WTF is going on with traffic in Gala?

Just a quick one today.

I just sat in traffic for ages in Gala - it took me 75 minutes to travel a distance that normally takes 15 minutes during the day. Why? The Sultan Qaboos Mosque round about (not the highway exit one, but the next one in from there) was completely snarled by idiot drivers that don't understand the concept of not going into a junction (in this case a round about) until it is clear to exit it. Total grid lock. When are they going to put lights in there?!


In other news, lots of Halloween parties went on over the weekend. The wife and I went in disguise (a vampire and a witch!) to the VICE house music event (hosted by BMB Events) that the Dragon featured on his blog recently. The music was good, really good (that is, if you like that sort of thing), but attendance was a little low. It wasn't helped by the fact that there were no signs at all outside Rock Bottoms pointing to the event being held upstairs, we very nearly just gave in and went to the Halloween party at Rock Bottoms, even though I don't like that club, because we were in costume and happened to be right there. I'm sure that some people did end up going to Rocks purely because there was absolutely no indication at all that there was a party being held upstairs. Things to remember for next time I guess. Thanks for the tickets Dragon, and BMB Events!

le fin

News roundup.

Well it's been a pretty busy few days, with lots of things going on both in the office and on the personal front. I have to say though that the weather lately has been great :)

So, yesterday, finally, MC3 (that's the Passenger Terminal Building at Muscat International Airport) was tendered. J&P came in the lowest price, with CCC following as second lowest. I guess the technical evaluation will now have started and assuming that J&P tick all the boxes that need to be ticked, they will be awarded the job, they're certainly a very competent Contractor. If you're thinking about a move to a new place in Azaiba or al Hail, do it now because I suspect that with the influx of people working on MC3, demand for housing in these areas is going to increase. Well done to The Sultan Center for seeing a market, and opening a supermarket right in Azaiba. I'm sure their money-printing press is working over-time at the moment.

It also has not really been publicised, but I'm blogging it anyway, Galfar some how managed to get awarded the Ras Al Hadd Airport Contract. I'm literally blown away, how can a Contractor who has consistently failed to meet a single deadline on any of their infrastructure projects continue to be awarded work? Incredible, really.

So these ROP fines... officially it's still not true, unofficially, its pretty obvious something big is going on: New ROP cars, new cameras, red-light camers, and presumably the ROP themselves are undergoing more training in how to police traffic - but who knows? So increased fines are actually a good idea, it's a stronger deterrant. RO 10 is not a significant deterrent, if you're driving a nice car and speeding, a flash for 10 is a minor annoyance, nothing more, and so it doesnt deter people as much as it used to. Inflation and all that. 10 fines costing RO 100, versus 10 fines costing RO 350, suddenly thats in the range of an annual insurance premium, and people will take more notice of their speed.

People are starting to talk about Eid 2 holidays. From what I've been told so far, it looks like we'll get saturday - tuesday off (including a day for the National Day). Flights back to Europe are being booked already, with many people opting to take leave on the Wednesday and get 9 days vacation. I guess time will tell. I plan to spend Eid 2 camping here in Oman.

Finally, on Oman Forum, user Supermacs posted a rather amusing flowchart, copied below for your entertainment.

The flowchart came from this website.

Welcome back....

Hello everyone,

Just back to work today after a lovely 2 week vacation in a far away land. Some speculation is going round that I am secretly the Dragon from Muscat Confidential, and that the Dragon is Angry's wife/male partner, depending on who you talk to.

Nonsense!

Not a lot to share with you all except that I've heard some talk that the speeding fine is being increased from RO 10 to RO 35, and that the new increased fines came into effect on the 24th of October.

Muscat also beat Doha at the rugby on the weekend, well done guys :)

le fin

Hectic times

Well, nearly time for me to head to the airport for an early morning flight.

The blog's been neglected the last few weeks because I've been snowed with work, which, I guess, is a good thing!

I'll be back in a couple of weeks and will start blogging again!

Did everyone notice that Burger King finally put their signage up at the Oman Oil with a View on Qurum Heights Road?

Driving along the Muttrah Corniche tonight, at 2.30am, I was pleased to see that the ROP had setup a road block and appeared to be stopping every car and checking to see if they were drunk. Some real policing - great job!

Back soon!

le fin

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