The Gnomad

Two years on...

2011-10-16T05:13:00.000-07:00

Hababi is 25 months old today. She is a strong healthy little girl who her playgroup describe as having a "very strong character". Although Hababi is still very much the focus of the Gnomad's, and especially the Gnomadette's, time, it may be that the Gnomad might actually be getting enough of his life back to actually post occasionally now.

Two years have passed very quickly, but the Gnomad is still appalled at the level of personal taxation in the Mundane kingdom, the cost of every day living and the ludicrously high tax on fuel. The recent devaluation of the pound seems to have passed almost unnoticed, but the Pound sterling is now only worth two thirds of what it was on the foreign exchange markets when Gnomad returned to Mundania. The Gnomad's job is going well and has involved a recent promotion, the hours are long but the holidays are longer. The Gnomadette is learning to drive and is itching to get back to work. Hababi has been taken half way round the world and back to visit the her family in the Island Republic.

Intermittent posts may well resume...

Who's the Daddy?

2009-09-17T23:56:00.000-07:00

The Great Day has arrived! :)

On 16th September at 8.55pm BST, the Gnomads became parents for the first time. Hababi, a little girl, weighed in at 8 pounds and one half ounce. Hababi is strong, healthy and beautiful. The Gnomadette, after a serious complication, is now recovering and doing well.

There is much rejoicing in the Gnomad Habitat

The Great Day approaches

2009-09-16T04:39:00.000-07:00

The Gnomad is on a high state of alert, Gnomadette's waters have broken and labour has begun. The arrival of Hababi is imminent! :)

further encroachings of beigeness

2009-09-01T14:42:00.000-07:00

The Gnomads have been out buying soft furnishings and domestic paraphernalia such as scatter cushions and picture frames. The Gnomad habitat is becoming very much more "civilised" and, therefore, the Gnomad must be doing the same. Alas, Middle-Age beckons ever more strongly.

It appears that the imminent arrival of Hababi (due on the 22nd of this month) is causing a sudden rush of maturity to the Gnomad's psyche. At least these purchases were not pink.

A previous shopping expedition lasting a marathon 8 hours and causing the Gnomad's credit card to go into meltdown, saw the purchase of every imaginable item of baby related paraphernalia, almost all of it pink, all of it very cute indeed.

The Gnomad wonders if there is a critical mass of cuteness, and also what will happen when this is achieved, as it surely must be, in the next few weeks.

The sonographer had better be right in stating that Hababi is a girl.

A new habitat

2009-08-08T12:00:00.000-07:00

The Gnomads are now safely ensconced in their new habitat, 20 minutes away from a nice big town with all of the shopping malls and other facilities that the Gnomadette could possibly desire. The habitat is less than an hour from the capital, but sufficiently rural that there are frequently wild rabbits and occasionally wild deer in the garden.

The new habitat is more than twice the size of the previous one and so guests will be invited on a regular basis and, indeed, are welcome at any time with just a little warning. The only downside is that the cell phone and mobile internet coverage is practically non existent. Internet will be installed in a fortnight or so, until then the Gnomads will be somewhat incommunicado

Timpson

2009-08-08T11:58:00.000-07:00

Timpson has come good, we have had our ring repaired, and returned, our costs refunded and 20 UKP of gift vouchers to make up for the inconvenience.

Well done Timpson, and thank you.

Virgin on the ridiculous

2009-07-30T08:00:00.000-07:00

The Gnomad is singularly unimpressed with Virgin Media.

The internet connection to the Gnomad habitat keeps dropping out. At high usage times this can be as many as six to eight times an hour, for up to 2 minutes at a time. It is now necessary on almost an hourly basis to reset the modem and wireless router to regain the connection.

Emails have been exchanged between the Gnomad and Virgin Media Web Team (what they call their customer(don't)care line). Each email is met with a variation of the same response "try these diagnostics to establish what's wrong (with your computer)" with the implication that there is nothing wrong with the connection. At each stage the diagnostics are done, results returned, suggested remedies put in place, all to no effect. At various points Virgin Media have suggested, amongst other things;

Problems with compatibility of our OS and their network: the network has three different computers running different OS, so it can't be this.

Spyware and adware on the computers: the Gnomads habitually remove this on a daily basis so its very unlikely to be this.

Interference in the wireless connection: two of the computers are on the wireless connection but one is on an ethernet cable and all have the same problem, so its not this.

The Gnomads have done traceroutes, netstats, removed all adware, spyware (such as there was, since the Gnomads habitually run these clean-ups on a daily basis) run virus checkers, changed the wireless channels and many other fiddly little things that only change things on the Gnomad's side of the modem. All to no effect.

This has been going on since the beginning of May, and no improvement in service has been forthcoming. Virgin Media Web Team are no longer replying to the Gnomad's emails.

The Virgin Media service has now deteriorated so far it is as bad as they experienced in the Magic Kingdom and the Peninsular Gulf State. the Gnomad strongly suspects that the poor connection has the same cause as it did in the Middle East: too many subscribers for not enough bandwidth. the symptoms are exactly the same. Two weeks ago the Gnomads decided enough was enough and cancelled their subscription.

"We will send you a jiffy bag in which to return your set top box, modem and router" they said, "it will arrive next week." Having not received this mythical jiffy bag the Gnomad has called the customer (lack of) service line to be told, "well they usually arrive in 7 to 10 days so its on the way". the Gnomad pointed out that it had already been about 10 days. The help line helpfully suggested calling another telephone number for collections to arrange for them to pick up the set top box, modem and router. The Gnomad called the collection line. The bad=gs are on order they take about 14 days to arrive. So the ETA of the jiffy bags has gone from less than a week to 7 to 10 days to 14 days. The Gnomad pointed out that this would mean that the bags arrived after the Gnomads had left the property. Collection were only prepared to collect the items on the Saturday. The person at collection made it quite clear that he thought the Gnomad was being completely unreasonable not wanting to wait in all morning for the collection person to turn up on the day that the Gnomad was physically moving house. The "best" solution this person could come up with is as follows:

The collection department dispatch a new jiffy bag to the Gnomad's new address. The Gnomad has to take the set top box, modem and router with him when he moves house, wait on the arrival of the jiffy bags and take them to the post office for mailing once they arrive.

This is all very well but, with the best will in the world, there are risks involved in moving house, things can get damaged. The Gnomad's will of course take every care with the packing and transportation of Virgin Media's property, but will not accept any liability for any damage that might occur as a result of the move. Virgin media should have arranged for the collection of their property in a timely manner, since they have not, the Gnomad is doing more than he needs to in assisting in their safe return.

The persistently poor quality of the internet connection is irritating, all of the unnecessary faff of returning the hardware is really quite annoying, but the icing on the cake, and the real reason for the Gnomad's ire, is that the collection department person was downright rude. He continually interrupted what the Gnomad was saying to the point that the Gnomad had to specifically say "do not interrupt me while I am speaking" and "have the good manners to let me finish speaking" during the conversation.

Customer service involves listening to the customer, not speaking over them and trying to shout them down. What with this and the Grumpy Goat's (also on Blogspot) experiences with Virgin Airways, the Gnomads will not be using any of Mr Branson's services in future and will not be recommending them to anyone.

Carat and stick

2009-07-20T14:19:00.000-07:00

The Gnomad is somewhat grumpy at the moment. The Gnomads have tried to get the Gnomadettes wedding ring enlarged. A simple matter one would suppose. However, having taken the ring into a branch of Timpson (The Quality Service People)the attempted expansion has severely damaged the ring necessitating a potentially very expensive repair. Timpson is a company that deals with key cutting, shoe repairs, trophies engraving and jewellery repairs. Clearly the Gnomad regrets not going directly to a bona fide jeweller, but the manager in the branch was completely confident that the work could be undertaken successfully.

The Gnomad has written to Timpson's customer service department detailing the situation and requesting that Timpson arrange to have the ring repaired to make good their error.

When Timpson do respond, the Gnomad will post their response and leave you, dear reader, to decide how reputable a company they are and what their Quality Service actually amounts to.

Addition: 24th July 2009

Timpson has replied to the Gnomad's letter, edited highlights below:

"May I firstly apologise if we have in any way damaged your wife's ring

We would like the opportunity to have the ring repaired by our own jeweller (name supplied) and would be grateful if you could send the ring by Royal Mail Special Delivery to the address below, marked for my attention. I will of course reimburse your postage costs.

The ring will be repaired and returned to your home address as soon as possible..."

This seems pretty fair and reasonable as far as the Gnomad's are concerned. Any one can make a mistake, it is how the mistake is dealt with that allows you to judge a company. So far, top marks to Timpson customer care department.

The ring is being dispatched as requested this morning. The Gnomad will post again on the ring's return with a final verdict on Timpson.

Slowly turning beige

2009-07-12T04:58:00.000-07:00

The Gnomad's have recently purchased a new (well, new to them, anyway) car. It is a Honda jazz. The Gnomad misses his 4 litre Jeep Cherokee and his Landrover Discovery, both left in the Lands Of Sand. Whilst cars like those were entirely suitable for the Arabian Desert, they are completely unsuitable for life in the Mundane Kingdom, especially when one considers the price of petrol in Mundania is ten times more than the price in the Magic Kingdom.

Arrival in the UK after many years of absence meant that the Gnomads were not credit worthy anywhere, so the initial Gnomadmobile was what could be purchased cash in hand and was intended only as a temporary vehicle until a better could be obtained. Said vehicle, a very ordinary and somewhat tatty Vauxhall Corsa, did serve well enough but is too small and impractical for the impending arrival of the Hababi. New wheels had to be sought.

Given that The Gnomad is about to become a parent for the first time, the choice had to be a sensible one, based on practicality, economy and safety. In the words of Jeremy Clarkson of BBC's "Top Gear", it would have to be a car to announce to the world that the Gnomad "has fulfilled his biological function and is now slowly turning beige"

The Honda jazz turns out to be a very sensible, though not exciting choice. It drives well, the driving position is comfortable, the boot space is very large for a car its size and the back seats are cleverly designed to fold flat to make the boot enormous or to fold up so that there is a very tall luggage space behind the driver. there are all those little gadgets that make driving easier and more comfortable like electric windows, central locking, electronic folding wing mirrors etc, etc.

The only real drawbacks were the space saver spare tyre, which the Gnomad considers to be spawned by Satan, and that the tyres, although legal, did not have a great deal of tread depth left, However the vehicle was a very favourable price and these were not considered sufficiently major problems to affect the Gnomad's decision to buy.

The car was purchased from a company called Stratstone Motors in Bedford. It came with a new MOT certificate and a full years road fund licence. Having collected the car and made use of it for a few days the Gnomad received a call from Stratstone enquiring how well the car was performing. The car was doing very well apart from a couple of minor niggles that one might reasonably expect from a car four years old. These were an odd noise from one of the speakers and the clutch taking a lot of pedal travel to disengage. These items were noted and the Gnomad's general satisfaction with the vehicle was confirmed.

Now the surprising bit: Stratstone's asked if they could take the car back for a day. Their reason being that the car had been brought down from Harrogate only the day before the Gnomad's were due to collect it. Stratstones had been assured that it was fully prepared for sale but they had not had the time to fully satisfy themselves over all of the details before allowing it's collection, so could the Gnomads' spare the vehicle for a day to allow Stratstone's to give it a once over to make sure everything really was tickety-boo.

The car was duly collected from and returned some hours later to the Gnomad's place of work. On its return the Gnomad was informed of the following: Stratstone had fitted four new tyres to the car, they had refitted the door speaker, checked and adjusted the clutch and also fitted new brake pads to the rear brakes. All of this, somewhere in the region of 300 UKP worth of work, done completely free of charge. Bear in mind that the brakes and tyres had passed the legally required tests and so were fully fit for use on the road, Stratstone didn't really need to do any of this. This is the sort of customer service one would reasonably expect when buying a brand new car, or possibly a nearly new car still covered under the manufacturers warranty, but not a car four years old.

It is refreshing to find that good customer service and decent after-sales care can still be found. The Gnomads are delighted with the service they have received from Stratstone Motors in Bedford and would recommend them to anyone.

Pinkness Abounds

2009-05-21T10:37:00.000-07:00

The Gnomads have just returned home from a standard check up in hospital. Specifically an ultrasound scan to check on the development of their soon to be expected baby.

Hababi* is due in another 18 weeks or so, so preparations in the Gnomad habitat are going on apace, much infant related paraphernalia is being purchased and carefully stored ready for The Great Day.

The exciting news of the day is that Hababi is a girl, so purchases of infant related paraphernalia will now be concentrated almost exclusively on things that are coloured pink. The Gnomad expects that this will, in the not too distant future, include pink paint for the walls and pink fabric for curtains too!

Appropriately enough, both the Gnomad and the Gnomadette are feeling in the pink.

* from the arabic "habibi", loosely translated as "my dear"

The Gnomadette has landed!

2009-04-07T10:06:00.000-07:00

The good news from the Gnomad habitat is that the Gnomadette is now safely back in the Mundane Kingdom.

After a very tiring journey of almost 30 hours and some 8,000 miles the Gnomadette is now safely recovering from the ordeal of travelling almost half way round the world from the Island Republic.

The flight arrived at LHR at 8am, after 15 minutes in a holding pattern. The queue for immigration was almost two hours long, but immigration and the required medical took less than 5 minutes. By 10.15 am the Gnomads were re-united and heading back to the habitat after two miserable months of separation.

There now follows a quiet, understated two week long vacation of mutual indulgence for the Gnomads.

A long awaited piece of paper

2009-03-26T13:26:00.000-07:00

Good news, finally, in the grind of bureaucracy, eight weeks after the application was submitted, the Gnomadette finally received her UK settlement visa. WOOOHOOO!

Much delight and rejoicing!

The story so far: the Gnomadette was obliged to return to the Island Republic to process a settlement visa having been in the Mundane Kingdom on a visit visa. Despite the misinformation the Gnomads were given about being able to change visa status whilst in the UK (we were informed that you could, it even says so on the UKvisas website) in actual fact one cannot, except in very limited circumstance. As a result the Gnomad has been liiving in inglorious isolation whilst the Gnomadette has been pursuing the bureaucracy in the Island Republic.

Having go the visa there is still a little more paperwork to do, but this is a just formality, Insh'Allah.

The true rejoicing will occur, of course, once the Gnomadette is actually on British soil again. The fly in the ointment being the cost of flights. The original plan was to use the Gnomads' reserve of air-miles to get award flights at (comparatively) little cost but with the approach of Easter there are, of course, no such award flights to be had. Never mind, the Gnomad was prepared for this eventuality and funds are available. What it does mean, however, is that the part of the plan for the Gnomad to fly from the Mundane Kingdom to meet the Gnomadette in the Peninsular Gulf State (this being the halfway point and where planes would be changed anyway) so that the Gnomads could enter the Mundane Kingdom together has had to be shelved on the grounds of expense, easter being one fo the most costly times to fly. Oh well one can't have everything.

One contingency plan can now be discarded entirely. The Gnomad is no longer looking at overseas postings. Had the Gnomadette's visa been declined, the Gnomad's stay in the UK would have been summarily curtailed and a post sought where visas could be obtained for both. Two months of separation has been hard enough. How the ex-pat workers from developing nations who are working in the Arabian Gulf cope with years of separation from their families is incomprehensible to the Gnomad. Many of these workers accept twenty or more years of living away from their loved ones with trips home limited to a brief, unpaid visit every second or third year if they are lucky.

Watch this space for news that the Gnomadette has landed, there will truly be much rejoicing then.

pushing paper and credulity

2009-01-25T10:50:00.000-08:00

The Gnomad has spent the day sorting, arranging and copying documents in preparation for the Gnomadette's visa application for the UK.

Once upon a time, in a galaxy really not very far away at all it used to be that being the spouse of a UK citizen would, by that fact alone, be granted UK citizenship and all the benefits and privileges that go with it. Unfortunately because of an abuse of the system known as "marriages of convenience" whereby some poor hapless person would be suckered into marrying only to have their spouse vanish into the distance never to be seen again once the afore-mentioned passport had been issued. Sometimes this was done as a financial arrangement and both parties knew exactly what they were getting into. When this situation got into the hands of the press there was the usual knee jerk reaction (was the word "knee" actually required there?) from Her Majesty's Government and the "loophole" was closed.

