Burger King in Oman

Just a quick one today.

According to the Facebook fan page for Burger King in Oman, the first branch in Qurum is due to open "before April 21st", with the Mawaleh branch to open soon after.

They also posted these two funny adverts... worth a look to kill a few minutes!





le fin.

Shell Oman Marketing Co. & the MSM

On Monday, Muscat Daily ran a cover story detailing that Shell Oman Marketing Co. SAOG, along with another Omani registered company has had a legal case filed against it for RO 26 million by an Omani company for the alleged infringement of selling rights within the country.

Rather amusingly, the funniest bit of the story for me was how brokers and share holders were upset that Shell had provided inadequate information pertaining to the case. This did make me smile, because the Muscat Securities Markets requirements for companies trading on it is simply:

Companies must disclose the value of any claims against it, and what they're provisioning for it. In this case, Shell Oman Marketing Co. SAOG have conformed to the letter of the law by saying: "Some other company is trying to sue us for RO 26mn, and we're provisioning bugger all for this claim, because it's totally unsustainable - we even had our lawyers look at it".

Which does amuse me - Ok I took a bit of artistic license in how the boys at Shell said it, but, reading between the lines, thats what they said! haha!

So lets take a look at this magic number of RO 26mn. By looking at Shell Oman Marketing Co. SAOG website, you can easily find their published financial accounts. The total profits for 2008 and 2009 total RO 23.5mn (2007's profits were RO 11.1mn on turnover of RO 248mn). So this claim for RO 26mn is a big chunk of change, and apparently represents a situation that has been on-going for at least 2 years (well, since 2008 - assuming the co-defendant is being sued for a bit too).

However, when reading the report for 2009, you see that Shells' largest turnover centre is retail, taking 48% of their annual turnover. You have to think about potential companies (Omani companies) that would be able to even consider filing a claim for RO 26mn (and have a hope at getting it entertained) against Shell. They'd have to be involved with more than one element of Shell's core businesses (which are Aviation fuel, Commercial Fuel, Retail and Lubricants) - or this is an issue that's been building for more than just 2 years. Except that the statement from Shell said that it was for the "infringement of selling rights" within Oman - The Lubricants division exports a lot of it's finished oil products out of the country (and represents 19% of the company turnover), so perhaps the case revolves around fuels and retail. Hmmm! Suggestions on a postcard please! Oman Oil (BP)? Al Maha (Chevron)?

The share price has held firm at RO 1.950 with very few trades done. One does wonder whether the "market sources" were just trying to manipulate the share price to turn a quick buck? I wonder because a total of 4, yes, 4, trades were made on SOMS on March 28th (no trades yesterday).

The Majority share-holders for Shell Oman Marketing Co. SAOG are (or were, in 2008, the last public data available):

BV Licht en Kracht Maatschappij - 20% (The Hague)
Shell overseas investments BV - 20% (The Hague)
BV Nederlands Internationale Industrie-en Handel Maatschappij - 8.8% (Dutchies again)
Civil Services Pension Fund - 7.7%
MOD Pension Fund - 7.6%

So when you look at it like that, you could say that Shell only hold 20% in this company, or you could say that Dutch companies hold nearly a 50% stake in this company, with Omani interested holding holding a mere 15.3% stake. Certainly an eye-opener for what is touted to be an "Omani" company.

Interesting! Time will tell who the company that is attempting to claim RO 26mn is.

Have a nice weekend everyone!

le fin.

Local news round up

Firstly, Muscato seems to be missing. This guy was a prolific blogger, regularly blogging 2 or 3 times a day. One hopes he's taking a holiday and will be back soon, and not anything worse.

Secondly, tonight the Muscat Rugby Club 1st XV will be playing the Royal Navy ship HMS Enterprise at the ABA ground at 18:30. This is one of the last games of the season and should be an entertaining game. On Thursday night there is a Music quiz being held at the club - it should be pretty good, so if you're looking for something to do and fancy a cheaper night out than any of the hotel bars, check out the Rugby Club. The quiz starts at 8pm.

Thirdly, there are still some tickets left for the upcoming (April 7th) comedy night with Maz Jobrani - but only some. Just like the previous times, make sure you get there early to get a decent seat.


