I didn't expect...

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Nobody expected this: the Goat has joined a fitness club!

Beloved Wife has been a member of Fitness First for aeons, and has for a similar period been trying to goad her spouse into the gym. It has all been to no avail because the Goat is allergic to being ridiculed by the Fitness Gestapo (and the Cholesterol Stasi, and the BMI Inquisition) because he's let himself go over the past half century.

Previous attempts at keeping fit, or more specifically keeping weight off, have of course been doomed to failure. The two most obvious reasons for this are ale and pies, but there are others. The Goat does not lack willpower, but having tried Atkins for a month and not lost one ounce; having been furiously cycling around Mirdif every day for a couple of weeks and achieved nothing but a sore arse; having fasted throughout a previous Ramadan (because a work colleague said he couldn't, and that's a thrown gauntlet) and not partied at night, again not to lose an ounce, is demoralising.

Last week, Beloved Wife went to renew her gym membership, and noticed that the ridiculous joining and admin fees had been temporarily waived. Following a further "I want a gym buddy" discussion, the Goat finally agreed to join for six months. That's the commitment, and it remains to be seen how successful it will be. The Goat is not expecting to lose 30% of his body mass in six months (it took 17 years to pile it on) but he'll be extremely disappointed if the effort has similar effects to his previous efforts.

The Goat was obliged to go and buy some gym shoes and exercise shorts. It will come as no surprise to learn that he didn't already own any of these and, apart from when using the pool, it's not allowed to exercise barefoot. This is a bit of a problem; the Goat hates wearing shoes and only ever does so under duress.

New membership includes an orientation and a couple of sessions with a personal trainer. The Goat's personal trainer didn't actually say that he was horrified that such a fat slacker had joined a gym. He did set some "ambitious but realistic" targets for weight loss. The method is the usual unsurprising combination of diet and exercise. The super-tech bathroom scales produced estimates of body fat along with body mass, plus where the Goat carries it, and then came up with a recommendation of a starvation diet of 1970 calories a day. That'll surely make the weight fall off: the Goat burns an estimated 2500 calories per day while resting.

As for the Instruments of Torture Fitness Machines, the Goat was introduced to the treadmill, the cross-trainer, and a recumbent bicycle. No Soft Cushions, although the cycling machine does have what might pass for a Comfy Chair. These devices all have digital displays of distance travelled and estimated calorie burn.

The Goat dragged Beloved Wife over to the gym yesterday, and while she swam, he spent 25 minutes each on the treadmill and the bicycle. All he has to show for his efforts are two massive blisters on his heels.

Bloody shoes.

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Paracetamoxyfrusebendroneomycin

My medication is Not Coming in Dubai™. The supply dried up a couple of months ago, and I’m approaching the bottom of my last bottle. None of the many pharmacies I’ve tried have got it. They’re probably all telling the truth, because they all give the same story, which is this: “The supplier hasn’t brought any from Germany. We remind him every day.”

So what is the problem? A local chemist can’t simply have a boxful of pharmaceuticals FedEx’d; anything like that has to be imported under the aegis of the Ministry of Health. Any opiate, for example, may only be imported and then prescribed under strict controls. Panacodol, available over the counter in Boots the Chemist in UK, contains codeine, which would earn you a four-year stay at the Al Wathba Minus Seven Star Desert Resort if you turned up at the airport with some.

But my prescription isn’t on the banned substances list. In fact, it’s available over the counter - when it’s actually in stock. The 50μg pills are on the shelf and for sale, but it’s the 100μg that aren’t available.

My cynical streak infers a conspiracy to increase profits. If I buy the 50μg, I’ll have to take two at a time. The packages are both the same price, so essentially the cost of my medication doubles. Once the 50μg pills have all gone, I’m stuffed.

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Boats boats boats boats bobbing up and down again

The principle of having to obtain some sort of certificate of competence before being allowed out with a motor vehicle is a sound one. Imagine the chaos if anyone with access to a car could simply leap in and drive it without any tuition.

