In today's Sydney Morning Herald there's a story that sort-of continues my Sunday posting.
There are stories within a story too.
It's headed Hunt for road rage shooter and includes this information:
"Three teenagers are lucky to be alive after a gunman fired at their car in a terrifying daylight road rage incident in Sydney's west, police say.
As traffic had piled up behind, the 18-year-old P-plate driver was forced to mount the pavement to escape and almost ran over three pedestrians.
Two men, one armed with a black pistol, jumped from a white Holden Commodore and advanced on the teenagers' silver Subaru WRX...The armed man fired shots at the car before the pair jumped back in their car and sped off.
They are looking for a white VT model Holden Commodore, possibly a V8, with chrome mag wheels, tinted windows and black and gold number plates.
A 'P-plate' driver is someone who has just passed the driving test so they have to carry a P-plate on their car for eighteen months. The 18 year old had therefore recently passed his test but was driving a Subaru WRX. They accelerate from zero to 100kph in less than 5 seconds.
That frightens me.
The blacked-out, chromed-wheeled Holden Commodore is re-badged here as the Chevrolet Lumina. If it was a V8 as suggested it's 5.7 litres, powerful and quick.
So we have two powerful cars dashing about crowded streets, one driven by an almost learner driver carrying two 16 year old girls.
Who nearly ran over three pedestrians as he drove on the footpath to escape a gunman in a road rage incident.
Not for the first time I'm just sitting here shaking my head in disbelief.
The story is here.
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Monday, May 05, 2008
The Big Boss is on the case.
There's no excuse that in the time entire communities can be built the infrastructure to support them isn't also built, instead of lagging years behind.
Think what's been achieved with communities such as Dubai Marina - the world's largest marina built in the desert, residential towers for perhaps a hundred thousand people, with very many living in them for more than two years already. There are shops, restaurants, a weekend market, landscaping - a bustling community of residents and visitors.
But the roads and bridges are still being built.
And that's just one of hundreds of communities being developed, all suffering the same infrastructure failings.
Fortunately it seems it isn't only we who think the infrastructure isn't going in fast enough.
From a story about the Parallel Roads project:
Shaikh Mohammad has also directed [the Roads and Transport Authority] RTA to expedite the construction work on the Parallel Roads as the project is aimed at easing traffic congestion on Shaikh Zayed Road and to link new developments...Shaikh Mohammad has also directed RTA to widen the road from the originally planned three lanes in each direction to four lanes on each side to accommodate more vehicles and to ensure a smooth flow of traffic...Shaikh Mohammad has also directed to step up the construction of a number of vital projects with a view to ease traffic bottlenecks in Dubai.
I've asked the rhetorical question before - why does it need Sheihh Mohammed to get personally involved in this level of detail before the right thing is done. Telling them how many lanes they need, telling them the projects are not moving quickly enough.
The Big Boss knows it, we know it, but the planners can't see it.
Parallel Roads project.
Think what's been achieved with communities such as Dubai Marina - the world's largest marina built in the desert, residential towers for perhaps a hundred thousand people, with very many living in them for more than two years already. There are shops, restaurants, a weekend market, landscaping - a bustling community of residents and visitors.
But the roads and bridges are still being built.
And that's just one of hundreds of communities being developed, all suffering the same infrastructure failings.
Fortunately it seems it isn't only we who think the infrastructure isn't going in fast enough.
From a story about the Parallel Roads project:
Shaikh Mohammad has also directed [the Roads and Transport Authority] RTA to expedite the construction work on the Parallel Roads as the project is aimed at easing traffic congestion on Shaikh Zayed Road and to link new developments...Shaikh Mohammad has also directed RTA to widen the road from the originally planned three lanes in each direction to four lanes on each side to accommodate more vehicles and to ensure a smooth flow of traffic...Shaikh Mohammad has also directed to step up the construction of a number of vital projects with a view to ease traffic bottlenecks in Dubai.
I've asked the rhetorical question before - why does it need Sheihh Mohammed to get personally involved in this level of detail before the right thing is done. Telling them how many lanes they need, telling them the projects are not moving quickly enough.
The Big Boss knows it, we know it, but the planners can't see it.
