How Come Qatar Airways is Still in Business?

It seems to be a sad fact on this little planet of ours that when companies (or individuals for that matter) become successful, they often “take their eye off the ball” and start behaving like jerks, treating their customers like nobodies and expecting them to dance to the company’s tune.

I’ve written before about falling out of love with Qatar Airways; but their fall from grace (in my eyes at any rate) continues relentlessly, such that when my Gold Privilege Card runs out at the end of this year I can’t say I’m going to miss it that much. I mean, sure – I can get a generous luggage allowance on their aircraft, but being spared some of the nonsense they dole out to their customers will not be something about which I will feel totally bereft.

Take my recent visit back to the Middle East, as an example. You’d think that getting a flight from Beijing to Dubai, transiting through Doha, wouldn’t be such a big deal, would it? Well, naively I thought so too. Hey, what better than to use up some of those accumulated Privilege Club air miles that I have been earning for so long with them?

The first problem is actually trying to log on to their web site. To get to the point of actually trying to book a ticket though their Privilege Club takes me some three or four weeks. I kid you not. Every time I try logging on to their micro-site it is either down, or busy or just doesn’t work. Every time I try putting in the originating airport it won’t recognise Beijing. Nor the IATA code – PEK.

When I DO finally manage that little hurdle, I discover that these precious privilege miles are pretty useless if you want to travel at a reasonable time on a reasonable day. They are only valid for the flights the airline has difficulty filling. No worries; I will adjust my time in Dubai accordingly.

Then you find that you still have to pay an exorbitant amount for airport taxes and fuel surcharges, so your “free” flights are now starting to add up. I book the ticket, only to find the site crashes at just that moment when it has accepted my credit card, but before I can reserve my seats, give meal preferences or even get a receipt. Luckily I am quick to write down the reference number it gives me, for now I cannot even get into “manage bookings” as it doesn’t recognise my booking, even though my bank account has been debited.

I write to Qatar Airways “Customer Service” – and get a reply four days later that my booking is OK. They eMail me the receipt which gives the flight details. Only problem is I still cannot get into the Privilege Club bookings manager to reserve my seats. That takes another four weeks!

Finally I manage to get my seats reserved and print off the eBooking which I will take with me to the airport. As I am leaving Beijing on the 2350 flight, I get to the airport in plenty of time, only to discover that the check-in desks are closed. Strange. I go to Airport Information to discover that the flight doesn’t leave until 0140. So I sit around aimlessly with the other passengers who likewise have turned up in plenty of time to check in for a non-existent flight.

Finally the check in girls arrive. I query the change of flight time. Oh yes; it was changed two months ago! But no one from the airline ever bothered to let me – or the other hapless passengers - know that. The Qatar Airways girl couldn’t be less interested.

By the time I am through immigration clearance I find all the duty free shops are closed.

I make my way to the Qatar Airways Privilege Lounge which I happen to know from a previous trip is actually the Air China lounge. Outside is a list of partner airlines in the Star Alliance but for some strange reason Qatar Airways isn’t listed. Perhaps Air China knows something we don’t.

I stock up on the calories as there are some excellent steamed dumplings in a variety of fillings shouting out Eat me Eat me from their little baskets; and wash it down with some reasonable plonk and a couple of Tsingtaos.

Eventually it’s time to board. Naturally I am sitting in the only area where the videos don’t work and it takes over 45 minutes after take off – itself delayed a further 35 minutes - for the air crew to reboot their blessed computer so that those of us that are still awake can try to enjoy the show.

By the time the food is served, there is practically no one awake.

I check out the local weather in Dubai. 20 degrees apparently. I check the weather in Doha – hardly spitting distance from Dubai – and see it is listed as zero. It remains at zero for the entire flight. A great advertisement for the national airline when they cannot even get the weather in their own capital right!

Of course, my turn around time in Doha has now been reduced so much that there is no time to pop into the Gold class lounge to get some refreshment, (maybe, reading some other blogs, that is no bad thing); nor is there time to go to the Duty Free and use up some old Qatari riyals I have had stuffed in my travel wallet for what seems like millennia.

We rush through the bag controls to the Dubai flight, which according to my ticket should have been boarding for the past 20 minutes; and when I reach gate 9 I find that the indicator board is now showing a flight to Manila that leaves in just over an hour's time. Could I have missed the connection? No. It’s just that this flight is also delayed.

“Breakfast” is a carton of orange juice and a cardboard box containing a shawarma-type roll which, it turns out, has not been cooked properly. I count at least a dozen passengers cursing Qatar Airways’ catering, trying to remove the remains of their shawarmas that have collapsed into their laps.

We finally arrive well over an hour late in Dubai.

The return journey is not a lot better, though I am glad to stock up on yet more calories in Dubai’s Business Lounge (a word to the wise: always ask for the Business rather than Gold lounge, as the latter is always overcrowded and there isn’t such a good selection of food on offer).

