Al Fair, Beach Party, and other things

First up, something I'm following up on when I first blogged about it here. Al Fair, and the pork products in their pork rooms. Recently I was visiting the CCC branch of Al Fair - and I was at first pleased to see a clear policy regarding fresh pork products stuck onto the wall in the little room for non-muslims.

Here's three pictures covering it all (it was a pretty comprehensive policy I must say).

Great, right? Wrong. Take a look at this piece of meat, it's blue. Why is it so hard for these people to understand that selling rotten meat is not going to do them any favours. I can think of more than a few countries around the world where there would be pretty stiff fines levied against the owners of this shop. Having a policy is all well and great, but you've got to actually follow it, just sticking it on the wall is not good enough!


Moving on now. During Eid, and as I had mentioned in a previous post, the wife and I went for a stroll on Qantab Beach, and just because it's such a nice place, I thought I'd share a picture of it with you all:

And to continue the picture theme, here's one overlooking the fantastic Bandar Kiran links area between Yiti and Seifa.


It's times like these when I'm happy that I live here - people pay big bucks to vacation in places like this, and for us, it's just a short drive on the weekend!

This Thursday, there is a Red Bull hosted party called Sunset Chill Vol. 2 at the Oman Dive Center just down the road from the Shang. It starts at 1 PM and runs until 1 AM Friday morning. For more Info & Reservation Please Call: 95119499, 24824240 - Tickets are RO 10.000 per person and include a free drink.

Muscat RFC are playing the Royal Navy's HMS Kent at the MRFC grounds tomorrow night at 18:30 - so come on down for an evening of rugby and drinking with the Navy lads.

le fin

Education Ministry studying impact of short school term

Is it just me, or does the title of this blog post just strike you as.... incredibly stupid? You mean the Education Ministry is studying the impact of a shortened school term? Really? They have to study it?

Is this a case of a vast wedge of kids not knowing their ABC's and how that's going to affect them? I can see it now in 13 years time, when these kids graduate - "Oh yeah man, I was part of the class of '09-10, we never learned the alphabet because we were at home because of the swine flu".


Really. Come on guys. You need to study the impact of a shortened term? Is it not painfully obvious? Modules don't get taught, key core learning areas are not achieved, kids remain uneducated. It's not rocket science, and takes about, oh, I don't know, maybe a 2 hour meeting to hash out all the possible outcomes of not teaching kids various items in their syllabus?

Another 3 people have "officially" died from H1N1 in Oman in the last 10 days, I guess that brings the official count to 21. The World Health Organization issued its latest weekly bulletin on Friday, wherein it said the disease had killed at least 3,917 people in 191 countries since it emerged in April. 3,917 people have lost their lives - which is terrible - but I think more people died in that same time frame from a whole raft of causes - starvation, aids, cancer, traffic and so on. Is it really sensible to keep the schools closed? I have said it before and I'll say it again - if you are going to cancel the Muscat Festival, and keep the schools closed, then you should also ban gatherings at Mosques, close the Malls and cancel all football matches. Hypocrisy.

Speaking of footie, the HM cup started on Friday, and Muscat won their first game against Jalaan in Nizwa 3-0. Good for them :)

Hopefully everyone had a nice time during Eid, and in response to some comments in previous blog posts... no, I had a "Staycation" this Eid. The highlight of my Eid is a toss-up between:

1. A friends misfortune as he totally wrecked his front axle on his Hummer H3 trying to get up the hill from Bandar Kiran. 5 hours of towing finally got him up the hill.... and onto a flat-bed truck. The poor bugger, I hope the repair bill isn't too bad. I suspect it will be though :(

2. Visiting Bahrain. Those crazy Saudi's really do drive like maniacs. It was cooler there than it was here in Muscat.

3. Managing to sleep until 2pm on one day. It reminded me of days at university when I used to feel a sense of achievement at having gotten out of bed in time to watch Neighbours at 1:30 in the afternoon :)

Thats all for today.

le fin

Eid Mubarak

1 day later than everyone else!

I was a bit surprised to note the lack of a Doodle on Google to celebrate Eid. Google.com had nothing, google.ca has something to do with HG Well's War of the Worlds, Google.co.uk had nothing, as did google.ae and google.com.om

Have a great day everyone!

le fin

Moon not sighted, Eid to be on Monday.

So Eid wont start until Monday.

Conveniently, the MRFC bar will be open on Monday evening at 6pm :)

I guess that the water will be turned off between Thursday and Saturday this week.

le fin

Eid manoeuvres.

So what's going on during Eid?

