That time of year

Travellin Bob is off on holiday tomorrow.

Ania and the kids are already away, and I'm off to join them tomorrow.  We've rented a cottage a couple of kilometres in from the Baltic coast here in Poland.  So tomorrow morning I hop on the 11:10 express train to Gdynia, a long seven hour ride I've done several times in the past, armed with sandwiches, something to drink, some magazines and books and the trusty iPod for entertainment, relax in my comfortable First Class window seat and watch the country slide by.  I'm looking forward to relaxing for the journey - and especially meeting up with my beloved family after nearly 5 weeks apart.....I can't wait!

We have bikes with us, a little tent to put up in the garden that no doubt the kids and I will sleep in some nights, and Ania has already pinpointed the best value bars and ice-cream parlours and restaurants  in the nearby village.  The beaches will all be good - there don't seem to be any bad ones on the Baltic coast.  All we have to hope for is good weather - July in Poland can be a little mixed, hot and sunny one day, pissing with rain the next (and sometimes both in one day).  But it will be good anyway.

So I'm taking a break from writing this for a couple of weeks.  I'll be back on line in August, with a holiday report.  Back to Abu Dhabi for a couple of weeks then, so expect more Gulf News, then a new destination - Cyprus - for a few months.  The football season starts, too, and my club are looking forward to a decent season for once after a difficult few years.  My little man Kuba is off to proper school in September, and my little Princess off to playschool, so there is a lot to look forward to in the second half of the year.

And of course, plenty of travellin'.....

Happy days.

Gulf News Part 4: Weather, Wealth and Weligion

So my visit to AD ends this weekend and I return home.  I can’t say that I’m sorry – 4 weeks away from my family is too much…..I miss them terribly!

But it’s been interesting, and I’m back for another two weeks in August.

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The last two weeks have been quite unpleasant, actually.  I have no objection to hot weather – give me sunshine, a nice sandy beach and a sea to splash about in and I’m quite happy.  If there is a bar close to hand serving cold beer and food and ice cream then so much the better.  Scantily clad ladies wandering around is the icing on the cake.  I’ve had all that at my hotel – but it’s just been TOO hot, at least for me.  Up to maybe 35C I’m fine – I’ll gladly take that any day of any week.  Trinidad was great largely because for the entire 8 months I was there the temperature hovered around the 30 – 32C range and never below about 26 even in the middle of the night.  But here, even though AD is at a higher latitude than Trinidad, and thus further from the Equator, it can be an absolute furnace at this time of the year.  Most of the time I’ve been in town the temperature has been in the mid-40s during the day, and the high 30s at night. It’s been a stifling, dry heat and with hardly any breeze to cool things down.  Indeed, what wind there has been seems to have been blowing off-shore from the desert beyond the city and thus a warming rather than cooling breeze…..there is certainly no detectable wind-chill factor here!  To me at least it’s been unbearable and certainly put me off spending a lot of time here.

The lack of wind has caused other problems too.  There is a huge amount of building going on in the city, with massive and beautiful sky-scrapers going up everywhere.  Even across from the hotel beach, on another small off-shore island linked to the main city (which is also island-bound) by a causeway, there is a big development of 4 Canary Wharf sized towers that is labeled “The New Business District at the Heart of Abu Dhabi”.  The causeway runs right alongside the hotel, so there is a constant stream of huge trucks going back and forth, ferrying building materials to the site and excavated soil and crud away from it.  This in turn ensures that the beach is never particularly peaceful and there is a constant cloud of dust kicked up.  Even at night the work continues – fortunately the double glazing in the hotel room shuts out the worst of the noise.

Add to that heavy city traffic – cars and taxis and buses everywhere, trucks and mobile cranes and motor bikes.  It’s a small city, and this huge volume of traffic is concentrated in a quite compact space, so the petrol and diesel fumes are all-pervading.  So with the dust from desert and building site, mixing with this pollution and the lack of a purifying breeze, the atmosphere for the past week has been very unpleasant indeed.  There has been thick smog everywhere that has closed in the views, shut out direct sunlight (but without reducing the temperature at all) and left a layer of dust and grime over everything.  Across the other side of the bay from the hotel, not far away – half a kilometer, no more – stands yet another tower-block development on its own little island.  Much of this past 10 days it’s been visible as only the vaguest shadows through the haze.

This weather has made sitting on the beach or by the pool less than enjoyable, at least to me, so the sun-tan has not come on as well as I thought it might – I was looking forward to getting it nicely started before my holiday next week, but that hasn’t happened.  I brought a bottle of factor 15 sun-spray with me and I’ve hardly used it.  Even my head hasn’t gone its usual radio-active red.  The atmosphere has also played hell with my health.  I’ve never had so many splitting headaches as I’ve suffered the last week or so, and the dryness and pollution in the air has made my eyes constantly dry and sore.  I know I need new glasses, so my eyes tend to get tired anyway (staring at a laptop screen all day at work doesn’t help), but these last days have been awful.  I’ve lavished moisturizing cream on them to try and ease the soreness but it hasn’t really helped.

So in a nutshell, I can’t wait to get home to a Warsaw that is currently (as I write) a mere 20C and wet.  The forecast is for an improvement over the coming days, to mid-20s and sunny, so hopefully by the time I get to the coast this time next week it will be just about perfect!

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The people here though have been without exception very nice and friendly.  I wrote previously about the mix of peoples here and the pecking order that seems to exist in AD society.  The bank is an Islamic bank, so it has a lot of mysterious and confusing rules that it needs to follow in order to comply with the teachings in the Koran.  I don’t pretend to understand the logic or reasoning behind the ones I’ve come across – for instance substituting the word sukuk for bond, or profit instead of interest on certain (and numerous!) screens in the system (the functionality and processes are unchanged, it’s merely labeling but nevertheless takes up a lot of time to change in a system as wide ranging and complex as ours) but we have to do it to comply with Shari’a law.  Apparently.

Most of the employees I’ve met have been either local Arab or ex-pats from Pakistan, and as far as I can tell all Islamic.  There is a wonderful selection of beards on the men, and for the ladies of course burqas abound.  There are employees walking around in western dress – business suits and ties – and the traditional flowing white Arab robes and head-dresses, and I have absolutely no clue why some dress differently from others.  I’m sure there is some kind of hierarchy involved, but I can’t figure it out at all.  Why is this guy wearing white robes and the guy at the next desk green?  No clue.  In the streets and malls there are the usual mix of jeans and t-shirts, combat trousers and shorts as well. 

I know there are areas in the East End of London and many other cities where there are huge numbers of Muslims, of all nationalities, dressed in a similar way to the people here, but they are all viewed with some suspicion and mistrust and even fear by the (dare I say it) white population – especially since the 9/11 and 7/7 atrocities in New York and London respectively.  France and Australia, amongst others, have recently passed laws restricting or even making illegal the veil.  In one sense I can understand that, on the basis that al Qaeda and other Arab fundamentalist groups do indeed represent a clear and present danger (as Tom Clancy would say) but I also firmly believe that the extremists are very much in the minority.  It concerns me that all Muslims are essentially being tarred with the same brush, when their beliefs and the Koran itself (despite some of its wilder laws) are largely preaching peaceful co-existence and a belief in a God little different to any other Christian religion.  I’ve spent a month now in a Muslim country (albeit a very Westernized and moderate one) and it’s made me view Arabs and Islam in a different light.  At some point, I must read more.  I know Tony Blair reads both the Bible and the Koran every day, and insists that that there are plenty of similarities in the values preached in both books, and it’s fair to say that for a thousand years or more both Christianity and Islam rubbed along nicely side-by-side, at least after the Crusades.  It only seems to have been since the late 1940s and the creation of the state of Israel (see my earlier post Israel from last year) and again for the last 40 odd years from the rise of Arafats’s PLO and its descendants, that Islam – as a religion and culture – has been really getting bad press (not entirely undeserved I have to say).  But again, I firmly believe that the majority are good and friendly and loving people.

It’s fair to say I have seen many more smiling faces in the streets here – and for that matter in Beirut, whose population is a similar Arab-dominated mix, though with a Christian majority – than I saw last time I was in London.  I have not felt in the least bit threatened, even surrounded 24 hours a day by people that many British (and other Caucasians) would view with at best suspicion and at worst loathing.

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The other thing that has set this bank apart in my experience, as well as the dress code I mentioned above, is the provision of prayer rooms.  I’m used to seeing signs in airports the world over for chapels and mosque facilities, and of course the Islamic devotion to prayer at set times of the day is well known.  It’s truly a way of life: I flew on Gulf Air once, several years ago, and on the seat-back entertainment system, no matter which channel you were watching (tv shows, Hollywood movies or moving map) a little airplane symbol in the top right hand corner of the screen showed its direction of movement with respect to Mecca, the spiritual centre of Islam.  It would be like all planes on Alitalia having a display pointing to Rome, or BA to Canterbury, or any US airline to Wall Street.  In my hotel room, and I suppose all the others here too, there is a little arrow painted discreetly on the ceiling above the bed pointing to Mecca.