We board the aircraft, only for some Qatari guys who have got Economy class tickets to decide they like the look of Business class better – and as it is empty they park their ample bottoms in these wider seats. Only after they have been served a welcoming glass of champagne does the crew realise they shouldn’t be there in the first place and it takes 45 minutes to eject them back to Economy. Why doesn’t someone just kick them off the flight, I ask one of the tired looking trolley dollies? They’re Qatari, she sighs, as though that excuses everything.

We arrive an hour late in Doha – on a flight that takes all of 35 minutes flying time! I pop quickly into the Gold lounge to use their (disgusting) facilities and marvel that a “Gold” lounge can have the nerve to offer such paltry fare to its “privileged” customers.

And then we are driven across the entire airfield in a bus journey, which takes 18 minutes, to board the Beijing flight.

I am the only non-Chinese in my section of the cabin; and before I am comfortably settled in my seat an Indian stewardess has started to chat me up… Where do I live in Beijing? Is that anywhere near their hotel? What is there to see near there? How much time do I get off from my job?

Cute though she undoubtedly is, this girl must be even younger than my daughter, and finally she gets the message that I’m not really interested in taking her and her friends out for a gallivanting good time around Beijing. She leaves me in peace to enjoy a film and get some shut eye.

We arrive 45 minutes late. We tumble off the aircraft. And I for one am so glad to be back on Chinese soil.

Friendly, polite immigration officers (not like those awful ones in Dubai … no, don’t get me started!); and loos in which you could happily eat your lunch, they are so spotless (as opposed to the disgusting rest rooms in Doha and the slightly less disgusting ones in Dubai).

I collect my bags and head for “home”. It’s great to be back.

Dance Bars in DXB - BS catches up on his education

I think I've led a very sheltered existence – certainly during the past few years I have been in the Middle East.

I had been to a business meeting with 'Miss S' and 'Mr P' in the Royal Mirage One & Only Hotel – one of Dubai's better establishments - and by the time we emerged, S said she was absolutely famished.

P suggested we go to a restaurant on the Sheikh Zayed Road to do something about her hunger pangs and we piled into P's car and headed north.

Well, what with S prattling on the way she does, it was hardly surprising that P totally drove past the required exit (that always used to happen to me when S was a passenger in my car!) so we decided instead to go taste some real Indian cuisine in Karama. I know just the place, said S, holding a poker-straight face, casually mentioning she wanted to enjoy a "real beverage" with her food.

We headed towards Karama – one of Dubai's many "little India" suburbs – and finally piled out at the Karama Hotel. North Indian or South Indian food – that was the question; but after a little negotiating with the staff and ascertaining which had the best bar, we were shown along the corridor, a door was held open for us and our ears were assaulted from all sides by the sounds of "cheap Bollywood" – "paanwallah music" as S described it.

[If you are as ignorant as I am, then you might care to know that a typical paanwallah operates a small stall, roadside booth or push cart selling Betel leaf and areca nut, where local people generally gather around to chew and talk.]

As we rounded the corner, there in front of us was a stage area with a motley collection of females moving under flashing lights.

We were shown to a tiny table in the dance bar where all seats faced towards the stage area and very soon we had ordered drinks before we sat back to enjoy the "show".

These girls, explained S, came from small villages in the south of India. They would come over for about three months, make an absolute fortune (in their terms) and then be shipped back home again.

I say "moving" rather than "dancing" as it was clear that no one had ever shown these girls what to do. Choreographer Saroj Khan [self styled Queen of Bollywood, who teaches young nymphettes on NDTV's Nachle Ve show to do simple dance routines] would surely have wept into her Guinness.

There were 14 'dancers' in all, wearing a variety of outfits from the simply tacky to dresses that were way over the top. Two of the girls wore heart shaped breast plates over their bras; some looked like they had got dressed after the lights had been switched out; most of the girls were running to fat (one even looked like she was 6 months pregnant) and I could have sworn that one of them was a drag queen (P concurred with me).

One of the podgier looking girls looked daggers at S (who incidentally was the only female in the audience, and attracted as many glances from the rest of the motley bunch swilling beer as did the girls on stage). And if they thought for one moment that this handsome Brit would be turned on to the sight of them gyrating their hips (or whatever it was they were gyrating) then their hopes were surely dashed when they saw S lean towards me and shout something over the din of the music.

We munched on chopped carrots, a bowl of nuts, and later a platter of melon, grapes and apple slices, accompanied by kebab pieces, while the thump thump thump of the music continued relentlessly. I wondered if these girls went back to India at the end of three months with permanent hearing loss. An officious-looking well-built guy in a black suit – who I presume was the bouncer (just in case the comatose audience couldn't resist throwing something at one of the girls, perhaps?) strutted up and down looking, well, officious. He too probably went home at night with his ears ringing.

