, the smart offices reflecting the booming economy.
But she also took a lot of street scenes, which help to explain the 'it's better in Dubai' answers.
The shots were taken from the car as she was being driven through Mumbai and New Delhi.
Thousands of people living on the streets, under bridges, in doorways, in drainage pipes. And in hovels cobbled together from cardboard boxes, bits of corrugated iron, plastic bags. Surrounded by garbage.
She asked her driver about the people who lived like this and he told her that a lot of them were construction workers.
Here's a handful of the shots showing accommodation in which people in Mumbai and New Delhi are living. You can enlarge the photos by clicking on them, to better see the awful reality:
They help to give the view from a different perspective, to make some kind of sense of why people are prepared to live here in a way that I couldn't. Living in a broom cupboard in Dubai is actually better than back home.
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