And in the bank, in this big open plan, typical office, with workstations and hi-tech equipment, conference rooms and offices, there is a sizable room set aside for devotions, including prayer mats spread on the floor.  It’s in use regularly throughout the day, packed at the official prayer times and of course there is a separate facility for the women (who aren’t allowed to pray in the same room as their men).  It’s another clear example of how important the Muslim religion is to its followers, and it shows just how far Christianity has fallen in importance in the world at large – I read somewhere there are more Muslims worldwide than Christians now.  With population trends, there will probably be more Hindus and Sikhs and Janes or whatever too, before long.   Who knows, if China continues to liberalize then perhaps Buddhism will undergo a resurgence there…..then Christianity will really slip down the pecking order.  Could happen….

Maybe in a hundred years or less, Christianity will no longer be a major religion but merely a minority sect.

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The place screams “Wealth”.

Despite all the robes and traditional Arab shops and bazaars that abound even in this most modern of cities, I’ve yet to see a beaten up old car.  Lorries, yes, plenty of them on the building sites.  The buses too have mostly seen better days – although there are a good number of new air-conditioned vehicles too.  But the taxis are all late model Toyota or Nissan sedans, very comfortable and air-conditioned, not a bit like the Toyota and Nissan mini-cabs you see around the London suburbs and elsewhere in the UK.  Pull up outside the bank on any given morning and there is a double row of Lexus and Mercedes and high-end BMW limos, dropping people off.

On the roads, amid the taxis, the standard car is again BMW or Lexus, many of them big 4-wheel drive off-roaders, plenty of Range Rovers, Jeep Cherokee, Cadillac and Chevrolet saloons – the big American jobs, not the crappy little four-doors they hawk around in Europe that used to be called Daewoo.  And Porsche of course.  Not seen a Rolls yet, which is a bit of a surprise.  But all late model, all sparkling paintwork and not a dent or a scrape in sight.

Then there is the architecture.  I walked from the bank’s Head Office to my hotel a couple of times last week, and it was liking walking through midtown Manhattan – 20 and 30 storey blocks on both sides of the road, Dunkin’ Donuts outlets and Ben ‘n’ Jerry’s ice-cream parlours.  Only the costume, of course was different – white Arab robes instead of Brooks Brother suits, black burqas instead of Prada.  The Crowne Plaza hotel surrounded by international banks.  All that was missing was the Yellow Cabs.

Even on the Corniche, a six lane boulevard that runs along the coast road from the city centre to the Marina Mall and the 7 star Emirates Palace Hotel on its own island at the southern tip of Abu Dhabi’s main island, there are sparkling new blocks going up, soaring 40 and 50 floors into the sky.  There are some beautiful looking designs, ultra-modern glass and steel pinnacles to match anything neighbouring Dubai has to offer (and far exceed anything in New York or London, frankly).  And mostly these are signed as “Residential” – God knows how much a top-floor penthouse is going to cost!

It’s oil wealth, of course.  But it seems as though it’s being put to good use, creating an extraordinary city out of an open desert.  The oil won’t last forever, but the Emirate’s rulers are clearly diversifying – both AD and Dubai are regional financial centres and all the world’s biggest banks have a presence here.  CNN has a hub in AD, as well as Atlanta, London and Hong Kong.  Just up the coast is the Yas Marina Circuit, home to the season ending F1 grand prix that features a 5-star hotel built across the main straight by the Start/Finish line and a marina for the sport’s high-rollers to park their boats.  Right next door is the Ferrari World theme park, with its motor museum, exhibition centre and the fastest roller-coaster in the world (featuring cars shaped like Ferrari cars and reaching speeds approaching 100kph).    Admission is a slightly pricy AED200 (about GBP35)…but frankly I’d pay it to have a go on that ride!  Maybe when I come back next month……

The Euro

Two of the best holidays I've ever had have been to Crete (part of Greece) and the following year the Algarve in Portugal.  In both we stayed in lovely hotels, close to lovely sandy beaches, enjoyed beautiful weather and excellent food, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. 

Of the two, Crete was marginally the better.  The hotel was a small, family run affair, and we were given a split-level room on the top floor (of three), with a balcony overlooking the pool area and, perhaps half a mile away, the beach.  We hired a car for a week and had some good excursions, to Chania (the nearest big town) and further along the north coast to Heraklion where we met up with an old friend for work who happened to be holidaying at the same time.  It was a super drive along the coast road, winding alongside the seashore with lovely hills to our right.  We also drove across to the south west corner of the island, to Elafonisi, still the loveliest beach I've ever seen, and the drive through the mountains on a winding, narrow road with a sheer drop on one side and a gear change needed every fifty yards or so exhilerating.  I would happily go back there.

The Algarve was different.  We stayed in Vilamoura, a golfing centre that in comparison to our Cretan village was a thriving metropolis.   The hotel was massive, with a couple of pools and adjoining a long sandy beach.  Again, the food was excellent, and our 5th floor room offered a view across the pool and beach area and was very peaceful.  Again we hired a car for our expeditions, across the border into Spain and north to the Catholic shrine at Fatima (a long long drive for a disappointing visit).  It was also a long haul for our flights, as we flew into Lisbon so on arrival faced a 4 hour coach ride and arrived at the hotel in the early hours of the morning - not ideal with a three year old in tow!  But for all that, we had a lovely holiday.

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Now, of course, both countries are in crisis - in a financial meltdown that threatens the entire EU if either country defaults on billions of euros worth on government debt.  In essence, both countries have for years spent far more than they generated in tax revenues, and topped up the shortfall by borrowing from the international bond markets.  It's not a new thing, they were doing it long before the advent of the single currency in 1999.  The difference is that in those days, when they had their own currencies (the Portuguese escudo and the Greek drachma) they had control of their own destiny.  If they needed to devalue the currency to bail themselves out of a similar crisis, well that was purely their choice and affected only their own populations.

Neither country had a reputation for fiscal responsibility, even in those days.  Both relied extensively on tourism to boost their coffers, and Greece in addition had its shipping industries.  Both were relatively poor countries on the fringes of the European continent, with high levels of seasonal employment, and in Portugal's case also carried significant baggage from its colonial days.  Their populations also had a bit of a reputation for being workshy - happy to do as little as possible, for as much as possible, and to avoid paying tax as much as possible.  In that they were not (and indeed are not) alone - tax avoidance is a lucrative industry that has generated huge and profitable businesses in Switzerland, Luxembourg and many offshore centres (the Channel Islands, Bahamas, Netherlands Antilles and others).

Then came the euro.  The single curreency.

Every nation that joined (the majority of countries in the EU signed up for it) had to agree to very strict and measurable spending limits, restrictions on government debt issues and other tools aimed at stabilizing exchange rates prior to the creation of the euro, and thereafter maintaining its value in the world markets.  Countries were still permitted to set their own tax regimes but within those the scope for action in case of crisis situations was limited, since there would inevitably be a knock-on event to the other member countries.  In essence, if a euro member state got into financial difficulties the rest of them helped out by manipulating currency rates, lending to the problem state to help them out, and other measures.  When this happened (as it has periodically throughout the currency's life) the restrictions, known as convergence criteria, tended to go out of the window.  Even the Germans, who as the strongest economy in Europe and hence the euro, have always been very consistent and strong in their insistence that these criteria must not be broken, have seen fit to breach their own rules and temporarily exceed their own limits - to much derision from Britain who has never joined the euro (and hopefully never will) and others.

The financial crisis over the past couple of years, that cost millions of jobs globally and saw the demise of Wall Street giants like Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch and, most famously, Lehman Brothers - financial powerhouses throughout the 80s and 90s who dominated the industry -  has resulted in the problems of Greece and Portugal (and to a lesser extent Ireland and Spain) becoming intolerable.  So called "austerity measures" (essentially pay freezes, increased personal tax liabilities, and the forced sale of government assets to repay the huge debts, now including bail-out loans from the IMF) have been introduced in all these countries, and of course been highly unpopular in them all.

Ireland has bitten the bullet and forced them through, and seems to have stabilized.  The population have grumbled about it, but by and large got on with it.  Portugal too, despite an election that resulted in a change of government, seems to be moving forward despite loud protests from their people.  Spain so far has stayed away from the worst of it, despite wide belief that it too is in serious difficulties.

But Greece..... That is quite another story.  There the people are implacably against the measures.  The country is riven by regular and wide-spread labour strikes in protest.  There are daily demonstrations, some violent, outside the Parliament building in Athens.  The country is essentially broke, and has taken a huge multi-billion euro loan from the IMF to tide it over and wants another.  It has no chance of repaying either loan, nor its existing government debt.  Default is not so much a question of "if", more a case of "when".  Quite what will happen then is unclear.  There is a real fear that a Greek default will lead to a knock-on effect and bring down Portugal and Ireland, possibly Spain, and cause widespread difficulties in the rest of the EU where other nations and their banks hold huge piles of debt in those countries.  The US too will take a huge hit, for the same reason.  The euro itself will plunge in value (it's already well down) and some of the more pessimistc views put the whole future of the European Union, not just its currency, at severe risk of breaking up - on the basis of survival of the fittest and every man for himself, probably.

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To be honest I'm not surprised.  If anything, I'm surprised it hasn't happened earlier. 