Normally around four or five of the 14 girls would perform whilst the others sat out, eyeing up the audience and sharing a private joke or two between themselves (or could this have been an act, as I am sure they could not have heard a single word uttered in that place). One of the girls kept on looking at her watch; another found herself dozing off, before a spotlight would brush over her and she would wake with a start, instantly switching on her well-rehearsed smile and pretending she was enjoying the experience.

Our waiter shouted at P, as he competed with the loudspeakers, that for a mere 100 Dhs, we could award one of the girls with a "crown" – a gold coloured plastic tiara that, P explained to me later, would let the particular chosen favourite know that you were interested in her so that at the end of the evening you could more freely negotiate other services from the poor brat. I suggested that perhaps S could pretend she was a lesbo – something that P thought a great idea – in order to liven up the place and see what the reaction would be, but for some unfathomable reason, S shied away from the idea.

One of the girls decided it was time to do a solo act. She had obviously been inspired by whirling dervishes, as she wheeled round and round throwing her hair about like a demented bit part actor in Wuthering Heights. She was rewarded after just a few minutes with a tiara and the look of relief on her face was touching – until she saw who was intending to book her favours, at which point the smile became more forced and she tucked the piece of paper that had been handed to her into the back of her knickers.

Inspired by her colleague, no doubt, another girl wearing a white dress got up to dance. (Hey dear, did your mother never tell you not to wear a black bra with a white dress???). The Bollywood number included the immortal line My name is Sheila I'm so sexy for you as a chorus to the Hindi lyric – something that could not have been more inappropriate. Whereas I might even have offered to pay her to stop dancing, someone else decided that she too was worthy of a plastic tiara, which all goes to prove that there is no accounting for taste.

Soon after that plastic tiaras were being offered up one after another, as the beer-swilling audience obviously realised that if they waited much longer they would lose their chance of a pick up. As S continued obstinately to refuse to play the part of a lesbo, it was clear that the fun would soon be coming to an end; and as the fruit and kebab nibbles disappeared off the plate, it was time to move on.

The sheer bliss of no longer having a full frontal attack on our eardrums was heaven as we walked out into the hot night air. I wondered aloud how any of those in the audience could possibly fancy any of the dancers, with those spare tyres around their waistlines; but as P pointed out, Indians like something to take hold of with their women – More bangs for your buck, as S added helpfully.

A bang with one of these girls would probably be around 150Dhs, P explained, obviously realising that my education was sorely lacking after such a long time in the Emirates. And, it turns out, almost all the Indian hotels in the area have similar dance bars devoted to matching village girl with local hustler.

Of course, to the 150 bucks, you would have to add the cost of a room at the hotel (after all, the hotel needs to get something out of this arrangement too) but it struck me what a perfectly civilised way this was of continuing the oldest profession in town. It sure was different from the way they do things in Beijing. Yet another difference between Chinese and Indians I decided as we drove off into the night.

Dubai’s RTA site needs a good kick up the *%^$#@*!, if you ask me

Regular readers of my blog will know that though I think that Dubai has made tremendous advances in its overall passenger transport system in the past couple of years, I am no fan of the Road Transport Authority which runs the service.

I am trying to put myself in the place of the hapless tourists who gullibly swallow the marketing hype of the publicity spinners and book their vacations in this city. How do they cope with getting around – apart from taking taxis to and from every possible location?

This line of thought is especially poignant for me now that I have had to sell my beloved car and travel with the masses using the aforementioned public transport. I decide to do some research to see just how easy it is to get from A to B – bearing in mind the RTA’s slogan of “Moving People” (gad – did someone get paid for thinking up that one; not to mention a subsequent stunner of a one-liner: “Get Around the City at your Convenience”?)

As I have a temporary base in a compound to the south of Ibn Battuta Mall (called Muntaza Compound) I think to myself it could be useful to know how often the local feeder bus route operates so that if I needed to get, say, to the airport, I could let the RTA move me! Ibn Battuta Mall metro station is a mere 18 minute walk away, but in the heat and humidity of Dubai, that is not something to be entertained lightly.

So I log onto the pride of the RTA site – a subsite called Wojhati, or Journey Planner. I tell it that I want to go from Muntaza to the airport. And in no time at all it tells me that I should take a number 99 bus going towards Jebel Ali to reach Ibn Battuta.

Oh dear; we have a problem already. The bus to Jebel Ali has come from Ibn Battuta already. What we actually need is a 99 going towards The Gardens, not Jebel Ali. Zero out of 10 so far! The site also helpfully mentions that the fare to the airport will be AED 4.10 (ie two tier zones). It isn’t. Due to the fact that the bus’s ‘Nol’ electronic fare system is fed by an inaccurately set up GPS system, the overall fare comes in at AED 5.80 – ie three tier zones, where it should only be two.