This lack of compulsory training has been the norm for boats since forever, although various agencies have introduced voluntary schemes over the years. The Goat passed his BSAC Diver Coxswain exam many moons ago, which gave him an instant Powerboat 2 certificate from the Royal Yachting Association. He subsequently qualified as a Diver Coxswain Instructor and Examiner.

Here’s the thing. As of yesterday, the Goat learned from the local media that Dubai has introduced a ‘Boat Driving Licence’. It is now not permitted to take any form of powered craft on to Dubai’s waters without the ‘driver’ being in possession of this driving licence. Jet-ski pilots are apparently exempt.

The Goat spent a happy hour searching Los Interwebs for information relating to this ‘boat driving licence’. He found these:

https://plus.ibinews.com/article/rarVzGvRhQI/2013/03/07/dubai_introduces_marine_driving_licence/?nsl=XWlHRrznQvs1

This one says the new licence is the first step in regulation of jet-ski usage. Which is a bit odd, given that Dubai Eye 103.8 said jet-skis were exempt… The Goat missed this one when it was published in March, but it's not like there's been much ‘Get Your Boat Driving Licence’ publicity over the subsequent three months. Perhaps the Goat should spend more time hanging around the docks. 

http://www.emirates247.com/news/emirates/new-marine-driver-s-license-required-in-dubai-2013-06-19-1.510976

Neither one spells out the requirements; nor does the Dubai Maritime City website. The Goat phoned DMCA and learned that there were indeed no rules, regulations, or requirements for the new licence posted on the website. He suggested that posting something appropriate might prevent DMCA’s telephone helpline from being overwhelmed by concerned boat owners.

As a public service, here is the list of DMCA requirements before a boat owner is permitted to set the iron topsail:-

·        The application form, obtainable from Dubai Maritime City.
·        One colour mugshot.
·        Copy of passport, residence visa, and ID card (because the ID card alone isn’t sufficient).
·        A certificate of fitness, obtained from the Ministry of Health.
·        A police Good Conduct certificate.
·        Evidence of training. A RYA Powerboat certificate is seemingly enough, but a list of suitable qualifications is not currently available.
·        AED600 fee.

The Goat asked how long the licence is valid, but Mr Helpdesk didn’t know. He’ll phone back in a few days, he said.

It seems to the Goat that this is a monstrous pile of fuss and palaver to be foisted on the maritime community at, apparently, one day’s notice. It may be that, once the Clarification is issued, it’ll only apply to commercial outfits and not Joe Public and his water-ski speedboat, nor the local dive club.

Another point of concern that falls way off the edge of the map is what befalls all the qualified BSAC boat handlers. Do they now all have to lash out AED600 and jump through the above list of hoops? Or will they simply limit their boating to Fujairah?

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Cui bono?

International and emirate borders across the UAE exhibit a strange and wacky arrangement. It’s largely the fault of the pesky meddling British who, way back in the days of the Trucial States, sought to establish once and for all the limits of each tribe’s influence. Teams of squaddies toured the region and interviewed each tribal leader, wali, with one fundamental question: “To which sheikh do you owe allegiance?”

The teams went back to headquarters and presumably stuck coloured pins in a huge map. Then someone drew borders between areas of different colours, picking mountain ridges or other geographical features where nobody lived, so that the situation of “But I live exactly on the border between…” should never arise.

And that’s why there’s Nahwa, an enclave of Sharjah, UAE completely surrounded by a doughnut-shaped exclave of Oman which is, in turn, surrounded by Sharjah, Fujairah, and Ras Al Khaimah all of the UAE. The northernmost tip of the Musandam peninsula is an enclave of Oman, only accessible by land via the UAE.

