Cencussed

Or Tedadded if you prefer the local name for the UAE's census. There's been a fair amount of criticism of the way this is being carried out, and now I know why. The census guy came at 7.30 last night.

I thought censi (made-up word) were supposed to be anonymous, but the guy wanted the names of all residents in the apartment. He attempted to translate them into Arabic - it tickled me that he wanted to use the Arabic format for BetterArf, as in 'BetterArf bint HerDadsFamilyName' - if they do have any dodgy motives behing wanting peoples' names they will never find that name on any official document. They want to know who you work for, what you do and your nationality (not your religion, oddly). How many cars and computers you own, and how much rent you pay for your accommodation. Not too intrusive, but all of this stuff (apart from how many computers you have) can be easily collected from other sources.

Very strange.