OK, so I am hardly going to complain at paying 5.80 instead of something approaching 100 in a taxi, but that RTA site still scores a hefty zero in my book. At least it gets the number of the bus right, even if it is going in the opposite direction!

I log on to Dubai Airport’s site – dubaiairportguide.com – and read with interest about the night buses serving the city at half hourly intervals throughout the night. Unfortunately there are no longer any night buses in Dubai – they were discontinued eons ago by the thoughtless bureaucrats who never, it would appear, use public transport themselves.

Those hapless travellers will also need to know that they have to buy “Nol” cards before using any public transport in the emirate. Where to get them though? That is the question faced daily by frustrated visitors. I look up the Dubai Airport site again. Ticket offices are located in the 10 open metro stations, it tells us.

Errrr…. Just a minute. A number of months have now passed since almost all the stations on the red line were (finally) opened – including Airport Terminals 1 and 3. So another zero out of 10 for useful information.

In frustration I eMail the web master of the site – which in fairness has asked for comments from its readers.  Within 16 hours I am sent a reply… “Thank you for contacting Dubai Airport Guide. We aim to reply to all questions or queries as soon as possible and usually within 24 hours. Kind Regards Dubai Airport Guide”

That was three weeks ago. I have stopped holding my breath!

Back to the RTA’s web site for more erudition… But their Dubai bus map is not only of such low resolution that it is almost impossible to read any of the bus routes, but worse, it is of July 2010 vintage – well before the majority of Dubai’s present bus routes were either introduced or changed. Once again zero out of ten.

The metro map is not much better. It may well list the stations on the red line, but calmly tells us that most of these have not yet been opened. Again zero out of ten.

So I turn to the RTA’s very own blog site. “Thank you for your interest in our website,” it purrs. “This page is dedicated to share our experiences related to Dubai bus [no mention of the metro I notice] where we can all share our experiences. Your comments will contribute to this blog’s success.”

I make my contribution, suggesting they update their site. But it turns out the so-called blog is moderated, and again, three weeks later there are no signs of my comments.

I turn to their picture sharing section where I am thrilled to see three pictures of Dubai buses.

 I turn to their video sharing section but as of now no one has thought to share their videos of Dubai’s buses. Shame!

Devastated not to be able to enjoy a video of a Dubai bus, I turn to the rules and regulations section and discover that under the rules of the Metro, one is not allowed to distract the driver while the train is in motion. An interesting thought indeed, given that Dubai is so proud of its driverless trains!

But friendly to the last, the site tells us that the following fines have been put in place to ensure you have a great experience on the metro. Try telling that to the very many tourists who are regularly hauled off the trains for such heinous crimes as drinking water from a bottle, or just chewing gum. I’m not sure they would really describe their experience as a great one.

But looking on the bright side, it also tells us that we must not throw any litter or spit through windows. So that comes as a great relief for all of us.
So, dear tourists – don’t say you have not been warned. Oh, and by the way, you will also most likely have read on numerous web sites that the UAE is famed for its Arab hospitality. But hey – who believes what one reads on the web anyway?

Sorry RTA – you still score zero in my book for your abysmal web and your even more abysmal ‘blog’. But think positive – at least we can all be assured that it can only get better from here on in!

Addendum

It appears that it is not only the RTA's web site that is in urgent need of attention, if the signs at Ibn Battuta Metro station are anything to go by. Want to buy a ticket during the rush hour? Too bad if you want to use the automatic machine...

It is "temporarily out of order". But never mind, we can always go to the ticket office...

Oh shucks... it is closed. But no matter - there are two ticket office booths:

Whoops. There is no one manning the ticket office during the rush hour. But hey, we can always queue up for 15 minutes to buy our tickets at the Information booth opposite.
Want to let your nearest and dearest know you are gonna be a little late due to lack of facilities at the station? Too bad if you haven't got a mobile phone...

But first you have to find any other booths with a working phone (sounds a bit like London's phone boxes doesn't it!). In Ibn Battuta, there are 11 phone stations with no installed phones!
Frustrated with the station facilities and just want to get out - perhaps across the road using the footbridge? Huh! Think again! The station has only been open for some eight months - hardly enough time for the powers that be to get their escalators working, surely?

So admit it! Now you are thoroughly pee'd off? Sorry again. The loo is closed for maintenance...

Else just in case you didn't get the message, your convenience is out of service. Sorry for the inconvenience! :))

Of course this is always assuming you can get INTO Ibn Battuta station in the first place!

Oh, and BTW - is there anyone out there who can explain to me why it costs 1.80 dirhams to go from Ibn Battuta to Muntaza, but 4.10 to go from Muntaza to Ibn Battuta?

Addendum 2

OK, so maybe the powers that be read this blog? Two days after it is posted, I go along to the bus stop at Muntaza and wait for the 99.... and wait.... and wait.... and let me tell you that waiting in 45 degrees for a bus that never comes is not the nicest experience.