When you look at the EU, it's a collection of 27 or so individual countries and peoples.  Apart from being located on the same continental landmass, they have little in common. Each one has its own beliefs and customs and financial requirements, and histories that invariably contain wars between themselves and against each other.  How any sane person can believe that all this thousand year history can just be forgotten and swept away in a single generation is a mystery to me.  It will take many many generations before the years of mutual animosity between say Poland and Germany or France and Britain are swept away.  Let's face it, if the Catholic and Protestant communities in Northern Ireland, a very small part of a relatively small country in European terms, still can't get along then what chance have the rest of us got?  Similarly the Walloons and Flemish in Belgium (although at least they never seem to take that animosity to violent levels).  Or the Basques and the rest of Spain?

There are precedents, where countries have been cobbled reluctantly together to make a bigger and hopefully more powerful nation, and it always seems to end in pain and huge amounts of bloodshed.  Look at the USSR and its disintegration, or more painful still (and that's saying something!) the former Yugoslavia.  In both cases there have been few winners and many losers, and conflict still riddles both.

Back in 1998 I was working for a little company that was struggling to implement and launch a very innovative financial market in London and Europe - the details don't really matter, it failed anyway (at least our initiative did).  But at the time the Bank of England were preparing for the euro - even though Britain had voted not to join there was a massive impact on the country and more specfically the City of London and banking industries.  We were invited to attend a meeting with some officials in the Bank and give them our views.  We had some discussions in-house, then our CEO, our Head of Legal, and bizarrely myself hopped a cab to the Bank of England.  We met in a lovely old oak pannelled office: the furniture was probably 18th century and the IBM mainframe computer perched on the small and lovely old leather-topped desk looked a little incongruous.  The office window overlooked the courtyard that sits in the middle of the building.  I found it all very interesting, I must say.

Our CEO of course did most of the talking.  Our position was basically that on paper the euro was a great idea but in practice wasn't likely to last.  We referred to those Europe-wide animosities as a potentially de-stabilising influence.  We pointed to the lack of a continental regulatory regime that covered all member nations equally.  We suggested that since every country would still want to control its own budget and support its own financial and debt requirements, including the ability to raise taxes, there could never be a continent wide conensus.  We were of the opinion that at some point in the foreseeable future, there would be a debt crisis, probably sparked by what we called the Club Med countries - Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece) that could potentially bring the whole edifice tumbling down.

The Bank officials were absolutely stunned.  It seemed we were the most pessimistic representatives they had spoken to.  They thanked us for our time and showed us out.  When their report came out, some weeks later, our views were faithfully represented as a minority view, and we were duly listed in the appendix of contributors to the report.  Then the euro was launched, and over the ensuing years has been largely successful

But it's interesting that what I and my colleagues predicted nearly 15 years ago, a group of very minor workers in this huge multinational market, and now forgotten, now seems to be coming to pass.  We got the timing wrong though - we thought 10 years, but it's taken 13.

Family Matters

Variety, it's said, is the spice of life.

I don't know about that, but there is certainly variety when it comes to what makes up a "normal" family around the world.  I've got 5 wonderful kids, ages ranging from 30 down to 3, in two countries and by two different (but lovely) ladies and it's fair to say that's 4 more kids than I expected to have when I started out in life.  But it's what I would certainly call a "normal" family - none of them are nuts, axe murderers, politicians or lawyers (at least not yet) so there is absolutely no reason to dislike them - quite the opposite in fact, they're great kids. 

When I was a kid there were two families living next door to each other at the end of my road who, between them, had getting on for 30 kids.......whether you would call that normal, even back then when big families were very common, is open to debate, but as far as they were concerned there was nothing odd about it (which is after all a definition of normal).  In the same road there were at least a couple of other families with half a dozen kids each, so I had plenty of playmates. 

There weren't so many families around then with only a single child, and I can't think of many that stopped at 2 (my then best mate Nick and his sister Shelley being the exceptions).....at least in my part of England.  That was true right through to the 80s, I think, when careers started taking over from raising kids as an aspirational future for women, and then you started increasingly getting one kid families - not only in England but world-wide.  Having more than one was even prohibited in China (still is in fact) to prevent over-population.  Bit different in another madly populous country, India, where multiple kid families are the norm.  Then of course in Muslim countries, where polygamy is acceptable, there are families with multiple kids from multiple wives - and that's "normal" too.

So it's probably fair to say that a "normal" family is pretty much whatever you feel comforatable with and is acceptable to the society in which you happen to live.

But I saw something on BBC World News the other night that could, surely, never be considered remotely "normal".  It was about an old Nigerian cleric (Muslim of course) in his 70s, and a sprightly, sparkly eyed old sod he was too.  And no wonder - living in a big rambling old house, he is married to 90 (that's NINETY) wives and has 250 - odd children: it would have been over 300 but 50 or so sadly died in infancy.  They all seemed happy enough: wives sitting around chatting and laughing while they breast-fed their babies (the old fella is still banging them out quite happily - certainly no jaffa there) while others did the cooking, laundry and whatever else.  The local Muslim hierarchy are up in arms, insisting that in the Koran it clearly states that only the Prophet Mohamed can have more than 4 wives, but the old stud denies this and in any case insists that he's only doing exactly what God told him to do when appearing to him in a vision some years ago.  He's even planning to continue marrying and banging out more kids - at least another 10 wives he reckons, "maybe more" - and he laughed and shrugged his shoulders - "God's will!"

The bloke, whilst appearing very happy indeed, is clearly nuts - just think about it: all those mothers-in-law!  All that PMT......

Variety?  Insanity, more like!

Gulf News - Part 3: Culture Shock and Coffee

Culture Shock.

It's an occupational hazard when you travel a lot, either for a living like me or just for vacation.  It does get less noticeable with experience and Airmiles, but it's never far away.

My first experience of it came with my first overseas trip, when I was 20.  My dad had died the year before and my uncle (my mum's brother) invited us over to his home in Ottawa, Canada for a holiday to help us get over the bereavement.  After a  lot of thought - my mum and sister weren't keen on the eight hour flight as none of us had been on an aeroplane before - we accepted the invitation.  It took the best part of year to get the money together and book the flights.  I've written about the trip on here before (see In the Beginning....) but the biggest surprise was the food.  We ate well when I was a kid in England in the 50s through 70s - my mum was a great cook, schooled during the war years and could conjure a good meal out of very little (I particularly remember her egg and potato pie, a concoction of mashed potatoes and sliced hard boiled eggs covered in a creamy white sauce - it doesn't sound much but was delicious - and her home made cakes).  The vegetables were always fresh and came from my dad's garden or allotment, as were the strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries and rhubarb that went into the puddings. 

But the culture shock came as soon as we arrived in Ottawa - before we had unpacked my Aunt Maria (a lovely Austrian lady) dished up what Uncle Tom told us was a typical Canadian dinner: t-bone steak, mashed potatoes, vegetables.  The steak was about the size of my laptop and an inch thick, cooked to perfection.  It was superb.  It set the scene for the whole three weeks we were there as we were introduced to bog-standard Canadian eateries that were at that time (1973) unheard of in rural England where we lived.  Steak houses were two a penny, the A&W Drive-In hamburger joints (where your meal was delivered on a tray that clipped onto your wound-down window) a totally new experience to us.  Sadly A&W no longer exists, it was driven out of business a few years ago by the inexorable world domination of McDonalds.....a shame, because their burgers are probably the best I've ever eaten (and I've eaten a few now!).    Anyway, over the three weeks I probably put on over a stone in weight, and I've never lost it in the intervening 40 odd years.

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Let's put a definition on "Culture Shock" at this point.

For me, it's encountering something, anything, that is not usual where you live - not necessarily something you have never seen or experienced before (although that is usually the case).  Canadian food was one such culture shock for me.  Horse meat steaks with salad or minced in a cornish pasty concoction in Almaty was another.  Dallas, appallingly dubbed, on my first night in Poland was another, as was the totally different driving style and road-rules (or apparent lack of them) when I started driving there a year later.  This is something I've encountered everywhere, with Kazakhstan and Lebanon being by far and away the worst of the lot.   Saudi was very strange, and I never felt in the least bit comfortable during the few days I was there - the absence of visible women and the "Men Only" swimming pool at the hotel had a lot to do with that, as did the cobra that slithered across in front of the car on the way to work one morning as we sat at traffic lights.

So I expected more culture shock when I flew down here for a month - my first extended exposure to a Muslim country, albeit one that is very Westernised and has many ex-pats here, courtesy of the oil and banking industries.

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I haven't been disappointed.  Some of it I've already mentioned in Part 1 and 2 of Gulf News - notably the bizarre (at least to my Western sensibilities) toilet arrangements.

I've been here a week now, and it's been straightforward enough.  As befits a pretty liberal Arab/Muslim society, women are far more visible and acceptable, if I can use the term, than they seemed to be in Saudi.  There are many women in the office, for a start - something I did not see at all in Saudi.   Although the majority dress according to Islamic code - meaning the floor-length black robes and veils, some covering just the hair, others the entire head, still others the face too - others dress in a more Western fashion - jeans and tee-shirts, trousers, ordinary dresses.   Women clearly contribute more to society here than in many Muslim countries, and this can only be good.

