Nuclear UAE

Yikes, they're doing it! This is wrong on so many levels. The money spent building a nuclear power station would be better used in developing solar power. The risk of terrorist attack is high, but the risk of another Chernobyl or Three Mile Island catastrophe is greater (based on past experience of how the power sector in the UAE has performed). It's just too scary for words: I wonder which Northern Emirate will be lucky enough to play host to this baby.

Story here.

DEWA Sent Me An Email

...about the impending closure of Al Safia Service Centre. At dirst I misread this as Al Safa, which used to be my lifeline whenever they cut me off because I'd forgotten to pay them. But then I read further on in the email that the closest alternatives are Al Twar and Burj Nahar. I could be giving DEWA the benefit of the doubt here, because they never did believe people lived on the Dubai side of the Creek - that's where the power stations are.

Whatever. I was deeply amused by the footer of the message, which I reproduce here for your entertainment:

Our Vision: A recognized World-Class Utility
Our Mission: Meeting customer satisfaction and promoting Dubai’s vision through delivering water & electricity services by a competent workforce at world-class level of reliability, efficiency, safety and environment, supporting Resources Sustainability.

They still haven't returned my deposit.

Official: DXB, AUD Getting More Expensive

A survey out today shows that Tokyo is now the world's most expensive city for an expat to live (it was number 2 last year). London has dropped from last year's 3rd to this year's 16th.

Of particular interest to me (this year's rank first, last year's in brackets):
20 (52) Dubai
26 (65) Abu Dhabi
37 (28) Madrid
38 (31) Barcelona

Full story here.

Kosher Paella

I made a paella tonight, and Googled 'paella recipes' to check a few things. I stumbled upon a recipre that totally blew me away. The list of ingredients mentioned 'kosher salt and pepper'. A few items later, it mentions 'Chorizo.' Now, as far as I know, kosher-ness means no pork. And chorizo is a red sausage made almost entirely from pork.

Confused, I was. So I Wikipedia'ed the hell out of the subject. It seems the term 'kosher salt' is used more or less exclusively in the USA to refer to coarse-grained sea-salt, because it can draw more blood out of meat than common-or-garden salt. (Might write a book sometime about a Jewish vampire). So the kosherosity or not is a complete misnomer.

Just sayin'.

Here's the recipe, obviously by someone who has never been close to the real thing.

Snow Modhesh

We had a load of snow in Madrid a few days ago. Imagine our surprise when we went to the park and found lots of snowmen and a snow Modhesh.



The little sod gets everywhere, and I swear I did not make this snow-worm.

Spaced Out

Look. You know about this Authonomy website for aspiring writers, yes? I'm on it, and so is Alexander McNabb, Mr Fake Plastic Souks. He's a great writer, and he's got this really great, outrageously funny book called Space. For the last two or three weeks it has been in the Top 5 of the Editor's Desk. This means you get a proper review from a HarperCollins editor, and maybe even a publishing contract. But only if you're in the Top 5 at midnight tomorrow (31st Oct).

Here's the thing: Space has just slipped down to number 6. So, all you literaties, glitteraties and arty-farties, get along to Authonomy.com, and have a read. If you like it (and how could you not?),  do a very quick sign-up and put it on your bookshelf (the link that says 'Back The Book').

While you're at it, you could do the same thing for Tybalt & Theo, by a slightly more modest author.

Thank youse.

Me New Book

I mentioned Authonomy in my last post. A couple of weeks ago, I started a new novel, Tybalt & Theo. I've uploaded the first six chapters to Authonomy, and had loads of brilliant comments from members of the site. You can read the book sample and the comments here. But if you can't be bothered to do that, here's a selection of comments:

You're right. It's funny. It is very ,very funny indeed! It's a terrific idea but that doesn't matter doodlesquat if the writer louses it up which you certainly don't. 

- JAK

My comments are - eggy, eggy eggy! That means fantastic, by the way.

- Zoeb

Great start. Instantly reminded me of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and Blackadder, which is good on both accounts.

- The Real Nick

Thanks for making me laugh...It's a great farce...I can't fault it.

- Richard P-S

Laughing like a veritable drain and looking forward to more.

- Max Brandt

Now this, I loved... I adore the quick back-and-forth between Tybalt in the 21st century and Theo in the past...SO many gems, like "Crap, he hadn't got caught up in one of those time-travelling larks, had he?" and "...like it wasn't properly rotted," made me laugh out loud... This is one that I expect to see in print. Funny!