Fourthly, the Autumn Trade Fair at the Oman International Exhibition Centre is currently on-going, finishing on April 2nd. According to the OITE website, the ATF is Oman's largest family shopping event of the year. Try going to Lulu's on a Friday afternoon! Anyway, there's more information here if you're interested in going to it.

And finally. New local blogger English Girl in Oman posted an excellent post on expat life here last night. You should all go and read it, and post comments of your experiences here (in Oman) too. I couldn't agree more with her comments and wish I had the ability to sum things up the way she has just done so in her latest post. I'm glad I've finally figured out how to make the coffee pushers stop... I never realised that just shaking the cup makes them stop! Thanks EGIO!

le fin.

The UAE and Saudi get their handbags out.

Reports originating in The Telegraph a few days ago detail a Naval battle between Saudi and the Saudi Lite UAE. Below is an extract from the article, the rest of the article just blabs on about the GCC being unstable again, oil rich, well armed etc etc. But the juicy bit is here:

The United Arab Emirates navy is thought to have opened fire on a small patrol vessel from Saudi Arabia after a dispute over water boundaries.

According to one report, two Saudi sailors were injured in the alleged bombardment.

The Saudi vessel was forced to surrender, and its sailors were delivered into custody in Abu Dhabi for several days, before being released and handed over to the Saudi embassy earlier this week.

The incident has shocked diplomats who hope the countries, both key American allies, will help implement the West's strategy to constrain Iran's nuclear and military ambitions.

The clash happened in disputed waters between the coasts of Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi and the peninsula on which the gas-rich state of Qatar sits.

The seabed is rich with oil deposits, while the Dolphin pipeline project to carry natural gas direct from Qatar to Abu Dhabi has provoked irritation in the Saudi authorities. Nevertheless, direct conflict between the two countries' armed forces is highly unusual.

So, that seems a bit strange. I wonder what the Qatari's though of all of it. Of course, what is more alarming about this entire situation is that Saudi are disputing the waters here (between Qatar and the UAE/Saudi area). Yet here's the problem: in 1974, Saudi enacted the Treaty of Jeddah, which depicted the borders of the UAE in this disputed area to look like this:
However, the UAE have never signed this treaty, because they feel that their borders should look like this:
Spot the difference? The UAE believe that they should have a land-link to Qatar (as do Qatar by the way). Yet Saudi have said no, we have a treaty that says the lands ours. Slight problem with that, the UAE have never agreed to it, and this thing's been festering un-agreed for 36 years so far. Now I knew things sometimes take a long time to get done in this part of the world, but this takes the cake!

For old timers here in the GCC, they will remember that you could drive to Qatar from UAE until pretty recently, when Saudi promptly closed their borders and refused to let people drive across (that is, of course unless your a GCC citizen or have a valid visa to do so).

And it does get even more important. The Dolphin gas pipeline runs through this disputed area, and now Oman is buying into this project and taking delivery of this Qatari gas here in Oman. So it'd be pretty obvious who Oman would back in such a situation. So it's a case of Qatar, UAE and Oman all saying to Saudi to get stuffed. But of course nothing like that will ever happen. But something will have to be resolved because eventually someone is going to want to drill that area for oil (which I understand is very rich in oil deposits). Oxy and Total each have 24.5% stakes in the Dolphin pipeline, with Abu Dhabi's investment fund Mubadala controlling it with a 51% stake.

Of course, both officials from the UAE and Saudi are remaining silent on this issue, preferring to keep their dirty laundry out of the spot-light. Given the ability for media to flare things up, that's probably a good idea then,

le fin.

F1 in Muscat

Congratulations to British driver Jenson Button winning Down Under. The Australians lived up to their heritage by deciding to "go down fighting" and subsequently taking out the other British driver in the points, Lewis Hamilton in a driving manoeuvre that you might be forgiven for thinking you saw on the Qurum Heights road during rush hour.

In the second F1 race of the new season 2 weeks after the season opener in Bahrain, it's been a considerably more entertaining race to watch than F1 has been for the last half decade or so. Well, in my opinion anyway.