The situation now is that being the spouse of a UK citizen grants no privileges what-so-ever in the application for settlement in the UK. The initial settlement visa is valid for two years only, and only after that time has passed can it be transmogrified into "Indefinite Leave To remain" which effectively involves going through the whole process again. After this is completed there comes the only benefit in the process for being legally married. The incoming spouse only has to wait three years from legally being resident in the UK to apply for citizenship, instead of the usual five years, as laid down by the usual regulation. How kind of Her Majesty's government to be so considerate.

The amount of paperwork involved is staggering. The application form on its own is seventeen A4 pages long. The accompanying documentation and the required copies make a pile twenty eight millimetres thick, that's over an inch! The Gnomad spent eight and a half hours today collating, copying and checking the required documents. This doesn't count any time for collecting the documents or filling in the forms, that had all been done previously. The Gnomad strongly suspects that the next two stages will incur similar amounts of form-filling and copying too.

It is not, however, the time and paper that grate, but the cost:

Settlement visa £515 (£260 in 2005)payable now
Indefinite Leave to Remain £750 (£335 in 2005)payable in two years time
naturalisation £575 (£200 in 2005)payable the year after that.

That's £1,840 (UKP)! almost $2,500 (USD), 1,930 Euros or 120,000 PHP!

£1,840 so that the Gnomads can live as husband and wife like any other couple in the UK. Bargain, obviously.

No doubt these fees will have risen by the time they come due in two and three years respectively. Look at how much the fees increased in just two years, from a total of £795 in 2005 to £1,840 in 2007 - MORE THAN DOUBLE! and by now, 2009, there must be another hike in store

How can this possibly be justified?

to quote from the government's own press release*:

We will spend the funds raised by the fees on:

* providing additional enforcement to ferret out illegal workers and the employers who exploit them
* building new detention centres to securely hold those who are awaiting decisions on their asylum claims or who are waiting deportation following a failed application
* helping employers check their employees' nationality status
* running campaigns abroad to explain the UK's immigration rules
* increasing the rate and number of illegal immigrants who are sent back to their home countries

The new fees will mainly affect immigrants who make significant economic gains from living and working in the UK, while students, visitors and tourists won't pay as much.

So, lets get this straight,

1 Because a person is applying to come into the country legally they are having to pay to prevent others coming in illegally
2 Because a person is applying to come into the country legally they are having to fund detention centres for illegal immigrants.
3 Because a person is applying to come into the country legally they are having to pay the costs of potential employers who will benefit from their labour
4 Because a person is applying to come into the country legally they are having to pay for information given to others about how to get here
5 Because a person is applying to come into the country legally they are having to pay for the deportation of illegal immigrants.

So once again the British Government is making the innocent pay for the crimes of the guilty, as shown by items 1,2 and 5. Item 3 is ludicrous, if an employer needs to bring in ex-pat workers they should pick up the entire cost if only to encourage them to employ Britons first, train Britons second and only then if no one is available bring in workers from outside. Item 4 might be credible if it weren't for the fact that all of the information is out there and accessible already.

Its the last bit that really grates on the Gnomads sense of fair play though, this bit:

The new fees will mainly affect immigrants who make significant economic gains from living and working in the UK

What a load of disingenuous tosh!

Surely anyone making those "significant gains" will be paying tax on those gains like anybody else? So why are they being taxed beforehand as well?

This is worse than student loans, which are a pre-emptive tax on the higher earnings one might expect from having a degree, but of course higher earnings means the individual will pay higher taxes and therefore repay the costs of their education.

Her Brittanic Majesty's government really strains the Gnomad's patriotism at times!

*full article available here: http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/about-us/news/visa-fees

currying favour, or not

2009-01-18T11:39:00.000-08:00

The Gnomads are getting used to life in the UK. The Gnomadette doesn't like the cold, but enjoyed the snow. The Gnomad does not like the swingeing taxation and the usurous duty on petrol but likes the effectiveness of the health service. Yes, the Gnomad is aware that many Britons don't like the health service and complain about it a lot, but they really should try living somewhere where there isn't one and where an individual has to pay for everything. Perhaps that would change their minds.

A case in Point, the Gnomad was required to go for blood tests. This could be done either at the doctor's surgery or at the local hospital. an appointment at the surgery was available in one weeks time, or the Gnomad could take himself off down to the blood test lab at the local hospital with a bit of paper and have it done on a first come first served basis. So off the Gnomad went, piece of papaer in hand to the relevant bit of the hospital. Arriving there just before 10am Gnomad took his number from the roll, #61, looked at the display #40. Oh dear a long wait. Gnomad sat patiently amongst the Stout but Aging Yeomanry of Britain who were universally discussing either their latest soap opera/tele-series or complaining at the wait, or in many cases both. At 10.38am #61 was called in, the Gnomad's blood was taken painlessly and professionally in a clean environment by cheerful and competent people. Most people seemed to think that a 40 minute wait (slightly less, actually) was bad and a sign of a decaying service. But think about it, 21 people had been seen in less than 40 minutes, that's more than one every two minutes. That's good by any standards.

Something the Gnomads can't get used to is British curry houses. One of the reasons for choosing the current Gnomad habitat was the large population from the subcontinent in this town. Bound to be good curry there. However, so far, the various curry houses the Gnomads have tried have all been rather disappointing. Nothing bad, nothing to complain about really, but just not very exciting. Many of the dishes have been bland and characterless, lacking in the lively fiesta of flavours the Gnomads have been used to. Not just not very spicy but not very anything. It struck the Gnomad today why this is.

In the Middle East the curry houses are invariably aimed at the ex-pat labourers, Indians, Nepalis, Afghanis, Pakistanis and others from the subcontinent, who have left their families behind are working much harder than any one could reasonably expect in conditions that westerners would deem intolerable and living off practically nothing because everything is sent home to send the children they hardly ever get to see to school and provide a decent life for the various other relatives in the extended family, so they will all have a better life. The food these people need is good, wholesome, nourishing food in large amounts like their wives and mothers make, at a price they can afford. The curry house is not just a meal its a gastronomic visit home and, for many, a meeting place and support network for disconnected people far away from all they hold dear.

In the UK the curry house is a place for the locals to have a jolly evening out occasionally. A not too expensive taste of the slightly exotic that is not too demanding on the taste-buds but different enough to be fun. Thankfully, the Phall stuffing lager lout showing off how macho they are by how far up the Scoville scale* they can get (and how far down the IQ scale they can reach) seems to be a thing of the past, so curries with no flavour except chilli heat are also going out of fashion. Many new curry houses (and Thai restaurants too) seem make a very promising start with full flavour foods, no-holds barred spices and a real taste of "back home". Unfortunately these do not last long or they rapidly tone down the flavours and spices for the very real economic necessity of making the product for the available market. This can happen in as short a time as two weeks. The Brits it seems, really don't like spicy food.

Immigrants to the UK tend to be able to bring their families with them, and this is a good thing, but it does mean that much of the culture they bring with them stays in the home and the British public seem to get a watered down version, if they even bother to try to get any at all. The xenophobia cultivated and encouraged by many right wing groups adds to this lack of sharing of culture. This is a real pity as Britain has always been a trading nation with connections all around the world. Britain has always been fortified by and gained from from the assimilation of new people with new ideas and different cultures. The Gnomads have not yet noticed anyone from the sub-continent actually eating in a British curry house as yet, except for a small group of children eating what appeared to be chicken nuggets and rice. The children bore a striking resemblance to the two waiters who in turn were so alike they must have been brothers. Surely this says it all, the children eating at the curry house had English food (albeit with rice, not chips) because, presumably, they could get real curry at home.

The Gnomad was truly appalled recently to see armed police in a well known superstore in middle England. Policemen with sidearms, bullet proof vests, no 1 grade haircuts, intervention suits and assault boots used to only be seen at airports and guarding politicians and heads of state. Now it appears they are becoming commonplace. Gnomads mother, who happened to be staying at the time, asked the policemen what they were doing there. "Just a bit of shopping, we're on our break" came the reply. How this country has declined since the Gnomad lived here before. It is not so many years ago that the armed police had to keep their weapons in a locked box in the boot** of the patrol car and could only remove them on the direct permission of the chief constable. How sad it is that civil discipline has descended so far that this is no longer considered a realistic option. What worries the Gnomad is that if the police are routinely armed, criminals will habitually arm themselves too and there begins the slippery slope.

* the Scoville Scale, a measure of the hotness of chilli peppers and chilli based products
** trunk, for any American readers.

Hewlett Packard

2008-11-30T14:33:00.000-08:00

Almost a year ago, whilst still in the Magic Kingdom, the Gnomad bought a gift (one amongst many) for the Gnomadette. Said gift was a Compaq laptop (or "notebook" as the industry prefers to call them). Apart from the fact that the laptop came with windoze vista (not the Gnomads choice but nothing else was available in the Magic Kingdom at that point) it has worked very well indeed.

that is up until about three weeks ago when it stopped charging. The Gnomad has a Hewlett Packard laptop which, fortuitously, uses the same battery and a very similar charger. So the batteries were swapped and tested and both worked, so that was not the problem. The chargers also were checked and they were both functional so the problem must be internal to the compaq. Eek! Expense!

As anyone in the Middle East will suspect a warranty in the Magic Kingdom is worth no more than the goodwill of the sales assistant one speaks to, and on the Compaq's documentation it only said 3 months warranty in any case. However, on examination of the casing there was a little sticker, in English, saying that there was a one-year warranty with the laptop.

On the advice of a knowledgeable and trusty friend (thanks Steve) the Gnomad looked up the various numbers, service tags etc of the laptop on the HP website and, according to them, there was indeed a valid warranty with a month still to go. Okay, nothing to lose thought the Gnomad, I'll contact Hewlett Packard (who own Compaq) and see if there's anything that can be done through the warranty.

The Gnomad (G) and Hewlett Packard Customer Service (HPCS) exchanged emails which can be precísed thus:

G: I have this problem with my laptop

HPCS: Thank you for contacting HPCS, please do this diagnostic

G: Here is the result of your diagnostic

HPCS: thank you for taking the time to do the diagnostic, please also do this diagnostic.

G: Here is the result of your second diagnostic

HPCS: thank you for taking the time to do the diagnostic, the notebook will need an internal repair. Please advise when it would be convenient for our representative to collect the notebook.

G: Friday this week would be good

HPCS: We have arranged for our representative to collect your notebook on the afternoon of Friday, repairs will take between 10 and 15 days.

Friday arrived and so did the HPCS representative. The laptop was taken away and a receipt left behind.

The following Wednesday arrived and so did the laptop, fully repaired and working with all programmes and data still intact! That's three working days only! No charge for collection, repair or delivery!

Now it may be that the Gnomad had got used to Middle Eastern Customer Service but the Hewlett Packard Customer Service was very good indeed by any standards.

To recap:

Within two weeks of being notified of the problem, Hewlett Packard's UK operation had collected, repaired and returned the laptop under warranty at no charge at all, even though it had been bought in an entirely different country, arguably a different continent.

Hewlett Packard has the Gnomad's Seal of Approval for Customer Service.

As seen on the Grumpy Goat's blog (link in sidebar)

2008-11-30T10:42:00.000-08:00

The Omnivores Hundred

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Add comments to taste
5) Optional extra: Post a comment at Very Good Taste (http://www.verygoodtaste.co.uk/uncategorised/the-omnivores-hundred/)

1. Venison Very good roasted fresh, even better hung for a few days or in a pasty, but best of all sliced very thin and marinaded in Port!

2. Nettle tea

3. Huevos rancheros

4. Steak tartare interesting but not my favourite

5. Crocodile, had a fabulous crocodile tail curry in Zambia, very yummy indeed

6. Black pudding. A traditional part of an English breakfast, sampled as often as possible

7. Cheese fondue on many occasions, most memorably: in the company of several dozen friends when camping. Fondue made in a pair of five gallon cauldrons over an open fire, one a blue cheese and elderberry wine fondue, the other, smoked emmental with white wine

8. Carp

9. Borscht

10. Baba ghanoush hated it, double yuk!

11. Calamari stuffed with garlic, onions and capsicum and fried, served sizzling hot, mmm mmm!

12. Pho

13. PB&J (peanut butter & jelly) sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart, I’m with Crocodile Dundee on this one, tastes like $#it but you can live on it

16. Epoisses de bourgogne.

17. Black truffle.

18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes More than you can imagine, used to get it delivered mail order from Lurgashall Winery (http://www.lurgashall.co.uk/)

19. Steamed pork buns

20. Pistachio ice cream

21. Heirloom tomatoes.

22. Fresh wild berries. Many, many, varieties, I am a hedgerow hoover when in the UK

23. Foie gras

24. Rice and beans

25. Brawn.

26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper, In a salad, raw onion, raw jalapenos and raw red scotch bonnet chillis in roughly equal quantities, sliced, mixed with a good mayonnaise to make hot-slaw (looks very like coleslaw if done properly , and can be very, very funny if left unlabeled on a buffet at the right kind of party)

27. Dulce de leche

28. Oysters was very much like trying to swallow cold snot, yuk

29. Baklava

30. Bagna càuda

31. Wasabi peas

32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl.

33. Salted lassi. Prefer it plain.

34. Sauerkraut

35. Root beer float

36. Cognac with a fat cigar

37. Clotted cream tea A particular favourite

38. Vodka jelly

39. Gumbo Fresh it’s really, really good, the tinned stuff is always very poor indeed.

40. Oxtail. Especially good as a soup with dumplings.

41. Curried goat. Another favourite, had this in different incarnations in the Middle East (Arabic and Indian style), in Zimbabwe, and in the Philippines, very good in all cases.

42. Whole insects In Thailand, only once, and not entirely sober at the time.

43. Phaal. Makes my eyes water and my nose run each time I have it but I enjoy it all the same

44. Goat’s milk. Especially in the form of cheese and yoghourt

45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120. Not nearly so often as I would like

46. Fugu

47. Chicken tikka masala Of course! I am British you know! This is now one of my own signature dishes

48. Eel jellied and curried, the former was very nasty, the latter was OK

49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut Far, far too many of these for my own good.

50. Sea urchin

51. Prickly pear

52. Umeboshi slightly nasty but more-ish in a peculiar way.

53. Abalone

54. Paneer , not keen

55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal. Far too many of these, unfortunately. For example, having convoyed across Europe (UK to Italy) in 24 hours in company size packets as part of a British Army exercise, it seemed that the only food available at the stopping points were MacDs. Ugh! (shudders) even compo rations would have been better.

56. Spaetzle see currywurst

57. Dirty gin martini

58. Beer above 8% ABV Does it come weaker than this then? (laugh)

59. Poutine Does chips wi’ gravy (thank you, the Mac Lads) count? Perhaps not....

60. Carob chips

61. S’mores

62. Sweetbreads (mmm! These Korean meatballs are the mutts nuts....!)

63. Kaolin. Mostly in medicine.

64. Currywurst In Germany, in every British Army establishment where I have ever been stationed and most notably in the Austrian Tyrol, bordering with Ital. There I had currywurst served with sauerkraut and what I thought at the time (in my ignorant youth) was spaghetti, but turned out to be spaetzle. Surprisingly delicious and satisfying.

65. Durian pleasant enough but I can’t see what the fuss is about.

66. Frogs’ legs I actually quite like these, when done well and nicely seasoned

67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake

68. Haggis with neeps and tatties, preceded by soused herring and washed down with whisky at the Edinburgh festival, delightful.

69. Fried plantain A nice garnish on the right kind of curry

70. Chitterlings had this in the Philippines too, didn’t make it through the first half-spoonful, Blech!

71. Gazpacho , got a funny look when I asked for a shot or two of vodka in mine, Gazpacho Mary being a lot less well known that her bloody namesake but just as pleasant
72. Caviar and blini overrated if you ask me.