-Melissa Conway

I think you have a lovely feel for dialogue. Have you tried any scriptwriting, I wonder?

- DeniseJane

Overall, I really liked this. You've taken on a huge task with the seventeenth century dialogue, but my, it works. Love the plot, the situations the two protags find themselves in...Stuff that made me laugh out aloud:

"….Thee Papist bastards wilt have thy grunions around thy necke afore thee canst say--"

"In-vest-meant wanker…" 

Great fun and I'll be back for more.

- Diane Oliver

Great start in a style which lets readers know there's not likely to be much messing about. Great, mate, will add more as and when I get through a little more, cheers.

- Josh Rogan

...I chuckled my butt off consistently all the way through [to] chapter 6, not only is this entertaining, but I think it should prove popular too!). We zip along merrily from scene to scene, with just enough description given for the purposes of mockery, and just enough characterization for the same. 

I thought the fake, unbelievably agrammatical Elizabethan was very funny. I mean, you're not even TRYING to make it remotely real -- "drefs" is a purely VISUAL joke, not even an auditory one!

- Kate Kasserman

This is a very funny book. Trust me, I read it. Or most of it. I'll read the rest very soon. So original, Keef. And with a few prescient..or pressy ant.... lines...e.g. Investment banker...'No, what thou dost is steal from thee poor'... Bliss.

- Scott Kenny

Brilliant, sharp, witty, with a touch of Blackadder for those who like it.

- Maria Golubeva

I really like this one - being a history graduate I usually hate historical novels and especially anything where people try and use the speech of the time, but this is very funny, and the plot idea is particularly unusual.

- Sheila

Funny and witty in equal measure. Grunions, indeed!

- Peter Booth

 Love the fast pace and funny commentary/dialogue. An enjoyable read already in the first few paragraphs.

- Dave King

Hi Keef - this is great fun and I am going to bookshelf it. The premise is hilarious and I have to say the opening section is eeeeerily prescient, aside from being hilarious.

- Robin Duff

Okay, that was hilarious. You made me laugh more than once. Especially the part about forgetting to tell Theo his task. Elizabethan sarcasm is ten times funnier, for some reason.

I'm really intrigued at the hints that Theo may not be the only time-traveller in Elizabethan England (am I reading that right?). Nice, job Keefieboy. I wish I had it now, to find out Theo's role in the new Gunpowder Plot.

- S.F. Winser

This is a great idea. I loved the switches in time and Tybalt's introduction to (presumably) McDonald's. 

A brilliantly funny read.

- Berni Stevens

Authonomy

I was alerted to a new website yesterday: authonomy.com. It's run by publishers HarperCollins, and lets authors upload samples of their work and then suffer utter humiliation by being reviewed by other members of the site. Each month, the top five manuscripts are promised a perusal by HarperCollins editors. Cool idea, methinks.

I signed up yesterday and uploaded about 12,000 words of my book (10,000 is the minimum for you to have your work made public, but it's an achingly difficult process to upload the stuff - you have to make each chapter into a separate Word file, and the upload process frequently falls over for no apparent reason).

So get on over there and say nice things about my book.

One Year, Already

One year ago to the day, MamaDuck and I headed for Abu Dhabi Airport and left the Sandlands. We have not been back, and really have no intention of returning. There's not much we miss about the place - although I haven't had a decent curry since we left. We do miss our friends though.

All things considered, I think leaving was the best thing to do. I just wish we'd done it a few years sooner.

Worrying

When I lived in the UAE, my family and friends in Europe worried that
a) I wasn't getting enough beer and bacon
and
b) I might be blown up in a terrorist attack.

I repeatedly told them there was no cause for alarm - beer and bacon are readily available to non-Muslims (I think it's about time the UAE tourist authorities came out with a definitive statement, along the lines of 'this is not Saudi Arabia, you can get as much beer and bacon as you want!'), and the UAE has never suffered a succesful terrorist attack (although there have been at least two credible attempts that I know of).

I bring this up today because the British Foreign Office has raised it's terrorist threat level to 'as high as it can go'. Conspiracy theories abound as to why the UAE has been safe up until now; it's generally reckoned that the enemy are paid good hard cash to stay away. So why is it now thought there's a serious threat? Has the money dried up, or what?