Locally, you can watch the races live on the Abu Dhabi sport channel but the commentary is in Arabic, so then you can either tune into the BBC's radio 5 live, or your sport radio channel of choice. Naturally, the South African DSTV Multichoice Super Sports network also broadcast the race live, but most people do not have the ability to receive that station here. In case you do, and you were working, they are re-showing the race at 20:30 tonight local time on SS5. Interestingly, the newly merged OSN (Orbit Showtime Network) does not have any coverage of the F1 this season. It didn't have any coverage of the Six Nations rugby tournament either (having lost that to Jazeera Sports +3).

Last year, the F1 Club used to screen the races at 18:30 in the room opposite the Dukes bar in the Crowne Plaza here, but when I rang the bar to ask about it, they didn't know anything about it. That doesn't mean that they're not showing the races, it just means that that particular person didn't know anything about it. If some nice person reading this knows any more about it, please do post a comment.

Now, if only those Pom's could teach those criminal Aussies how to loose at rugby....

le fin.

Whats in the cost of a ticket to a Ball here?

Just a few items today, but I did want to ask the question to anyone that's been here for more than a couple of years and get their take on things.





RO 50, for a ticket to a ball seems to be the standard going rate these days. The WGO's Crystal Ball kicked off the ball season late last year, and was RO 50. But for your RO 50, you got a boat load of goodies, and of course an open bar and what I'm beginning to call "Ball Quality" food. By that I mean, it's good food, but not spectacular - but then again, when you're cooking for a few hundred in one go, it's got to be spectacularly difficult and the standard they get to is great, but I'm always left thinking a similar thing at the end of a night out at a ball.

Was it worth it? 2 ball tickets = RO 100 (US$ 258). Yes there are other balls that are less money (the Oranje ball was RO 35 I think a ticket) and the food there was great (but a buffet) (the cheese table was excellent!) and of course unlimited piss all night as well.

How much were these balls 3 years ago? 5 years ago?

It'd be interesting to see how much these prices have risen.

In other news, the tennis coach Piras has now been fired (quite rightly so) for being an ex-con from the USA. He was here coaching kids in tennis, but was jailed in the USA for having a sexual relationship with a 15 year old girl (I don't know how old he is, but in his photo he looks 40+). To add to the story, the then 15 year old girl is now married to him and is with him here. The guy did 3 years in jail before being deported from the USA back to his native Italy. Well done to Muscat Daily for that one, a nice piece of journalism.

Don't forget that tonight is Earth Hour, locally between 8.30 and 9.30. So do your bit and go out for a walk or something, and turn off everything in your house (except of course your fridges)! Every little helps.

le fin.

Tom Jones - Update

Tickets will go on sale tonight, or tomorrow morning, for RO 25.

You can buy them from 1 of 3 locations:

1/ Intercontinental Box Office (I presume that means the Concierge desk)
2/ OUA MQ Retail location
3/ The Bose store in QCC

For more information, call 95555699


Better buy them sooner rather than later, there will only be 3500 tickets available for this concert.

le fin.

Some local news and a few observations

A couple of local news items today:

First: Muscat Daily recently ran an announcement that they have purchased their own new printing press, and now today the business section is missing! I wonder if it has anything to do with their new printing press? Anyway, I'm sure they'll sort the problem out before tomorrow :)

Keeping with Muscat Daily for a moment, the cover story today is all about Earth Hour. On March 27th at 8:30pm (local time) all of us should turn off our lights and electrical appliances for one hour. Every little helps, so if you remember, please join in.

In the improving local paper, Times of Oman, local journalist Fahad Al Ghadani published a story on Thursday about the problem of rising car crime here in the Capital area. The story details that 15 cars were nicked in one night from a compound in Ruwi. Now, to have a car stolen over night is a problem that effects people the world over - to have 15 robbed in one go from quiet little Muscat marks a significant shift in the way criminals are operating here now. 15 cars, in one night? That means it was, presumably, at least 15 people (all driving one car each). This is a pretty big step-up from your average petty car thief. Nicking 15 cars in one shot represents a few things: 1. Organization, 2. A distribution network capable of handling parts from 15 cars in one go, and 3, a safe-harbour within which the cars can be (presumably) stripped.