Firstly, reading the Oman Observer today, apparently the boys that look at the moon reckon they are not going to sight the new moon tonight, which means that if they sight it tomorrow, then Eid will start on Tuesday, not Monday. But time will tell I guess.

So now that we are sufficiently confused about when Eid will be, everyone have a great week off.

Additionally -

City Cinema - Ruwi to re-open on first day of Eid. (source)

The much-awaited and Oman’s most preferred City Cinema, Ruwi, will reopen on the first day of Eid, adorning a grand new look in a brand new style!

The City Cinema, Ruwi, part of Oman Arab Cinema, is truly a grand feast for all the senses packed with loads of excitement ahead.

Oman’s favourite Bollywood haunt in Muscat, now in an exclusive new décor, fully refurbished and renovated that boasts some of the plushest of features. Complete, from corner-to-corner, the City Cinema, Ruwi now puts some of the most exclusive features in place that make a perfect entertainment statement.

With brand new interiors, exclusive new platinum class area, separate utility for platinum class, appetising variety in beverages and snacks and multiple ticketing counters and more, City Cinema, Ruwi, is all poised to make a super hit.

Come Eid and the people of Muscat can actually be there to feel the difference! City Cinema, Ruwi, introduces a new and revised price structure over three different ticket categories, viz. Silver Class for RO1.200, Gold Class for RO2.000 and Platinum for RO2.500, which would be effective from the day the City Cinema, Ruwi reopens. The brand new ergonomic seating coupled with enough leg room, will enhance the viewing pleasure.

So the cinema will be open again on Monday or Tuesday... :)

le fin

Muscat RFC v Dubai Dragons

Friday, at 15:30 hours down at the Muscat Rugby Club, the local lads take on the Dubai Dragons in the second game of the season, first home game.

If you have 90 minutes or so to spare tomorrow afternoon, then please come on down and watch our guys sweat it out with guys from Dubai.

Here is a link to the location of the Rugby Club grounds.

Also, when the bar opens up again after Ramadan, it will be open 7 days a week.

Local news roundup

A few nuggets of news for you all today:

1. Eid holidays have been announced. They are Saturday - Wednesday for the Government sector, and Sunday - Thursday for the Private sector. Both groups of workers returning to work on Saturday 26th September.

2. Mains water will be turned off on the 3rd and 4th days of Eid. If Eid is called on Sunday, then I guess the water will be turned off Tuesday and Wednesday, or maybe Wednesday and Thursday. the effected areas are: Muscat, Muttrah, Al Ameraat, Al Khyuwair, Madinat Qaboos, Al Shatti, Baushar from 9am on the 3rd day of Eid to 9pm on the 4th day of Eid. The reason given was to fix a pump at the Al Gubra station.

3. Oman public schools have delayed the start of school AGAIN. Here is the official notice (in Arabic) from the Ministry of Education. Perhaps they should be renamed the Ministry of not Educating. The new dates are now as follows:

Class 1-4 open date 7/11
Class 5-7 31/10
Class 8-10 17/10
Class 11-12 open date 3/10

The reason? H1N1.

4. The plans for the new Al-Amerat - Wadi Adai road have been floating around the Internet for a few days. The new road looks like it'll be a lot better. Also, the back road from Al Amerat to Al Khuwair is progressing as well. Expect land values in Al Amerat to increase once the two roads are open.



5. Oman Air took delivery of their first A330-200 recently, and it landed in Seeb yesterday. The plane is setup for Business Class and Economy Class,with a total passenger capacity of 216 (20 Business class, 196 cattle class).

6. 2 more people died in Oman from H1N1 - bringing the official toll to 18. No guessing what the unofficial toll is, but compared to the infection rate, its really nothing to get too worried about. The massive over-reaction from the Government to cancel Muscat Festival, and continue delaying the start of School is a bit heavy-handed in my opinion. In the same vein - they should cancel all football matches, gatherings at large mosques, close down all the malls. Where do you draw the line? I'm sorry but this is just nonsense.

7. Oman have joined the International Atomic Energy Agency with a view to obtaining Nuclear Power Generation technology for the Sultanate. The No. 2 chap from the Foreign Ministry, Sayyid Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidy was in Vienna yesterday to give a speech to the IAEA's 53rd general conference session.

8. In a final nod towards the Ramadan driving bonanza - I counted 24 seperate accidents that occured between the ministries road and the 18th November St in the last few weeks. On top of that, there have been 7 major accidents that I've counted on the SQ highway between Azaiba and Al Khuwair. It'll be interesting to see The Week's reported figures on traffic accidents in the sultanate during Ramadan.

