Saudi Arabia – C‘mon Guys, Sort Yourselves Out

One of the wives of a Crown Prince in Saudi Arabia, presumably she’s a Princess, has been complaining recently that women should be allowed to drive cars in that middle eastern kingdom. She made the point that whilst they are allowed to drive when not in their own country, in their own ‘back yard’, driving is a male ‘thing’ and women should have chauffeurs. The article went on to state that although a Saudi woman could actually pilot a plane, she would have to be transported to the airport by a male! 

It had completely escaped me that women are not allowed to drive over there. Of course there are many other things they are not allowed to do, but of course the driving ban is one of the less onerous aspects of female discrimination in that country which, in my opinion, needs to drag itself into the 21^st century – I mean how much longer are they going to hang onto those bits of Sharia law which suit them, and which the Princes ignore when they want to indulge in a good old bit of western hedonism?

Some statistics – women make up 70% of those enrolled at university in Saudi Arabia (presumably because they’ve nothing else to do to occupy themselves) but only make up 5% of the working population. A women’s testimony in a court of law is regarded almost as an opinion whereas a male’s testimony is regarded as fact. Law states that women are forgetful, therefore their testimony cannot be relied upon. As they do not participate in public life they cannot really observe anything, or if they do observe something, they cannot understand what they are seeing. I could go on about this particular subject but it’s so ridiculous that I would bring my blog into disrepute!

Even in their own homes, the males and females have separate entrances, and when a woman wants a hotel room, the authorities have to be informed about her stay. Hands and feet are regularly chopped off for mundane criminal activities and of course, heads are no more respected, with regular public decapitations for the more serious crimes. It's obviously not a coincidence then that the country's coat of arms (picture above) features two swords?

Recently a woman was sentenced to 200 lashes for being gang raped. Yup – she was the one who was attacked and traumatised beyond comprehension but because she had been seen in a car, prior to the attack, with a man who was not her husband, the rapists escaped but she was sentenced to 200 lashes. Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable.

Then we have the Princes and the businessmen who conduct themselves as if there are no morals on earth, at all. I know from reputable sources about the Arab yacht owners who fly in a brood, gaggle, or whatever the term is for a group of prostitutes. They are flown, first class, usually from London, to the port where the yacht is berthed (usually somewhere in the Med) and then the ‘fun’ starts. That’s the Friday. On the Saturday they are flown back and a new ‘group’ arrives for that evening!

And as for business, nothing happens without a few million handed over to the Princes who own most of the businesses in the kingdom (I refuse to use a capital ‘K’). I know this from my previous employer where my director had to ‘cow-tow’ to the Prince in charge of telecommunications just to be allowed to bid for a project – not win it – just bid for it!

The ongoing case where British Aerospace (BAE as it’s now called) reportedly handed over hundreds of millions of dollars to the Princes to win a major arms contracts, is still making the news. The Americans are now involved and are investigating the company for bribery. There was no denial that the money was paid. Apparently the contract allowed for a ‘couple of hundred million for consultancy fees’. Who was the consultant – one of the Princes of course!

I love this dissident statement on the web about BAE and the House of Saud, as the ruling family are called ……..BAE Systems is dedicated to producing innovative and high-specification ways of killing and maiming people. Satisfied BAE customers include Saddam Hussein in Iraq, General Pinochet in Chile, and the House of Saud. Are you a feudal Middle Eastern dictatorship that tortures your political opponents - and innocent British citizens? BAE Systems says: No problem! We just want your cash.    

I love it.

And why does the western world put up with this crap? Because the Saudis have all the oil.

 

La Poste – And The Case of The 'Cheap' Earings

I’ve featured our antiquated village post office (La Poste) a few times in my blog, invariably whining on about the interminable queues, the old Frenchies who want to tell the solitary counter girl about their sister’s bunion, and the fact that La Poste frequently seems to close at will, meaning a 5 mile trip to the nearest town to buy a stamp. But ever eager to use the tons of initiative that somebody gave me at birth, I’ve devised a strategy to eliminate some of these problems.