Parallel Roads project.
Heroes killed
The word hero is used far too often in my opinion. It should be reserved for the deserving few, and way up on my list of the few are firefighters.
A hero to me is someone who deliberately goes towards something the rest of us run from. Like fire. Like collapsing buildings.
Yesterday there were two stories in Gulf News, I'm sure their appearance in the same edition was a coincidence.
First, a story from Al Ain about the Technical Rescue & Quick Intervention team that's part of the Department of Emergency & Public Safety at the Ministry of Interior. The title of the story was, appropriately, "Risking lives to ensure safety."
And on the front page was a news item: "Firefighters die trying to put out blaze."
Today the two firefighters are named as Hytham Faraj and Kamal Hussein, who died while fighting a fire on a Palm Jumeirah construction site.
Like their firefighter colleagues around the world, they were heroes.
Stories are here. and here.
A hero to me is someone who deliberately goes towards something the rest of us run from. Like fire. Like collapsing buildings.
Yesterday there were two stories in Gulf News, I'm sure their appearance in the same edition was a coincidence.
First, a story from Al Ain about the Technical Rescue & Quick Intervention team that's part of the Department of Emergency & Public Safety at the Ministry of Interior. The title of the story was, appropriately, "Risking lives to ensure safety."
And on the front page was a news item: "Firefighters die trying to put out blaze."
Today the two firefighters are named as Hytham Faraj and Kamal Hussein, who died while fighting a fire on a Palm Jumeirah construction site.
Like their firefighter colleagues around the world, they were heroes.
Stories are here. and here.
Sunday, May 04, 2008
Another reality check
We complain about the problems we face in Dubai, and rightly so. But too often I hear people making an unfavourable comparison, saying that it's so much worse than 'back home'.
As I've said before in these 'reality check' postings, that isn't true. They're looking back through rose tinted glasses. 'Back home' has many of the same problems, in fact they're often worse than here. And of course, there's the crime...
Here's another example.
'Back home' for me isn't a big city with all the usual big city problems, but the New South Wales Central Coast, a rural area of small seaside holiday towns and villages.
Here are six of the ten news items on the local newspaper's website from the Friday edition.
First, a favourite Dubai topic, traffic.
Clearway gets you nowhere
THOUSANDS of motorists are stuck twice daily in huge traffic jams as the closure of Woy Woy Rd causes gridlock each morning and evening peak period.
Motorists are reporting delays of more than one hour each way and even up to three hours as traffic banks up. They are being forced on to other already clogged alternative arterial roads.
Mum rows her boat to school
WHEN the road you use to drive your daughter to school collapses you put her in your boat.
Since Woy Woy Rd washed away at Bulls Hill last week, Irene Bakker, of Horsfield Bay, has rowed her daughter across Woy Woy Bay each day to school.
It is one of the many creative measures Horsfield Bay residents have employed to get around.
Then there's our other favourite topic of conversation in Dubai, accommodation costs. There are a couple of stories in the paper...
Bid to ease rental pain
THE cost of rent has soared 10 per cent across the Central Coast in the past year with vacancy rates the lowest in years.
Cut housing taxes
THE State Government must cut taxes which are pushing the cost of housing beyond people's reach, Terrigal State Liberal MP Chris Hartcher has said.
And something we don't often have to talk about in Dubai, crime - and especially violent crime.
Police investigating horrific stabbing
TUGGERAH Lakes police have refused to release details about a horrific stabbing at Shelly Beach on Wednesday.
A woman, 39, could lose her eye after she was stabbed in the head after an altercation in the car park about 1am.
League bans night games
WOY WOY and Umina Beach rugby league teams won't play each other on a Saturday night for the remainder of the season following a series of drunken brawls at matches.
Of course we should keep pointing out things in Dubai that could and should be improved. But if we make comparisons with other places we should at least be honest about the reality there.
The original stories.
As I've said before in these 'reality check' postings, that isn't true. They're looking back through rose tinted glasses. 'Back home' has many of the same problems, in fact they're often worse than here. And of course, there's the crime...
Here's another example.
'Back home' for me isn't a big city with all the usual big city problems, but the New South Wales Central Coast, a rural area of small seaside holiday towns and villages.