That said, there is still a clear hierarchy here, but it seems to be dictated more by nationality than sex.   All the senior people I have seen at the bank have been true Arabs, complete with white robes and headdresses....and splendid they look too.  Below them, the middle management if you will, are more Arabs, but dressed in Western style - suits, ties and shoes - and a good smattering of ex-pats.  English is very common indeed: in most places I go to the backgound noise in the office is invariably the local language with a smattering of English but here, at least in this client office, there seems to be more English spoken than Arabic.  I've heard German in the lift too.

Outside the bank, all the taxi drivers so far seem to have originated in the Indian sub-Continent - Indian, Pakistani, Sri Lankan, Bangladeshi - and there is also a high number of, shall we say, Indians working at the hotel and also on the building sites that still proliferate in the city.  All the domestics at the hotel, cleaning rooms, maintenance and so on, are Indian.  Move into the many restaurants in the hotel and the staff are all Phillipino or Malay.  Interestingly, so far I have seen no more than 2 or 3 Negroes - gardeners at the hotel, raking the sand on the beach, sweeping the paths and so on - whether they are West Indian or African I have no idea, but I assume African.

So Abu Dhabi is clearly far being an equal opportunity state.

                                                                 *          *          *

But despite its relatively cosmopolitan make-up, there has still been a culture shock.

I mentioned it previously in Part 2 - this arse-about-face working week.   I am struggling with it, frankly.

Look at Europe or any other Western society.  Unless you're a clergyman or a doctor or something of that nature, the working week is Monday to Friday.  Saturday is also a working day, inasmuch as most people do their gardening or laundry or housework or whatever, as well as playing - football matches, partying or whatever.  Sunday is the day of rest (unless your team is playing this day instead of Saturday).  Church of whatever denomination.  Roast dinner.  Relaxing with the family and playing with the kids.  For me it's the natural order of things.  It makes perfect sense.  In most countries, there are shops and malls open throughout the weekend (unless you happen to be in Geneva where everything shuts down on a Sunday and there is bugger all to do if you're stuck there in a lower quality hotel or something).

Here and throughout the Muslim world it is different.  The working week is Sunday through Thursday.  Friday is the first day of the weekend, and the main day of prayer - yesterday (being Friday) everything outside the hotel was closed until about 3 in the afternoon.  There was little traffic and it was very quiet and peaceful.  Saturday is busier, not dissimilar to Saturdays elsewhere - the malls and shops are open from about 10 in the morning to 10 at night. 

It's normal here, and follows the Muslim culture......but to me, still it's strange.  I'm going to be here for another three weeks, and back in August (the month of Ramadan this year, which will be even stranger) so I'm guessing I will get used it, and the culture shock will go.

                                                                *          *          *

I took a stroll around the Abu Dhabi Mall today, as it was open.  The idea was to buy some 'fridge magnets, which my wife, mother- and sister-in-law assiduously collect.  And maybe a book or two to keep me going the rest of the trip.   The Mall is a five minute stroll away from the hotel - and in 40+ degrees a stroll was all I was likely to do.  And here at least was familiar ground.

It's no different to any mall I've ever been to - Bluewater in the UK, the one close to my hotel in Beirut (the name escapes me), any of half a dozen in Warsaw.  All the normal stores were there - Zara, Tommy Hilfiger, Virgin Megastore, Mothercare, the Early Learning Centre, Samsonite and so on - and the food court on the top floor (why is the food court always located on the top floor?) had McDonalds, KFC, Pizza Hut, Subway, a Greek place and a Chinese place.  There were local stores and restaurants specialising in local goods, fashion and food, and on the ground floor a Tesco style hypermarket for all your household needs.  And a multi-screen cinema complex showing the latest releases (Green Arrow, Super 8 and so on) - in English.  I felt quite at home.  About the only thing setting it apart from Galeria Mokotow, where I live, was the majority of the people walking around, talking on their mobile phones or struggling to keep the kids under control, were dressed in full Arab robes.  I smiled at two kids, about 11 or 12 I guess, who were strolling around in their white robes, but instead of the headdress they were wearing baseball caps, one a Man Utd, the other Ferrarri.

I strolled around for an hour or so, and bought a couple of books, but there was not a 'fridge magnet to be seen.  But it's ok, I have another three weekends to find them.

                                                                 *          *          *

I felt even more at home when I spotted a Starbuck's.   Say what you like about them, but I like their coffee and I like their cakes, and I like their ambience.  There are loads of Starbuck's clones out there - Coffee Heaven, for instance, and Cafe Nero amongst others -  and I've tried them all at one time or another.  But I still love a Starbuck's grande latte and a slice of lemon cake, while I chill out in one of their deep and comfortable armchairs, listening to my music and reading my book.

Now I've found it,  I'm guessing it will be a regular Saturday destination.  The coffee is certainly better there than the stuff served at the hotel at any rate -  in my room I have individual sachets of Nescafe (regular and decaff) that keep me going, but the stuff on offer at breakfast is foul - probably Arab but way too strong for my taste.

Give me Starby's anyday.
                                   

Gulf News - Part 2: Taxis, toilets and other stuff

Catching a cab is straightforward enough here – at least from the hotel.  A colleague (Indian inevitably, since going on for 60% of the company is from there nowadays) picked me up this morning to take me to the bank.  It’s about a 20 minute ride, and I have absolutely no clue where in the city it is in relation to either the airport or hotel.  Anyway, we walked outside the front door of the hotel, stood there in 40-odd degrees of sunshine for a couple of minutes and a cab pulled in off the street.  Heigh-ho and away we go – didn’t even have to wave or yell or whistle.  All very civilized I’m sure.

The cab, too, was very civilized and, dare I say it, high tech – at least in comparison with London or Warsaw vehicles.   OK, it was only a bog standard high-end Nissan sedan, but it was very comfortable, and the excellent air-conditioning was an absolute Godsend as well as no doubt standard issue here.  The taxi driver was wearing a very smart uniform, and on the dashboard was mounted an iPad-sized screen that as well as displaying the guy’s picture and identification information doubled for a kind of sat-nav cum fare meter (with attached printer of course).  Essex mini-cab it certainly wasn’t.

Mind you, getting back to the hotel was a different matter altogether.   I was advised that getting a cab in the street was a bit risky (some of them apparently aren’t in the best nick and have drivers who are perhaps not up to scratch) and told to call the hotel to ask them to send one.  So I did that – wrong number: it seems there are 2 Meridien hotels here….mine and the Royal Meridien.  Having sorted that out, my hotel said it would be easier to send a limo not a cab, cost AED50 – not bad really, for a chauffeur driven Caddy so I went along with it.  A ten minute wait.  After 20 I called again…..the geezer had got lost somewhere. Terrific.  So instead of an easy 15 minute ride it took me just over an hour.

Memo to self: sort that out before tomorrow morning…..

*          *          *

I know it takes all sorts, as they say – but why on earth do Muslim countries operate on a different working week to the rest of the world?  Waking up at 7 this morning to go to work on a Sunday is just not right, sorry.  Sundays are for sleeping as late as possible, then having a hearty breakfast, playing with the kids, maybe going for a walk or a bike ride in the forest, before a barbecue dinner.  Maybe even going to Mass. Right now, I can’t get my head around this at all…….

Good job I’m only here a month!

*          *          *

Interesting toilet facilities at the bank. 

Each cubicle, as well as the usual bowl, cistern and bog roll, has a little hose pipe coming out of the wall.  It’s a kind of primitive bidet to wash your arse with, but how you’re supposed to do that without flooding the floor and, worse, soaking your grounded trousers and bill grundy’s is a complete mystery to me.  I went into trap 1 on my floor, and it awash with water – wellies would have been better footwear.  Trust me, it’s difficult sitting on the can with your cacks down and your trousers rolled up to keep them dry.

Thank God there’s a normal; john at the hotel.

*         *          *

It always seems to be the same when you go to a new site.  No matter how much notice you’ve been given, and remember the client will have had the same amount of prior warning, the working environment is never ready for you.  Desk and chair?  Well, usually that can be taken care of.   Access to the client environment?   No chance.  E-mail and internet?   Don’t make me laugh!

In theory, setting my laptop to “Detect Settings Automatically” should mean I can come in, plug in the cable (or sometimes pick up the wifi network) and connect…..at least to mail and internet browser.  I will of course still need to wait for access to test environments and so forth, but that’s normal – might have to sign confidentiality agreements and things before that is granted.

Today has been typical.  No internet or e-mail.  No system access (not even close).  Both the bank’s and our project managers not on site.  No desk or chair (I was placed in the project manager’s office for the morning, then moved down after lunch to take over the desk of a guy who is shipping back to Chennai this evening.  The rest of our team is ensconced in a small conference room sharing a single desk not much bigger than a standard issue IKEA coffee table.

And we have to work like this.

A wasted day.

Gulf News - Part 1

So....here I am in Abu Dhabi.  Gonna be here a month so I thought I'd try and do a regular feature while I'm here.  Here we go....

                                                                *          *          *

I never sleep well the night before a trip.  It doesn't matter whether it's a short one to somewhere like Frankfurt or Geneva or London, and a doozie like Trinidad or Almaty or this one to Abu Dhabi.  It makes no difference if it's a business trip or a family holiday.  Sleep will not come, and if it does, it doesn't hang around for long.