I now buy my stamps online. You pay exactly the same rate per stamp and, get this, they don’t charge you for posting them back to you, and you can choose your design from the myriad of different stamps they have on offer.  You can take your time and ponder over whether to take a strip of stamps showing the Eiffel Tower or a herd of Charolais cattle without making an enemy of everybody in Tourrettes. And when you buy your stamps online you can even upload a photo and have that put on your stamp. This has the danger of being embarrassing however, as anybody, anywhere can use a picture of you without your knowledge and have it printed onto hundreds of stamps, the whole thing smacks of civil liberties. Just imagine getting a letter in the post with a stamp which has your missus snogging good old Francois in the local bar on it. Or a stamp with one of those intimate little snaps of our loved ones we now take with our mobile phones – J – don’t you dare!!!!

Another plank of my strategy is to try and get to La Poste just before noon as everything stops in France at that time for the normal 2 hour lunch. People desert the streets in droves and the queues in La Poste mysteriously disappear.

Or go when it’s raining, as nobody wants to queue in the rain – our Post Office only holds about 6 people and sometimes the queue snakes out of the door and down the lane.

Finally, if there’s anything remotely non-standard about my errand, I give the village a wide berth and head direct to Vence, our local town, where they have a proper La Poste, complete with seven counters and, of all things, a queueing system, which for some perverse reason, the French actually comply with. They don’t normally queue for anything else!     

It was on just such a ‘non-standard’ errand that I had desperately wished that my French had been better but afterwards, I was almost as convulsed with laughter as those Frenchies who were standing behind me in the queue.

You see, J had bought some earrings in the UK (in John Lewis I think) but when she opened them up after unpacking, one of them had broken. I would normally have just accepted this little setback and got on with life, but J, like Shadow with a meaty bone from Eds which he refuses to give up, called J Lewis and accepted their offer which was to send the broken earrings back and they would replace them.

I was therefore dispatched to La Poste to send the earrings back by registered post, but given the highly labour intensive operation this would have caused in the village, I headed straight to Vence.

The queue was quite impressive but dividing the estimated number of people by the seven counters and multiplying by the average 3 minutes taken to serve each person, told me that I would only be there for about 30 minutes!  It’s great to have a brain!

Eventually, I got to the counter. I noticed that the woman serving me reminded me of that character Molly Sugden played in that classic comedy programme, ‘Are You Free?’. Mrs Slocombe – that’s her.

I said I wanted a Lettre Recommandée. Here follows the conversation……

Where is the letter going to?

England.

OK - Are the contents valuable?

Yes.

What is it?

Earrings.

Earrings?

Yes – earrings.

Can I see them?

(I handed them through the gap. I hadn’t actually sealed the envelope just in case).

Ha – these are not valuable. (holding them up and inspecting them).

Yes they are? They’re very expensive – why else would I be sending them by registered post? 

Hey Juliet (handing them to the girl at the next counter) – do you think these earrings look expensive?

(Juliet holds them up, places them against her ears, takes a compact mirror out of her handbag and says).. Nah – these are cheap earrings. Did he buy them as a present for her?

Were they a present?

No. She bought them herself in England so they must be expensive. Anyway, why does it matter?

Because if they were expensive you would need insurance, but as they’re cheap earrings, you won’t need to bother.

How much is the insurance?

Depends on how much the earrings were.

What’s the starting price for insurance?

(By now, people in the queue had stopped bothering about when they would get served and were listening en masse to my discussion with Mrs Slocombe).

Insurance starts at €10.

Don’t bother. Just send them without it.

OK – (weighing the package ) that’ll be €8…..about £7.

When I got home I relayed my little story to J who said …….. oh you shouldn’t have bothered then – they only cost £4 !!!!!