73. Louche absinthe Does ordinary absinthe count? liquid, alcoholic aniseed balls mmm mmm

74. Gjetost,.

75. Roadkill I refer the learned gentlemen to my previous answer (item 1) but the repairs to my friends car meant it would have been cheaper (and a lot less scary) to have got it from the butcher.

76. Baijiu

77. Hostess Fruit Pie

78. Snail both in garlic butter and as a main ingredient in a Nigerian chicken and snail curry, neither will I do again Yuk!

79. Lapsang souchong again overrated in my view

80. Bellini

81. Tom yum One of my very favourite things to eat mmm mmm.

82. Eggs Benedict

83. Pocky

84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant. Perhaps when I am very, very wealthy

85. Kobe beef grilled in thin slices with fried shallots seasoned with soy and wasabi yummy!

86. Hare. And rabbit and anything else my late uncle (a gamekeeper) could shoot in the early mornings

87. Goulash An all-time favourite, especially in its Austrian incarnation Goulashesuppe with added caraway.

88. Flowers in many salads, pink rose petals and nasturtiums being favourites.

89. Horse mostly as revenge, but tasty none the less.

90. Criollo chocolate

91. Spam.

92. Soft shell crab

93. Rose harissa

94. Catfish

95. Mole poblano

96. Bagel and lox

97. Lobster Thermidor.

98. Polenta

99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee, I used to get this from Taylors of York until it became too fashionable and therefore exorbitantly expensive (up from only very expensive)

100. Snake

Note that nothing is crossed out, one should be open to try anything once (except, of course, for incest and folk dancing - Thank you, Oscar Wilde)

70/100, possibly 72/100 if your interpretation is generous.

Clustrmaps

2008-07-16T20:09:00.000-07:00

What happened to Clustrmaps?

The Gnomad has been using their really useful little map since the inception of this blog to see where you, dear reader, are viewing from. Suddenly there is no more map, just a link to their website. The Gnomad notices a similar thing on other blogs too.

Oh dear! Are the old archived maps lost? What's happening? Gnomad has followed the link, signed in and set up the Clustrmap again, below the original, but will leave the original in place in case normal service resumes.

[edit: now resolved, see comments]

Tops

2008-07-04T20:29:00.000-07:00

The Gnomads are enjoying a very pleasant vacation after the hassles of the Magic Kingdom. Yesterday saw the Gnomads and the Squablins on an outing to the Tops.

Now, dear reader, might be a good time to introduce the "Squablins". The Gnomadette is from a large family and has many relatives who live nearby, including two younger sisters and a cousin. These three are all young ladies in their late teens or early twenties who live with the Gnomads in their Philippine home. They take care of most of the household chores and ensure that the Gnomad's life on the Island is one of ease and relaxation. The Squablins are delightful and very pleasant company, except of course, when they fall to bickering with each other, which the Gnomad is very relieved to say doesn't actually happen that often, but on the occasions it does happen has earned them the collective noun "Squablins".

So the Gnomads hired a car and a driver for the afternoon and, accompanied by the three Squablins, took an excursion to the Tops. The Tops is a small tourist location here on the Island. It is at the top of one of the mountains that forms the central spine of the Island and has splendid views over the Island, across the sea and over the town. There is a large circular paved promenade with toilet facilities, fast food, vendors of souvenirs (pasalubong) etc. These amenities surround the promenade on about one third of its circumference. The building is very much in the local style and does not obscure the best of the views at all. This being Typhoon season, and therefore not a favourite time for tourists, not all of the retailers were open, but there were enough.

The view of the Island is very picturesque with palm covered mountains, deep river valleys and a waterfall. The view over the town, during the day at least, is not so picturesque but is very pleasant none the less. At night however, the view of the town is one of a mass of sparkling lights and has a curious eldritch beauty. On a clear day the view over the sea is spectacular with many of the other islands visible and the sun sparkling off the blue of the sea.

In one of those curious turns of chance the Gnomads managed to time their excursion perfectly. The party arrived at the Tops at about 5 pm and, despite it being rather cloudy, had the benefit of all of the daytime views. As dusk set in the Gnomad and Squablins set up for their picnic. The amenities included tables and chairs under cover and since the Squablins felt the wind to be a little chill one of these was secured for the party's use. Hot soup with noodles, hot-dogs and longanizza (a local, delicious, pork sausage) were purchased to supplement the food and drink that the Gnomads had brought and the party sat down to eat. Whilst waiting for the hot food one of the Squablins quickly went off to find the driver so he could share in the picnic as well, such is the spirit of hospitality on the Island.

As the Gnomads enjoyed their picnic so the weather became wet. The wind got up a little and a light drizzle soon turned to rain and then a brief but exciting thunderstorm. As if on cue, the weather improved as the food was finished. The Gnomad settled the bill, rather less than four and a half UKP (9 USD) had fed the Gnomad, The Gnomadette, three Squablins and their dirver. The party then enjoyed the night-time views and rather a lot of flash photography (and some pleasant silliness) before returning to the Gnomad abode having had a thoroughly splendid time.

Mabuhay

2008-07-01T01:49:00.000-07:00

The Gnomads are now safely in the Philippines , which is the Gnomadette's birthplace and has been the Gnomads' second home for some time.

The flight from the Middle East was, for the most part, very enjoyable. The food in Business class in the Gnomads' airline of choice is very good indeed, and the seats large and comfortable. This was all the more enjoyable because of the free upgrade, the Gnomads had expected to be flying cattle class the whole way.

The only downside was the turbulence. It is typhoon season in the Philippines and many of you will have heard of the very recent typhoon and subsequent shipping disaster. The weather had calmed significantly since then but was still somewhat unreliable. The last hour or so of the flight it got a bit lumpy, there was a thunderstorm heading in. The Gnomads' plane was just ahead of the bad weather, not so close as to be dangerous, but close enough to make the ride unpredictable. The Gnomadette was more than a little miserable as the stugeron was not readily to hand and she suffers from motion sickness. The aircrew were very sympathetic and solicitous and the Gnomadette was soon very much recovered.

Life in the Philippine Islands is so much more civilised than in the Magic Kingdom. The standard of driving and lack of courtesy on the road is just as bad but at only about on third of the speed of the fatalistic Arab drivers, so that's better over all. The range of foods available is much wider with only a few of the Gnomad's preferred items unavailable. The Gnomad even saw shawarma for sale in one of the food courts. Added to this there is, of course, pork produce. Pork featured quite prominently in five of the Gnomad's first six meals in the Islands. It is amazing just how much a person can miss a pork chop or a bacon sandwich.

The Gnomads' have six more weeks of vacation in these islands before heading off to their new life in the Mundane Kingdom.

Ma' asalama habibi!

2008-06-27T14:23:00.000-07:00

Well the Gnomads are out. Escape velocity was achieved at the planned time and the Gnomad is writing this from the comfort of the Silver Lounge of the Peninsular Gulf State International Airport.

Not, however, before the Magic Kingdom had pulled one last little prank. On attempting to check in at the departure airport of the Magic Kingdom the Gnomads were informed that the Gnomads and Gnomadettes flights to Peninsular Gulf State were confirmed, the Gnomad's onward flight to the Philippines was also confirmed, but the Gnomadette's was not. How can this be? The flights were booked at the same time, in the airline's own office, and paid for in cash at that point. How can one segment of one of the journeys not be confirmed? One of the airline check in staff went to check in the office, wherever that was, whilst the rest unconcernedly got on with the business of marshalling the Self-Loading Cargo. A tense 15 minutes later the expeditionary clerk returned saying that the flight was now confirmed and for some inexplicable reason, the Gnomadette had been scheduled to take the second leg of the journey on the 23rd August. Huh?

Perhaps they are in cahoots with the Gnomad's former cardiologist.

Now the Gnomads sit in some comfort in the Silver Lounge at peace with the world having consumed some very pleasant carrot and lentil soup, followed by bread and hommous and accompanied by some chilled apple juice. A minor influence on the Gnomads' current good humour is that in all the fuss at check-in their 12kg of excess baggage was overlooked. A much stronger influence is that on arrival at the Silver Lounge the Gnomads were greeted with the news that they had both received a complimentary up-grade to Business Class for the Peninsular Gulf State to the Philippines leg of their journey, a flight of almost ten hours duration. The Gnomads do so enjoy business class flying, so things could be a lot worse :-)

At last....

2008-06-26T01:21:00.000-07:00

Yesterday evening the shipper's called (only a day late) and the Gnomads' worldly goods are now winging (or, more likely, stumbling) their way to the Mundane Kingdom. The Gnomad's new employer very kindly agreed to accommodate the Gnomad's shipment temporarily until such time as the Gnomads actually had somewhere to live. This is very generous of them and is a huge benefit as far as the Gnomad's are concerned. It is very difficult to arrange an international cargo shipment when you don't actually have somewhere to send it.

An added bonus was that, despite the dinner arrangement having to be cancelled because of the late arrival of the shipper's, the Gnomads were still able to have a meal with their friends before said friends departed. The friends in question ordered in pizza once the shippers had arrived and the pizza very conveniently arrived just as the shippers left, which was a little over an hour before the friends were due to leave for the airport themselves.

There is a surreal feeling of calm in the Gnomads now rather spartan looking residence. The Gnomads leave the Magic Kingdom tomorrow and all is now ready. Flights and taxis are booked, a hire car is arranged for their arrival in the Philippines, flights from the Philippines to the UK are booked and pretty much everything to go to the Philippines is packed. Only two very minor things remain to be done, these are the last minute packing, which cannot be done until tomorrow, and the consumption of the remaining foodstuffs in the Gnomad kitchen, which is being worked on right now :)

"Normal" service resumes

2008-06-24T11:01:00.000-07:00

Well, the shipping agent didn't show. Calling on the phone at first got an engaged tone, then no answer at all for several attempts (it must have been prayer time). Finally having got an answer from the agent, he told the Gnomad that he would have a price "After half an Hour". The fact that he had furnished the Gnomad with a price and indeed an appointment only the day before seemed to have slipped his mind. Oh well, they are now re-booked for tomorrow at 5pm

This is a nuisance as some of the Gnomads' chums were taking them for dinner at 6 tomorrow. This will not now happen. The dinner cannot be done later as the aforesaid chums fly out at 11 that night and need to get to the airport.

The Gnomads have the privilege of Filipino television, getting abs-cbn via satellite. Now the Gnomad, having completely flunked "polyglot 101", understands almost none of this, but it pleases the Gnomadette and this is A Good Thing.

One programme that the Gnomad's extremely poor Tagalog can usually cope with glories in the name "Adobo Nation"*. Partly this programme keep the Gnomads attention because it is a cookery programme, but mostly it is because it is intended for an Filipino-American audience and therefore has, comparatively speaking, quite a lot of English spoken in it. In a recent episode Lechon was the dish being discussed. Lechon is basically roast pig. To the Gnomads amusement the Magic Kingdom authorities had felt it necessary to blur out all the bits of animal that were identifiable as pig, whenever they came into shot.

Surely these people must have something better to do?

Only one more day of work and three more days in the Magic Kingdom to go until the Gnomads are back in the Philppines. Woohoo!

Fortunately the weather is improving there, so the flights should be OK. Thank you to everyone who enquired after the loss of the "MV Princess of the Stars". None of the Gnomad's or Gnomadette's family or friends were involved in the disaster, nor were any adversely affected by the typhoon that caused the tragedy.

*depending where you are in the Philippines this can be translated as "Cooked-In-Sauce Country" or as "Fried Food Land". The Gnomadette makes a particularly yummy Chicken Adobo, which is chicken with onions and garlic stewed in a rich, peppery sauce.

More progress

2008-06-23T09:46:00.000-07:00

In addition to all of the legal requirements for departing the Magic Kingdom, the Gnomad has a number of contractual obligations to fulfil. These need to be done, documented and signed off by the administrators concerned but also by the Gnomad's supervisor before the Gnomad's employer will release the his final pay check (being 3 months salary).

The Gnomad's employer requires all of the following;

Student records to be in order
Classroom prepared for the vacation (all flat surfaces clear, all machines/computers covered, all computer files backed up, etc)
Housing inspected and inventory checked
Mobile phone bill settled and line closed
Landline phone bill settled
Internet line and account settled and closed
Departure forms filled in and submitted
Forwarding address submitted
Exit interview conducted
Exit questionnaire completed and submitted
Keys surrendered
ID card surrendered
The Gnomad's site supervisor must countersign all of the above.

All of these, bar the last three items on the list, are now done. These last three will be completed on the last working day and so all of these hoops have now been jumped through.

Even with all this done, the Gnomads employer (soon to be former employer) still with-holds 500 USD from his final salary for five months to cover any "unsettled financial business". Bearing in mind that for the legal requirements to be complete the car must be sold and all bank accounts and credit cards have to be closed, the Gnomad would be interested to know just exactly what these potentially "unsettled financial matters" might be.

The end is definitely in sight now. The only big thing now remaining is the dispatch of the Gnomads' goods and chattels. This is scheduled for tomorrow, Insh'Allah

Alhamdul'Allah!

2008-06-22T10:19:00.000-07:00

The Gnomads' Final Exit Visas materialised today!

Huzzah!

We can now exit the Magic Kingdom. The visas have arrived just five days before we are due to depart, which is actually a reasonably comfortable time frame. Some of the Gnomad's colleagues have had theirs delivered on the day of scheduled departure! In the past the Gnomads exit and return visas have actually taken so long to arrive that the Gnomad received them after the intended date of return, so the Gnomads are very much relieved.

Things are now picking up speed in the Gnomads' preparations to leave. Flights are booked, destination visas are secured, currency has been purchased and almost the entirety of Gnomad-dom is packed into boxes. The shipping agent was at the Gnomads' apartment and will quote tomorrow. The agent is the same one who dealt with the Gnomad's last two moves (reasonably efficiently, which is very good for the Middle East) and so will almost certainly get the contract to relocate the Gnome habitat to the Mundane Kingdom.

A second shipping agent will call later today (Insh'allah). The second carrier, recommended by a colleague as very cheap, is by way of insurance to make sure that the Gnomads get the best price. The first agent knows that there is competition (but not who the competition actually is) and has already agreed to beat whatever price is offered by them. All in all, a win-win situation, which is about as rare as rocking horse droppings, or even porcine aviation.

Progress and Pressures

2008-06-15T09:43:00.000-07:00

There is yet more progress, Wednesday of last week saw the Gnomad, accompanied by one of the Government Relations staff successfully make the application for the police report. This only took about 3 and a half hours, practically greased lightning for the Magic Kingdom.

Not that it went completely smoothly of course, there were a number of hurdles on the way. The first was actually our very own government relations bod, lets call him Al. The Gnomad dutifully turned up at the GR office at the appointed time and Al arrived only five minutes later. Al's boss and Al's bosses boss reminded Al what it was he had to do, paper work was collected and we set off in Al's car. Not before Gnomad had asked Al "Do you have all the necessary papers" at least three times and reassuring Al that the Gnomad has his ID just as often.

Security in Saudi is such that any Western compound or place of work is surrounded by armed security. Private contractors, usually in blue, and National Guard in Desert DPMs all armed, with pistols, assault rifles, and crew-served machine guns in evidence. Being right next to the American Consulate there are also grey clad armed security that belongs to the US and when things are a little tense there are even US Marines*. Vehicles are checked in and out including interior searches and underneath inspections. All this takes more than a few minutes. In these minutes the Gnomad decided to make one last check
"You have got all the papers Al?"
"Yes Mr Gnomad"
"Have you got my passport?"
"No Mr Gnomad, don't you have that?"
"No Al, I have my ID, you at GR have my passport"
So back we go through security to the car park and Al calls on his mobile for someone from GR to bring the Gnomad's passport down from the GR office.

Now dear reader, you will remember that the whole point of the GR bod going with the Gnomad is because the Gnomad, being an ex-pat, is not allowed to hold both his Passport and his Magic ID at the same time, on pain of a 10,000 USD fine.

so now Al actually does have all the papers Al and the Gnomad set off (again) to the Police Station.

At the Police station the letter from the embassy is not acceptable.