There is no good reason for this that I can think of.  It's not fear or nerves: I've made so many flights over the past 11 years or so that boarding a plane is as mundane to me as getting on a bus or the metro is to most people.  It's not even concern about missing the flight - nowadays with internet check-in I always do so the day before travel, as soon as I can: that way I can more or less guarantee the seat I want, and it also means I only have a brief stop at the airport desk to drop my luggage off (there's usually no queue - or at least only a couple of people, so only takes a couple of minutes).  This means I could safely get there at the last minute and still make the flight.  But I don't do that either, I'd rather get there a good hour before the gate opens and relax in the Business Lounge, have a coffee and some breakfast.  I'm not worried about oversleeping and missing all that, because I set my alarm in good time to allow me to arrive as above.

But despite all that, I can't sleep.  I've tried going to bed early and late.  I've tried various nightcaps before going to bed, ranging from vodka through beer to Horlicks or hot chocolate, and none of it makes any difference.  It makes no difference whether I go to my bed, kick one of the kids out and try theirs, or bunk down on settee.  I've even tried sitting upright in an armchair, but that only gave me a chronic back-ache.

It's a bastard, and frankly it seems to be getting worse as I get older - insomnia is apparently very common amongst the (shall we say) older generation, so I guess as I'm now 58 and suffering from it I can count myself part of that.  I'm not sure how I feel about that, quite honestly......I've always felt more concerned about growing older than dying, and my kids certainly keep me feeling young and vigourous (even if my creaking body sometimes refuses to accept the still juvenile mind controlling it). 

So anyway, Thursday night I turned in about 10, after the usual kids' bedtime stories and shower, set  my alarm for 4:15 and went to sleep.  I then proceeded to wake up at 12, 1:00, 2:15 and 3:30 - at which point I gave it up as a bad job, and lay quietly, staring at the ceiling and listening to everyone else sleeping soundly.  I got up at a quarter past 4, had a coffee, made a quick status post on Facebook (first time I've done that before a trip....) and got my cab to the airport.  I'd dropped my bag, collected my boarding cards and cleared security before 5.... bloody awful time to be on the road.  Fortunately the Lounge was open, so I had more coffee and some breakfast, then had a mooch round the Departure area.  It has very definately improved since Poland joined the EU and spent a bucket of money extending the terminal to meet the increased passenger numbers - a much better choice of shops and bars, even at that early hour.  The place was very busy too.....I don't usually fly that early so the number of flights between 5 and 7 took me by surprise. 

The flight to Frankfurt was half empty and almost pleasant.  I managed to doze for about 20 minutes after my ham salad roll (it's all LOT provide - or sometimes cheese), which made a change - I can't usually sleep on flights either.  And then, at Frankfurt something very pleasant indeed happened.

I've mentioned here before how much I loathe changing flights at Frankfurt, where the security can be quite ludicrously intense, with multiple baggage checks between flights.  Well this time, it was an absolute breeze.....we parked way out on the apron, somewhere in the vicinity of Darmstadt, and got the bus into Terminal 2, in through the Schengen area door and up the escalator to the Exit and Gate area.  Turned right for Gates B32 - 56, through passport control - and that was it.  My due gate was just round the corner, by the stairs to the Business Lounge.  No security check at all.  Including the bus ride in, the transfer took all of 15 minutes.  Unbelievable!  Whether it was pure luck or whether the airport authorities have finally done something positive and sensible to make the journey a more pleasant experience I have no idea......but it left me with an unexpected 3 hours to kill.  More food and drink in the Lounge (I could have got really pissed if I'd wanted to....) and a bit of shopping - magazines and a book to keep me going over the next month - took care of that.

                                                                 *          *          *

The Lufthansa flight down to the Gulf was ok.  German beer, beef stroganoff on the menu, and a comfortable enough seat (despite the muppet in front of me dropping her seat so far back her bonce was in my lap).  But my Lufthansa issue headset for the in-flight entertainment was crap - you had to add the spongy bits yourself to the earpads and mine ripped in half as I was trying - very carefully! - to fit it.  The movie and music line-up wasn't all that good anyway, so I didn't bother - I switched the tv channel to the route map (don't need sound for that) and settled for my trusty iPod.  And the guy sitting next to me (American, maybe 22-23) was suffering from a serious gas issue.  Every 20 minutes or so, maybe less, for nearly 6 1/2 hours, another ferocious pong would waft its way up and engulf me.  Try as hard as I might I just couldn't respond in kind.  At least I assume it was him.....although  I guess it could have been the muppet in front of me or her mate, or even one of the couple immediately behind.  But whoever it was, it was fuckin awful!

Abu Dhabi airport was another pleasant surprise.  The building has a number of satellites thrown out around a central hub, all circular and domed and serving 4 departure gates, linked to the hub by covered walkways.....from above it must look like a beached space station from Star Wars or something.  But it was very efficient - off the plane, a five minute walk through to passport control (then a two minute pause for a comfort break), another 5 minutes queueing there to be processed, stamp in the passport (30 day visitors visa), through to the baggage hall, where the bags were already coming out on the belt.  Mine was about twelfth off, no more than a couple of minutes.  Through the exit, driver waiting with my name on his board, two minute walk to the exit and into an air-conditioned Cadillac limo for the ride into the city.  Painless, and so unlike the chaos I endured every couple of weeks in Beirut, another Middle Eastern destination I know well.

The ride to the hotel took maybe half an hour, along modern and well lit motorways, and in quite heavy traffic, much of it coming in from Dubai along the coast.  There was parkland and smart housing on both sides, floodlit sports arenas and shopping malls, and link roads to the many islands and public beaches.  We came into the city with its Manhattan skyscrapers and well tended housing, smart car dealerships and more sports arenas.  In the centre we hit roadworks, and the traffic was a bit crazy and manic as everyone tried to cut everone else up as the streams merged and then separated again.  But throughout the drive my overriding impression was one of care......the roads and pathways and parks and buildings all had a well tended and highly maintained look - no sub-Banksie grafitti here.  Even the roadworks seemed less dirty than one would expect. 

It made me think that when a relatively small but oil-rich nation like the UAE (and, further up the coast Qatar and Bahrain) could invest wisely and provide infrastructure of this quality what a tragedy it is that the regimes in Iraq and Iran, across the Gulf and with equal or more wealth, could only manage to blow the lot on warfare, corruption and repression, leading their populations into nothing but misery, fear and deprivation.

                                                                     *          *          *

I slept like a log in the hotel, once I'd checked in and unpacked.  The room is very good, and the bed very comfortable.  I woke to sunshine streaming through the window, pulled the curtains and went back to sleep for another couple of hours, then showered, dressed and headed for breakfast.

A first disappointment.  The buffet was very good and well stocked with plenty of choice, and I went for a full English (since it's included in the room cost to be picked up by the client).  The sauteed mushrooms, hash browns and saffron rice (OK, not strictly English but what the hell....they were there) were nice, but the sausages and bacon were foul.  Being a Muslim country, pork is strictly taboo, so the substitute meat was veal.  Now I like a bit of veal - my wife made quite delicious veal cutlets earlier this week - but I'm afraid it doesn't lend itself well to sausages, nor to being sliced very thin and fried like bacon rashers.  The coffee too was way too strong and not very hot - certainly not Nescafe - but the apple juice and toast and apricot jam were fine.  But it was an ok start to the day.

Back to the room, and time to iron the shirts that came out of my suitcase looking like dishrags.  But first, quick Skype call home to say hello to my beloveds - I'm 2 hours ahead of Warsaw so they had only just got up.  It was wonderful to see them.

On my fifth shirt, there was an almighty bang, sparks and smoke everywhere and the iron was gone.....a nice big smudge of soot on the shirt too.  It could only happen to me......  I called the Front Desk, who sent someone along to take a look.  He seemed more concerned about the shirt, took it off and disppeared for half an hour. Then, with a beaming smile, he returned it, beautifully pressed and with not a mark on it.  I asked him again for a replacement iron, so off he went again.  Another half hour passed, and I called the Front Desk again.....where's my bloody iron?  By this time it was past lunchtime and I was getting nowhere quite fast.  I turned the tv back on....and found that it, too, was out - clearly the iron had fused all the power points.  I gave it up as a bad job, put my trunks on and headed for the beach (pausing only to stop off and bollock the Front Desk).

The hotel beach is ok.  It's small, evidently man-made and has plenty of loungers and umbrellas.  On both ends of the bay there is major construction work going  on - at one a new hotel, at the other a group of tower blocks labelled the new financial district of Abu Dhabi - so it doesn't have the best of sea views, but as I'm working here I won't get to make that much use of it (weekends only) so it's not a concern really.  I had a swim.  It was like diving into a hot saline bath - way too salty.  Things must be bad when you need to rinse your eyes out in a chlorinated pool to stop them smarting!  So I didn't stay in long and returned to my lounger, listened to my music and read my book for an hour in the sunshine.  Right now it's about 42C here, so that was quite enough......and besides, I was hungry.

As well as the main restaurant, the hotel boasts Italian and Thai restaurants, a sports bar and (happy days!) an Irish pub....so food will not be an issue (I'll just ignore the veal sausages and bacon).  I decided to try the Irish bar, and wasn't disappointed.  Inside it looked and even smelt like a proper pub - spilled beer, stale cigarette smoke, kitchen odours - and had a lovely dark and traditional pub decor, with tables and chairs scattered around the place and rustic tables and benches in little alcoves.  There was a good selection of beers and a decent menu of authentic pub grub.  I settled for a pint of Kilkenny (served chilled and quite delicious - my favourite Irish beer, much better than Guinness) and a steak and onion ciabatta with fries.    And very nice it was too.....total cost about AED 70 (so about GBP11 or if you prefer PLN52) - pretty good value, I thought.  More importantly, well within my per diem allowance.