Eventually I hail a passing taxi and take it to Ibn Battuta (10Dhs rather than the 4.10 I was complaining about).

I then ring up the RTA's "Help Line" to enquire what has happened to today's 99. Oh hello, Mr Brian, a girl called Sarah answers. Thinks: how does she know who I am? It must have been from when I last rang up the RTA some two years ago. Obviously at least one of their computers works in this place!

I am informed that the 99 bus has been withdrawn from circulation. No announcements on the bus; no notices on the bus stops; just withdrawn. One day it is there. The next day it is not.

I ask why no one in the RTA thinks it is important to let the passengers standing sweltering in the sun know that the bus they are waiting for no longer exists. Not surprisingly Sarah has no answer.

But actually the answer is perfectly clear. It is yet another example of RTA's philosophy of Fuck the Customer - We have a monopoly so see if we care!

Customer service? Oh please - don't make me weep!

Selling my baby - Dubai-style

I can’t imagine how I could have been so worried. I mean, I had four days left until my car insurance ran out. OK, so my car registration had expired and so technically speaking I was driving illegally, but that is par for the course in the Emirates, and only attracts a fine of 50 dirhams – or less than $14.

With no residence visa any longer in my passport, I was not able to renew the registration, so my poor baby would have to go.

My alarm went off at 8am. And it was the weekend! That’s how anxious I was. Before I even went to make myself some breakfast I thought I’d post an advert up for my poor baby; then I’d down some cornflakes and coffee, before cleaning her paintwork and readying her to take her over to the Mall of the Emirates where I would put her on display near the RTA car registration compound. 

It didn’t quite work like that.

Everyone who is anyone in the UAE knows that the way to sell things is to put adverts up on dubizzle.com and souq.com. Both web sites advertise for free, presumably to attract visitors in order to attract advertising.

At 8.45 I signed in to dubizzle and entered the vital statistics. Well, that is to say, I entered the information I knew. It asked how many cylinders the engine had and how many horsepower. As if I had ever checked! Sheepishly I ticked the ‘unknown’ boxes, determining to go and check on how many cylinders it had after breakfast.

I hit the ‘publish’ button and then entered the URL for souq.com. But before I had time even to enter the type of car on this second site, my phone started to ring. Have you sold the car yet? I want to buy it. Please take the advert offline and I will meet you in half an hour at the RTA.

Well, that wasn’t bad I thought! In fact how lucky was that timing? The caller sounded anxious to get it all done as soon as possible, and rather than lose a potential customer for the car I agreed to meet him, without even having any breakfast to send me on my way.

At 8.49 I took the advert offline as requested. That meant that it was online for four minutes. And my phone just rang solidly for the next three hours with everyone in Dubai seemingly wanting to buy my little beauty.

I hadn’t even removed all my junk from the inside of the car; hadn’t got round to washing it (there were sand streaks all over and it had a filthy windscreen); I hadn’t dug out my car registration documents or the maintenance record; or anything.

But I managed to get to the RTA at 9.15 and drove the car straight into the test bay area where I was met by Abdul. It was only at that point that I realised I had picked up the wrong file – my insurance file rather than the maintenance file. It doesn’t matter, he said. I’ll still take it.

Would he try to beat me down on the price? No. It appeared his word was his bond. He told me that he was a dealer and that he intended to export the car; as long as it passed its test, he would buy it.

At 9.27 the car was given a clean bill of health. Abdul had a word with one of the Emiratis behind the desk – I could see they knew each other well – and he told me that apart from my 50Dhs fine for late re-registration, I had no fines outstanding.

At 9.29 I was following him down Sheikh Zayed Road in the direction of Karama where we would ‘do the deal’. He drove a beat-up Nissan Tiida while I struggled to follow him as he skipped from lane to lane. We arrived in Karama at 9.45, parked the car in a lock-up garage and then I got into his car.

With no further questions asked, he started counting out a pile of 500Dhs notes, which I gratefully stuffed into my trouser pocket. (I thought of that well-worn joke… Female-to-male: Are you pleased to see me, or is that just a pile of 500Dhs notes in your pocket?)

We took off again in his car to another area in Karama and pulled in to a lay-by which was clearly marked Drop Off Zone Only. We parked and walked into a building where an Emirati was surrounded by piles of cash, piles of car registration documents and piles of Salik top-up cards.

It was here that I finally understood why the phone calls had almost all come from Pakistani-sounding voices. The Emirati obviously had a network of these people to scour the web sites for people about to sell their cars, jump in fast with an offer and then ship the cars out to Europe to make a quick killing. Abdul had already admitted that it didn’t really matter what type of car it was; they were always interested.

At 10.15 the paperwork was all completed, Abdul ‘generously’ said he would deal with the late registration fine and with a shake of the hand, I was out of the door and heading to the metro station. Just 90 minutes after first placing the advert!