It must also, apparently, be stamped by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA)**

The Gnomad and Al the go off to the MFAI, just less than an hours drive away. At the MFAI there is almost no Queue***! Alhamdul'Allah! This is almost unheard of! The Gnomad only has to wait half an hour! The Highly Trained and Efficient Civil Servant looked at the paper for about two nano-seconds, stuck a postage stamp on it, cancelled the postage stamp with a rubber stamp and handed it back, with a curt "Halas" ("Finished").

Al then drove the Gnomad back to the police station where the document, having now quite obviously been approved by the MFAI after exhaustive security and authenticity checks, was immediately accepted.

Twenty minutes later the Gnomad was on his way back to work, slightly inky from having given fingerprints, but satisfied that the process was now under way.

When could the Gnomad expect to receive the report? "Two to four weeks, Insh'Allah" which actually means one or two months. "Why does it take so long?" the Gnomad asked Al. Al explained that the Magic Police are not actually 100% computerised yet****, so the report request must be taken around the different police regions and checked against paper records.

A letter has duly been left with GR asking them if they would be ever so kind and forward the report, with an Enlgish translation, should the Gnomads have left the Magic Kingdom before it arrives, which is an entirely likely circumstance.

As a side note, GR has not yet started processing the Gnomads' Final Exit Visas, we are all waiting on confirmation of the change of ownership of the Gnomadmobile, which so far has taken 4 days longer than stated. No surprise there.

The Gnomad has a tendency to be hypertensive, and so keeps an eye on his blood pressure. As you might imagine, trying to get a Final Exit Visa does not help this one little bit. Being prudent, the Gnomad booked in to see the cardiologist to get a check up before departing the Kingdom.

On arrival at the hospital the Gnomad was informed that his appointment was actually tomorrow, not today. The Gnomad was less than courteous to the reception staff as this is the third time this particular hospital has done this. On the first occasion Gnomad allowed the hospital to convince him that he, the Gnomad, had got it wrong. The Gnomad is not one to be caught out twice and has been very careful since. On the second occasion Gnomad lodged a formal complaint and pursued the same until it resulted in the admission that the particular specialist concerned (not, on that occasion, the cardiologist) had only a few appointments that day and so had cancelled the clinic and put the appointments over to the next day. "Did the hospital tell anyone"? the Gnomad had asked the rather besieged customer relations chap who was the recipient of the Gnomads ire. No they hadn't, he finally admitted, but they would be sure to do so in future if it such a cancellation were to happen again, which of course it wouldn't, the Gnomad was assured.

No, they didn't tell anyone, and yes it did happen again.

The Gnomad could see from the appointments screen on the computer at reception that the entire clinic had been cancelled.

Perhaps this is a sideways kind of way of drumming up more business for brother cardiologists. The doctor cancelling appointments without telling any of the clients is really not going to help anyone's blood pressure, and even though it has lost this individual cardiologist one source of revenue, the Gnomad is definitely going to see his cardiologist in the Philippines, who is professional, courteous, knowledgeable and always in his office when he says he will be.

The Gnomad suspects that departing the magic Kingdom will do more to steady his blood pressure than any amount of meds ever will.

*Usually, though, if things are tense enough that the Marines are in evidence theGnomad and his colleagues stay at home in their fortified and equally guarded compound.

** the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is often referred to by ex-pats as the Ministry of Mucking About the Infidel (MFAI), or something very, very similar to that.

*** relatively speaking of course, "almost no queue" in the Magic Kingdom means less than ten people falling in line at each teller.

**** in fact about 20% computerised, as far as the Gnomad could tell.

softlee softlee catchee monkey

2008-06-09T11:22:00.000-07:00

Another step forward in the up-hill struggle that is attempting to secure a Final Exit Visa. This morning the British Trade Office informed the Gnomad that his letter, requesting a police report showing that the Gnomad had no criminal convictions in the Magic Kingdom, was ready for collection and for only the local equivalent of 72 UKP (142 USD)

This is just the letter requesting the police report of course, the Gnomad now needs to actually request the police report itself, which will likely cost more. This Police report is for the Gnomad's new employer in the UK and is not actually part of the Final Exit Visa process, but it requires that the Gnomad's passport and ID are presented at the police station. Both of these documents must be surrendered when applying for the Final Exit Visa and so this must be done before that application is made. the ID will never be returned and the passport will be handed back on the final day of the Gnomad's contract.

This is further complicated by the fact that it is actually illegal in the Magic Kingdom for an ex-pat to be in possession of both their passport and ID at the same time, their sponsor must hold one of them at all times. This means that to make the application for the police report involves a member of the Government Relations Office* accompanying the Gnomad to the police station to make the request.

With any luck the letter can be picked up and the visit to the police station can both be accomplished tomorrow, or failing that the next day, Insh'Allah

Yet another step, the selling of the Gnomadmobile, was accomplished today. Hands were shaken, cash was exchanged and papers were pushed. The administration involved may only take another two days (Insh'Allah) and then that is a fait accompli too

There are now significantly more hurdles behind the Gnomads than remain in front.

Huzzah!

* The Government Relations Office: This is one of the administrative departments of the Gnomad's current employer. For a staff of less than a thousand people it is necessary to employ six people full-time to deal with all of the administration that the Government of the Magic Kingdom chooses to inflict on the ex-pat population, just to make them feel welcome, valued and appreciated.

Futures, Changes and Injustices

2008-06-07T10:24:00.000-07:00

The Gnomads are preparing to move house. Not one house but two. The Gnomad has secured a job back in the Mundane Kingdom. The Gnomad's are looking forward to a sanity restoring stay in Mundania for a while, and the Gnomadette is particularly excited as she likes the UK very much and both Gnomads are looking forward to being able to apply for a right of abode and probably citizenship for the Gnomadette. One never really appreciates just how good a travel document a British Passport is until one tries to travel with someone who doesn't have one.

The Mundane kingdom is an expensive place to live and to be able to afford this the Gnomad's are giving up their home in the Philippines. The Gnomad's dwelling in the Magic Kingdom goes with the job there, and since that job is going, so will the apartment.

Fortunately in the two years they've been married the Gnomads have not had much chance to accumulate the vast amounts of clutter that seems to appear out of nowhere. Not too much packing and not too much junk needing disposal.

What is more problematic is the bureaucracy that must be gone through to leave the magic Kingdom. The resident and work visa does not give any right to enter or leave the country, these are separate, and the resident and work visa's expiry do not in themselves give a right of exit either. The Gnomads must therefore apply for a Final Exit Visa. To do this requires an array of documents including but not limited to:

A letter from your employer confirming that you have fulfilled your contract and that they agree for you to go.
evidence that your phone (and mobile) is cut off and phone bill(s) paid.
evidence that your bank account has been closed and you have no outstanding debts.
if you happen to own a car this must be sold too before applying for your Final Exit Visa as it will not be granted if you still own a car
Any fines (parking or speeding tickets etc) must also be settled.

The Gnomads had a buyer for their car, a splendid fellow, of Pakistani origin who has been working in the Kingdom for many years. Finally his employer agreed to let him bring his family over to join him (after only 12 years of asking) and so have given him permission to buy a car too (you need permission from your Arabic sponsor here to do just about anything) Having looked at this car and decided to buy it imagine his, and the Gnomad's, disappointment when his employer said that the Gnomadmobile was "not a suitable car" for him to buy and withdrew their permission on those grounds.

I had wondered why you so rarely see 4X4s driven by people from the sub-continent in the Magic Kingdom. It seems that such cars are only considered "suitable" for Westerners and Arabs, not appropriate for people of Asian descent. Mmmmm, what a very fair and egalitarian point of view.

The delay in the sale of the car, of course, delays everything else. To sort out the paperwork involves the production of the Gnomad's Iqama (internal passport and ID card equivalent) several times on each occasion, but to apply for the Final Exit Visa requires the submission of the passport and the surrender, never to be returned, of the Iqama.

Theoretically the Final Exit Visa can be processed in only one day, however in practice it is usual to allow a whole month. the Gnomads travel plans involve leaving the Magic Kingdom in three weeks and would be expensive to change, so the sale of the car (the last hurdle) is becoming imperative.

The Gnomads' current plans involve leaving the Magic Kingdom in the last week of June, going to the Philippines for about seven weeks and then relocating to the Mundane Kingdom for a stay of several years. That all this should hang on the sale of a car worth less than 1,000 UKP is a little frustrating.

Bureaucracy, buses and virtuality

2008-05-20T10:39:00.000-07:00

The Gnomads have very recently had an astonishing encounter with bureaucracy in the Magic Kingdom, almost unbelievable after our experiences here.

As many of you will be aware, UK visa regulations have changed. There are now more requirements than ever before to secure a right of entry into the UK. The Gnomadette, being a citizen of the Philippines, requires a visa to go to the UK. Being the spouse of a UK citizen confers no privileges whatsoever in this regard. So the Gnomads must go through this process. One of the changes in visa requirements is that provision of biometric data is now a mandatory. To provide this biometric data (retina scans and fingerprints) one must present oneself before the proper authorities to have the scan taken.

Expecting to have to travel to have this done either to Magic Capitol City or possibly Magic Second City where Her Majesty's Embassy and Consulate are respectively to be found, it came as quite a surprise to find that there are now, in fact, three Visa Application Centres (VACs) for the Mundnae Kingdom inside the Magic Kingdom. The third and most recently commisioned of these is almost opposite the emporium of daily necessities in which the Gnomads habitually shop.

Good Heavens! Something convenient!

Having had to go through the visa application process before, Gnomad has a list of all the required documents. This list includes all of the items listed on the FCO website and the extra ones they don't actually tell you you need until they hand you back your application as incomplete. This list is however a year out of date, so was thoroughly checked. Apparently nothing new was required. An appointment was made and the appropriate form was downloaded and printed out, all 21 pages of it! Filling in the form was a simple matter of roughly four hours, multiple documents checks and several phone calls to the Philippines ("Just what exactly is Gnomadettes grandfather's inside leg measurement? Yes ok, we'll wait while you dig him up and measure him")

So, armed with all of the documents, photos, supporting evidence, bank statements, and what-have-you the Gnomads set off for their appointment at the VAC. Now unless you have lived in the Middle East or a particularly backward third world country you won't really understand the significance of what happened next.

the Gnome-mobile arrived at the VAC a few minutes early and the Gnomads waited until opening time. The VAC opened on time. To the minute. There was the usual security before the Gnomads showed their printout to the desk clerk showing the appointment time (due for 10h10), and were shown to some comfy seats to wait.

The Gnomads were called to be seen at 10h10!

Yes, the Gnomads actually had their interview at the appointed time.

Not only that, but the fully-veiled, locally-employed member of staff who dealt with the application spoke good English, read through all the documents, thanked us for presenting everything in order, took the money and actually had some change, and directed the Gnomads with courtesy and professionalism to the biometrics booth. The Gnomads had barely settled back into the comfy seats when, less than two minutes later, they were invited to have the biometric scans done.

The gnome-mobile departed from the VAC within 40 minutes of having arrived.

And to top of this truly exceptional experience, the Gnomadette's passport was returned by courier two days later complete with visa.

What a refreshing change.

It is, today, the 70th anniversary of Aramco. This may not mean a lot, dear reader, but Saudi Aramco produces 26% of the worlds oil. It is the richest corporate entity in the world and is based largely in the Eastern Province of the Magic Kingdom, really quite close the the Gnomad's place of work. A great many of the students at the Gnomads school live on the Aramco compound.

To mark the occasion the Magic King decided to pay a visit. The Absolute Monarch of the Magic Kingdom is so popular and so secure in his position that at the slightest hint of his visit the roads are closed off for miles around and no-one is allowed any where near where the King might go. Perhaps the King is allergic to adoring crowds?

Having had a couple of days of warning that this was likely to happen and involve the locking down (yes, just like a prison) of the Aramco compound, it was decided that the school at which the Gnomad works would be closed to students for the day. Not closed, just closed to students.

The board of governors are of the opinion that if the teachers are given the day off because, for example, it is completely impossible to move around the grid-locked city that they will have to work another day to make up for the lost hours. Now given the tortuous process one has to go through to get a visa to leave the Kingdom, and the swingeing financial penalties if any of the visa terms are breached, it is very difficult to have to deal with an extra day or two tagged onto the end of the term.

Why the governors can't just accept that sometimes sh#t happens and you have to be a little flexible is beyond the comprehension of the Gnomad. Absolutely none of the governors are money fixated, anal retentives at all. Not one. Definitely.

So to cope with this "crisis" the senior managers decided that there was to be a "Virtual School Day". This meant that all staff had to be in school but they all had to post on the school website sufficient work to keep the children gainfully employed in their studies for the appropriate amount of time (this was all done in advance)and the teaching staff had to be at their desks to answer email enquiries and accept pieces of work as they came in. Which of course they all did. No really, all the staff were in, because if you miss a day they dock one sixteenth of your monthly salary. Given the reliability of the internet in the Magic Kingdom (about as reliable as a chocolate teapot) there were actually more parents telephoning the school to say that their internet was inaccessible and their children could not do the work, than there were students responding to the work set. This was entirely predictable as it is widely held that it is a standard operating procedure of the King's security team to disable the internet and mobile telecomms in the vicinity as the King travels around the Kingdom.

At approximately 09h30 an email came round from the acting boss saying that the school had received details of the road closures and it was going to be impossible to move by motor vehicle after mid-day, so the school buses would depart at 11h30 and not make another run that day.

In the liberal and enlightened regime of the Magic Kingdom women are not permitted to drive, the school buses are provided to get staff from their compounds to school and back. This effectively meant that everyone had to go home at 11h30 or stay on site until the next day. So everyone went home.

The journey, normally 20 minutes, took almost an hour. The bus driver, a consummate professional, took a very circuitous route very different from the usual run and managed to avoid the gridlocks but not all of the traffic jams, but at least the bus kept moving. The occupants of the bus, Gnomad included, were treated to the spectacle of several astonishing pieces of driving, including a 50 seat coach mounting the meridian to make a U turn on a dual carriageway, dozens of drivers being too impatient to queue and driving up the sidewalk and so many near misses that there weren't enough fingers and toes on the bus to count them all.

Many of the staff on the bus were prepared for the delays and there was a kind of party atmosphere. Food and water was shared, people had brought a lot of supplies in the highly justified expectation of being stuck on the bus for hours and the journey was not, in fact, that unpleasant.

Turning into the compound the driver received a hearty and well deserved round of applause. Some, who had taken their own cars in did not arrive back until much later.

Perhaps someone may have learned something from the Virtual Day.

Camel on the Hofuf

2008-03-28T01:14:00.000-07:00

The Gnomads are having a restful day recovering from an exciting but tiring day out yesterday.

Along with some colleagues from work, we took a trip to the Al Ahsa oasis, one of the largest oases in the world and, apparently, the source of the best dates in the world. We got up at 5 am to be ready to leave by 6 to get there for 7.30. The oasis was vast, and I dont think I had seen so many date palms in my life before even if you added them all up. There were actual irrigation canals as wide as the road, and everywhere was green.

Our reasons for going? The town of Hofuf is built at the Oasis and has one of the world's oldest and largest camel markets anywhere. The market starts at dawn and winds up around 9am, because by then its just getting way too hot. This is the Arabian desert after all.

There were more camels than you can sheikh a stick at in every size, colour and state of cleanliness. Some were dressed up in racing silks (I kid you not) some were saddled and harnessed for riding, some just had a basic harness and some had no trappings at all. Some did appear to have been comprehensively rolled in camel poo, but these were the exception. The camels ranged from white to almost black through every shade of brown you can imagine. It was a fragrant occasion and the gnomads had to step carefully to avoid the camel droppings (which were pretty dry) and the puddles left by the camels (which were not).

Camels were being auctioned in the inimitable style of livestock auctions the world over. The locals were very friendly, even though they had almost no English and the Gnomads had almost no Arabic. Contrary to expectation may of the camel traders there were happy to have their pictures taken. To one side of the market was an open barn like structure where the bedouin women were ensconced, busy making and trading the accoutrements for the camels, including everything from shiny silver tassles to decorate the animals to complete saddle and harness sets. The women ere spinning and braiding and conducting traditional camel related crafts whilst trading, but alas they would not allow photographs. These people were very traditional Bedou. The women fully veiled and with hennah on their hands, The men in their dish dashes many of them with their faces covered against the dust.