Add to this the news that reportedly 20+ cars were stolen in Al Khoud in recent weeks as well, and the increasing reports coming out of Ruwi of people having their flats broken into and it shapes up into an ugly problem. Rising population here, going pretty much unchecked, and the creation of the "youth nation" is leading to increased crime. If you cant get a job, then what other options do you have, really? It's a symptom of the greater problem - a local population that cannot be supported by the local economy.


Even in the Muscat Daily today, in the 'Your Say' section of the paper (pg 4) the topic is divorce. Of course divorce rates are going up - there's more married Omani's now than ever before! It's not rocket science (is it?) to note that more people are getting divorced - more people are getting married too! Thats not to say that the % of married couples getting divorced is not also on the rise, it probably is, but hopefully you can see my point.

And the bad news is, this is only going to get worse. House break-ins are now becoming more and more frequent - look at Suburban's recent post about crime in Qurum in which she asked people to comment with news of crime in their neighbourhoods.

So how do we combat these rising crime rates? Well, I guess the ROP will need to step up their game, which is going to require a large budget increase to them, and a lot more police officers, specifically walking a beat, to help control this. I remember as a kid I worked for a summer in a police station, and they had a policy of sending a letter to the registered owners of vehicles that they found (police) on their routes that were either: unlocked, keys in the ignition, wallet on display, something of value on display or something similar. It worked - car crime in the city I was living in dropped during that summer. The other thing I remember about working in that police station was that they had their own bar, in the station. Funny times.

The ROP are facing a considerable challenge, and unfortunately for them, the "old" way of doing things just is not going to cut it any more. More training, more patrols, more recruiting and new methods of policing will need to be employed here. Car crime is just going to increase here, as will house break-ins, shop-lifting, shop robberies, mugging and all the rest of the unsavoury facts of life.

A multi-pronged approach needs to be taken on how to challenge this rising crime-wave, but I'm not a specialist on the matter. However, it would seem obvious that just beefing up policing is not the only solution. The stigma of working manual labour jobs needs to be removed: Why are there no (or very very few) Omani cleaners? Gardeners? Electricians, plumbers etc. Job creation is key, but with the rising number of marriages, and, presumably children, the problem is going to get larger and larger. Smaller families needs to become the new trend, from a purely economic standpoint.

Well, that's it for today. Hope you all had a good weekend - back to work now!

le fin.

Tom Jones Live in Muscat, April 14, 2010

Here comes Tom Jones, who is currently doing a world tour of his latest album 24 Hours (2008) which consists of (the album that is, not the playlist for the concert):

1. I'm Alive
2. If He Should Ever Leave You
3. We Got Love
4. Give A Little Love
5. The Road
6. In Style and Rhythm
7. Sugar Daddy
8. Seasons
9. Never
10. The Hitter
11. Seen That Face
12. 24 Hours
13. More Than Memories

Taking a look at the official website's archive show dates, I pulled a rather well written review from kiwi journalist Simon Sweetman, which I've reproduced here:
----

Tom Jones Michael Fowler Centre, Monday February 22

Tom Jones comes from Wales. And Tom Jones wails. He is 69 but does not look a day over 67. He has a one-size-fits-all approach to dance; that is to say one dance move fits (almost) every song.

Imagine tagging both sides of an escalator that never makes it to the top - that is the move. An imaginary treadmill with Jones stopping at every chorus for a double fist pump; periodically pausing to ponder if he might like to lay an egg - the audience loves it, reacting as if it is a new move every time.

Jones is a born showman: knowing that Mama Told Me Not To Come and Hard To Handle are essentially the same song when they come from his lungs, he simply performs them back to back. By this point the crowd is eating out of his palm, you see Tom had played Delilah. A good portion of the audience would have been happy with a 90-minute version of this most tragic waltz, arms up swinging left to right, Telethon-style. Or at least an endless medley of that, cut with The Green, Green Grass Of Home and What's New Pussycat.

Those songs did arrive, separately, in and around several songs (possibly two too many) from his most recent album, 24 Hours. But Jones squeezed in plenty of hits, also squeezing out a grin and a wink and several near-septuagenarian pelvic thrusts; or should they be called pelvic trusses?

It is impossible to laugh at Jones; you have to laugh with him as he moves through his versions of country, pop, dance and soul, very much making every song his own.