Link to Mrs Slocombe on You Tube .......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unmkX15AeN8 

What Footballers Have To Put Up With

Not a week passes without a footballer, or three, appearing in the news after an altercation in a night club, on the seamier side of some town or other. This week it is Micah Richards of Manchester City (pictured) who is in the news, and it’s not for the first time either. Last week it was a young up-and-coming star from Rangers who found himself in a bit of bother in a night club. A couple of weeks ago it was Steven Gerrard of Liverpool. A month or so ago, it was Neil Lennon, the Celtic assistant manager who was beaten up in Glasgow by two toe-rags who are now in prison and rightfully so.

So who would have thought they would have found the v-neck pullovered Gerrard in a sleazy bar on the outskirts of Liverpool at 2am? And why did Neil Lennon give the ‘middle finger’ to two obviously troublemaking Rangers fans when he knew there’d be a bit of bother and why was he out of his own house on a Monday afternoon? And what was Micah Richards doing enjoying himself in Hale, Manchester, on Xmas Eve anyway? He’s unmarried and earns £50,000 a week. He should have been at home with his mum!

But why should he? Why should Neil Lennon, a guy who admittedly could start a fight in an empty house, not be allowed to walk the streets of Glasgow or drive his car in the City without getting some aggro?

I know their managers would dearly love to see these guys wrapped up at home on the sofa watching telly with the wife and kids, but footballers have a life too. You are 20 years old and good looking. You earn a fortune and drive a Lamborghini. The girls fall over you when you hit a night club. Which young footballer in their right mind is going to stay at home watching Coronation Street when you can pick any one of a dozen blonde, heel-tottering, bare-midriffed wag-wannabees in your Ferrari at the local night spot?

The problem generally, is jealousy. In Glasgow it’s religion but that’s another story in it’s own right. So Micah Richards is in a nightclub having a good time with his mates. He’s parked his Bugatti Veyron outside the club and the girls are swooning round him. After all, they’ve already read about his sexual prowess in the papers a couple of years ago. He’s splashing the cash and generally having a good time. Like all guys he has to go to the toilet. In there, some geezer, who is on the dole and only getting a couple of hundred a week in benefits, looks at him having a pee and laughs and then it all starts. He should walk away (after doing up his zip) but they never do? It's a 'man thing'.

I know from my own experience what these guys have to put up with. A few years back in BT, we took a couple of really senior bankers to Wembley for an England v Scotland game. We’d paid an absolute fortune for the tickets which included pre and post-match hospitality. We arrived at the stadium and found to our horror that the tickets were for the England end (we were all Scots). No problem we thought – Scotland never score so there’ll be no real issues. Fortunately, or unfortunately, Scotland did score – the only goal of the game – and the four of us erupted in joyous, and totally unexpected celebration. Within seconds we were surrounded by a seething, snarling mass of West Ham (English) supporters who made it quite clear that they were going to tear us limb from limb. The police stepped in and removed us from the stadium for our ‘own good’ and off we went to the post-match dinner, albeit 45 minutes early. Well, there was nothing to do there except drink the unlimited and ‘free’ booze on offer whilst watching the remainder of the game on telly. When the game ended and the hospitality crowd arrived they were accompanied by a couple of really famous players who had graced Ibrox Stadium, where my team, Rangers, play.

I went straight up to them and made it quite clear, in my rather inebriated state, that they were my absolute heroes. After about 10 minutes of over-the-top adoration on my part, they were clearly getting bored and made it known that the ‘conversation’ was over but still I persisted. After another 5 minutes of glorification they were on the point of having me removed and dealt with when I was ‘rescued’ by a colleague.

You see it happens all very easily. A drop of booze, a famous face, a wrong word……      

 

 

Like Father, Like Son

I was a corporate animal. I had the laptop, the latest mobile phone, the expense account and thousands of Air Miles as well as hundreds of thousands of hotel points. I had the freedom to travel virtually anywhere I thought there was business, and wherever I went I had the ability to communicate with the office, hold conference calls and access the internet wirelessly. I also had my Blackberry.