Here are six of the ten news items on the local newspaper's website from the Friday edition.
First, a favourite Dubai topic, traffic.
Clearway gets you nowhere
THOUSANDS of motorists are stuck twice daily in huge traffic jams as the closure of Woy Woy Rd causes gridlock each morning and evening peak period.
Motorists are reporting delays of more than one hour each way and even up to three hours as traffic banks up. They are being forced on to other already clogged alternative arterial roads.
Mum rows her boat to school
WHEN the road you use to drive your daughter to school collapses you put her in your boat.
Since Woy Woy Rd washed away at Bulls Hill last week, Irene Bakker, of Horsfield Bay, has rowed her daughter across Woy Woy Bay each day to school.
It is one of the many creative measures Horsfield Bay residents have employed to get around.
Then there's our other favourite topic of conversation in Dubai, accommodation costs. There are a couple of stories in the paper...
Bid to ease rental pain
THE cost of rent has soared 10 per cent across the Central Coast in the past year with vacancy rates the lowest in years.
Cut housing taxes
THE State Government must cut taxes which are pushing the cost of housing beyond people's reach, Terrigal State Liberal MP Chris Hartcher has said.
And something we don't often have to talk about in Dubai, crime - and especially violent crime.
Police investigating horrific stabbing
TUGGERAH Lakes police have refused to release details about a horrific stabbing at Shelly Beach on Wednesday.
A woman, 39, could lose her eye after she was stabbed in the head after an altercation in the car park about 1am.
League bans night games
WOY WOY and Umina Beach rugby league teams won't play each other on a Saturday night for the remainder of the season following a series of drunken brawls at matches.
Of course we should keep pointing out things in Dubai that could and should be improved. But if we make comparisons with other places we should at least be honest about the reality there.
The original stories.
Thursday, May 01, 2008
I had to share this with you!
Someone in Islamabad has just arrived at 'Life in Dubai' having asked Google:
ethi salaad in dubai telecommunication
Ethi Salaad. The possibilities for fun with that are endless.
ethi salaad in dubai telecommunication
Ethi Salaad. The possibilities for fun with that are endless.
I have questions...
There are some bad-behaviour-on-the-road stories on page four of this morning's Gulf News which raise questions in my mind that such stories always raise.
Whenever there's some personal injury, a very precise percentage of the damage is given. For example, today in three cases mentioned we're told:
"...a two per cent permanent disability to his chest...leaving him with a five per cent permanent disability... a seven per cent permanent disability to his nose..."
A seven percent disability to his nose? A two percent chest disability?
How is such a precise percentage of damage determined? Is it relevant? Does the sentence increase as the percentage damage increase? Why do they do it?
I find it all very strange.
By the way, the nose damage relates to this item:
The court earlier sentenced a 28-year-old American to three months in jail for flashing his middle finger, cursing an Emirati employee and leaving him with a seven per cent permanent disability to his nose following a road rage incident.
Look, I don't want to trivialise the incident, but I have to ask. What did the American do, stick his finger up the victim's nose?
Gulf News have the story here.
Whenever there's some personal injury, a very precise percentage of the damage is given. For example, today in three cases mentioned we're told:
"...a two per cent permanent disability to his chest...leaving him with a five per cent permanent disability... a seven per cent permanent disability to his nose..."
A seven percent disability to his nose? A two percent chest disability?
How is such a precise percentage of damage determined? Is it relevant? Does the sentence increase as the percentage damage increase? Why do they do it?
I find it all very strange.
By the way, the nose damage relates to this item:
The court earlier sentenced a 28-year-old American to three months in jail for flashing his middle finger, cursing an Emirati employee and leaving him with a seven per cent permanent disability to his nose following a road rage incident.
Look, I don't want to trivialise the incident, but I have to ask. What did the American do, stick his finger up the victim's nose?
Gulf News have the story here.
Talking of copywriting...
There's some purple prose in today's ad for "Le Grande. The retail splendour at Marina" which is "An itiative by Trident International Holdings" who, they tell us, are "Creating new benchmarks in luxury living"
Just a fraction OTT perhaps?
Just a fraction OTT perhaps?
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