Several of the traders had saddled camels and so the Gnomads negotiated for the Gnomadette to take a camel ride. The first individual wanted 150 riyals (about 45 USD or 22 UKP) just to allow his camel to be sat on! Negotiation and haggling followed to get the price down to 30 riyals. This still being too expensive for the Gnomad's retentive purse, the Gnomads walked away. Later we went back and haggled again and the Gnomadette got her camel ride for just 10 riyals. The Gnomad was feeling very chuffed with his bartering skills and many other members of the party then took camel rides at the same price. Watching camels being loaded into trucks was quite an education. the camels are hobbled and made to sit down. they are then put into a harness and lifted by crane into the back of a truck. The camels did not seem at all distressed by the process.

As the camel market started to wind up the party all took to the bus and headed into Hofuf town to look around the old souk, Qasr Ibrahim fort and then to a no-star hotel for a cold beverage and the use of (relatively) civilised toilets. We had made a pit-stop on the journey out to Hofuf, but many of the ladies refused to use the facilities as they were very basic indeed, extremely fragrant and harbouring a mass of airborne wildlife of the insanitary buzzing variety.

the souk was disappointing. Apparently there had been a massive fire about a year ago that had pretty much destroyed the old souk, some of it had been over 500 years old. There were plenty of little antique and junk shops and many little shops stocked with the sorts of goods associated with a traditional souk, such as spices, incense, tailoring services and supplies and very cheap plastic goods. The old souk was in the process of being rebuilt and is expected to be back in use by this time next year. The fort was massive but closed. Apparently it doesn't open before 4 pm and we didnt feel like waiting that long.

The hotel was very civilised in a decayed, post imperial, third-world kind of way. the Orange juice was actually freshly squeezed from fresh, ripe, chilled oranges and was very good indeed. Eyes, noses and throats were a bit full of dust so a drink was very welcome as was a sit-down in the air conditioned dining room. Much recovered the party moved on to the next phase, a trip to the Jabal Al Qarah caves. It was now past 11 am and it was getting hot, over 30c. our bus took us out to the caves accompanied by a local man, Abdullah.

Abdullah was a workmate of a friend of a friend of one of the trip organisers. We had originally planned to lunch at the Intercontinental hotel in Hofuf, but their prices had become extravagant, so the friend of a friend contacted Abdullah to see if he knew of a good place for Europeans and Americans to get lunch. Abdullah decide the easiest thing for him to do was to join the trip at the no star hotel, accompany us to the caves and show us around and then take us to the lunch venue he had in mind. This is typical of ordinary Arabs. There is a great tradition of hospitality and nothing is too much for a guest. It is such a shame that the city dwelling Arabs seem to be letting this tradition die out in the metropolises.

The caves were in a series of sandstone rock formations eerily carved into surreal shapes by the wind and natural erosion. They were quite splendid if somewhat marred by graffiti, which is the scourge of any modern town-dwelling society. The caves themselves were surprisingly cool and very pleasant inisde. we walked for about a kilometre through the caves and then, hunger getting the better of us we decided to adjourn for lunch.

Abdullah took us to a splendid, modern, clean hotel with proper toilet facilities and (it turned out) an excellent restaurant called the Topaz Sapori Ditalia. as a group we decided on traditional Lebanese starters for everyone, bread, tabouleh, fatoosh, humus, stuffed vine leaves etc which was extremely good and this was followed by individual choices of main course. Almost everyone had Italian, although there was a wide range of other foods on the menu. The Gnomad's Tagliatelli Alfredo was simply the best he has had anywhere and the Gnomadette only managed to eat a quarter of her pizza. The rest of the party had an equally high opinion of the food and after over an hour and a half we returned to the bus for the journey home.

All in all, the Gnomads and the rest of the party had a splendid day out organised by Meg And Lyle (thanks guys) and made even better by the generosity and hospitality of the ordinary Arab folks we met, especially Abdullah.

Saint Valentine's Day

2008-02-14T07:22:00.000-08:00

"Valentines Day" is widely celebrated here in the Magic Kingdom, just so long as you omit the "St" from the beginning, of course. This seems very odd to me, considering this is a country where one cannot import a plastic pine tree or spruce because of its connection to a certain Christian festival, but (Saint) Valentine's Day is completely accepted and commercially exploited, as is Hallowe'en (All Hallow's Eve as it is properly called, another date from the Christian calendar). Perhaps, if I'm feeling brave I'll see how blatant I can be about Easter.....

St Valentines day for the Gnomads actually runs for 31 hours. After all why limit a good thing? Here's the reasoning:

St Valentine's day in the Philippines starts at one nanosecond past midnight on the morning of the 14th of February. That's 7pm on the 13th of February here in the Magic Kingdom. But since the Gnomadette is a Filipina, we should start on time as far as the Filipino day goes. St Valentine's day in the UK finishes at exactly midnight in the evening of the 14th February which equates to 2 am on the 15th for the Magic Kingdom. the Gnomad (being British) also shouldn't be diddled out of any of his St Valentines Day either. So, for the Gnomads, Valentines day runs from 7pm on the 13th February to 2am on the following 15th.

So start early we did; A romantic candle lit dinner for two at 7pm in a rather posh (or "sossy" as the Filipinas would have it) restaurant called The Blue Strawberry. There aren't very many of these to choose from here in the Magic Kingdom and the Blue Strawbwerry has the enormous advantage that, since its on a private all-western compound, the abaya is not required. Very Nouvelle Cuisine, splendidly presented and (unusually for Nouvelle Cuisine) in portions appropriate for the not-insubstantial Gnomad appetite. The ambience was very civilised, the service efficient but unfussy and the food excellently prepared. The only thing that was a little odd was the live music. A single vocalist accompanying himself on guitar, singing a selection of Eagles and Grateful Dead was not exactly in the Romantic Mood, but even so the music was pleasant and unobtrusive.

Then a pleasant day of spoiling each other including exchanging gifts, a bit of shopping and some quality time together, followed by dinner at Pizza Hut.

Now I know Pizza Hut is not exactly regarded as the venue of choice for aspiring Romeo's but it is a favourite of the Gnomads and since we're spoiling each other today, why not? The one thing the Gnomads will miss about the Magic Kingdom is the Pizza Hut salad bar, it is very extensive here and has tuna and crab and all sorts of yummy things that you don't seem to get elsewhere.

There is a certain method in this madness. The Blue Strawberry is booked up months in advance for events like St Valentines Day, Mothers Day, etc and if you can get a table it's very crowded on those days. Pizza Hut is not. We still get our sossy dinner there on our extended St Valentines day, and then get to go out to dinner again at the rather less sossy 'Hut, which is of course not at all packed because all the westerners are going somewhere much more posh.

The Gnomadette received the mandatory card and cute little fluffy toy, of course, but also an Egyptian Gold bracelet and a rather fine and stylish sweater (Gnomadette's choice in this case, Gnomad's wallet just paid for it). The Gnomad also received a card and the usual "soppies" but can you guess what else?

Two new RAM chips for the Gnomad's computer! The computer is now running 2GB RAM instead of the paltry 512 chipset it had before. Not so shabby huh? "How is that appropriate for St Valentine's Day?" I hear you ask, well here's the Gnomadette's reasoning: The CPU is the brain of the computer, so the RAM is the heart. Hearts of one sort or another are a traditonal St Valentines day motif, so a better heart for the computer is entirely appropriate. The Gnomad can see no valid argument against that logic :)

Here's hoping that the day has been as good for you, dear reader, as it has for the Gnomads

motoring

2007-11-30T08:40:00.000-08:00

The Gnomads' Landrover Discovery is serving pretty well in this dust-bowl region of the Magic Kingdom. The steering got a bit heavy recently, a symptom that appeared at the same time as a small puddle of hydraulic fluid appeared in the Gnomad's habitual parking spot. "Ah! that would be a leak in the power steering then" quoth the Gnomad to himself. Never mind, a quick trip to Al Cheabo Garage Services will soon put that to rights, but the brakes were a bit slack too so could they look at that too please? Power steering fixed no problem. Braking a little better but not by much. Hmmm. A few days later the brake fluid warning light comes on. Back to Al Cheabo. Two days later the Gnomad cell phone rings "your car is ready Mr Gnomad" came the south Indian voice. "thankyou I'll come and collect it, what did you need to do?" "reblace the master cylinder sir, no broblem". The brakes were indeed rather better. For about a week. the Gnomad checks under the bonnet. Either they did nothing other than top up the brake fluid or Al Cheabo Garage managed to find a second hand master cylinder exactly the same as the one there previously, with the same stains and dirt on it and managed to change said master cylinder without disturbing any of the dirt on or around the master cylinder. They're so careful these guys at Al Cheabo. Gnomad is now a customer of "not-so-cheab-but-do-actually-do-the-work-garage-services"
Much better.

Contemplations

2007-11-30T07:36:00.000-08:00

The Gnomad sits here contemplating what the future holds for the Gnomad and Gnomadette. What has caused this meditative state he hears you ask? Middle-aged Angst, perhaps? or some sort of life changing event? World events in which a teacher who allowed her class to call a teddy bear "muhamed" is being jailed and deported from Sudan (a predominantly Muslim state) with mobs in the street calling for her execution? Well actually nothing so dramatic at all.

The time has come to decide whether The Gnomad should renew his contract with his current employer. Now there are many pluses to being in the job that the Gnomad currently has. the Gnomad has his my own department, admittedly only of one, but still thats quite a lot of freedom. The children Gnomad teaches are on the whole pretty nice, a far cry from the hooligans in the UK. The facilities aren't up to much but they are improving, the salary is reasonably good and the medical insurance is very good, so "what's the problem" Gnomad hears you ask?

Well the problem is the management of the over-arching organisation of which the Gnomad's school is a part. The callous negligence and downright duplicity is getting a bit too much to bear. Earlier in the year many of the gnomad's colleagues were made to move house. No option, no discussion, not even any prior warning. the Gnomad and Gnomadette have been forced to move out of a very pleasant villa into an apartment with only half the useful space of the home they had been used to. No compensation for this drop in living standards was evident. Given that the quality of the housing was a major selling point in the deal at interview and that the Gnomad did in fact take a small but significant cut in salary to get the better accommodation this does rankle rather. the Gnomad is now actually rather worse off than he was two years ago before he made this move.

There have been other instances since then of the management interfering in the day to day running of the compound where the Gnomads are obliged to live (no other residential location will be countenanced by the organisation). None so serious as the forced house move, but these are all decisions being made by people who don't live on the compound, who have much better accommodation than the Gnomads do, and are in fact not qualified or (apparently) competent to make such decisions. They have learned nothing from the housing debacle.

Added to that, these managers are all Americans. This may be coincidence but in the forced house move, with only one exception, all of the staff who were downgraded are in the British division of the organisation, and all of the staff provided with the better quality accommodation were recruited for the American division with, again, only one exception. That exception is a family who work for the British division but are in fact Americans. This may be coincidence but there is a strong feeling amongst the British division employees that the Americans always get the best of everything in this organisation and that the Brits always get the short end of the deal.

As you might have guessed this is all rather getting on the Gnomads's wick.

Added to this are the paranoid security arrangements the Gnomad's have to deal with on a daily basis. If the Gnomads wish to visit friends on another Western compound or, perhaps, visit the social facilities there we have to arrange this well in advance with someone who is resident on the compound, have them put the Gnomads names on a list in the guardhouse, with passport or id numbers, and the Gnomads then have to present this ID to get onto the compound. Any error or discrepancy means admission is denied. (Clearly errors are a rare occurence when you have a nine digit number being read over the phone by an Englishman to a Canadian who is then relaying this to a Lebanese security guard who is dictating it to his Sudanese colleague, no no chance os errors at all)

There is almost no opportunity for any kind of spontaneity at all. Living inside a compound guarded 24 hours by heavily armed soldiers from the National Guard (we have a machine gun emplacement right outside the gatehouse with a crew served weapon installed) and by private armed security, is also a bit oppressive. Having been in the military the Gnomad didn't think this would be a problem, but it is invasive.

time to look for fresher fields, the Gnomads will now be looking to go elsewhere, should the opportunity arise.

Mobility

2007-06-01T12:20:00.002-07:00

The Gnomads have a new possession. It is a Mk 1 Landrover Discovery in white (with brown speckles). Not the Gnomadette's choice, she would much rather have a stylish family saloon, all comforts included. However as both the Gnomad and the Gnomadette like to go for drives in the desert, a saloon is not really a good option. "Oh dear," thinks the Gnomad, "I will just have to get an irresponsible, environmentally unfriendly 4X4 to play with. Mickety Mee, Alas and Lackaday." :)

My first choice was a Jeep Cherokee Classic, but none of this particular breed was available in the Magic Kingdom for a price that suited the Gnomad's limited purse. The disco was not really on the favourites list at all, what with the famously temperamental gear shift and the vast turning circle - slightly better than that of a crude oil tanker, but not by much. However this "slightly foxed" disco came up at only 10,000 shekels (about 1,350 UKP or 2,700 USD) so it was worth a look. 1992, V8 injected engine, lift pack on the suspension, brand new springs, brand new back axle, uprated aircon, not pretty but, as the Gnomad's younger sibling would have it, "straight, hard and cool". Now I know that in the UK the Landrover Defender is the real "straight, hard and cool" Rover, but they just aren't up to life in the Arabian Desert without some serious preparation, unless you've got the military spec Wolf XD and that still needs some preparation.

Someone had obviously prepared this discovery for the desert in a pretty competent way, but had not paid any attention to the look of the vehicle and in this town, where looks count so much, there were no buyers. A test drive was arranged, unaccompanied by the vendor so it included a certain amount of off-road Clarksonism ( see http://www.topgear.com/ and/or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGyNzXUOdGg ) The Rover performed well on the test drive, the gear shift and turning circle being the low points, but nothing unexpected.

A certain amount of haggling ensued and the Gnomad got the price down to 9,000 shekels (1,200 UKP or 2,400 USD). Many of the Gnomad's work colleagues commented on the price and age of the vehicle, asking why Gnomad didn't buy a much newer car. The company will lend up to 70,000 shekels (almost 10,000 UKP or 20,000 USD), interest free, for a car purchase. The only problem is that it must be repaid in the life of one contract, and since the Gnomad's contract has one year left to run, the loan on offer was actually of no practical use whatsoever.

Now all I need to do is get the high lift jack, jacking plate, tyre inflation pump, snatch strap, tow straps, shackles, hand winch, sand shovel and a few other bits and pieces and I'll be ready to go. Apart from the obvious GPS unit, any suggestions for the recovery kit/off road pack gratefully received. I already have a compass :)

Visits and Visas

2007-06-01T11:46:00.000-07:00

Plans for the summer break are coming to fruition. To our deep delight the Gnomadettes UK visa was issued two days ago. Depending how you look at this, it either took three days or three months.

The actual issuing of the visa took three days; application form, passport and supporting documentation dispatched via DHL to British Embassy, returned two days later avec visa.

DHL have a good arrangement for passports to the Embassy. You go in and dispatch the documents, paying for outbound and return carriage, DHL pays the Embassy fees (they won't carry cash) and then you collect your documents from them, reimbursing the Embassy fees DHL has incurred. Pretty straightforward. Well something in the Magic Kingdom has to be.

What took the time was getting the embassy to say what documents were actually required. This took months. If you look on the Embassy website it gives a general list of required documents but says to check with the local diplomatic mission (ie the Enbassy) what other documents are required for your specific country of departure. So, duly emailing the Embassy for local requirements the Gnomads recieved the response "check out our website" having replied that the website said to contat the embassy, the next reply aksed a couple of apparently pertinent questions and promised, once these questions were answered, a full and complete response.