Thats all for today. Have a great week off everyone :)

le fin

Just a quickie: Muscat Festival 2010 cancelled

Just a quick story here for local fans of the Muscat Festival (of parking really really badly).

"Sultan bin Hamdoun al Harthy, Chairman of Muscat Municipality and head of the Muscat Festival's organising committee, has announced the cancellation of Muscat Festival 2010. In a statement to Oman News Agency, Al Harthy attributed the cancellation to a government decision to limit instances of public gatherings as a preventive measure to combat the spread of H1N1 virus. Al Harthy noted that Muscat Festival, which is growing into a grand annual event, attracts thousands of visitors from different countries. Hence its cancellation in 2010 would ensure the protection of public health and safety".

Whatever will they cancel next?

Graffiti in Salalah

Just a brief blog for today. Recently I popped down to Salalah for a bit of R&R. Whilst walking around in a village down there I came across some derelict houses, and was amused to find some graffiti inside the old buildings. I even had my camera with me, so I snapped off a few pictures to share:




It appears that only black and red spray paint was available to these fans of hip hop. 2 Pac died.... how long ago? I don't know. Perhaps the graffiti is older than it looks. Either way, I thought it was quite funny to see down in Salalah, and am sharing it with you all now!

In the first picture, under "Deathrow" there is some Arabic... can anyone tell me what it says?

le fin

How does MBC make money?

I've been watching MBC 4 and MBC 2 lately. For those of you that don't know what MBC is, its a free TV station which is available here in the Middle East. They have MBC 1, 2, 3, 4, Action, MAX, MBC + Drama, MBC Persia and Al Arabiya. The English-language channels are:

MBC 2 (movies)
MBC 3 (sometimes english, but its a kids tv chanel)
MBC 4 (Seems to be entirely devoted to women's programs)
MBC Action (Action tv shows, some movies)
MBC Max (movies)
MBC Persia (Usually older tv shows from the 90's and some movies)

The Middle East Broadcasting Center (MBC) is a Saudi-run company broadcasting a mix of free-to-air news and entertainment channels via satellite. It was launched on September 18, 1991 as the Middle East Broadcasting Corporation, initially broadcasting from London in the United Kingdom. Since 2002, its headquarters have been in Dubai Media City, United Arab Emirates.

So now you all know what MBC is. So now I raise the question - How do they make money? There is rarely any adverts on the channels - they just advertise their own programming in the commercial breaks. Occasionally Coca Cola will run an advert, but not very frequently, and I've been watching closely lately during prime time in the evenings and have failed to see a single commercial. Not one. How does a broadcasting company continue to operate with no advertising income?


The network is rumoured to be owned by the Saudi Royal family, but again, why burn money on something that just isn't generating any cash, and broadcasts in English? I reckon it's a big money laundering operation for some shady gun-runners! Or something. But seriously, running a TV network with 9 24 hour channels (ok MBC + Drama is a subscription channel available via Showtime) costs some serious cash - why would that much cash be burned up?

Just as an off-shoot to this blog, I thought I'd just talk briefly about what is going on with English Language TV here in the middle east.

There were, until very recently, 2 major English-language pay-tv subscription services - Orbit, and Showtime. Showtime have recently bought-out Orbit, and thus now have a monopoly on English-Language subscription services in the Middle East.

But, there are actually quite a few decent English language stations available for free:

1. BBC News 24
2. Al Jazeera International
3. CNN
4. Press TV
5. MBC 2
6. MBC 4
7. MBC Action
8. MBC Max
9. MBC Persia
10. Fox Series
11. Fox Movies
12. MTV Arabia
13. Dubai One
14. Dubai Sports
15. KTV 2
16. Infinity
17. Al Jazeera Sports 1-3
18. Boomerang Channel
19. City 7
20. CCTV 9

So, as you can see, if you are only reasonably interested in watching TV, there are plenty of free channels available out there that do not need a Showtime subscription (which is about US $50/month for the top tier).

But, coming back to MBC. How exactly are they making any money on this network? Do they even have a marketing team in place?

le fin

La Senza & Oman

Now one of my favourite things about my wife being a member of the Womens Guild of Oman is that you get this little discount card that gets you (usually 10%) a nice discount at tons of restaurants. Actually, its my only favourite thing about my wife being a member of the WGO. Last night we decided to go out for dinner and ended up going to the delicious Noodle House at Muscat City Centre. And that's when I saw it, the one thing that I've been wondering why it wasn't already at the MCC.