By the time I got back to my room, the plugs had been fixed, and a new iron delivered so I got my ironing out of the way.  Now I'm all set for work tomorrow.  It's early evening here, the sun going down, The Weakest Link is on BBC Prime and time for dinner.....the Sports Bar tonight I think..

The Amazing Teflon Man

"Corruption."

Such an unpleasant word, don't you think?  Whichever connotation you put on it.....

For instance: the original definition - decaying corpses, vegetation or whatever, rotting away from a once healthy life to a fly blown, maggot ridden, stinking mush.

For instance: government ministers, of whatever nationality and political persuasion, accepting money or gifts of varying (but inevitably high) value in return for services rendered.  There have been, and continue to be, many instances of this: in Britain's recent past we had peerages being dished out in return for cash contributions to political parties; in Kazakhstan and elsewhere in former Soviet bloc countries doing any kind of business without paying significant back-handers is still virtually impossible (as I wrote about in my post "Go East Old Man"), and in Trinidad a coalition government was elected last year on a pledge to specifically address such issues (see "Caribbean Dreams").

For instance: political leaders making or authorising payments and giving gifts in order to obtain special deals to their private (and ostensibly national) interests - think the Iran - Contra Arms scandal back in the 80s, or Silvio Berlusconi's constant denials of providing hookers and sex parties at his Italian villa in return for political favours (some interesting paparazzi photos on the internet for this one).

For instance: police taking payments from bar owners, shopkeepers or other establishments of perhaps questionable reputation to safeguard them from raids or closure (by all accounts rife in New York for most of the 20th century, common in London in the 50s to 70s - and possibly beyond - and documented elsewhere worldwide). 

There are plenty of other examples of corruption, but I think that's enough to be going along with.    Usually, sooner or later, the perpetrators get caught out and punsihed more or less severely.  Reagan got away scott free over the Iran - Contra affair by claiming no knowledge of it - given his subsequent death from Alzheimer's quite plausibly - , but Nixon was shamed totally after Watergate and never recovered.  In Britain a number of MPs of various parties have been kicked out of their parties and offices and in some cases imprisoned for a variety of relatively small-beer corruption (expense fiddles mostly), while the bigger fish acused of selling peerages and war crimes are still out there, making bundles of cash from the lecture circuit and high paying quangoes or company directorships where their networks of high level contacts (no matter how formed) are a source of profits and protection. 

And then there is the biggest shark of the lot.  Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Amazing Teflon Man, President of FIFA, Mr. Joseph "Sepp" Blatter.

                                                                *          *          *

Unless you've just returned from a trip to the Andromeda Galaxy or somewhere, you will have heard of him.  He's been President of football's world governing body for getting on for 20 years now, and before that was the organization's General Secretary.  In his time in charge, FIFA has grown from a relatively small organisation that organized the World Cup every four years (and seemed to do precious little else) to a global power player that still organizes the World Cup every four years, but has turned it into such a money-making machine what with television and advertising rights that make huge profits for the organizing countries (and even more huge profits for FIFA itself) that it is able to demand - and receive - unbelievably beneficial tax concessions from the host couintries to further swell its coffers.  It has also introduced a host of rule changes that make football today a different sport to what it was twenty years ago. 

It has also produced possibly the most corrupt organization in the history of sport and quite possibly the world.  It is run by an Executive Committee of 24 members, led by good old Sepp.   Ostensibly, every member federation (there are just over 200 globally) have the final say on most matters through regular Congresses, but in all the major decisions they are presented with a fait accompli by the Executive Committee and merely vote to rubber stamp them.   The members of the Executive Committee are incredibly well rewarded - $10,000 a month retainer, $500 per diem on trips plus a further $200 a day for any travelling companions, business class travel, first class hotel accomodation, chauffeur driven limousines, free tickets in the best seats to all the top events (and not a receipt required) - and that's on top of any salaries they may earn from the parent federations.  Lucrative game, football administration!

Of course what that means is that once somebody reaches the Executive Committee they only leave it in a pine box.  Sepp has been on it for 30 odd years and top dog for nearly 15.  Some of his fellow Committee members have been on board a similar time.  They are old men - Blatter himself is 75 - and are used to a certain way of life and certain privileges and will clearly do whatever it takes to hang on to it.  They all have their little power bases, "friends" in the other federations and regional groupings - Europe, Asia, Oceania, the Americas and so on - that are carefully cultivated and kept onside by little favours and gifts in return for support in key elections and votes.   Teflon has the biggest and most carefully cultivated network of the lot, and it's helped keep him in the position all this time, through three elections.

The elections themselves have historically been farcical and an insult to the democratic principles that most organisations - including FIFA - insist they follow.  Usually come election time, a year or so's in-fighting and deal making ensures that the reigning President, if he is prepared to stay in the position, is the only candidate and thus guaranteed an election victory - coronation is probably a better description.  Blatter, being a very smart and clever political operator, has played this little game to perfection over the years.  Despite some of his more outrageous proposals he is still there and more powerful than ever.  He comes across in his interviews and press conferences as a pleasant enough man, if a little doddering now - although fluent in 5 languages his English pronunciations can be a little tortuous and rambling - but behind the Kindly Grandad image lies a very keen and machiavellian mind - not unlike other famous political manipulators and, yes, dictators, like Stalin and Peter Mandelson.  He always insists that he is only interested in serving the best interests of football and the "global FIFA family" (whatever the hell that is!), and his own opinions and feelings are secondary to this.  What bullshit!  The man is incapable of taking criticism, no matter how justified ot well meaning.

                                                                  *          *           *

In the past few months, Blatter and FIFA have really shown the world just how corrupt they are.

First came the vote last year for the hosting of the 2018 and 2022 tournaments.  Countries spent millions preparing their bids, enlisting the help of world famous local footballing celebrities and politicians to help sell their offerings to the FIFA members.  Billions of dollars in infrastructure projects were pledged - new stadia, new roads, new railways, new airports, all of which would benefit their citizens once the tourney were over.  Billions more were pledged in tax breaks to FIFA, broadcast and advertising rights to business partners like Coca Cola, Visa and adidas.  The organising committees toured the world pressing the flesh in a bid to secure votes and of course promises were made.  Now this is where it gets interesting - and corrupt.

Because the final decision is made not by the 208 member federations but by the 24 members of the Executive Committe, by secret ballot.    In theory, the Executive Committee members represent groups of federations and hence vote as instructed by those groupings, but in practice, it doesn't happen.  Jack Warner for instance, the Trinidad Minister for Transport and a man constantly accused of bribery and corruption, "controls" the votes of the entire Caribbean, Central and North American bloc - something like 24 votes.  Whether he carries out the wishes of those 24 nations is open to question - but what is certain is that after promising those votes for the 2018 tournament to England (promised to Prince William, no less, with a smile and a handshake) he then delivered them in favour of a competing bid - which one is not known, since the ballot is not in the least bit open to scrutiny.  There were for sure other broken promises, as the tournaments were awarded to Russia (2018) and Qatar (2022). despite their bids not being rated very highly at all by any press reviews or even by sources within FIFA itself.

Predictably, there was uproar.  Accusations of brown envelopes stuffed with roubles and oil money being passed around the hotel pre-vote abounded.  Calls for a new vote were brushed aside.  Demands for the entire Executive Committee and, of course, Blatter to resign were laughed off.  Stronger demands to open FIFA up to a thorough review of ethical practices and governance were equally refused by the organisation, with Blatter insisting there was nothing wrong, the voting was free and fair and in any case FIFA was quite capable of policing itself, thank you very much.   The whole shambles was swept uinder the carpet.

Now it just so happened that a Congress was scheduled for this year, at which there was due to be a Presidential election.  The Amazing Teflon Man announced that he would be delighted to continue with the honour and privilege of running this wonderful organiztion for a further 4 years - his usual pre-election statement.  He sat back and waited to be elected unopposed.  In the meantime, the cries for a reform of the organisation continued and strengthened, particularly after a British parliamentary enquiry made specific claims against certain high ranking FIFA officials (step forward again Mr.Jack Warner of Trinidad) and the FIFA Ethics Committee upheld the suspensions handed down just before the World Cup vote to two very senior officials (Executive Members no less) for accepting bribes (both continue to protest their innocence - appeals are pending).  Then surprise surprise, two challengers to Blatter's positions appeared.  The first was a US sports journalist, Grant Wahl, basing his bid solely on a platform to open up all FIFA's correspondence (sort of a Wikileaks expose) and reforming the entire Executive Committee and voting processes.  Predictably, he was unable to find a member Federation to support and nominate him.  The other was more credible: Sheik bin Haman, the head of the Asian Federation from (now here was a little surprise....) Qatar, who had served on the Executive Committee for many years, had been seen as a Blatter ally and headed up the successful (and suspect) bid to host 2022.  He too pledged reform, but on a less grandiose style.

