A Different Drummer

Abu Dhabi offers first US$1 million holiday

A luxury hotel in the United Arab Emirates has unveiled the world's most expensive holiday, with a seven-day break at the hotel costing US$1 million (£500,000).

Abu Dhabi's 7-star Emirates Palace Hotel will offer two people 'the ultimate holiday experience', which will include two first-class airline tickets to the city, followed by a booking in the hotel's Palace Suite - three gold, silver and marble bedrooms with a giant plasma television screen.

Those lucky enough to be able to stump up the cash will be able to take a private jet on day trips to Bahrain to dive for pearls, Iran to choose hand-woven Persian carpets and the Dead Sea for health treatments.

Other perks will include your own golf course, a personal butler, free designer perfume and a complimentary shotgun. (World Travel Guide)

Giving weapons to people who you've just handed a million-dollar bill to doesn't sound like the sharpest idea to me....

CAIRO (Reuters) - Nearly two-thirds of Egyptian men admit to having sexually harassed women in the most populous Arab country, and a majority say women themselves are to blame for their maltreatment, a survey showed Thursday.

The forms of harassment reported by Egyptian men, whose country attracts millions of foreign tourists each year, include touching or ogling women, shouting sexually explicit remarks, and exposing their genitals to women. "Sexual harassment has become an overwhelming and very real problem experienced by all women in Egyptian society, often on a daily basis," said the report by the Egyptian Center for Women's Rights.

The survey also said a majority cited a lack of awareness or religious values as the reason behind the widespread harassment.

I blame the common belief that the responsibility for preventing sexual harassment lies with women, who must ensure not to "tempt" men through their dress and behaviour. And I think that belief comes largely from religious values.

And yes, I know that these are not pure religious values, that they have been misunderstood, misinterpreted etc. But ideas should be assessed based on their actual impact in the real world, rather than according to the ideals of their most enlightened believers.

And in that sense, the practical implication of headscarves is pretty clear. Once the majority of women are wearing them, the minority that don't become the "sluts". And then once everyone is wearing them, the self-devouring begins - the ones who have bright colours, tighter fitting pants, defined features, the ones who go out in public without a man, the ones who stay out after dark....

(updated at bottom)

There is a big question in my head after reading about the Israel-Lebanon prisoner/body swap, and it comes from details like this:

The bodies of nearly 200 Lebanese and Palestinian fighters, returned as part of an exchange deal with Israel, are heading towards Beirut from southern Lebanon.

The remains of the Arab fighters passed through the border town of Naqura on Thursday, a day after Israel exchanged them along with five prisoners for the bodies of two Israeli soldiers held by Hezbollah.

My question: How did Israel come into posession of all those bodies? The war was fought entirely on Lebanese soil, save the Hizbollah incursion that set things in motion. So does that mean the Israeli army collected the bodies of dead Hizbollah guys, loaded them into their jeeps and took them back to Israel?

Is it just me, or it that incredibly spooky and weird? Maybe I'm not up to date on modern warfare techniques and collecting enemy bodies and taking them away with you is standard procedure...

Or maybe the bodies were killed (or at least died) in Israel at some time other than the war?

Can anybody shed some light on this?

UPDATE: A guy in my office with a fair bit of experience with this stuff thinks - and he stressed that he thinks, not knows - that most of the bodies would be people who were killed, captured or kidnapped during the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon. Sounds plausible.

In tribute to two great characteristics of the UAE - its ethnic diversity and its overriding commitment to consumerism - here is a selection of photos of the strange fruits and "vegetables" on sale today at the local hypermegaglobalsupermart:


Snake Fruit: despite having the skin of a Cobra, these little brown critters failed to put the fear of death into my heart, mainly because they lacked hideous fangs and angry, devious little eyes.


Star Fruit: These are a good source of vitamin C, and make excellent spear tips for societies yet to reach the bronze age.



Jujube: In my imagination, you mash a Jujube into GruGru paste and blend it in with a whole bunch of SmooSmoo juice to make a delicious BleeBleebe.