"Opening soon" - I don't know how soon, but I'm sure it cant be too long before it opens. I just hope that the prices are no more expensive than the already super-inflated prices in the UAE branches of the store, as my wife is a big fan.

le fin

Oman gearing up for a Census, Oman Air on growth and some H1N1 vaccines.

Oman's gearing up for a census in 2010. Apparently some people will have test questions being asked in the next few days.

MUSCAT -- Field works for the 2010 Census of Population, Residences and Establishments are under way. The week-long stage, which conclude on September 10, is significant for the census and it aims at crafting a comprehensive list of all residential and other buildings and to locate them precisely on a comprehensive map, besides enumerating the families that live in the residences.

The Census Administration at the Ministry of National Economy hereby requests all Omani and expatriate families to co-operate with the enumerators who will visit the families in their residences. The families are required to give accurate data in reply to questions to be asked by the enumerators, who will take only a few minutes to note down the data.

Oman Air, who have been enjoying some pretty significant expansion lately, have been busy again in the last few weeks.

First up, Oman Air have signed on SITA to create and manage their voice and data networks between their offices world wide. This will help streamline things at the airline behind closed doors, for us customers, it shouldn't really make much of a difference, but its a sound business move. Oman Air then cleverly decided to target the German market by hiring a German PR firm, C.O.M.B.O. Starting in this month, 4 flights a week will run between Frankfurt and Muscat, then in October, 3 flights a week will run between Munich and Muscat. Ze Germanz do love to come to Oman, its a wonder direct flights were never done before. Or do Lufthansa fly direct? I know they fly cargo planes direct from Frankfurt to here, but not sure on passenger flights. Additionally in October, Oman Air will be operating 4 flights a week between Paris (CDG) and Musat, and also 4 times a week between Muscat and the Maldives. And if thats not enough new destinations for 2 months, they will also be launching a daily service to Colombo. I predict a long weekend in Colombo looking at elephants and stuff in the near future...

Oman Air's fleet should be 7 A330s and 15 737s over the next 15 months. Thats a lot of wonga to be spending on planes, good job they're starting to actually fly to places I want to go to! Can we have a direct service to Hong Kong? Cape Town? LA? Cork? Ibiza? Athens? Manilla?

The best bit about Oman Air to blog about today is this: they announced that in July 2009, fourteen young Omani Pilot Trainees successfully completed the 15 month comprehensive and intensive Pilot Training Program with RMIT (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Australia). These Omani Trainees now possess an approved Commercial Pilot License - Multi Engine and Instrument Rating category as their initial qualification.
Thats pretty good going, obviously the Jet Driver is doing his job well :)

And finally, H1N1.

Novartis have pledged 100,000 doses of its H1N1 vaccine, and GSK have pledged 20,000 doses of it's equivalent vaccine. Which I guess is a pretty good start. There are still rumours of distortion of actual fatality figures and published figures, but in the general scheme of things, it's pretty low. I'm sure more people die every day from IDS (thats Idiot Driver Syndrome) here in Oman.

Saturday again, and fresh gossip on The Wave

Well what another great Ramadan weekend. It's a shame the bars are closed, but the house parties can be fun too :)

Now, at one of these house parties I head the following latest twist on the Nick Smith - Ex-CEO of The Wave rumour. I'm positive it's a rumour, but its fun anyway so here we go:

There was a senior Omani employed by The Wave (no names, of course!) who was pushed out by the board. This ex-employee has a court case against The Wave for unfair dismissal. Now that Nick Smith has resigned, people have speculated that this ex-employee of The Wave had some "dirt" on Nick Smith and threatened to expose him unless he resigned. And so Mr Smith resigned.

Classic Muscat Muttering, that one, I think :)

No clue if it's true, but a pretty big bomb-shell if it was, cos it would mean that Mr Nick Smith was bent and doing who-knows-what on the side.

In other news, Apex Publishing - the people behind The Week, are launching a new Daily newspaper. In October apparently, it'll certainly be an interesting read, with what is rumoured to be 10 pages every day devoted to local news. Certainly sounds interesting, and if they deliver on this rumour, it'll blow every other local rag out of the water.

A final note: Angry in Oman, Dhofari Gucci, and myself were the test guinea pigs for OmanForum's latest venture - publishing local bloggers work to the forum. A good idea, but tainted. Angry In Oman certainly didnt like this one bit, with a somewhat fiery blog on the subject in her blog today. Nadia @ Dhofari Gucci hasnt made any comments on this yet, so perhaps she didnt know. The latest development to this (quite frankly pretty decent idea in it's rawest form) is that the forum head-honcho Neo has closed it down for further discussion. So any other fellow bloggers out there, watch out!