Dubai, crossroads of the world...

...in a French hypermarket.

By the way, I learn something every day - today it's that Saudi has ostrich farms.

Today's moron report

A normal drive along Al Sufouh Road and a short way along Al Wasl Road this afternoon. Not a long drive by any means. Out of peak time, not a huge amount of traffic, everything just average.

Here's what I noticed - I obviously didn't see it all, so this would represent just a percantage of the full story:

Illegal U-turn into oncoming traffic: 1

Jumping red light: 2

Talking on mobile phone: 8

Dangerously aggressive driving: 1

Dangerous speeding/lane weaving: 1

Police: Zero

Incorrect lane and exceeding the speed limit I don't bother with any more, it's so common.

If you don't live here you probably get tired of us complaining so often about the driving. If that's the case, have a look at what we're talking about on YouTube. This is CCTV footage in the new tunnel which runs under Dubai International Airport. Thanks to Dubai Sunshine for posting it there.

Great work on the souks

Secret Dubai has posted about the upgrade of the Deira spice souk, making the point that it might just save it from closure - which I really hope they can achieve.

I think they've done a great job with the upgrades of the souks and here's the proof - a photo of the Bur Dubai textile souk in 1960 and another which I took from more or or less the same place a few months ago...

Road rant

After my follow-on from the rant about company attitude, a follow-on to my regular rants about driving standards. Just a quick one but it's so typical of what we face every day we're on the roads.

I just drove from Dubai Marina to Mall of the Emirates. What's that, maybe seven or eight kilometres? Just a few minutes.

Here's the tally that I noticed, I'm sure there were more that I missed.

Deliberately driving through a red light: 1

Illegal U-turn into oncoming traffic whilst talking on a mobile phone: 1

Driving whilst talking on mobile phone: I counted seven.

Driving above the posted speed limit: Too many to count but more than half the drivers. I am not exaggerating - more than half.

Driving dangerously above the posted speed limit: 3

Dangerous lane-changing with no signal and at excessive speed: 2

Police cars: Zero

Company attitude...

Just a quick follow-on from my rant about companies taking our money but not expecting to provide anything in return.

Our fake alternative telco, du, has announced that:

"...it will allow new customers to register for mobile numbers starting on November 26, but details about pricing and its launch may have to wait until January."

Go to their website and they tell you nothing. Cliches, jargon, mission statements, all the usual press release phrases trotted out again. But information? What are they actually going to provide, when and for how much? Forget it.

But they will "allow" customers to register for mobile numbers from next week. They say: "Under a campaign beginning next week entitled "055 my number," etisalat customers wishing to switch to du may carry over their seven digit number at a cost of Dh100.

Why would anyone switch when we don't know what, when or the cost?

Yet another example of 'you give us your money, we'll decide later what we'll give you in return.'

The announcement was carried in Gulf News.

THIS is a road safety campaign.

Think about the road safety campaigns that the authorities run, and are planning to run, in Dubai.

Think about the 'quality' of advertising here too.

Then look at these road safety tv commercials running in the UK.

We need this kind of campaign here. Desperately.

This is absolutely brilliant advertising.

We need the whole team who produced the ads brought to Dubai to shoot and produce the same campaign here, and the authorities to run the same comprehensive media schedule.

It would cost much less in dollar terms than the ineffective, uncreative stuff we get. And the saving of lives would be priceless.

The commercials are here and here.

If you go to the UK Road Safety site you can check out all the ads, tv, cinema, radio, print media.

I urge everyone in advertising, agency and client alike, to go to the Road Safety website and spend time there. It's not only the creativity that's important, it's the thinking, the research, the conclusions, the identification of target audience segments, the integrated campaign, the comprehensive detail. This is a total, professional campaign. This is how advertising should be.

I'm indebted to our new friend S!ckbhOy for the heads-up on these commercials, which he gave on keefieboy's blog.

Only in Dubai/part 2

I really must run a series recording the classic 'look what you made me do' excuses given by the accused in Dubai courts.

There's another doozy in today's Gulf News.

You don't need the link, it's only short so here it is:

Manager claims he was forced to impersonate police official

By Bassam Za'za', Staff Reporter

Dubai: A manager who is being tried for impersonating a police official has claimed that he was forced to do so because "a secretary abused him verbally over the phone".

Dubai Public Prosecution had charged the 26-year-old Lebanese manager, identified as H.G., with impersonating personnel from Dubai Police's Criminal Investigation Department.

The manager who appeared before the Dubai Court of Appeal yesterday was pleading guilty but seeking clemency. "I did send an SMS to the claimant's mobile phone in which I claimed that I was a police official. I had to do so because the girl abused me verbally and cursed and insulted me," the 26-year-old accused told Presiding Judge Fouad Hamdoun yesterday.

Police heard that the accused sent an SMS to the 27-year-old secretary, S.R., from Belarus, on her cell phone in which he impersonated a policeman. In his statement, the accused claimed that he coincidentally called up the woman twice and spoke to her.

He said she abused him over the phone after which he sent her an SMS.

The Dubai Court of First had earlier fined him Dh2,000 but the Public Prosecution appealed the initial verdict.

So we have the manager (coincidentally) phoning the 'Russian' girl, the content of the calls we can guess at, she tells him to **** off, he sends an SMS saying 'you can't talk to me like that I'm a police officer'...and his defence is that he was forced to take that action.

I can't wait for the court's verdict.