Questions duly answered the reply came back "check out the website for the documents you need" This went round and round several times until eventually the visa section emailed a list of documents. This list was apparently cut and pasted directly from the website (or there was a phenomenal coincidence in text, font, colour formatting and spelling errors, but I suspect not)

so with no further information forthcoming the documents et al were couriered off the the Embassy. Where they were not accepted as they weren't all present! Everything on the list had been sent, I checked it about fourteen times. No this was another document, one that had not previously been mentioned. Fortunately DHL were really on the ball, rather than return the package they called us with what the Embassy had said and advised us to fax the missing document through, and said they would hold the delivery untilwe called them to confirm the document had been recieved. I suspect they had had this problem before because, as it turned out, the DHL guy delivering to the embassy was on first name terms with members of the visa section. The next day the missing document was duly obtained and faxed through, DHL did their stuff and the day after the Gnomadettes passport was duly returned with the visa safely inside.

Plans are now afoot to be in the UK for the first two weeks of July, or thereabouts. defintie dates will be circulated by other means.

some catch up

2007-04-27T08:51:00.000-07:00

Much has happened since the last blog entry by the Gnomad. As is so often the way Real Life gets in the way of blogging.

so to catch up with some news:

the Gnomads did not get to the UK at Easter. the British Enbassy here in the Magic Kingdom has gone really native and is about as much use as a chocolate teapot. Just to give on example, an email requesting the requirements for a UK visa sent 8 weeks in advance took more than five weeks to engender a coherent reply. being invited to look for the relevant information on the website, when the web site says that the information can be obtained from the embassy does not count as useful. when the reply did arrive, now only three weeks before intended departure, it stated that applications should be made at least four weeks before traveling. Ho Hum.

We did however get to the Philippines instead and had a splendidly relaxing holiday, including beach parties, the sister-in-law's graduation and liberal amounts of roast pork and other filipino delicacies. The icing on the cake was an unsolicited free upgrade to business class for the nine and a half hour flight home for the Gnomads. We flew Qatar Airways and it seems that they have a policy of upgrading loyalty scheme members to business class so that they can fit waiting list passengers in.

The disappointment in the journey is what Qatar Airways have done to their lounges. Gold and Silver card members no longer get to use the first and business class lounges at Doha. First and Business now have their own terminal and facilities entirely separate from the main terminal. What used to be one of the best first class lounges is now the Gold lounge and is no longer anything special. No table service, no fresh soups, no alcohol (although I am in fact in favour of a policy of no alcohol in airport lounges) hot drinks from a machine not made for you and worst of all No SUSHI. Oh well, I guess it was good while it lasted, and its still WAY better than waiting in the public lounges. The free internet is still available and the food although limited by comparison is still good quality.

Moves are now afoot to obtain a UK visa for the Gnomadette, maybe with two months time this will be achievable, Insh'Allah

Our Internet continues to be problematic. We have tried three different service providers and the best of them would be considered unacceptably poor by UK standards. If we are very lucky we might get a whole hour of uninterrupted service at a time. often the connection drops out every few minutes for up to half ab hour at a time. this is very frustrating for us as we both like to play internet games and this does spoil things significantly. I am begging to think that there really isnt any way round this and its just part of the Magic of the Kingdom.

The main reason for the hiatus in blogging was that we had a major health issue in the family which had tragic results. Those who know the Gnomads personally are aware of this and we are not going to discuss it here except to say that Mr and Mrs Gnomad are both well and to say thank you to everyone for their kindness and support.

The health service providers here where excellent. The insurance however was not. We were again in a position of having to argue with the insurance company to get a pay out which was specifically covered by the policy. It all turned out ok in the end, but several days admission and a full surgical procedure are expensive and its a bit of a shock to suddenly find that it must be found, in cash, today.

More later when I am less hungry. I'm off to get my dinner

G

telecomms and frustrations

2007-01-07T05:06:00.000-08:00

I have been of the opinion for some time that Peninsular Gulf State Telecomms (GTel for short, as mentioned in previous posts) are the worst telephone and internet service providers in the entire world. They are a state protected monopoly until 2014. I am still of this opinion but the Magic Kingdom Telecommunications company (MTC) is running a close second. They re also a state protected monopoly. The Gnomads are keen users of the internet and as such have been trying to get a broadband connection at home for more than four months now.

The compound manager is not interested in helping us do this, he won't sign up to any deal unless he can sign four residents up at once. Not so difficult you might think as there are several of us here who want a DSL link. But no, there aren't four households in the same block that want a new DSL line. Another alternative is to sign up for a massive satellite TV package and get satellite internet as an add-on. This is a lot of money for a whole load of channels that the Gnomads would never watch. This also involves the compound manager and so would take months too. Having despaired of getting anything done via the compound we have tried to get our employer to organise it for us. We cant just go and get a link installed ourselves, we have to have a letter of no objection from either our employer or our compound manager.

At the end of November we were informed that we would soon be getting a DSL line installed with full internet access, paid for by my employer and salary deducted at payroll. Easy Peasy!

No, as it turns out. Having made this arrangement we waited. And waited. then an email popped up, the lines are being made available, please call to get the line installed. Woohoo! Broadband!

No, we have to call to get our existing phone line changed over to a line which will support ADSL. The technician comes round swaps a couple of wires over and bob's your uncle, ADSL

No, having got the line switched over we than have to call MTC to get the ADSL line activated. Now anyone with any brains whatsoever would work out that if one changed ones phoneline to allow ADSL connection then one would want ADSL, but this is far too great a leap of logic for MTC. So Gnomad calls MTC. "Ah yes, you want ADSL, a technician will call you in a few days" Two weeks later and still no call. Normally I would have only waied a week but there's a holiday, Eid Al Adha, in the timeframe. In the meantime The Gnomads are using MTCs dial up facility at only five times the expense of the broadband connection.

Three days (Friday) ago we find that we cannot connect on the dial up, the line is busy. All day. Maybe there's a fault on line. No, the phoneline appears to be working OK (I called the line from my mobile and it rang). Perhaps it is a fault with the server that will be fixed tomorrow. Patience mes Braves, no point fretting about it today, Friday is the holy day, no-one will be working. Saturday comes and the line is still busy. So I call MTC.

"You're line is suspended"
"Why"
"You are over your credit limit"
"What credit limit?"
"All new lines have a credit limit of (pitifully small amount of money) shekels and this cant be changed until you have paid the bill.
"I don't pay the bill, my company pays the bill, when was the bill sent out?"
"The bill was prepared yesterday"
"so it hasn't been sent yet?, when can I expect my company to have paid this?"
"Maybe 10 days Insh'Allah"
"can you reconnect me until then?"
"We can reconnect for 24 hours only, then disconnect again"

And so it went on. Apparently the system goes like this, you have a credit limit that no-one tells you about and, if when they make up your bill, you are over that limit they shut off the service. No contact, no warning, and no indication except any number you call rings as busy. I have never before encountered a utility that will cut you off before you have even had a chance to pay.

So today I went off to MTC to pay a bill which I don't actually have. Yet again I got prayer time wrong and so arrived just as they were closing to go to pray. I waited for nearly three quarters of an hour and then was allowed in. It doesn't appear that many people actually go to pray, though, I only actually saw 3 people go into the mosque. There were far more people waiting outside to go into the office by the time prayers ended. I did not see anyone at all from the office go to the mosque either. That is not to suggest that they didn't pray, merely that they didn't go to the mosque to do so. This being the case why is it necessary to close the office half an hour before and throughout prayer time? I am sure that Inconveniencing the Infidel cannot really be the motive (although sometimes it feels very much like it)and its much more likely that the businesses must close to ensure that the faithful have time to get to the mosque, wash and pray without this right being taken away from them by greedy, grasping employers (who, here, must also be Muslims), but who can say?

I queued for half an hour at reception and explained my problem. "Go to Desk 4 they will print your bill" so I fall in line and wait at desk 4. "I print your bill, you collect it from reception" so I queue again at reception. After only about 10 minutes "Here is your bill, you pay at desk 7" so I fall in line and wait at desk 7, after maybe only 15 minutes I get to the head of the queue and hand over the bill and the debit card. The card machine doesn't work.

"can I pay cash?"
"No only card, we will fix, the line is down"

So after about ten minutes and three men fiddling around with the machine they establish the necessary phone link to make the card machine work (This is the telecomms office, remember?) and my payment is processed.

"will the line work now?"
"You go to desk 7"

So back I go to desk 7, wait in line again for the person there to make three keystrokes and the phone line will be active again in "an hour, maybe half an hour, Insh'Allah"

To be fair, the phoneline was back in working order by the time we got home

It is astonishing that a simple thing like paying a phone bill can take over three hours, and involve calling in at three desks, two of them twice. That's all part of the Magic of the Kingdom.

In the course of the conversations with MTC it did turn out that the line was now ADSL capable and had been for several days, just that no-one had bothered to tell me that either. I will go into work tomorrow and find out exactly how to get the broadband service, now we finally have a phoneline that is capable of supporting it.

Even as I type the doorbell rang and it was one of the compound workers bringing me the phone bill. MTC is not, apparently, sending these to my employer after all. I do wonder exactly what, if anything, has actually been arranged.

Do we have an internet service?
Yes
Is it ADSL?
No
Will it be broadband soon?
Insh'Allah.

G

Addendum

Since writing we have been cut off again. Now bear in mind that I went into MTC's office, got the very latest up-to-date bill, paid the entire balance using my atm card (they will not accept cash, only card payments). The payment was authorised as soon as their phone line was working so it’s a guaranteed payment, the guy in their own office re-activated the line and, despite this, someone else in MTC has chosen to cut us off again! I have just got off the telephone (the other line, the one the compound provides) having spoken to MTC very harshly. They very grudgingly agreed to "Give me one more chance" - ARrogAnt Ba$tards! - and re-connect the line again, hence my being able to make my tirade here. I find it astonishing that you have to get angry with people just to get anything done here.

According to MTC the payment has not yet appeared on their computer system so the line should be cut off. A reconnection of the sort given to us in the office is supposed to last 24 hours to allow the payment time to clear, it actually lasted less than six. I wonder how long this re-connection will last. I suspect only until the next shift change when some new operative logs on, notices the apparent lack of payment and, without checking any further, cuts us off again. Gtel's status as World's Worst Telecomm Provider is beginning to look rather shaky!

Addendum Too

9 minutes – that’s how long our “24 hour” reconnection lasted. We are cut off again. Continued attempts to reconnect result in, roughly, one successful attempt in 7 which then drops out after about 40 seconds. I am typing this in Word and will cut and paste it onto the blog when MTC finally condescends to provide us with the service for which I have paid.

G
(posting from work)

Festivities

2006-12-26T00:22:00.000-08:00

The yule tide celebrations here in the Magic Kingdom are discreet and out of the public eye. There are festive lights and decorations all over the ex-pat only compounds, but nothing visible where any of the locals might see, lest they are corrupted away from Islam, one assumes.

The Gnomadette being a filipina has allowed the Gnomads to make a good many friends in the Philippine community here. It's good to have friends who are nothing to do with work, life can become very insular indeed if ones social circle is exactly the same as ones working circle. We were invited to spend Chi$tmas eve with some of our new Filipino friends. What a splendid party it was too. There was masses of food, the house was beautifully decorated and the new people we met there were extremely friendly. The Gnomadette was delighted o see TFC (The Filipino Chhannel) on the TV there. This is available via satellite and is the abs cbn channel direct from the Philippines. The Gnomadette misses her favourite shows so this will be making an appearance in the Gnomad's residence before long.

The highlight of the evening was the Prime Note Ensemble. These are a group of 35 or so men who are an acapela singing group. This groups represents The Magic kingdom in international competitions and was recently placed third in a global competition in China. They are all Filipinos. We had the enormous privilege of six of their number coming to the party to sing for us. The group makes appearances like this to raise money for a number of charities back in the Philippines and so can be booked for any size of function. The men sang beautifully and with enormous enthusiasm, in English and in Tagalog, all seasonal songs and carols. Some we listened to enraptured, others we sang along with. A truly joyful experience.

Chri$tmas day itself the Gnomads spent quietly at home. Presents after breakfast were many, there being what the Gnomads gave to each other and also what the children at school had given generously to us. Dinner was roast duck and roast chicken, with most, if not all, the trimmings in both Filipino and English style, but without the wanton excess which now seems to be so much a part of the Western festive season. Very pleasant, all in all.

G

Condiments of the Seasoning

2006-12-24T03:41:00.000-08:00

The Gnomads are not, in fact, in The Mundane Kingdom for the holiday as we had planned. We are still awaiting paperwork. Mrs Gnomad needs to be added to my identity papers, then we need to get an exit/re-entry visa for her for The Magic Kingdom and then we can apply for a visa for The Gnomadette to visit The Mundane Kingdom. So far the exit/re-entry visa is still being processed. Hopefully we’ll make it to The Mundane Kingdom at Easter. It’s a pretty poor state of affairs that the spouse of a Mundane Kingdom subject gains no right of entry into the Kingdom by that fact.

We have partially decorated downstairs for the festive season, we have decorative lights, decorations, gifts and all manner of things to make our home look “Chri$tmassy” without actually mentioning Chri$tmas. To avoid bankrauptcu we have agreed to decorate only on room at a time. Our villa here is vast and we only really use one floor and the kitchen. Its amazing that you can buy every kind of artificial deciduous tree here you like, peach trees, apricot trees, trees with white blossom, trees with pink blossom, trees covered in artificial grape vines (this is the one we have) but not on single conifer is available. I head of a couple who had their artificial pine tree confiscated by The Magic Kingdom authorities at the border checkpoint on the causeway. “It’s a Chri$tmas tree you cant bring it in” they insisted. I also have it on good authority that the same couple were offered the self same tree about three weeks later by a “dodgy geezer” (or whatever the Magic Kingdom equivalent is) three weeks later in downtown MagicSmallTown. I did actually find Chr$tmas cards in a shop in one of the malls, they were discreetly placed but did have the word Chri$tmas on the cover, so maybe things will lighten up a bit.

The much promised DSL line still eludes us. We have the right type of phone line now, so there is some progress at least. Apparently I need to call the phone service provider and have it activated. I then have to contact the ISP and have them connect it. There are dozens of ISPs here, and most of them use scratch cards, much like the ones you used for your pre-paid mobile phone. I can’t remember the name of the ISP my employer arranged for, they do monthly billing via the phone bill, so it’s easy, but I have to call them and the details are on an email on the intranet system, which I could access from home if only I had a broadband connection.

In one of those twists of irony the weather here has been unseasonably cold and wet, It’s quite like autumn in the Mundane Kingdom. I have actually been wandering around in a rugby shirt on top of a tee shirt. There has been almost two years worth of rainfall in the last month and floods everywhere in town. There are no drains on the roads here. They don’t seem to feel that they are necessary. Tell that to the poor, bedraggled policemen standing up to their knees in water on the traffic islands, to stop people wrecking their cars, because in the floods you can't tell where the road is. There have been a vast number of road accidents. Some caused by people not knowing how to drive in the wet, some was just the karma of their appalling driving catching up with them, but many have been where people have simply got it wrong and driven off the road and into a hole, or up an obstacle because there is nowhere for the rainwater to go and these things are hidden. After about the third day there were huge tankers with pumping engines all over the place removing the water, and in other places, just pumping engines moving water onto nearby waste ground clearing the roads. Can you believe we have a mosquito infestation problem here in the desert?

Merry Chri$tmas, Happy New Year, Festive Felicitations, Happy #annukka #, Eid Mubarakh, Pious Saturnalia, Jolly Solstice or other appropriate greeting of your choice for whatever you choose to celebrate at this time of year.

G

Frabjous Day! Callooh! Callay!*

2006-11-18T09:57:00.000-08:00

On Monday 13th November the news came that we had been waiting for, the Gnomadette's visa had been issued. Huzzah! Now to make arrangements to get Mrs Gnomad to the Magic Kingdom. We already had flights booked for the Gnomadette, booked, endorsed and endorsed again as things were delayed. Flights also had to be booked for the Gnomad. The rules of the Magic Kingdom are such that a woman cannot enter the kingdom unless accompanied by her sponsor (husband, father, etc). There are exceptions to this rule, nurses, teachers, certain western ex-pats depending on country of origin, etc, but none of these apply to Mrs Gnomad. The outbound flight to the Philippines goes via Island Gulf State (IGS), via Qatar and then onto Cebu. The inbound journey merely goes via Qatar.