This brief geopolitical lesson goes some way to explaining the strange arrangement over at the towns of Dibba in the north east corner of the UAE. Dibba Al Fujairah is the southernmost of three Dibbas; Dibba Al Baya in Oman is just over the border and represents a gateway to the Musandam. Sandwiched between the two is Dibba Al Hisn, which is part of the Sharjah emirate. There have been various border disputes among the Dibbas, but Wikipedia (source of all true knowledge and wisdom) asserts that these were resolved in the 1990s.

And now:this! Women who wish to travel to Dibba Al Baya must, it has been decreed, obtain written permission in advance from a male relative or employer before they’re allowed to cross the border. That’s women who don’t hold GCC passports or UAE tourist visas. The latter can continue to do what blokes do and simply show up at the border with a passport and/or Emirates ID card. (Whether you need one, the other, or both depends on the border guard). Apparently you sometimes need evidence of a hotel or dhow trip booking before the Omanis will let you in.

But this new inconvenience has been brought to you by the Government of Sharjah. It’s impossible to get to the border post without crossing Sharjah territory, and the whole thing looks like being inconvenient for shits and grins. It can’t be for morality reasons because guys, GCC passport holders, and tourists aren’t affected, and the border crossing isn’t being upgraded to a full ‘You are now leaving the UAE and entering Oman’ with visas and passport stamps.

What is probably nearer the mark is the tourist trade. Dibba Al Baya is the base for lots of diving and sightseeing dhow trips up the Musandam. Presumably the plan goes something like this: if getting a hair’s breadth over the border involves an unreasonable pile of paperwork, tourists will instead choose to use dhows based at Dibba Al Hisn. And they’ll drive up the night before and stay in a dry Sharjah hotel instead of a Fujairah or Oman one where ‘special refreshments’ are available.

The linked article from The National says that the Omani ministry of tourism was not available for comment. Curiously, the same story picked up by Explorer says that the new rule is Sharjah’s doing.

I wonder how long it’ll be before the Omanis come to some arrangement with Fujairah and simply pick up their divers at Dibba Al Fujairah?

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Princess of wails

There’s an ongoing special offer at one of Dubai’s home appliances and electronics emporia. Sharaf DG states that “If we don’t have it, you get it free!” It’s a brand promise, not some temporary offer.

My first reaction on hearing of this promise was unsurprisingly to take the pee and ask for a Princess V48 motor yacht, in the sure and certain knowledge that they’d not have one, and thus save myself around $650,000. And that might be for a secondhand one.

Alas, the offer doesn’t extend to items that are not on Sharaf DG’s normal stock list. According to the company’s website, “This means if any customer does not find what he is looking for, he can register his requirement with our sales team who will procure the product within a stipulated time. And if we cannot deliver as per our commitment, the customer will get the product absolutely free.”

Assuming, presumably, that the product in question ever shows up.

When Beloved Wife went in search of printer cartridges that were out of stock, and a special order was placed, they should have been in store and available for collection 24 hours later.

So when the SMS arrived after three days, I went with receipt in hand and collected the printer cartridges that were now available as a special order. Well, two were. The receipt said three, but two’s better than having to throw away the printer.

At the checkout, I asked about the “If we don’t have it, you get it free!” thing. I was told that this would only have applied if Sharaf DG had failed to produce the product within 24 hours. But when I pointed at the dates of the order, the SMS, and today’s calendar, the checkout girl grinned and noted that I’d already paid. And when I checked the full terms and conditions, it became readily apparent that there was no way I was ever going to get free cartridges.

Tom Waits was right: The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away.

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Poor Driving Takes Its Toll

So ran yesterday's headline in the UAE's 7DAYS newspaper. I don't suppose anyone is in the least bit surprised by this revelation, nor by the fact revealed in the sub-headline: "Motorists not leaving space and drivers darting out into traffic among the two million offences recorded in 2013"

Maybe the magnitude of the problem comes as a surprise. Two million in four months? That's six million a year, and says nothing of the additional legions of drivers who, according to anecdotal evidence, do it with impunity. I wonder how many of the quoted two million involved a camera?