But reality is far more entertaining; Wikipedia says that "the jujube's sweet smell is said to make teenagers fall in love, and as a result, in the Himalaya and Karakoram regions, men take a stem of sweet smelling jujube flowers with them or put it on their hats to attract the opposite gender."

Bitter Gourd: The Bitter Gourd is essentially a regular Gourd, embittered after years of mistreatment and exploitation. Chemicals from the unusual skin of the Bitter Gourd were used by the KGB to poison the Ukranian opposition leader Victor Yuschenko in 2004.

Dragon Fruit: This fruit's ability to breathe fire and demolish entire buildings with a single sweep of its powerful claws means it must be transported and sold in a sraitjacket-style protetive suit, and only women with well balanced knives and blessed mithreal armour dare attempt to peel and devour them.

Sandmonkey gets offered a swish Dubai job, and anguishes between the frustrating stagnation of Cairo or the souless materialism of the UAE:

As frustrating as Egypt is, there are still things to fight for here, even if the majority of those who usually fight are battle-weary. There is nothing but potential here. So much work to be done. So many wrongs to fix. So many battles to fight. Loving Dubai is about convenience, loving Egypt is about passion. And it's worth it, even if it takes that love you give it and punishes you for it....

Loving Egypt makes no sense and perfect sense at the same time, and yet you don't care that you are living a contradiction. At least it makes you feel something. Take it from a so-called human rights activist in an oppressive autocratic police-state: there isn't a better feeling in the world than the one you get when you win a battle you fought for, no matter how small or immediately inconsequential your victory is. There is simply nothing like it. Now, remind me again: What is there to fight for in Dubai? A bigger Bonus? Thanks but no Thanks. I like my victories to actually mean something.

I went through a pretty similar thought process when pondering the move to Abu Dhabi, although I guess it's a different set of questions needing to be answered as a Cairo-loving foreigner than it is when you are actually considering bailing on your own country (which I also did...)

Egypt is a daunting task for the optimist. It is so fucked into the ground that it will take a ton of work just to get it to a point comparable to somewhere like Libya or Tunisia. So on a small scale, individual action is practically meaningless, and unlikely to get much done. But in the big picture, it needs literally millions of passionate, talented people to fight for it and stay committed, even when all seems hopeless. Like he says, is a weird, tough contradiction.

And yet there are victories to be won - victories that mean something - in the UAE. If I had to put money on it, I'd bet a fairly open society will emerge somewhere in the Gulf sometime in the next half-century. Probably in the UAE, maybe Qatar and/or Bahrain. That is a big deal, and a good think to be part of even in the smallest of ways.

But of course Egypt matters more so than anywhere in the Gulf, especially if you are an Egyptian. It occupies a special place in both the fuzzy world of the subconcious - home of civilisation, centre of the Arab world etc - as well as an incredibly important place in the practical sense of how the Middle East will unfold in the next century.

I like to think that if I grew up an Egyptian, I'd be some kind of principled dissident, writing for an opposition newspaper or in jail for my blog. In reality, based on my track record, I'd be safe and sound in the Gulf, earning cash and doing something semi-meaningful.

All the smartest and sharpest Egyptian's I know are either already out of the country or thinking about it. Its this kind of tragic case of lots of individually rational decisions leading to a big picture disaster - a crumbling, decaying nation losing its best hope for change. Which is the story of plenty of countries around the world I suppose, but Egypt matters more than most.

The genius behind Ali G and Borat is working on a movie based on Bruno, his ludicrously camp gay Austrian character.

Judging by this story, it looks like the filming took him to Jerusalem, with predictably hectic results. Cant wait to see the movie...

RAMALLAH, West Bank // Not many people would confuse humus and Hamas. Even fewer, presumably, believe that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is one between Jews and Hindus.

Imagine then the confusion of two eminent political analysts, one Palestinian and one Israeli, during their session with an effete, leather-clad interviewer that was interrupted when, in his thick German accent, the man asked what humus had to do with the conflict other than being too high in cholesterol.... (The National)

I love this set of photos from the shooting of A Clockwork Orange, especially this one of Kubrick and Malcolm McDowell sharing a sinister looking moment together...