Roger Waters

The first album I was ever given was Dark Side of the Moon. Used to go to the local record shop in the arcade and ask Dougie (the nearest thing we had to a Rock Star - long blond hair and oversized aviator sunglasses even in winter) to play side one, track 3, over and over again. Last night I listened to it played live. And all the rest. Sang along with every song, remembered every word of the lyrics. All the Alan Parsons embelishments (of course I'm mad. I know I'm mad. I've been mad for fucking years..."). All in glorious quadraphonic surround sound.

Curiously, I first encountered Quad about the same time as I discovered Floyd. UK stereo equipment manufacturer Quad were touring a demonstration version of their new development 'Quadraphonics' as a sort of public entertainment/lecture, and held one such session in the local technical college. What was most impressive was not so much the music (which was indeed very impressive) but the atmospherics - imagine a large, low-ceilinged room, completely utilitarian space, set with school chairs and hung with institutional drapes, utterly functional and inert. Now close your eyes, and listen. Around you, behind you, far away from you, you can hear the coughs and small sounds of a congregation taking their pews in a vast medieaval cathedral, echoing and stone-built, where every sound lingers and resonates in the ringing air. In front, the orchestra are settling into their spaces, adjusting music stands, plucking strings, clearing tubes.

And it was this, the spaces between the music, that showed the awesome power of Quad. That spare, square room was transformed, and I have been a hi-fi nut ever since. Needless to say, I rushed out and bought a quad-encoded copy of Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here (not sure now if it was SQ or QS encoded) to re-experience this audio frontier. And with the same sad inevitability of many great inventions, Quad-encoded albums became a small footnote in the history of recording almost immediately thereafter.

So the fact that Roger Waters brought Quad sound to Dubai for the first time last night added a certain personal frisson to the event. And he did not disappoint. Initially, the sound was rather quiet and restrained, perhaps deliberately so in the light of what was to come. First set was a mixture of seminal Floyd and independent Waters - most of my favourite tracks from Wish You Were Here, stuff I hadn't heard like 'Leaving Beirut', all carefully and respectfully played. And it just kept getting better.

Set two was Dark Side of the Moon, in full. Simply wonderful. All present and correct, with all the necessary noises off and subliminal sound effects. Plenty of sound and fury, pyrotechnics and crashing jets, bubble lamps and dry ice. Never imagined that I would ever have the opportunity to see it performed live, yet here it was in all its glory. Last night I was a teenager again, standing in that record shop, with the volume control turned up to 11...

How green was my valley?

Took some UK visitors up to Hatta Pools to show them some desert, and ended up going rather further afield than intended.
'Our' picnic spot, a secluded little canyon branching off the main road beyond the pools, was occupied, so we carried on hoping to find an alternative. After some fairly challenging ascents and fords we arrived at a village called Ray, the furthest extent of previous expeditions. Still no suitable spot, so carried on into new territory. Eventually found a place we liked, sheltered enought to light the bbq, and mercifully unnoccupied. Lunch was duly had.

But then the decision - do we slog all the way back to Hatta over some fairly tough roads, or keep going and see if we can find the Al Ain road on the other side. Turned out we were almost three quarters of the way through the mountains, and only another 5kms or so would see us on flat and easier ground. On it was.

Adn then the magic happened. We had been pointing out to our guests just how green the desert has become following recent rains, but nothing could prepare us for the vista we encountered. We are now in Oman, heading North East along a broad valley, and the landscape is some of the most serene and beautiful wehave ever seen. And so green! Flowers everywhere, trees bursting with life, and the whole landscape carpeted with a sort of jade haze, absolutely stunningly beautiful. A low afternoon sun only heightened the effect, and drove along empty roads in slack-jawed awe. Definitely going back, with tent and camera. Soon!

Oh yes, they're the great Pretenders!

Irish Village, Friday night. Along with several thousand other aging rockers and hippies old enough to be yer mother, went to see Chrissie Hynde and the Pretenders. How cool were they!

Got right down to the front in a mostly very friendly crowd, full of high jinks and good spirits and mexican malt beverage, which one could consume out of real glass bottles - try doing that at a concert in the UK!

So we rocked the night away and sang along to all the songs we should have forgotten long ago... Best part? The band looked as if they were enjoying this night every bit as much as we were. Hamming it up, acting the moody bass player, rock chick, mad drummer and viruoso guitarist with polished affection and great humour. I'd love to know what the Pretenders made of Dubai, but Dubai sure loved the Pretenders. Next week, those hep cats Roger Waters and his band The Pink Floyd...

Ahh, the awesome power of blogging!

