The National is really starting to hit its stride, and no more so than in this opus by our Delhi correspondent...
My nomination for best paragraphs of the month:
My nomination for best paragraphs of the month:
Shortly after the mines were opened to house the urban monkeys, villagers found themselves facing some 10 attacks per day. Their complaints eventually led to a tender from the government – a small cash dispensation allowing the villagers to rent a langur monkey.The fierce langur is routinely used at New Delhi residences and government buildings to scare off the smaller rhesus monkeys.But after nine months, the government tender expired, leaving residents to stave off their unruly neighbours with sticks and slingshots. The trouble with sticks, said Dhara Singh Oad, the village president – who bears monkey scars of his own – is that they only provoke monkeys to attack.
It has been long-running Village policy not to negotiate with Monkeys.
A day in the life of me at 27
5 Comments Published by Tom Gara on Friday, April 25 at Friday, April 25, 2008.
What happened on my 27th birthday:
- Wake up, eat bacon and eggs for breakfast. The first bacon and egg breakfast I've had since being home in Australia for Christmas, probably the third of fourth in the last 3 years. This was my birthday present to myself, the bacon bought specifically for this purpose a couple of days before.
- Go to work, find out, via furious phone call, that I had messed up some important details in a story published the day before.
- Spend next half an hour trying to work out how badly I had messed up, and contemplating fleeing to argentina and become a sandwich-maker.
- Conclude the mistake is survive-able, introspective freakout calms to a gentle humming feeling of bad
- Spend next hour putting the finishing touches on my favourite article written so far for The National, which came from one of the most interesting interviews I've ever done
- Make some phone calls and do some reading for another story that might turn out to be interesting
LUNCH - I cannot remember what I did for lunch, which means it was nothing interesting and I didn't leave the office.
- Find out the mistake was worse than I thought - bookmark jobsinsecludedargentinianvillages.com, begin the freakout.
- Relegate the freakout to background mode, there's work to be done. Start working on the story that turns out to be interesting enough to make something good out of. Do a couple of phone interviews, background reading, get writing.
- Realise the mistake isn't as bad as I thought, again, power-man of the company concerned is going to call me at 7pm to clear things up. 7pm becomes important emotional/spiritual checkpoint in my life.
- Finish the story - its good, but not revolutionary, like 99% of everything I will ever write, and I mean that in a good way...
- Check my gmail account. 45 people have sent me birthday greetings on facebook. No time to even think about reading them.
- Remember that its my birthday, reflect briefly on whether this is a good or bad typical day to commit to memory as a transition to adulthood style birthday day.
- Get working on transcribing a long interview that will hopefully be used in a story soon.
- Set 5:30 as finish time - need to be in Dubai, 140 kilometres away, for a dinner at 7:30.
- Oh yeah, the dinner. I am going to a dinner that night with a bunch of CIO's from the biggest companies in the UAE. Its a work thing, but it is at one of Dubai's best restaurants, so its not the worst way to spend your birthday night.
- Leave the office at 5:30, got to go home, put on a suit, freshen up, then haul ass to Dubai.
- Leave my house by quarter to six. Begin hauling ass to Dubai, emotionally preparing for the potentially furious power-man phone call that I will have to pull over the to side of the road and take, and potentially get my ass kicked during, at 7pm.
- Mind racing in anticipation of phone call and interesting dinner approaching, fail to make a crucially important turn-off . Realise a little later than I am going in the wrong direction, try to correct it by turning onto an even wrong-er road.
- Start to freak out as the road becomes a lonely desert freeway filled with trucks and dilapidated buildings: this isn't what the road to Dubai looks like at all....
- At 6:30, realise I am on the road to a place called Sweihan. Where the fuck is Sweihan? Salvation comes in to form of my iPhone and mobile internet - google for "Sweihan", first link advertises "The UAE's largest poultry farm". That doesn't sound like anything near Dubai...
- Use google maps on the iPhone to work out where the hell I am, Sweihan is on the way to Oman. I can get back on the right path by taking a detour through an ominous sounding place called "Zayed Military City"
- Sun going down, sky darkening, road becoming ambiguous, midst of detour, 7pm, lost. Phone rings. Ahhh Jesus, could the intense phone call come at a worse time?. Answer, turns out its somebody else, crisis temporarily avoided.
- Get back on the right road. 75 kilometres between me and my destination. Half an hour before the dinner starts. Call the guy and apologise, say I might be a little late. No worries.
- The 10-lane highway to Dubai rolls out comfortably before me, the getting lost crisis is averted. Phone starts ringing, here we go! Answer, the guy is in a meeting running overtime, can we do the call tomorrow? No problems with me. Crisis number two averted.