“Since the Gnomadette must be accompanied into the Magic Kingdom, can I meet her in Qatar and travel with her for the last leg?” I inquired of the travel and visa agents. The reply was hesitant and the answer was something like this; “well you can but we advise against it”. “Why is that?” “We have had situations in the past were travellers have been refused boarding in the Philippines because the airline were uncertain that they would be admitted into the Magic Kingdom”. Apparently the airlines face heavy fines if a traveller arrives in a state were the traveller has no right of entry, so sometimes the airlines don’t take the chance. I, also, was not prepared to take this chance.

Only one option remained, the Gnomad must travel from the Magic Kingdom, home to the Philippines and back again in a weekend. So this is what I did.

Wednesday, 15h00, left work for IGS. There is a road link from the Magic Kingdom to IGS, but it is often very busy and, obviously, there is an international border crossing involved too. This can take anything from one to three hours, possibly more on occasion, so we left plenty of time. Boss Bill very kindly offered to drive the Gnomad on this stretch to ensure a smooth start to the journey.

16h00, arrived at IGS airport, greatly astonished. This was apparently the most rapid transit into IGS that Boss Bill, or indeed anyone as we subsequently found out, had heard of. Gnomad’s early arrival means that it isn’t possible to check in for at least two hours and there are almost no facilities. Only one thing to do; Head for the Qatar Airways office, waving the frequent flyer card and request somewhere comfortable to wait. Result “No problem sir, we’ll open up the check in just for you and you can wait in the first class lounge” Woohoo! Result! I do like my Qatar Airways Gold frequent flyer card. So I adjourn to the aforementioned first class lounge and wait, partaking of some rather pleasant light refreshments, not quite up to the standard of the Doha first class lounge but very jolly all the same. And I wait. And I wait. There are only so many delicate little dainties a chap can enjoy, and it seemed like ages to go before the flight was called. So I waited. And waited. The flight from IGS to Qatar was delayed. Eek! I only had 45 minutes turnaround time in Qatar! The delay got longer and longer and more and more worrying. Eventually the flight left 32 minutes late. Sweating all the way we got into Qatar 30 minutes late and I dashed off the aircraft as fast as I could. I headed straight for the meet and greet service (another frequent flyer privilege) and showed them my tickets. Phone calls were made, queues were jumped and I was escorted straight through to the departure gate in double quick time. I was aboard the outbound flight from Doha with four minutes to spare. Very relieved I settled down to my airline meal and my nine and a half hours in cattle class. If I had missed that flight the next was not for three days.

The flight was unremarkable in all respects except one. Despite a timely departure we managed to arrive half an hour late. The Gnomads live an hour from the airport, and we had only five hours of scheduled turn around time in the Philippines, so a half hour delay was significant. The Gnomadette was there to meet me at the airport. We hailed a cab and headed home to Dumlog. There a shower, and a fried chicken and roast meat (I wont say which meat, merely that it is haram –forbidden- in the Magic Kingdom) meal awaited. Fifty minutes later with both of these done and all last minute checks made the Gnomads headed back to Cebu International Airport. Arriving an hour and a half before hand the Gnomads checked in, said their farewells and aawaited the flight.

The accumulated air-miles earned in the Gnomads meanderings had proved sufficient to upgrade us both to business class for the inbound journey. As we boarded at the front of the plane and turned left instead of right, the stewardess invited us to “sit anywhere we liked, there are no others in the business class cabin”. A pleasant, peaceful and above all quiet journey ensued. Being able to actually lie down (once one has finished playing with the electrically controlled seat, of course) and sleep is a huge benefit of business class. The journey was as near to restful as a flight can be and the Gnomads were spoilt and pampered by the cabin crew who had little else to do.

Arrival in Doha was uneventful. Again at the meet and greet reception we were informed that since our stopover was in excess of eight hours we had a room at the Merweb Hotel. The hotel courtesy bus got us there is reasonable time, despite many unannounced road closures, and showers and food were able to happen again. The Merweb was not, unfortunately, up to Qatar Airways usual standards and I would not personally choose to stay there again. Our six am bus turned into a six-forty five bus and was grossly overloaded at that – all seats taken plus six children sat on adults laps and one adult sat on the floor! The aisle also lined with luggage. However we soon arrived back at the airport and had time for breakfast in the first class lounge again which did much to restore the Gnomad’s good humour.

The forty minute flight into the Magic Kingdom departed and arrived on time with the Gnomads on board. The queue at Immigration was vast, and since it was a Friday the crew was skeleton. The Gnomadette watched the progress of the queue with growing alarm. The eight other Filipinas ahead of us in the queue had their passports taken and not returned at immigration and were made to wait separately. We later found out that their sponsors had to come and collect them. They really were not admitted to the Magic Kingdom unaccompanied. As far as we know none were turned back.

When the Gnomads reached immigration, Mrs Gnomad was allowed through without delay. This is partly because I, her sponsor, was there too and not a little to do with the fact that we had thought ahead and Mrs Gnomad was wearing the abaya. This is not actually compulsory for entering the Kingdom, but it really did seem to help.

Sam, our taxi driver was waiting for us outside the airport (I learned from last time and arranged a regular ddriver to pick us up) and we are now nicely settling in to married life together in the Magic Kingdom.

G

* Title courtesy of Lewis Carrol and the Jabberwocky

A little faith restored

2006-11-03T06:11:00.000-08:00

having arrived at the entry airport of my choice in the Magic Kingdom, I realised three important things, first that I had left all my relevant local currency in my desk in the Philippines, second that I didnt actually know how to get to where I lived from the airport, and that third I could not describe the same to a taxi driver. The first problem was relatively easily solved. I have very little Arabic, but mournfully waving an ATM card and wailing "Mafi felous" resulted in my being directed to a suitable ATM machine in the airport lobby.

The second problem was irrelevant as it was too far to walk in any case but the third was rather more, er... problematic.

The taxi rank outside the airport is an absolutely rigid "you will take the first cab in the line" system, and I couldnt make the cabby understand where I wanted to go. Two or three other taxis further down the line took fares and set off, but because this particular cabby was the one at the head of the queue when I got there this was the one I had to use. After a few minutes there were five various assorted cabbies all jabbering away, all except one convinced they knew where I wanted to go and trying to give my cabbie (the one who wasnt convinced) directions. Different directions. All at once. Very loudly. With manic gestures and wthout any English.

Then one of them suddenly asked me "You have number?" of course I have the number of the gate house on my mobile. he then rang the gate house of my compound, ascertained the correct directions, and then explained this to everyone all over again in much the same way as before. I guessed from the now apparently choreographed gestures and the syncopation in the voices that they were all now giving the same set of directions.

These various assorted gentlemen were all Arabs, all ordinary working men and all were genuinely keen to see that I got to the right place and that the proper cab driver got his fare, according to his turn. When I arrived at my compound, the fare was exactly what I had expected it to be, and not at all the usual hiked up fare yoou get from airport taxis the world over.

So it seems that good customer service IS coming into the Magic Kingdom after all, you just have to get lucky or know where to look for it.

Three steps forward, two steps back

2006-11-03T06:07:00.000-08:00

Here I sit, admittedly in some comfort with my fresh sushi and cup of piping hot Darjeeling, in the Qatar Airways first class lounge at Doha international airport. Despite the many benefits of my frequent flyer card (I don’t ever actually fly first class, the Gnomad exchequer does not extend much beyond “cattle class”) I am not a happy bunny. The problem is that I am here on my own. I had really expected to have Mrs Gnomad with me on this journey. I am heading back the Magic Kingdom after the Eid al Fitr break, I spent the vacation at home in Cebu, mostly chasing paperwork for the Gnomadette’s visa. The Embassy of the Magic Kingdom in Manila is staffed by the most deliberately obstructive, arrogant, ignorant, incompetent and lazy individuals I have ever had the misfortune to deal with. Mostly they just refuse to tell you anything.

To give an example, here is a recent conversation;

“Magic Kingdom Embassy” said the voice of the Consular section of the Magic Kingdom Embassy in Manila
“A’salamalikum” Says I – this being a traditional Arabic greeting
“Thank you, we are close in half an hour”
(This means they are open right now surely?)
“Could you answer a couple of questions for me please?”
“We are closing soon”
“It won’t take long, I have a couple of questions regarding visas”
“I know nothing about visa”
(this is the voice of the Consular section, Visas are their main job!)
“Well could you put me through to someone who does, please?”
“We are closing soon”
“Is there anyone else I could speak to?”
“No-one here, we are closing soon”
“Could you tell me when you are open so I can call again later”
“You call tomorrow”
“When are you open tomorrow?”
“We are closing now”
“What time are you open tomorrow?”
You call tomorrow, we tell you tomorrow”

And so on….

When they do tell you something, it’s either out of date, incomplete, incorrect, or simply made up on the spot. It appears that the concepts of “Customer Service”, “Fair Dealing” and “Pride in doing a Good Job” have no direct translation into Arabic, or at least no translation into the dialect of Arabic used in the Magic Kingdom. This is odd because I have encountered all of these concepts practiced in other Arabic countries. Coincidentally, perhaps, in countries without massive oil or gas reserves.

We have had to resort to hiring a second visa agent to apply for the Gnomadette’s visa to Magic Kingdom, at an additional cost of over 10,000 pesos so far. Despite being told that we would both have to go to the Embassy to present our visa documents, as Mrs Gnomad is coming to the Magic Kingdom as my dependant, the Embassy does not accept personal visitors! The story now is that we must both be present to hand over our documents to the agent, who will then submit them to the embassy. Not any agent will do either, it must be an agent accredited with the Magic Kingdom Embassy. These only exist in Manila, hence the additional hire. The usual fee for a visa agent in the Philippines is about 2,500 pesos. Anyone smell baksheesh here?

The current state of affairs is that the visa documents are now in the hands of the Accredited Agent and have been for several days. The visa process should take about a week, or rather 5 working days. This might not sound so bad, apart from Fridays don’t count, as it’s a half day and the visa section don’t deal with visas on a Friday, Saturdays and Sundays are the weekend, the Embassy was shut for three days for Eid Al Fitr (24th, 25th and 26th October), the 31st October and 1st November are holidays (not actual legal holidays, just popular days off, so the Embassy was closed too).

The first attempt to submit the documents has already failed because the Gnomadette’s medical was not performed at the designated clinic. We have had the medicals done twice now, the first time with the Gnomadette’s family doctor. This was no good because he was not on the “approved list”, Ok we should have checked. We got the second medical certification done at Chong Hua hospital in Cebu. I asked beforehand if Chong Hua was an approved clinic and yes, they said, it was. This was after all where I got my medicals done without any hassle only five months ago. But no. In the meantime the rules have changed again. Chong Hua is no longer acceptable and there is now only one approved clinic in the entire Republic of the Philippines. As it stands now, the Gnomadette will have to go to Manila for at least a week to have the medical certification done all over again. It looks like it could well be another month before Mrs Gnomad can make an appearance in the Magic Kingdom.

As far as the Gnomad’s new habitat being called the Magic Kingdom is concerned, I do now have an idea. It seems to me that the task of finding an old English manor house owned by a geriatric, retired professor, then searching this house for a long forgotten room, in which can be found an old ornate apple-wood wardrobe, then going into this wardrobe, defeating the snow queen and in the process resurrecting a huge talking lion is a quicker, more practical, and far less ludicrous way of gaining access to a new country than dealing with Magic Kingdom bureaucracy.

Oh well, things could be worse, at least there is some progress. My immediate stresses are being further mitigated now by the arrival of more sushi with some fine wasabi, and a new pot of Darjeeling. It seems that, at least as far as air travel is concerned, my loyalties can be bought with comfy leather sofas,
complimentary Japanese sea-food and unlimited Indian tea.

G

Definite Progress

2006-10-08T05:08:00.000-07:00

The Gnomad came into work yesterday to find an email from the Government Relations Office (GRO). The email stated that on the previous working day the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) had added Mrs Gonmad to the Gnomads Iqama and issued the relevant paper work for the Visa to be applied for in the Philippines. This is, I am told, astonishingly quick and GRO has clearly worked their socks off (or other Arabic clothing type analogy) to get things done this fast.

This, in effect, means that as soon as the relevant paperwork in the Philippines is finished the Gnomadette will be issued with her visa. What we need to do is find out exactly what the paperwork requirements are. I have been trying to do this for a while now. The Embassy in Manila couldnt say, GRO have suggested several items but cannot be sure, and the regulations seem to change every day. The Embassy in Manila has a very handy page where one can download visa forms, but the one we actually need is not available there. "Would the Manila Embassy accept the forms downloaded from the London Embassy?" I asked GRO. "If they are in a good mood they might, but they might not". Ho Hum.

We also need to establish whether we can make an application by post, otherwise its a trip to Manila to submit and another to collect. Thats not so bad as it may sound since I will be in the Philippines for the Eid break, but time is short and Manila is an hour by air or 5 hours by boat from Cebu.

Those of you who are aware of the weekend being Thursday and Friday here will also realise that the Gnomadette's papers were in fact issued on the Gnomad's birthday. A very nice little birthday bonus!

G

Birthday

2006-10-05T02:18:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the Gnomad's birthday. In that great British tradition, I therefore baked cakes the previous day and took them into work to share with my colleagues. People were very complimentary about the rich fruit cake, and since this is one of the Gnomads vanities my ego was suitably boosted on this special day :)

In respect of Ramadan and my colleagues who were fasting, I cut and wrapped several pieces of cake so that they could each take some home for Iftar.

The traditon also applies for any momentous occasion so it is usual to announce what the cakes are for. This was duly done on the intranet. My colleagues apparently divulged this information to my classes. Every class I had that day sang "Happy Birthday" to me, I recieved a number of cards from colleagues and students, and my year eleven students bought my favourite coffee (Caramel Machiato with extra caramel) from the coffee shop and arranged to have it delivered to my classroom.

In the evening two of my colleagues took me out for dinner. They are a delightful couple with an equally delightful three year old daughter who came with us. We went to a restaurant called the Thai House and a splendid time was had by all. This restaurant was one of those cheap and cheerful places of which the Gnomad is so fond. The food was plentiful, cheap and delicious. We had almost every variety of South East Asian Shrimp dish you can imagine, shrimp with sweet chilli, with noodles, in fried rice, with another sauce which was largely ginger, in batter as tempura, and we also had some local white fish in black bean sauce. My friends had orange juice which was actually freshly squeezed for them, not out of a carton, and I had iced tea with lemon. You have to be a bit careful with any kind of beverage here in the gulf, if you're not careful it will appear laden with sugar, several tablesppons to a pitcher. I always ask for "no sugar" when ordering juices or shakes and "only little sugar" in iced tea and then hope for the best. My iced tea with lemon was absolutely spot on, just how I like it. I shall certainly be going back there again.

A really fun day at work followed by a very satisfying meal, altogether a very jolly birthday. The only thing that would have made the day better was if Mrs Gnomad could have been there too. Government Relations say they expect some news on the visa situation very shortly, so that is hopeful too.

G

telephony and confectionary

2006-10-03T08:33:00.000-07:00

I have been experimenting with the humongous electric cooker provided in the villa. Its vast, I'll have no worries if I have to respray my car (when I get one) I can bake the paint dry by driving into the oven! Seriously though, the oven is unusually big.

I did a couple of practice bakes and I think I've got the hang of fahrenheit now. Its kind of tricky translating gas mark four into fahrenheit, but since my shipment arrived, containing my cook books, I have a conversion table. I had got it slightly wrong on the first go and my crispy crust pizza was rather more crispy crust than pizza. In keeping with British school traditions I have baked cakes for my upcoming birthday. What a joy to be able to cook four full size (12" cake tin) cakes in the oven at once. Oops there goes the waistline.