Blatter was not happy, but kept his comments reasonably restrained.  Campaigning carried on for the first part of this year, both parties jockeying for position and support at the election - this time voting would be down to the entire 208 members, not the Executive Committee.  Then in the last week it all went crazy and Blatter showed his true character.  First the English FA publicly stated it could support neither candidate - they were still pissed off with losing out on the 2018 bid process and also questioned the Qatari's credentials, based on the popular and wide spread rumour that Qatar had paid a significant amount of bribes to win the 2022 bid.  Then more allegations were levelled against Warner and others, and amid the furore bin Haman withdrew from the election process.  FIFA's Ethics Committee met to consider the allegation against Warner, the Qatari and others, and even Blatter was implicated (in that it was alleged he knew sosmething might be going on but said nothing).  Warner was suspended, and responded by producing a sheaf of documents he insisted proved his innocence of any wrongdoing, including an e-mail from the FIFA General Secretary stating that Qatar had indeed "bought" the 2022 World Cup - as had been rumoured.  The General Secretary admitted sending the mail but insisted it had been taken "out of context".   Blatter was, entirely predictably, totally exonerated and walked away stating the verdict and suspensions had proved how effective and fair the internal disciplinary procedures had been.....  Finally, as delegates began arriving in Zurich for the Congress and election, the English and Scottish FAs announced that they were calling for the election to be cancelled as the lack of an opposition candidate made the entire process undemocratic and made Blatter's continued mandate untenable.  The night before Congress opened, Blatter hosted a press conference in which he insisted there was no crisis in FIFA, blamed all the "difficulties" on a scurrilous press corps and jealousy from, primarily, England, and demanded the respect of the world that he saw as his right as the long standing President of this organization.  When journalists asked perfectly acceptable questions about the validity of the election process and whether changes to the disciplinary process were being considered, he was basically very rude, ended the conference and stormed off with a final demand for respect and due deference.  It was quite extraordinary and more than a bit delusional.


Come election day, and the English delegate made his plea for cancellation from the platform and left the stage to an embarrassing silence, broken only by lukewarm applause from the English and Scottish delegations.  Thereafter federation after federation used their allotted time to accuse England of treason, attempting to poison the "FIFA family's" minds against the Blessed Sepp and all manner of collusion with the gutter press.  Of course the motion to cancel the election was kicked out by a huge majority (of 208 delegates only a handful supported the motion and a similar number abstained - but of course who those supporters were is not in the public domain).  The vote went ahead and Blatter was duly elected for another four years, by an even bigger majority.

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So there we are.  The Amazing Teflon Man remains in charge of the world game, surrounded by his power base of loyal retainers (who no doubt have been - or will be - lavishly rewardedfor their loyalty).   What will happen to bin Haman and Warner and the other officials awaiting a full disciplinary hearing is unclear - probably nothing.  Will FIFA change and become more transparent?  A little perhaps - Blatter has started his new term by promising that in future voting to host the World Cup will be open to all 208 members, but of course restricted to those candidates whose bids the Executive Committee deem worthy of consideration.  So effectively the power of Blatter and the Executive Committee has not changed at all.  He has also suggested a new committee will be formed to review the organisation's governance and disciplinary procedures, although as this review committee will be formed from within FIFA rather than from independant outside sources little is likely to change there.

How the English FA will come out of all this is anyone's guess.  They have been sidelined from the major decision making processes for years as successive delegates have failed dismally to work the politics and committee systems within FIFA, and that will certainly not change in the foreseeable future after this latest lame stand against what it (albeit honourably) sees as the continued corruption at the heart of FIFA and its President.  One thing is for sure: we'll never host a World Cup again, which means will probably never win it again either.

And the Amazing Teflon Man?  He will continue on his way, running the organisation as he sees fit.  He will probably stand again, should health allow, in four years time, and in any case will for sure continue grooming his successor behind the scenes, whoever that may be, so that his legacy will be writ in stone as the longest serving and most forward-minded President ever, who took the game to the world and made it the cash cow it undoubtedly is.

And there will be not a word about the corruption that he has brought to the table, and continues to manage in a way Uncle Joe Stalin would be proud of.

The Grand Duchy

Geographically, Luxembourg is a small country bordered by Germany, France and Belgium.  As well as being the world's only surviving Grand Duchy, it's a major financial centre, courtesy of its position and the comparative freedom under which banks can operate (at least back in the 80s when it really began to flourish), and nowadays is a governmental and administrative centre of the EU too - as befits a founding member.

But it still has a reputation of being a bit of a cultural backwater, a boring place.  As an example, I cannot think of a single famous Luxembourger.  It's tough enough thinking of a famous Belgian (a country similar in many ways to its smaller neighbour) but from there I can come up with 3 - cyclist Eddy Merckx; Herge, the bloke who wrote the TinTin stories; and Eddy Wallie, a bizarre sub-Las Vegas Walloon crooner who featured regularly on Channel 4's Eurotrash back in the 90s.  But from the Duchy?  Nope, not one.  Sorry.  Good God, the place even had to resort to hiring horse faced karaoke hag Celine Dion (pre tooth and nose job) to represent it at one Eurovision Song Contest (and she didn't win).

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It seems a nice enough place, quite picturesque.  There is lots of rolling countryside around the capital city, called imaginatively Luxembourg, with some nice (but small) woodland.   There's a river that runs through the city centre, in quite a deep gorge spanned by a lovely old bridge and surrounded by a very nice park.  And quite a lot of motorways around the city, linking it to its neighbouring countries.  There is a native population of about half a million, plus probably as many ex-pats working in the banks and EU institutions.  Because it's a wealthy country there don't seem to be too many crap cars there - I visited last week and all the cars I saw were new looking BMW, Audi, Mercedes etc - luxury vehicles and predominately German.  There was also a good number of top-of-the-range French Citroen and Renaults as well.  Oh, and I saw 2 Jags and an Aston Martin.  Very nice - Clarkson would love it.

The airport is small, and very restricted in that there only seem to be a couple of airlines licenced to use it - Luxair (the national carrier), Swiss and maybe Lufthansa.  It makes getting in and out interesting, travelling from Warsaw.  Outbound I went via Zurich and homeward via Munich.   There is no business lounge (at least that I could find) and only one small bar in the Departure lounge, plus about 4 duty free shops, and it's certainly not the cheapest airport I've ever been through.  I found the Luxair staff very unfriendly and not particularly helpful - the day before travelling home I tried an internet check-in for my flights.  The Lufthansa flight from Munich to Warsaw was fine, but I couldn't get to the Luxembourg - Munich first leg, despite it being another Lufthansa flight code.  I called the Service Centre, who confirmed my check-in to Warsaw but told me to use the Luxair website for the first leg.  I logged in, but was unable to get to my flight - the system did not accept any possible combination of the booking code, e-ticket number, my name, travel date and Frequent Flyer number, all of which appeared on the ticket.  I called their Service Centre and spoke to a very brusque man who told me that because the ticket was bought via Swiss the details did not appear on Luxair's system so I would have to check in at the airport.  He refused to answer when I asked him how come I'd been able to check in for my LH flight from Munich and ended the call.  Nice bloke..... 

It wasn't much better at the Check in Desk next morning - the girl there had problems finding the booking, took nearly 10 minutes to do so, and again wasn't forthcoming when I asked politely what the problem was.  It appears that Luxair operates in splendid isolation and does not belong to an airline alliance, despite operating codeshare flights with several airlines who are members of various alliances, which means there are no links between the various computer systems and makes check-in processes more difficult than is normal in the EU.....surprising, given its rampantly pro-European policies and hosting of sundry pan-European agencies.  This is fine as far as it goes: if that is the way that suits the airline best then I certainly can't change anything, nor am I entitled to try to do so......but equally, they still surely have a duty to provide a good service level to all customers, and that includes polite and helpful check-in and service centre agents, I would have thought.  But this not a new situation - I've flown to Luxembourg perhaps five times over the past 12 years, and every time it has been the same.  Despite service improvements virutally everywhere else in the world, never mind just Europe, the Duchy seems to exist in its own little bubble, impervious to increased customer expectations.  Surprising, and a shame.

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My first trip to Luxembourg was in 1981 or thereabouts.  At the time I was working for a major American investment bank, at the time the biggest in the world.  At the time also the European bond markets were growing extensively so of course my company was a leading player.  Market growth was being aided by the existance at two competing central securities depositories (Brussels-based Euroclear, hosted by US mega bank JP Morgan, and the smaller, more independant Luxembourg- based Cedel) of bond lending programs.  Put simply, members of Euroclear and Cedel were able to lend securities from their portfolios to other market participants who needed them - for instance to cover short sales - against a fee, the entire process done anonymously and managed by Euroclear and Cedel.  A lender did not know who had borrowed the bonds, and a borrower did not know whose securities he had borrowed, only the clearers had that information.  My bank had extensive portfolios at both organizations and hence was a major player in the system.