- Make it to the dinner, fifteen minutes late, which is 20 minutes early on Middle Eastern time. But this is a dinner full of Chief Information Officers, IT people, technical folk. Everything started bang on time, but no worries. Sit down and all is fine.
- A fantabulous dinner, complemented by high-end power-talk that I absolutely cannot write about here or anywhere else, commences. Frothy white tomato soup, horseradish foam accompanying little delicious things - I have no idea what they were. It keeps going, mixture of modern "molecular" style cuisine and traditional British, which I understand the chef Gary Rhodes is famous for. Wonderful, wonderful meal. Highlight for me was the plate of little miniture scones, accompanied by clotted cream and fresh berry preserve, that came right at the end of the meal. Best scones I have ever eaten. Scones!
- Post meal conversation covers a number of fascinating things that I absolutely can't write about. Interesting things are happening in the UAE, thats for sure, and technology people are right in the middle of it. Get leads for at least a dozen excellent stories to be written in the next couple of weeks.
- Leave at midnight, contented, full, filled with the joy of being in a time and place like no other, but then aren't we all? The valet parking guy brings me my car, I tip him far more than I should, but hey, I just had one of the best meals of my life and didn't pay a cent for it, someone should get a little somethin' somethin'
- Midnight, start hauling ass back to Abu Dhabi. The roads are clear and empty, I'll be home in an hour and a bit. Is this what adulthood is like? Busy, complicated, stressful, rewarding, filled with pleasures and opportunites and risks and an ever expanding world unfolding around you. Being a grownup is awesome.
- Wake up, eat bacon and eggs for breakfast. The first bacon and egg breakfast I've had since being home in Australia for Christmas, probably the third of fourth in the last 3 years. This was my birthday present to myself, the bacon bought specifically for this purpose a couple of days before.
- Go to work, find out, via furious phone call, that I had messed up some important details in a story published the day before.
- Spend next half an hour trying to work out how badly I had messed up, and contemplating fleeing to argentina and become a sandwich-maker.
- Conclude the mistake is survive-able, introspective freakout calms to a gentle humming feeling of bad
- Spend next hour putting the finishing touches on my favourite article written so far for The National, which came from one of the most interesting interviews I've ever done
- Make some phone calls and do some reading for another story that might turn out to be interesting
LUNCH - I cannot remember what I did for lunch, which means it was nothing interesting and I didn't leave the office.
- Find out the mistake was worse than I thought - bookmark jobsinsecludedargentinianvillages.com, begin the freakout.
- Relegate the freakout to background mode, there's work to be done. Start working on the story that turns out to be interesting enough to make something good out of. Do a couple of phone interviews, background reading, get writing.
- Realise the mistake isn't as bad as I thought, again, power-man of the company concerned is going to call me at 7pm to clear things up. 7pm becomes important emotional/spiritual checkpoint in my life.
- Finish the story - its good, but not revolutionary, like 99% of everything I will ever write, and I mean that in a good way...
- Check my gmail account. 45 people have sent me birthday greetings on facebook. No time to even think about reading them.
- Remember that its my birthday, reflect briefly on whether this is a good or bad typical day to commit to memory as a transition to adulthood style birthday day.
- Get working on transcribing a long interview that will hopefully be used in a story soon.
- Set 5:30 as finish time - need to be in Dubai, 140 kilometres away, for a dinner at 7:30.
- Oh yeah, the dinner. I am going to a dinner that night with a bunch of CIO's from the biggest companies in the UAE. Its a work thing, but it is at one of Dubai's best restaurants, so its not the worst way to spend your birthday night.
- Leave the office at 5:30, got to go home, put on a suit, freshen up, then haul ass to Dubai.
- Leave my house by quarter to six. Begin hauling ass to Dubai, emotionally preparing for the potentially furious power-man phone call that I will have to pull over the to side of the road and take, and potentially get my ass kicked during, at 7pm.
- Mind racing in anticipation of phone call and interesting dinner approaching, fail to make a crucially important turn-off . Realise a little later than I am going in the wrong direction, try to correct it by turning onto an even wrong-er road.
- Start to freak out as the road becomes a lonely desert freeway filled with trucks and dilapidated buildings: this isn't what the road to Dubai looks like at all....
- At 6:30, realise I am on the road to a place called Sweihan. Where the fuck is Sweihan? Salvation comes in to form of my iPhone and mobile internet - google for "Sweihan", first link advertises "The UAE's largest poultry farm". That doesn't sound like anything near Dubai...