For those who don’t know what a Blackberry is and I can’t imagine too many people don’t, it’s a combined mobile phone and e-mail device which also allows you to browse the internet. I believe the new versions also have some fancy applications on them which handle spreadsheets and documents. When it first came out it virtually changed my working life. No longer did I need to find a BT office or an internet connection when I was travelling. I could pick up my e-mail and reply on the move, even doing some research on the internet to include in my replies if I needed to impress. I didn’t need to get up at midnight when I was working from home on US deals to check for important e-mails, I could actually do that in bed, without disturbing J too much.

Such was my reliance on this device that I definitely became a ‘Crackberry’ – someone who is hooked on their beloved device. It went with me everywhere, even on holiday. My kids thought it had been surgically attached to my right hand.

So, it was with horror that I read the other day that they are now producing and selling ‘Baby Blackberrys’. These are not smaller devices for the corporate vertically challenged or for the female executive who wants a mini device for her handbag. Oh no. The Baby Blackberry is for toddlers. It’s so that the baby of the family can sit at the dinner table at night and act just like dad, typing away and then throwing it in the corner in anger when the mobile signal disappears.

The serious side of this marketing ploy and the rationale behind the ‘toy’ is that it’s supposed to make infants familiar with letters, the alphabet and ultimately words and sentences. It can also do some elementary arithmetic – just like the real thing. Fortunately, it does not handle e-mail or have access to the internet, but I reckon that’s only a matter of time.

I can see it now. Daddy and infant exchanging e-mails about the rather ordinary dinner mother has served up that night. Infant sending dad, who is in New York on a business trip, an e-mail stating that ‘Uncle Bill’ has now stayed at the house for the last 3 nights. Or that mummy has been shopping constantly at that place called Tuppeny or Tiffany or something.

Forecasters Are Useless – Satellites Don’t Lie

Now, before you think I’m a proper anorak, it is important to understand the weather down here. It’s important for me to know if it’s likely to rain in the morning because that determines whether I use the car or the scooter to take the kids to the school bus. It also helps us make sure Guy and Kitty are dressed appropriately as they’d both go off to school in t-shirts if we did not watch them, and the probable weather, like hawks.

Planning ahead for the skiing is also imperative. If we know there’s a sunny day coming along we can rearrange anything we’ve got planned and be ready to head up to the slopes the morning the sun is shining.

Virtually everybody I phone in the UK asks about the weather within a minute of the call starting so if I say it’s raining, it’s nice to be able to say that the following day will be really sunny. They expect it to be sunny down here so by confirming their expectations, it makes them feel better.

And finally, and something really mundane, it’s nice to know when my soaking wet wood can be dried out for the fire. Burning wet logs which smoke like a kipper-house doesn’t really add to the ambience of the lounge!

So, given all these imperatives, looking at the weather forecast is quite important for us, hence why we have the local weather forecast as one of our top-ten bookmarks on the internet. We don’t have French TV so the internet is our only recourse.

Unfortunately, the Yahoo site which provides the local weather can change, seemingly at will. Look at it in the morning and it will say that we’ve got a high of 59 and sun for the following day. Great – a possibility of skiing or a nice lunch out. Then we check it in the evening and hey presto – it’s forecasting rain for the next day!

So recently, and given I’ve not been able to do much because of the endless rain, I’ve been looking for a new site and I’ve got one. It’s a satellite picture of various parts of the world showing the incoming weather days ahead, and over the last week or so I reckon I’ve become a bit of an expert. By zeroing in on the Med area, I can see low-pressure squalls coming in. I can differentiate between snow and showers. I can see stormy, windy weather approaching. The problem is that as we’ve not had any real sunshine since I found the site, I’ve not been able to see what that looks like on the weather map – probably nothing – just a clear patch. I think there’s one coming in March looking at the map !!!

So, I feel a new career coming on. A local weather forecaster providing detailed weather to all the ex-pats who need to dry their logs out. Watch this space.

By the way – here’s the site.

 http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/satpics/latest_IR.html