But there are some interesting comparisons to be made. I have a published dead tree edition of Dubai Road and Transport Authority's Traffic Accident Facts in Dubai 2005.

As the 2013 figures are incomplete, I've assumed in my assessment that the number of crashes may be trebled to represent a full year. I've also considered only four types of crash, and only those that resulted in death or injury, because that's all that were reported in 7DAYS.

• Total number of crashes has increased by around 30%. This stands to reason. Since 2005 there has been an increase in UAE population, car ownership, and traffic congestion despite new roads having been constructed and opened. I guess most crashes actually occur in town where the number of new roads is minimal.

• Crashes involving red light violations decreased from 19% to 15%. I suspect that this is within the bounds of statistical error. If it isn't, perhaps the increased use of red light cameras has had a small effect, reducing the number of amber gamblers and drivers who run red lights.

• There's been a huge drop in speed-related crashes from 35% to 13%. I would attribute this to the widespread use of enforcement cameras; there's one every 1000m along the main Dubai to Abu Dhabi highway between Jebel Ali and Ghantoot, for example. But a more congested traffic network will also tend to keep vehicle speeds down. I don't like speed cameras (what motorist does?) but I concede their effectiveness.

• Crashes involving 'not leaving space' increased from 21% to 29%. I assume that this is the term used to describe tailgating and the crash that inevitably results when a vehicle ahead unexpectedly slows down. Given the combination of increased congestion and speed cameras, what's likely to happen? I reckon some impatient late-for-work will drive extra close to the car in front in a futile attempt to travel faster than everyone in all five lanes. And as all drivers lack Jedi reflexes, when something does go wrong up ahead - road works, puncture, breakdown - there is a coming together. Someone did it to me outside Arabian Ranches, and it's frightening.

• Sudden joining of roads without waiting for oncoming traffic to pass has risen from 25% to 43%. I thing this is a way to describe not stopping at Stop or Give Way lines. Happens to me all the time when I'm on my invisible motorbike. But I suspect the rise is related again to increased congestion and tailgating. Given an absence of sensible gaps in the traffic, you can either wait at the Give Way line until the end of time or shove into an inappropriately small gap. 

The last two items above may be direct consequences of the third item. Effective speed enforcement along with congestion drags speeds down to below the posted limit, but these factors increase incidences of tailgating and merging collisions.

What's to be done about it? Education and enforcement, that's what. Speed cameras are a quick (and lucrative) fix for the speed problem, even though the majority of crashes are not attributable to inappropriate speed, and even fewer involve exceeding posted limits, but do nothing to address their undesirable side-effects. 

Compare with that other tool of law enforcement: the Policeman. Motorists generally don't speed past the Plod, but neither do they tailgate, ignore red lights and Stop signs, or hoon all over the road. Especially if he's Judge Dredd.

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Recorder tune

Image: Jakegothicsnake
 on deviantART

I’ve been fond of music since my second (Chamber of Secrets) year at secondary school. I joined the school choir and discovered to my delight that I could be a part of polyphonic singing. Chords. Harmonies. Fugues. Clever stuff. I’ve been a member of various choirs, choral societies and barber-shop quartets on and off ever since. It’s helped me to learn to read music. I have never been much good at this, but I can – blob by blob if it isn't too complicated – figure out which note to sing, and for how long.

But as for playing a musical instrument, that skill eluded me. Perhaps I should have gone to recorder classes when I was ten, but I honestly thought the school meant tape recorders, and nobody told me otherwise. By the time I found out that a recorder was a musical instrument, it was too late as I’d been signed up by my parents to play foopball and rounders. We all know how much I love athletic sports.

My kid sister was given an electric chord organ a couple of years later, which I was Not Allowed To Play. She also started on the recorder, but never played it and I eventually ended up with the instrument and The School Recorder Book One.