Changing the subject to telephony, I have recieved my phone bill. This is a an entertaining work of fiction. Just as I did last time, I have gone through every item to check its veracity and ,just like last time, I have been overcharged by a third. How can they possibly expect to get away with charging me for a 58 minute call when the next call on the bill, for a further 48 minutes, commenced only four minutes after the first was supposed to have begun? I know the Magic Kingdom uses a Lunar calendar, but the phone company, in a spirit of concordant traditionalism no doubt, keeps lunatic timings. 106 minutes of calls in one hour? with only one phone line? and only one handset? that's pretty clever. Perhaps thats some of the eponymous Magic of the Kingdom at work.

strangely enough my current phone bill has no charges whatsoever beyond the 9th of last month, Oh! That would be the day I got my first phone bill and discovered its cheaper to call Mrs Gnomad in the Philippines using my UK cellphone than it is for me to call her on my TMK landline.

Hey ho, off to the bank. It being Ramadan the bank is open from 8pm to 1am.

G

progress, perhaps

2006-09-28T16:13:00.000-07:00

Well Ramadan has now started and here in the Magic Kingdom that means that most commercial activity is displaced by about 12 hours.

Only a very few of the shops are open during the day, the pattern seems to be most places open at 8pm and close at about 3am the nexrt day. Makes it a bit tricky nipping round the corner for a carton of milk, but you cant drink the milk during daylight hours anyway, so I guess it doesnt really matter.

the paperwork seems to be progressing, I went into the traffic police offices, along with some of my new colleagues, to get our local driving licences. There was an eye test, we jokingly said (pointing a finger in two stabbing motions at our colleagues faces) 'one, two, passed!' . The eye test was a little more stringent than that, but not by much. An overheard comment from another western ex pat was "why bother to test the eyes, no-one here looks when they're driving so it doesnt matter if they can't see' A litle harsh perhaps, but I do know what he means.

Then came the blood test. I was pleased to see that they were, as a matter of course, using a new, sterile needle for each person, so some things have improved, but the technicians doing the tests had no examiination gloves or any other kind of protective gear. Not an ideal situation since there were a good many people there from all over the world and so the technicians were potentially exposing themselves to almost every kind blood born infection.

I quite like taking a blood test, though. It's the only test I ever get an A+ for!

We then joined the queue for paperwork processing only to be told 'hallas, computer full'. Hallas means finished, I am unsure if thats the correct spelling. Hmm, the computer is full? Oh well, no point in arguing, arguing will only make the man lose face and then he'll never process the papers. Best to come back the next day. Fortunately this last bit doesnt need our personal attention and my employer will send a chap to sort it out, rather than have four teachers away from classes again.

My mutliple exit visa is promised in a few days, Insh'Allah, I have my bank account now and Jummah, one of the Govt relations chaps from work who helps process all these things, assures me that he will do his utmost to ensure that I will have Mrs Gnomad's visa in time for the Eid break, so all is, apparently, progressing.

I actually managed to get to the offices of my favourite airline (favourite as in most used, not necessarily best liked) and have got flights booked for myself and Mrs Gnomad for the Eid break and for Christmas too. These latter set of tickets are freebies, cashed in frequent flyer miles providing us with round trip tickets from the Magic Kingdom to Good Old Blighty (Huzzah!), just taxes and airport fees to pay. Not an inconsiderable amount of money but the cost in total is less than a fifth of what it would have been if we were paying full whack. The added bonus is that the flights dont have to come out of the Christmas pay packet, leaviing this to be squandered on seasonal fripperies instead (Huzzah! again).

All I need to do now is ensure that I can obtain a UK visa for Mrs Gnomad. Another little adventure in the forests of red tape awaits, no doubt.

G

Long time no blog...

2006-09-16T05:03:00.000-07:00

At last I am back in Blogdom. I have no internet at home in the Philippines and none yet here in The Magic Kingdom. I have been here in the Kingdom for three weeks now and I have almost got all of my paperwork in order - I started doing this in June! Now that the Gnomad papers are about sorted I can arrange for Mrs Gnomad's visa etc. Mrs Gnomad has had to remain in the Philippines until all the bureaucracy can be completed, which we now believe will actually happen, although there were moments of near despair.

I had endeavoured to get an internet connection at home in Phils, but alas, I have a fibre optic phone line and, apparently, PLDT the Philippine national telecomms provider can only provide internet access down the old style copper cables?!

It's a bit tough being newly married and away from my beloved, but things are, as I said, looking much more hopeful now. I now have my IQAMA, which is the work permit, internal passport, and 'get-everything-done' card. This means I can do things like open a bank account, get a driving licence (swaps for my old Euro driving licence) it means I can cash my salary cheque (woohoo!) and many other every day necessities.

I am enjoying my new school. The kids are, on the whole, very well behaved. Class sizes vary from 7 to 14 in general but my exam class is just 5 strong. A chap can really bring out the best in his students with the amount of personal attention he can give to each student in classes of that size :) I have my own department (admittedly of only one - me) but I have my own budget to go with it and although the facilities are not as good as some places I have worked I do have the opportunity to expand on what's here and make things much more salubrious and at the same time increase the range of tools and materials available to the students.

Being as ex-pats can't actually own real estate in the Kingdom I am provided with somewhere to live, in much the same way as in my last school and pretty much all other ex-pat jobs in the Gulf region. Here, however I have been given a four bedroom villa with three receptions rooms, three bathrooms and a huge kitchen. I have front and rear gardens and a place to park my car under cover. Not that I own a car yet, I only just got my IQAMA, so I dont have a driving licence yet, which means I cant buy a car but that will happen soon. Security is taken seriously here and there is 24 hour private security for the compound supported by National Guardsmen. This level of security can be a bit of a culture shock if you're not used to it but I like the feeling of safety that it gives. There is a swimming pool, a gym, tennis courts and a function room provided for our use in the compound and the nearest big shop is about five minutes walk away.

The grubby little flat I was given by my last school would fit into the ground floor of my new villa. The existing staff and managers here appear to respect, listen to and assist their colleagues, especially their new colleagues. They appear to be genuinely interested in the well being of the school community. Such a refreshing change. I had a minor water leak in one of the upstairs bathrooms one night, the plumber was there at 7am the next day, job done by the time I got home, rather less than 18 hours after the problem was first notified. In my former accommodation I had maintenance requests take more than 18 months to be dealt with. I do think I have made a good move coming here.

More will follow, but I have to catch the free bus home from work...

G

Role Playing Games

2006-06-23T22:08:00.000-07:00

As most of my friends are aware I am a keen roleplayer. I do enjoy the improvisation and mental acrobatics of playing a very free form game in the persona of an aged wizard, or devious dwarf or whatever the genre requires.

I have been playing since the early seventies and recently used to play weekly in a group in the UK before I was seduced away by the ex-pat lifestyle (mostly the no income tax bit). I also played on the computer using a game called Neverwinter Nights. This particular game has the singular advantage that you can create your own module and has the capacity for the game to be moderated by a referee over the internet or local area network.

There is a definite lack of RPGs (Role Playing Games, not Rocket Propelled Grenades, there are plenty of those) out here in the Gulf, so I was delighted to find a module that was available on the internet through the game itself which was designed, scripted and inhabited in a way that suited me really well. A lot of online RPGs suffer from mass participation by teenagers, especially pubescent boys, and this strongly affects the content and style of play. Those games I find best avoided.

Not so The Crescent Coast. The players here have an inteligent and mature style of play, roleplay much more often than just go slaying creatures, characterisation is generally of a very high standard and the module itself is beautifully crafted.

I have been playing this game for some time so you can imagine my dismay when earlier this year I could no longer access the game at all. Heroic fantasy role playing games are apparently not compatible with Islamic Cultural Ideals so all of the sites are now blocked. My other favourite leisure time occupation, amateur dramatics, came to an abrupt end on 19th March of last year when the theatre was destroyed during a terorist attack. See the website here for details; http://www.dohaplayers.com/

I am looking forward to getting back into the game, even if only briefly while I am in the Philippines next month, just so long as I can secure a broadband connection.

For those of you out there who play Neverwinter Nights the module is "The Crescent Coast" and is hosted by "Eclipse develpoment". It does require a few extra downloads to the standard game but these do add to the game and are worthwhile. The forum which goes with the game is here: http://thecrescentcoast.net and the downloads are all available there.

I am wondering if I can persuade my new school to allow me to host it on their LAN, and run the game as an extra-curricular activity. Who can tell?

G

Photos

2006-06-20T07:34:00.000-07:00

More of the wedding photos are now available in the "Our pictures" link

G

Students today

2006-06-20T07:09:00.000-07:00

About a month ago the changes of staffing were announced in my school's newsletter. Since then I have had a great many students, in ones and two and threes, approach me with good wishes for my new job, to express their regret at my leaving and gratitude for the work I have done with them. For example at the end of the second lesson today, a young lad of about 13 came up to me and said "it's my last day here Mr Gnomad and I justed wanted to say Good luck in your new job and thank you for being my teacher". I thanked him, we shook hands and he left.

When it became known that my wife had been taken ill a good many students offered their good wishes and have continued to enquire after her health. Quite a few, both Christian and Muslim, offered to remember her in their prayers and we even had get-well-soon cards from a couple of the students.

I felt touched by their concern and genuine interest in my family's well being.

It is students like this that make it worthwhile being a teacher.

G

Banquo travels

2006-06-18T07:14:00.000-07:00

I have had a very interesting day to day. Guess how long it takes to cash a cheque drawn on (Gulf State) National Bank in the City Centre Branch of (Gulf State) National Bank in the capitol city of (Gulf State)?

4 hours and 44 minutes. No really, 4 hours and 44 minutes, and it involved three trips to the bank. I had gone in last Thursday to make the first attempt, but even though that branch is open 08h00 to 22h00, they only provide "full banking services" 08h00 to 13h00. I dont count this first visit in the timing though, as I wasnt expecting much, the timing is just how long it took me today. They assured me last Thursday that so long as I came back before 13h00 on a working day I could cash my cheque.

Today I arrived at the bank and took my little ticket for the queue at 10h33. I waited 44 minutes to be served by the teller. The teller couldn't cash the cheque even though it was made out to me personally, to be paid in cash and I had proof of identity with me. His supervisor wouldnt cash it and advised me to go to head office. By 11h45 the assistant manager was involved and he was actually trying to get authority to cash the cheque. It was now 12h05 and I had to leave, I had a class to take only ten minutes later and still had no money. I had expected to be able to cash a cheque in less than two hours, Oh silly me! I told the assistant manager I would be back later. I returned at 15h15 to be told that all was ready, the return fax had just arrived. It had taken the assistant manager faxing head office and telephoning them repeatedly to get clearance to cash the cheque... because "the only signatures book is held at head office"! I actually got the cash at 15h17. The amount? slightly less than 300UKP (600USD).

All this was only necessary because red triangle bank has frozen my accounts because I am leaving soon, so I couldnt pay it into my usual account if I wanted to actually use any of it. This despite there being a standing arrangement where my employer is guarantor over all staff accounts so the freeze, allegedly, doesn't happen and despite the fact that I went in to the bank personally make sure this arrangement was in place and to fulfil the requirements of the petty bureaucracy that doing anything here entails.

I then went and paid my phone bill at (G)tel [short for (Gulf State) telecommunications] and attempted to cancel future service from the date of the day before I intend to leave. Apparently I can't do that either, I can only cancel the service with 5 or less days notice and I have to have a "letter of no objection" from my employer to be allowed to cancel it at all.

"Please sir, can I have permission not to have a phone any more?"

(G)tel is a state protected monopoly until 2014, with all the arrogance and lack of service that having no competition at all allows. The smart money says that in 2015 (G)tel won't exist at all. Regardless of who the competition is, people willl change just to not have to deal with (G)tel any more

Well you just have to laugh, it is comical, so many self important, condescending people, doing almost nothing with absolutley no authority at all, just stopping anyone else from achieving anything. I should write it up as a comedy show - Monty dish-dash perhaps or Gulfy Python. If you can't cope with the idiosyncracies of third world bureuacray and have a giggle it's probably best to stay at home, so one just grins and bears it and has a bit of a rant now and again.

For the Banquo reference see Grumpy Goat's blog for a very similar experience in (Other Gulf State)

G

Swings And Roundabouts, or maybe Slings And Arrows

2006-06-17T08:52:00.000-07:00

I started this blog in february with every intention of making regular contributions and it superceding my irregular email newsletter to a few specially chosen chums. I was rather overtaken by events and so the blog has fallen by the wayside recently.

To cut a long story short, I have resigned my job, obtained another, travelled to the Philippines every month this year, got married and brought my new wife to the gulf only to have to take her home again. I am now packing up to start my new life based in the Philippines but working in the Gulf still.

I have been living in "Interesting Times" as the Chinese would have it.

Things started to get "interesting" when I decided to get married. The new Mrs Gnomad is a 20-something, bright, lively and wonderfully sweet Filipina, I am a fairly run of the mill, middle aged , post-graduate Briton. The bureaucracy involved in a non-Filipino marrying a Filipina is quite extra-ordinary. There are about a dozen or so official bodies involved, all of whom have their own vast list of required documents... which change on a seemingly daily basis... and all end with "and any other such documents as may be required"

The upshot of this is that however well you prepare and however many bits of paper you get the official can always ask for another. He could, in theory, ask for your father's tailor's bill for his last suit. You can go into an office on one day and all your papers are in order, and the very next day there is something else you need. At one point I had a situation where the soon to be Mrs Gnomad took a pile of papers into the Local Registry Office to be told they couldn't be accepted unless Mr Gnomad was there too. I was in the Gulf at the time. I had to fly to the Philippines just to stand next to my intended while the paperwork was handed over. My entire interaction in that office was to answer in the affirmative to the question "Are you Mr Gnomad and is this your signature".Well that was worth the airfare, the two days off work (because the weekends are different) and the 34 hours of travelling involved.

I can't really complain though, I am used to the bureaucracy here in the Arabian Gulf, so Filipino bureaucracy was a doddle by comparison.

Once all the paperwork was in place the wedding went swimmingly, just a small family affair with about 150 relatives at the reception! We will have a proper church wedding sometime in 2007 and that will be heaving with people.

We had obtained a visit visa for Mrs Gnomad beforehand and so she was able to come back here with me. After an initial bout of homesickness she setteld in well and started making friends. All was going well until she fell ill. We both spent 4 days in hospital, work was very good about compassionate leave so I could stay with her, but in the end the nature of her illness meant I had to take her home again.

We are both looking forward to July when I will be back in the Philippines for my vacation. i will start my new contract in August and will then be navigating the shoals and shallows of Gulf bureacracy yet again to have my wife join me in my new country of residence.

As soon as I work out how its done, I will be posting the wedding photos, so look out for the link. I may even inculde a few here if i can work round using a non standard browser which complicates the interweb no-end

Aah that wasnt so difficult

G

Danish Disappearance

2006-02-19T12:40:00.000-08:00

There is much discussion in the European press about its rights and in particular the right of freedom of expression. Here in the Gulf there is uproar over the "sacriligeous caricaturing of the Prophet", although not the hysterical, violent reaction evident in some other places.

Despite the fact that there is a lot of evidence to suggest that the significance of some of the images being protested against were in fact faked, and not anything at all to do with Islam, and that the Danish Imam's were deliberately stirring up trouble, I must admit to a certain sympathy with the strength of feeling of the peaceful Islamic protest against what they see, with some justification, as yet another episode of the West belittling their beliefs. We of the West are so used to our own faiths being belittled and made mockery of in the popular media that we forget that others are not used to it, and wil be deeply hurt by, what they percieve as an attack on the fundamental principles of their lives, especially given the percieved rise in what is now being called Islamaphobia in the West.

I do not condone the violence of the protests elsewhere and I do believe in the freedom of the press. I also believe in the right to peaceful protest and if the press and media wish to excercise their rights they can hardly complain when others do so too. All freedoms come with responsibilities, and this should not be forgotten.

There are no Danish products to be had anywhere in town, and many shops have large notices announcing the fact. I wonder what will happen if the boycott were to extend to Maersk, the Danish shipping line that carries an enormous amount of the Arabian Gulf's oil exports.

In as much of a show of solidarity as I dared muster, in gentlemanly support of freedom of expression, I did sit outside Starbucks, in full view of the public, with my coffee and Danish pastry. Not much I know, but I do have to live here.

G