Wow. No sooner had I said that what I wanted to see was our wonderful Boys in Green taking action against the arrogant, selfish idiots for whom the rules of the road are a timewasting inconvenience, when Lo! They do it!

Last night, on the link road from Shk Zayed to Barsha/Jebel Ali Race Course/Greens, there was the usual three lane carpark. And the predictable parade of battered Sunnies and 3-digit Range Rovers whizzing past on the hard shoulder. Except last night for them it was a hard shoulder to cry on.

Must have been a dozen or more cars parked behind each other, their drivers variously remonstrating, pleading or attempting to wheedle their way forward. We all know how much more important than ours was their rush to be home, after all. That's why they were on the hard shoulder in the first place...

Anyway, good to see a sensible rule being politely but firmly enforced. Visible policing is surely a more effective deterrent than any number of scamera-generated fines.

And in the vanishingly small chance that Dubai's finest are, in fact, reading this, well done! Now perhaps you could do the same thing on the road down the side of the Greens in the morning...?

Why I love Dubai (II)...

Taxi drivers. How often have you read the letters in GN or 7Days from a bewildered but delighted passenger, who left a purse/bag/wallet/bottle of coke on the back seat of said taxi, and found it returned to them by an honest and selfless driver, sometimes even before they had noticed the loss?

Which is all well and good, until it happened to me. Managed to leave some rather expensive and important items in the boot of a late night taxi home, and forgot to remove them at our destination. Woke up thick-headed, and notice the gap where these things should be, and with a mounting sense of panic set about their recovery. After drawing frustrating Friday blanks all day (We have system. There's nothing we can do, call back tomorrow"), salvation came in the form of a note written by a neighbour. My driver had come back to my house only to find me out, had located a neighbour who spoke Pakistani and wrote English, and left me a number to call. I despair that, in the UK, I doubt any of this would have happened, and the last I would have seen of the case would be its description on an insurance claim.

But not. Step forward Khamizah Khan, driver of Arabian Taxi AT361, scion of the community, knight of the road, testament to the honesty and integrity of your family and the calibre of man to restore one's faith in humankind. You, sir, deserve all the praise, thanks and commendation it is possible to bestow.

Shokran gazillan, Khan, ma as salamah.

Why I hate Dubai...

Drivers. We have decent roads, mostly, though they are blighted by chaotic and incompetent planning.

A case in point. There was a smart new two-lane access road built to facililtate smooth progress from the Greens area to Sheikh Zayed Road, a very necessary alternative to the bombsite that is Interchange 5. All well and good. The morning rush generally ran smoothly and people got to school/office/shops with minimal delay.

Now, however, some numpty has decided that in order to build the Tecom Metro station, it is necessary to dig up half of this vital thoroughfare, and channel all of the traffic through a single narrow lane. The resulting jam is as frustrating as it is predictable. Worse, the signed and directed access from Interchange 5 that runs in front of Emirates Golf Club no longer has a separate junction with Shk Zayed Road, but all Dubai-bound traffic is directed to this same pinch-point. Result - every single vehicle - car, bus, lorry, tanker, taxi and van - every single one of them has to pass through the same place. No alternative. How long wil this madness last? Who knows - but the barriers and tiger tape have a worryingly permanent look to them.

There is a consequence of this ineptitude, which only serves to exacerbate an already tense situation, and that is the number of agressive, inconsiderate drivers for whom queueing is an inconvenience, and sod the rest of us. The number of cars undertaking along the hard shoulder beggars belief. Clearly, their need to get to work/school/shops is greater than the rest of us, and so the normal rules of driving and road manners no longer apply. They barge and shove to the head of the line, intimidate some law-abiding citizen into making way, and force their way in. For what? To be eight or nine cars further up the queue? To be thirty seconds further up the road - that's less time than you will wait at the first set of traffic lights you encounter! It is these people, arrogant, inconsiderate fools, the lot of them, who do most to damage the image of Dubai and reinforce its reputation for dangerous traffic.

Is there an answer? Yes. Education, and enforcement. As a nation, we should aspire to the highest standars of road safety and driving skill, not the lowest. It should be a matter of national pride, not shame. And for those unable or unwilling to conduct themselves within the rules, then what better than to delay them in their rush, a twenty minute talking to beside the road for all to see and enjoy as we make polite and steady progress on our way.

Why I love Dubai...

Where else, I wonder, would you turn up to collect a car and find a collection like this in the car park?




These are the new 'high performance' version of the Maclaren Mercedes SLR, and there were seven of them lined up. For a fashion show!

Mind you, only the night before I saw my first Bugatti Veyron, the world's most expensive car, parked outside Nando's chicken takeaway in the Greens...

Gotta love this place.