An hour and a quarter later I was able to dig in to my cornflakes and coffee and outside in the street was an empty space where my poor beloved baby had been sunning herself for the past few weeks.

My poor baby. We had been through thick and thin together over the last three years. And now I would have to rely on the public transport system – at least until such time as I either got a new residence visa or left the country for pastures new.

Oh, and as a final postscript, I didn’t get asked by a single female on the way home whether I was pleased to see her. I guess that sums up my life right now!

Addendum:

I am grateful to my friend Irene for sending me the following pictures - it reminds me that one can cope perfectly well getting the shopping home without the need for a car...

oh, OK - maybe I don't normally go to Carrefour to bring home the bacon...

... but vegetables - well that's a different matter...

And of course, if I were to get lucky, the journey home could be quite fun as well...

Emirates Airline - now I am beginning to understand why they are so expensive

I must be truly grateful to my dear friend Sushmita. Whenever she is able, she flies on Emirates Airline, paying through the nose for the privilege of flying with this second rate airline. She appears to love the experience, appears to love passing through the long retail corridor known as Dubai Terminal 3, and even upgrades to Biz Class when she wants to pamper herself… just a little more than normal.

I, on the other hand, am (normally) a die-hard Qatar Airways aficionado. I can’t stand the Emirates experience and cannot understand why anyone would pay well over the odds for second-rate service. (Example: Typical Dubai to Hong Kong return with Qatar = 2900Dhs; with Emirates = 4200Dhs.)

So it was so good this evening to know that Sush’s hard earned money was being put to good use: in this instance pampering my taste buds and filling my stomach with prandial fare from around the world.

On the evening before Arabian Travel Market kicked off, Emirates Holidays decided to have a shindig to which were invited.. what… nearly 1,000 people? I duly picked up Sush at the appointed hour and chauffeured her in the style to which she has become accustomed to the Asateer – that flagship offering at the outrageous Atlantis Hotel, a specially constructed tent that is normally put up for Ramadan iftars, but for which the Atlantis is obviously hoping to get its money’s worth by using it at other times of the year to pour alcoholic beverages down the throats of its partying guests.

No one appeared to worry for one moment who we were. There were no written invitations; no one wanted to know who we were, why we were there or what connection – if any – we had with Emirates. It was one of those grand receptions where no one really knows who is receiving whom. But no worries. Tray-loads of red (Chilean) beverage, white (Chilean) beverage, brewed beverage, distilled beverage and – yes, I’m sure I spotted some – zero-percent beverage were thrust under our noses as we wandered into the grand marquee which had ice sculptures liberally scattered around the place with large fans directing some of the chilled air conditioning in their direction to slow down their inevitable self destruction.

The place was filled with tables stretching to the horizon, each place setting boasting not one, not two, not three, but four glasses together with what must have been equivalent to Sheffield’s annual output of cutlery.

Of course, we all know there is no such thing as a free meal… and in this case we had to sit through an entire 10-minutes’ worth of prizes being handed out to Emirates’ sales reps and other notable worthies in the Emirates empire. First prize was an all expenses trip to Hong Kong to stay for three nights at the Island Shangri-La Hotel. Sush and I exchanged glances. How much better it would have been if they had sent them to the better Shangri-La on the other side of the harbour in Kowloon, (where, incidentally, Sush and I had first got to know one another on a press trip all those eons ago.)

The prize giving firmly out of the way, it was time for the real reason people had turned up – to stuff themselves as fully as possible thanks to the ill-gotten profits made possible by such hapless regular flyers as Sushmita.

We were told there was food from all corners of the globe, representing the myriad of locations served by Emirates. And as promotional videos showed off tempting holiday locations from the Emirates catalogue of far-flung places, we gorged on lobsters and steak and lamb and fish and loads of I-have-no-idea-what-on-earth-that-is-but-hey-I’ll-try-some-anyway-morsels. There was even a strawberry tree boasting gob-stopper sized strawberries from which one could help oneself;

or a marshmallow tree; or a meringue tree and sweets of every description. 

Being one to push his luck, I asked one of the poor waitresses, who looked like her feet could have benefited enormously from some TLC, whether we were able to get a cup of coffee to wash it all down. An embarrassed look – but only for a couple of seconds until she composed herself. I’m sure her training taught her that the customer must always be pampered and if he wants a cup of coffee, then she will find a way. She did find a way. About ten minutes later she reappeared with two cups of very tepid Nescafe (Had she had to go all the way over to the main part of the hotel for us? We would never know); so I thanked her with my devastating smile that has cheered up so many hapless waitresses over the years.

The ‘cabaret’ for the night (for want of a better word) was a band called Vibrancy which we were told was Dubai’s favourite band from the Jam Base Bar in Souk Madinat Jumeirah. (Did Jam Base have any other bands, I wondered?)