The problem was we had somehow contrived to lose track of what we owned, what we had lent and who we had lent to, by virtue of largely manual reconciliation processes (computer support was still in its infancy in those days) and perhaps taking on more than we could be expected to manage.  Clearly we were at serious financial risk - we are talking tens of millions of dollars worth of "lost" securities: small beer today but a significant number then.  One of our regular organizational changes brought in a new manager, a feisty middle aged lady from the US Southern states, who was horrified by the situation (rightly so) and immediately withdrew temporarily from both lending programmes until such time as we had properly reconciled all our positions and figured out where the hell everything was.  Needless to say, both Euroclear and Cedel threw their hands up in despair, and "invited" us to visit with them to discuss the situation.  So Betty put together a delegation, led by her, to make our case and off we went.  To this day, I have no idea why I was included - I'd been with the company for about 18 months, had little experience in the lending programs, and had only recently been promoted to supervisor of the unit charged with reconciling positions (but primariliy internally rather than against outside accounts such as these).

Anyway, off we went.  we flew from Heathrow to Luxembourg, arriving about lunchtime - there were few direct flights in those days - and met with Cedel's managing director in the afternoon.  Beyond saying hello, I did not participate in the meeting at all, merely sat there listening with an increasing level of boredom.  We were taken around the place and introduced to various managers who were involved in Cedel's lending program, and they were all very helpful and pledged to provide whatever support and assistance we needed.  In the evening, we were taken out to dinner at a restuarant in the city - for the life of me, I can't remember what it was called - that apart from an excellent menu and a fine selection of beers provided interesting diner entertainment: all evening porn movies were being projected on a number of wall-sized screens around the place, complete with sound.  It made for an interesting meal.....

The following morning we met up, all very hungover, and caught the train to Brussels (there were no direct flights at all between the two cities).  We travelled first class, which was the last coach on the train, and had it to oursleves, so spent the next 5 hours sleeping it off as the train lumbered slowly through the Ardennes in the rain.  We spent the rest of that day in similar discussions with Euroclear and again beyond introducing myself I took no part in the conversation.   By contrast to the open door visit hosted by the Managing Director in Luxembourg, our discussions with Euroclear took place in a windowless conference room somewhere in the basement of JP Morgan's Brussels office, hosted by a pair of middle managers.   Despite their somewhat hectoring manner, and complaints that our actions had depressed the entire European bond market, Betty stuck to her guns and refused to start lending again until we had completed our reconciliation effort.  Eventually, we were shown the door and shoved in a couple of taxis to the airport and flew back to London.

From memory, it took a month or so before we were ready to re-commence lending.  Cedel welcomed us back with open arms, Euroclear merely said, privately at least, "about time too....".

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So my first view of Luxembourg made little real impression on me.  I wasn't there long enough to appreciate anything at all apart from the undoubted quality of certain eating establishments in Europe (there was certainly nothing remotely like it in Tunbridge Wells, where I was living at the time).  I vaguely remember the city being small and full of old buldings, and the station platform being very cold and wet and lacking in shelter.  Beyond that, nothing.

It was 20 years before I went back.  By then I had left banking, started my Travelling Life, divorced, moved to Poland and met my second wife.....so quite a lot had happened.  A lot of change.  My company sent me to a bank in Luxembourg for a couple of days' business review and specification at a live customer of ours, and I managed to persuade them to let me take Ania with me (a VERY rare case of generosity by the company, I have to say!).   We flew via Frankfurt (for once a painless trip) and were booked in a city centre hotel.  While I was at work, Ania did some sight-seeing, and sat in the sunshine in the park, it being early summer.  In the evening we went to the Luxembourg equivalent of Warsaw's Old Town and spent a lovely time eating and drinking at an open air restaurant there.  The next day I finished early and we spent the afternoon and evening sight-seeing together, and sitting in the park, before another Old Town evening (but in a different bar).  We flew home the next day.  It was a nice trip.

But although my life had changed, Luxembourg, at least outwardly, hadn't.  It looked exactly the same as it had on my original trip twenty years before.  There seemed to be no more people on the streets, the old buildings looked unchanged, it still looked like the small European town it had been in 1981.  There was a little building work going on, close to the station - a new complex to house some EU institutions was underway, but that was about it really.

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Three or four years passed.  Then I was sent to our Luxembourg office for a training course.

I saw no more of the place than I had done previously - except for the roads.  I stayed in the Hilton hotel, fairly close to the airport and for that reason out of the town centre.  My office, it transpired, was right across the other side of the city, and the quickest way to get there and back was on the ring road - like the M25 only a lot shorter.  It was a 30 minute drive either way, and the office turned out to be in a little town (village really) just outside the main city centre - like Croydon I suppose, except that the entire village seemed to be about the size of the Whitgift Shopping Centre there.  There was literally nothing there: our office formed part of a building on an estate not unlike an English industrial complex except the buildings were office blocks, three storeys high and no more, instead of factories.  Across the roundabout at the estate entrance was a supermarket, part of a French Tesco-like chain (I can't remember whether it was LeClerc or Auchan) that also had a small sandwich and cake shop - that was lunch taken care of.  Then there were a couple of housing estates.  And that was all - no bars, not even a church or a petrol station (at least that I saw).  The taxi fare was EUR30 each way, which on a per diem of EUR56 left me short.   I had to get special dispensation from my management to claim the fares, since these normally form part of the expense to be covered out of per diem - I basically told them that unless they paid the fares as extras I would be on the next flight home.

It wasn't much of a trip.  Given the location of the office and the hotel in relation to Luxembourg town centre and the lack of money to spend, I had a sandwich at my desk for lunch and ate in the hotel in the evenings rather than spend another EUR50 getting into town and back (that's before meal costs).  Even the course was a complete waste of time.....

And I still had absolutely no view on Luxembourg apart from it being a bastard of a place to get to....

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But now I've had two trips within the past year, both to the same bank (another live site - we have have a dozen in the Duchy, it was one of the first areas in which we really made a mark).  The first time, last spring, I again stayed in the Hilton and had the chore of a taxi both ways.  Last week I stayed at the Sofitel, within walking distance of the bank.  And my eyes were opened.

In all those years, there has indeed been considerable change in the city: I just hadn't seen it.  Between the airport and the centre is the suburb of Kirchberg.  On my first trip (and possibly my second) it was no more than another small village on the edge of town that passed me by - I had no concept of its existance.  But now, sometime over the last 5 or 6 years I should think, a whole "new town" of modern multi-floor office blocks has sprung up cheek-by-jowl with the old village.  Cedel, now re-branded Clearstream and a much bigger organisation than it was on my 1981 visit, occupy one of the largest, an entire quartet of blocks surrounding a little square.  All the major banks are there, in buildings large and small, plus the major accountancy and consulting and legal firms like Deloittes and Linklaters, and some of those pan-European quasi- governmental offices.  There is a big shopping mall centred around an Auchan supermarket, with expensive looking boutiques and bistro's and sandwich bars.  There are two up-market business hotels next door to each other (the Sofitel and the Novotel).  A multi-lane highway - the John F. Kennedy Boulevard - runs through it to the city centre, all contra-flow systems with buses and taxis and normal traffic going in opposite directions on adjoining lanes - an interesting concept that seems to work fine but would cause complete chaos if it was tried in any UK city.......look at how well received bus lane on the M4 between Heathrow and London was when introduced a few years ago.  The whole Kirchberg area reminded me very much of a better planned and executed Canary Wharf - almost as if the Luxembourgers had watched Britain's attempts at creating a brand-new out-of-town financial district, spotted the mistakes and corrected them in their own development.

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So the Grand Duchy then......conclusions.

Well, it's a nice enough place I guess.  Pretty, in a rural central European way.  Very prosperous and good at what it does.  Expensive.  Good road links to the rest of the Continent, and probably improved rail links too.  Need to work some more on air links and certainly customer care at both the airport and the national carrier.

But all I've really seen is the area immediately surrounding Luxembourg (the city that is).  Because of its small size and the fact that it is landlocked, without a beach or a mountain to its name, it could never be considered a holiday destination, unless your idea of a holiday is roaming around admittedly pleasant countryside and doing a bit of expensive-car spotting.  But then, that is not what Luxembourg is all about.

Whatever its history, pre-1955 or thereabouts (when the original EEC came into being) - and I readily admit I know nothing about Luxembourg history - the country and the state are now completely bound to banking and EU governance.  It is a European centre of what used to be caused private banking but is now increasingly called Private Wealth Management - basically banks providing investment services to people with loads of money in order makes loads more, both for the people and the bank itself.  In that, it's very good - if not an exact rival to Switzerland, then doing very well indeed - and enjoys an excellant reputation.  As a founder member of the European Coal and Steel Council back in the mid 50s, that morphed into the European Economic Community and finally the European Union, it has been at the very centre of European politics for the past 60 years, and played a pivotal role in the EU's development.  It continues to be one of the EUs administrtive centres, along with Brussels and Strasbourg.  It seems very happy with its lot, and the people, affluent to a man, seem to have a lot to be happy about - nice looking homes (I've seen nothing resembling an inner city slum or apartment block), nice expensive cars (see above....) and nice shopping (all the biggest and most exclusive brands and outlets are in town).

Do I like the place?  Know, what, I'm still not sure.  There is nothing really to dislike about it, but equally I've seen nothing yet to make me feel anything more than ambivalent about it.   I enjoy going there, and it's a pleasant enough place when I get there, but if someone was to say to me that I'll never set foot in the Grand Duchy again in my life - well, I would neither shed tears nor lose sleep over it.

And I STILL can't think of any famous Luxembourgers!