He is the Vegas version of Joe Cocker, you don't need to own the albums but you cannot argue with the live performance. And the green, green lights really brought out the orange in his spray tan.

You Can Leave Your Hat On, Sex Bomb and of course It's Not Unusual were all major highlights and there was a return for Jones' cover of Prince's Kiss.

The only thing unusual would have been to not enjoy at least some of this concert.

----

So that sounds promising then! Ticket prices have not been announced yet, but I'd imagine they will be around the RO 25 mark and coming on sale soon. There's a Facebook group here, you can check the Hi FM radio website here, or, if you're that way inclined, you could even listen to the radio for more details ;)

le fin.

Lá Fhéile Pádraig Shona Duit

It is indeed the day that everyone gets their green on.

The Emerald Ball is being held tomorrow night at the Shangri-La resort, and has been sold out for weeks. Feeney's Pub tonight will be apparently having an Asian night - I rang the hotel and enquired over my lunch hour and was rather amused to be informed that tonight was Asian night at the only Irish bar in Muscat! Haha! Too funny! But after checking in with the hard-working manager John, there is indeed an event tonight at Feeney's Pub:

25% off all beverages between 6-8pm tonight, Live music and pipers at 8:30pm, prize draw at 11:30pm. All money raised will be donated to the National Association for Cancer Awareness (NACA) - A great cause.

And, just for fun, here's the various different Google logo's for St Patrick's day over the last 10 years (for some reason in 2003, no logo was posted) Starting :

le fin.

6th Muscat International Film Festival

All of this week there has been the 6th Muscat International Film Festival, which comes to a close this weekend.

The festival has been plagued by low-attendance all week. I'd say that this is probably something to do with the fact that it's incredibly difficult to find any information on the festival. The official website, www.muscatfilmfestival.org is actually very good, but as is seemingly par for the course here, the webmaster for the site has yet to master SEO. A Google search for "Muscat International Film Festival" does not return a link to the above mentioned official website until the 8th page of results. Which is quite frankly terrible! Who is still searching for a website on the 8th page of Google results?!

Anyway, there are three days left of movies, and then the closing ceremony on Saturday. You may see the schedule here. The movies start at 4pm, 6pm and 8pm and the main venue for the festival is the Al Bahja Cinema up past the Airport, however alternative venues are to be found at SQU, The Cultural Club and the College of Law - But having said that, there's only stuff left at the Al Bahja Cinema.

So if you are bored today, tomorrow or the day after in the afternoon or evening, why not check out the film festival and expand your horizons a little? :)

le fin.

Darren Shortt, again

So it's Monday today, hump day.

I bumped into someone I know last night and was told an entertaining tale of events that just needs to be shared with you all.

Whilst driving around yesterday morning he was listening to the morning show and decided he just couldn't take it any more and texted in to Hi FM to say that Darren was a twat!

Not 30 minutes later, his phone rings, it was Darren, and this is the (abridged) conversation that took place:

Anon: Hello?
DS: Hello, this is Darren Shortt, I had a notification from management that you had submitted a complaint about me. Whats your name?
Anon: I don't need to tell you my name.
DS: Where do you work?
Anon: I don't need to tell you where I work.
DS: Well I don't come to your work and call you a twat!
Anon: I didn't come to your work either, I sent you an SMS you twat!
DS: I'm reporting your number for abuse!
Anon: Whatever!

Poor old Dazza, taking the time out of his day to deal with his haters. It's a mug's game - and just makes for funny content for conversations at the bar. You'll always have haters, just try to adapt and accept you'll never keep everyone happy, all the time. And besides, he sent an SMS to the HiFM number, which means he paid to complain about you.... ;)

I wonder when this much-rumoured rock show is going to start on Hi FM? Did they hire a new American/Canadian accented presenter yet? Or was it just a ruse to get Rachael Howarth to up her game? (hah!) Who knows? I'm sure time will tell.

I don't really listen to the radio very regularly, but I have noticed that at 6pm the "Big Drive Home" show plays some very questionable sleep-inducing music.... people are tired after a long day... play something with some tempo, not something that's going to help people drift off to sleep whilst driving home!

Hopefully the rock show starts soon, and Darren learns how to ignore the haters. :)

le fin.