- Use google maps on the iPhone to work out where the hell I am, Sweihan is on the way to Oman. I can get back on the right path by taking a detour through an ominous sounding place called "Zayed Military City"
- Sun going down, sky darkening, road becoming ambiguous, midst of detour, 7pm, lost. Phone rings. Ahhh Jesus, could the intense phone call come at a worse time?. Answer, turns out its somebody else, crisis temporarily avoided.
- Get back on the right road. 75 kilometres between me and my destination. Half an hour before the dinner starts. Call the guy and apologise, say I might be a little late. No worries.
- The 10-lane highway to Dubai rolls out comfortably before me, the getting lost crisis is averted. Phone starts ringing, here we go! Answer, the guy is in a meeting running overtime, can we do the call tomorrow? No problems with me. Crisis number two averted.
- Make it to the dinner, fifteen minutes late, which is 20 minutes early on Middle Eastern time. But this is a dinner full of Chief Information Officers, IT people, technical folk. Everything started bang on time, but no worries. Sit down and all is fine.
- A fantabulous dinner, complemented by high-end power-talk that I absolutely cannot write about here or anywhere else, commences. Frothy white tomato soup, horseradish foam accompanying little delicious things - I have no idea what they were. It keeps going, mixture of modern "molecular" style cuisine and traditional British, which I understand the chef Gary Rhodes is famous for. Wonderful, wonderful meal. Highlight for me was the plate of little miniture scones, accompanied by clotted cream and fresh berry preserve, that came right at the end of the meal. Best scones I have ever eaten. Scones!
- Post meal conversation covers a number of fascinating things that I absolutely can't write about. Interesting things are happening in the UAE, thats for sure, and technology people are right in the middle of it. Get leads for at least a dozen excellent stories to be written in the next couple of weeks.
- Leave at midnight, contented, full, filled with the joy of being in a time and place like no other, but then aren't we all? The valet parking guy brings me my car, I tip him far more than I should, but hey, I just had one of the best meals of my life and didn't pay a cent for it, someone should get a little somethin' somethin'
- Midnight, start hauling ass back to Abu Dhabi. The roads are clear and empty, I'll be home in an hour and a bit. Is this what adulthood is like? Busy, complicated, stressful, rewarding, filled with pleasures and opportunites and risks and an ever expanding world unfolding around you. Being a grownup is awesome.
The National is alive!
5 Comments Published by Tom Gara on Thursday, April 17 at Thursday, April 17, 2008.
Check out the world's newest newspaper at www.thenational.ae
We closed the first edition last night. It has been an incredible couple of months, and felt great to finally hold a lovely looking broadsheet newspaper in our hands this morning.
I have a couple of stories in the business section today - "UAE is the Spam Capital of the Gulf," "Etisalat Tops Saudi Telecom," and "Muxlim.com Named 'Most Promising'"
Will have some interesting stuff up over the next few days, so bookmark The National and drop by when you can....
We closed the first edition last night. It has been an incredible couple of months, and felt great to finally hold a lovely looking broadsheet newspaper in our hands this morning.
I have a couple of stories in the business section today - "UAE is the Spam Capital of the Gulf," "Etisalat Tops Saudi Telecom," and "Muxlim.com Named 'Most Promising'"
Will have some interesting stuff up over the next few days, so bookmark The National and drop by when you can....
The Righteous
Shall flourish
Like a palm tree
And grow
Like a cedar
In Lebanon
Psalm 92:12
Byblos was righteous, beautiful, ancient, undescribably stylish and totally wonderful. A full album of pics will come soon, but as a taster:
Shall flourish
Like a palm tree
And grow
Like a cedar
In Lebanon
Psalm 92:12
Byblos was righteous, beautiful, ancient, undescribably stylish and totally wonderful. A full album of pics will come soon, but as a taster:
A view over the old city from the even-older city...
This is what a harbour looked like 2000 years ago, and I wish it was what harbours still looked like today....
The swimming pool on the edge of our hotel room, at night.
The Byblos Old Souk at nighttime
Unfortunately for Byblos, it was not the prettiest thing I saw all weekend - and the competition wasn't even close.....
Best video I've seen in months...
0 Comments Published by Tom Gara on Wednesday, April 9 at Wednesday, April 09, 2008.
From the righteously raised-fists-to-the-air blog Arabawy, what's not to love about this video of protesters in Mahalla tearing down a billboard of Hosni Mubarak and giving it a furious stamping? It made my day. Kinda like that video of Saddam's statue coming down, except it isn't a bullshit stage-managed photo op and theres no American flag being thrown over Mubarak's face, just a lot of angry Egyptian feet....
