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Tuesday, September 27, 2005

GIT ex

Here we go then. Today was the first time I've visited the Gulf Information Technology Exhibition in four years. You'll be thrilled to know that I don't think I missed anything. But I had a right hard time getting in just to check. They are proudly proclaiming that this is their 25th year, but looking at the registration process you could be forgiven for thinking they'd never ever done it before. I arrived at 10.30 a.m., and the queues near the main entrance were very long indeed. I headed off to the registration areas that were as far away from the main entrance as possible.

When I got to the far end of the building I saw a pile of people in front of a desk manned by two ladies. I could not make any headway in this melee, so I slipped round the back of the desk and asked the lady for a form. She more or less told me to f@#k off back into the queue. That I did, but ten minutes later I was no further on, while a few dozen people with much pointier elbows than me had been seen to. I'm sorry, I just cannot do the marching obliviously to the front of the queue thing. I can't do the 'queue, what queue?' thing. And I certainly can't do the thing with the elbows.

I went round to the back of the desk again, and the woman once again told me to f@#k off. I was on the point of abandoning the whole business, really I was. I approached an official-type person for a little moan about the shambolic nature of it all. Somebody was passing by and gave me an invitation form. I should mention at this point that I have dozens of these invites from various companies. But I never realised how important these things could be, so they all went into the round file. Being given a freebie was slightly wonderful, all I had to do was tick a few boxes. And then get the witch to stamp it.

Gsaaah! Eventually I got to the front of the pile, and got my form stamped. Then I had to stand in a very long queue where operators retype the details from your form and print out your ID card. So I think it took less than an hour to get in. Is that a cause for celebration or what?