ROP gets tougher on motorists

Today there's emails flying around the ex-pat community on the two hot topics of the moment:

1. The terrible incident that happened at the Blue Marlin marina restaurant and pool on Friday, blogged about so movingly by Suburban at Other Oman.

and,

2. The ROP now have 4 roaming RBT units. RBT stands for Random Breath Testing. The ANZO committee (who's ball is coming up in a few short weeks - super excited!) sent out an email to members this afternoon, and the story has been doing the rounds on various other email groups in town too. There is a ZERO tolerance level here for alcohol, so the concept of just one or two and I'll be fine is out the window - anything over 0.0 and you'll be having tea with the ROP. Not sure on what the penalty is for being found with alcohol in your breath, but hopefully some helpful person will comment it.

So just remember - don't drink and drive!

le fin.

A quick review

Last Thursday saw the best party (in my opinion) of the year here in Muscat. The Canadian Stampede party!!

This year it was attended by just over 800 people, and was certainly better this year than it has been in recent years. They even didnt do the green peppers in baked beans (which I was always confused about).

Here's a few pictures of the venue and some of the crowd participation events. The line dancing was great this year - I think I only broke a few toes of un-suspecting people around me this time.






The morning after, when going through the camera, I came across this picture:


No clue who he is, but points must be given for the hat. And, um, energetic participation in presumably the shooter bar (golden garter saloon). haha!

I'm already looking forward to next year!

Have a great weekend everyone. Remember - if you drink - don't drive.

le fin.

Muscat Confidential gets blocked

It's already been blogged by Dhofari Gucci, Angry in Oman, Jet Driver & Muscato and tweeted by @blu_chi.

Omantel have kept their pimp hand strong, and given the Dragon a slap.


The dragon finally got blocked. My guess is that the women kissing picture probably provoked enough people to email through and say that they don't like that. Due to the time-frame of the story, and the fact that it's a Saturday (meaning the abuse email account had time to fill up over the weekend) it's probably only just been done because the people that control the filters at Omantel just noticed it. Or perhaps the filters are automatic based on the number of requests for a site to be blocked. Who knows?

So what's going to happen now?

One of a few things I guess.

1. Nothing, it will stay blocked.
2. It will stay blocked, but the dragon will start a new blog.
3. It will get unblocked.

If you want to do anything to help in the unblocking - fill out the form and submit it, as it's likely that if Omantel censorship team keep getting requests they'll open it again. Unless, of course, an instruction from high up has been issued, and then it'll never get opened again.

Gotta love censorship, not.

However, as Google is fantastic, you can still read his blog here.

And if you have facebook, you can read all of his articles on this facebook page (which seems to be regularly updated).

le fin.

Oman 0 - Kuwait 0, and a few other things

First up.

Last nights non-match. No score in the entire game from either team, but that's all Kuwait needed to do in order to get into the AFC. Oman didn't make it, and are subsequently out of the AFC to be held in Qatar. Commiserations, and better luck next time boyo's.

Tonight is the Stampede, it's going to be fun =)

There's a lot of stuff coming up in the next few weeks.

Next Wednesday night (10th March) Dubai band Skitzofonik will be playing at the Muscat Rugby Club at 8pm. This band really is good, and comprises of the three from Acoustofonik, who have previously played at the club to a packed capacity crowd. This time they're back, and they're bringing 2 more people with them. Tickets are RO 5 for members and RO 8 for non-members.



Then, for those that like to relax on Fridays, there is another one of those all-day beach parties being held at the yacht club. The last one ran-on till early morning, but this one will stop at 10pm, which being on a Friday is probably a good idea. Should be a good place to chill out, so if you're at a loose end on Friday the 19th, why not check it out?

The beach party might be just the cure for those that will be attending the Irish ball the night before. Yes, it's nearly that time of year again - pretend your Irish and dye your drinks green!

St Patricks day is on March 17, and there is a ball being held here in Muscat - more details on that to come.
All in all, a pretty big month on the social calendar.

Bad luck again to the Oman football team.

le fin.

Re Blog: Suburban's Poll - Theft in Muscat

Please go here and submit a comment if you have been the victim of crime, or know someone who has been, here in Oman.

le fin