But the excitement was too much for Sushmita and me. We decided to let the young socialites trip the night away as we slipped out into the hot night air (my glasses immediately steaming up, necessitating a quick wipe over with my hankie)  and waited a mere four minutes as the valet parking attendant went to retrieve the car from 100 metres away.

As a marketing exercise, I’m not sure Emirates got value for money. But I’m sure the Atlantis’ bean counters will have been very happy from the evening. They, and a thousand stomachs of course.

Bangladopian Maid Arrested for Doing a 'Bobbitt'

The news that a housemaid “did a Bobbitt” on her Arab employer has got many people here in Dubai coming out in sympathy for the maid.

According to The National, a 35-year-old Bangladeshi maid was arrested after getting fed up with being sexually harassed by her 70-year-old employer ‘who is from an undisclosed Gulf country’ and used a kitchen knife to perform the corrective surgery.

Hang on a moment – according to 7 Days, it was a 20-year-old Ethiopian woman and her boss was 76, while The Daily Mail refers to a 26-year-old Ethiopian emasculating a 78 year old Emirati.  The AFP and PTI agencies, too, refer to the guy as being an Emirati.

Well, as they say… don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story!

What we do know is that this 27½ year old Bangladopian ‘lashed out with a knife’ at the GCC-Arab-who-may-or-may-not-be-from-the-UAE, slicing off his private parts, and the guy was taken to ‘Dubai Hospital’ (wherever that may be) … or perhaps Rashidiya Hospital, as speculated by some of the papers.

It is alleged the Bangladopian flipped after being sexually harassed by him for many days. According to another newspaper, the maid was raped the first day she arrived and her employer continued abusing her. On the day of the incident she claims he asked her to give him a massage. She got angry, went to the kitchen to get a knife and attacked him, a police official is quoted as saying.

Some of the media, short of a good picture to go with the story, reconstruct the implement of destruction, ranging from simple kitchen knives…

To a picture of a knife with what looks remarkably like red currant juice dripping off it….

The Boston Speakeasy takes a different, more uplifting approach…

The UK’s Metro added further excitement for its readers with links to other stories including “Penis graffiti on St Petersburg bridge dropped from Russian art competition”, “Man has ‘mini’ tattooed on penis to win car” and “Penis-shaped rock discovered” just to whet their appetites.

Worldwide reaction has been pretty heavily on the side of the maid. ‘Absolutely brilliant. Well done to the maid’ sums up the majority of writers to media sites.

‘We always hear cases of maids being sexually abused by their employers, yet the sad part is that they have no recourse to justice at all. This lady did what she had to do, because in her situation, this seemed the only solution out of her misery’, commented one person; while another said ‘Very well done... hats off to the maid.. Now he will regret for the rest of his life... That’s what we call KARMA!!!’.

Yet another mused ‘Well well......Now she will have her own Wikipedia page like Lorena Bobbitt’; while someone else helpfully suggested ‘Next time cut and dip it in boiling water. The owner might need some soup after discharge from the hospital. Well done Ethiopian’.

A blogger to the Random Forest site said: ‘I wrote this with my legs well and truly crossed, wincing in pain as I tried not to think about it. I bet he will think twice before pushing things this way in the future!’

On the other side of the consensus were the likes of Boston Speakeasy: ‘I don't know what the punishment for this kind of crime is in Dubai, but you got some comin' to ya. Payback's a bitch, bitch.’

What no-one seems to have thought about, however, is what the old guy was doing as the maid went to the kitchen, took out the knife and presumably then undressed him to the point where she could actually do the wicked deed. Did he just sit and wait, hoping for a spot of S&M with her? I mean, if some woman started wielding a knife close to Junior and his friends, I can assure you I would move pretty damned fast.

And how easy is it to sever a man’s penis? And is it easier done when erect or flaccid? I mean how many of us have really sharp knives in the kitchen? Did she just slice through with one fell swoop or did she have to saw away at it? I think we should be told.

According to Dubai-based plastic surgeon Dr Luiz Toledo, if the penis had been kept iced and there had not been too much of a time lapse, it could be re-attached and function again, at least partially. Now that statement begs a lot of questions, doesn’t it? Did the Emirati go place his penis in the ice compartment as he was calling the police? (There’s a lesson to be learned by us all!)

The surgeon who performed the reattachment said it took several hours and that phallic reconstruction involves the use of skin tissues and soft bones from the patient's forearm and leg. More questions come to mind – I think I will have to scour the pages of Wikipedia for an answer!

Seriously though, the UAE and other Gulf countries have come in for repeated criticism from human rights groups over their treatment of millions of foreign workers, mostly Asians. The watchdogs have also sharply criticised the sponsorship system, still in force in most Gulf states, by which workers must be sponsored by their employer and which has been likened to modern-day slavery.

Police have been reported as saying that maids committed 665 crimes in Dubai last year, including ‘113 illegitimate relationships’.

"We always warn bosses about abusing maids in our police campaigns because bad treatment might backfire on them,” said a police spokesman. “People need to treat maids well because they are also human and have rights.”

Oh really?

Take the recent case of a Filipina maid whose employers refused to let her resign after she was mentally abused and forced to work for 16 hours per day, seven days per week for three years. The maid, a mother of-one, had attempted to resign at the beginning of 2011, giving her employers a one-month notice. After her employers wouldn’t let her quit, the maid escaped and fled to the Philippines Overseas Labour Office. Her employers responded by declaring her as an absconder at the Dubai Naturalisation and Residency Department.

She was  arrested and taken to the Dubai immigration prison and is set to be deported. Foreign labour is regulated in the UAE under the Sponsorship (kafala) system, which ties the legal status of the migrant workers to their employer, making it illegal to leave their sponsors without the consent of the sponsor. Sponsors, however, are free to fire (and thus cause the deportation of) their workers whenever they please. Even in cases of abuse, if the worker leaves her sponsor without permission, she loses her legal status. The absconding charges result in a visa ban, meaning the worker will be forbidden from entering the UAE again.

Consul General for The Philippines in Dubai, Benito Valeriano, has said there is nothing he can do to help the woman: “She has been listed as an absconder... we can’t do anything - this is the system here.”

But back to our Bangladopian once again. A fitting end piece (cod piece???) to our story:

In the same month that this news broke, appeared another story which got scant attention over here in the Emirates. We all know that the world’s only Phallological Museum is located in Iceland, don’t we?

What? You don’t? Perhaps you should visit www.thepenismuseum.com which boasts ‘The World's Greatest Penis Site - New way to look at tons of penis pictures. Quality penis photos can be browsed using our penis search tool.’

The museum, run by Sigurdur Hjartarson in the tiny Icelandic fishing town of Husavik, has just received its first human penis to join the extensive collection of phalluses from whales, seals, bears and other mammals. Several people had pledged their penises over the years — including an American, a Briton, and a German — but Pall Arason’s was the first to be successfully donated, Hjartarson said. The 95-year-old Icelander's pickled penis will now be the main attraction. "I have just been waiting for this guy for 15 years," he told The Associated Press in a brief telephone interview.

Now, with the addition of Arason's organ, he has 276 specimens, many suspended in formaldehyde or dried and mounted on the walls.

It’s enough to bring tears to the eyes!

Emirates NBD - A case of Incompetence, Stupidity or what, pray tell?

I used to think that Emirates Bank was OK. It gave a fair service and in general was quite reliable when it came to the services it offered. But things have changed recently – at least if the Ibn Battuta branch is anything to go by.

Not once, not twice, but three times in the past two months I have tried paying in a cheque to one of their newfangled electronic automatic pay-in machines – each at a different branch – and each time, having religiously followed the instructions given, I have ended up with the machine swallowing the cheque and then had to run around for about half an hour afterwards trying to get some bored bank official to try and put matters right … which normally took up to three days to do.

This morning I had another cheque to pay in and so decided I would not use one of their auto machines, but instead would use a teller. I went to the Ibn Battuta branch and had to go all the way to the far end of the bank to get a pay-in form which I duly filled in. But now I had to go all the way back to the entrance to get a queuing ticket before going all the way again to the far end to wait for a teller.

They used to have a collection of Filipino and Indian tellers who were pleasant, competent and gave one confidence in their service. Alas no more. Emiratis have taken over and despite the fact there were four people on duty, three of them (the Emiratis) were giggling and gossiping among themselves (at one stage even taking  a look at the ID card of an Indian customer and falling about laughing at his picture – unforgivable IMHO) while the fourth teller – an Indian woman – carried on diligently. So I was not surprised that it took ten minutes of waiting to pay in my cheque.

But what was this? I was told you can no longer pay in a cheque at the teller counter, but that you have to use a machine that stamps a time code onto your paying in slip and then post it into a box. One of the giggling Emiratis took me over to show me (back to the front of the bank once again). She had thoughtfully stapled the cheque to the paying in slip.

See how easy it is, she told me condescendingly.

Excellent, said I; but where do I get a stapler to attach the cheque to the slip?

You ask a teller. They will be happy to help.

So I have to queue up for a teller to ask if they will staple the cheque to the paying in slip so I can then post it in your post box?

Yes…. Or you can use one of the envelopes provided.

But there are no envelopes provided.

In that case you can ask a teller for one.

I left the bank wondering if this is a case of stupidity, incompetence or simply that the bank is having fun at the expense of its customers. Given the behaviour of the Emirati tellers earlier on, I suspect the latter. That, together with a touch of stupidity and incompetence thrown in just to make sure the customer is inconvenienced to the max.

Geez! What a bank! Or for that matter… What a country! How come anyone stays in business over here?