Almost all of my schoolfriends played the piano; one or two also played guitar and other instruments. I managed to talk the school’s music professor into lending me an ancient clarinet for private practice. I tried and tried, but as the house where I lived was a Wimpey hutch with paper-thin walls, I never got past the tooting and parping stage. 

“Either play a proper tune, or not at all” was my father’s ultimatum, so the clarinet went back to school. There was, basically, no music at home unless you count Terry Wogan’s breakfast radio show and my mother Nanny Goat’s early morning singing (which is just fine unless you’re not a morning person). Hence my almost total ignorance of sixties and seventies music.

I tried and failed to learn to play the guitar. I’ve always been hopelessly flummoxed by any form of stringed instrument, I seem to lack the co-ordination required to play keyboards, I can’t get any sensible sound out of a brass instrument, and although I’ve dabbled with percussion, a drumkit isn’t something you can carry around in your pocket. 

So for about thirty years, on and off, I’ve been messing with recorders, ocarinas, and penny whistles. A former girlfriend gave me a magnificent wooden tenor recorder in 1989 (the fingering is identical to that of the traditional school descant recorder, but it plays an octave lower), and someone in the English Civil War Society (ECWS) gave me a Bakelite treble recorder that was broken, but if I could repair it I could have it. I replaced the missing piece of Bakelite with Milliput and it’s been fine ever since. I still have the original wooden descant, and that instrument’s got to be over forty years old and still going strong  despite much abuse.

I’m sure that I saw someone playing in a live band in an ECWS beer tent on an electric, amplified recorder, but it took about twenty years to do something about it. More of this anon…

For the past couple of years, Beloved Wife and I have attended a pre-Christmas party with some musical friends. The basic idea is to bring a dish, and to sing and/or play Christmas carols in the small music room. The usual suspects play guitars, saxophone, flute, and piano. I showed up with my voice and my recorders.

I was, and continue to be, horribly outclassed musically. I can sing OK, or at least hold a tune in a bucket, but my playing leaves much to be desired in the Department of Correct Notes. Most of this is a requirement to practise, but there’s another issue: competing against a host of concert instruments, the unamplified recorder is virtually inaudible. This is why the recorder dropped out of fashion centuries ago. Orchestras got bigger and louder, and the poor recorder simply couldn’t compete with the volume. You can’t blow harder without making ghastly squeaking noises. Obviously, I need some form of electric pickup. If Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson has one, which I know he has because I’ve seen it attached to his flute, I should be able to buy one somewhere.

At this point, the shop assistant in Thomsun Music, Wafi City, Dubai, showed me Akai’s EWI, or Electric Wind Instrument. It was stupidly expensive, so I bought mine from Sax.co.uk in London. Actually, it was a Christmas present from Beloved Wife. The EWI (“Eewee”) is a MIDI breath controller. It translates breath force and keys pressed into a musical note. Output is through a thick coaxial cable to an amplifier, or directly into headphones. This is win/win. I can now make plenty of volume when playing live, but can practise using headphones so that the rest of the universe is kept in blissful ignorance of my many, many mistakes.

I configured my EWI to play with more-or-less flute fingerings because those are very similar to those of a recorder. Other musicians might prefer to select ‘Oboe’ or ‘Saxophone’. With dozens of different voices to choose from, I can have the instrument sound like a clarinet, bassoon, saxophone, flute, or any of a host of other instruments and occasionally very wacky sounds. I was piping the sound through the stereo until I bought a guitar amplifier than comes with dozens of presets so I can now, if I wish, sound like Hendrix. Yeah, in my dreams.

I’ve been practising. I like to pick up either a recorder or EWI every day, and I’ve been downloading sheet music (most of which is too difficult to play) off the interwebs, and trying to build a repertoire. Most of my stuff is dimly remembered seventeenth and eighteenth century stuff and simple folk tunes, but I’ve also been working on other pieces including Christmas carols, some Bach, Sousa, and Abe Holzmann’s Blaze Away:

I love to go swimmin’ with bow-legged women

And swim between their legs…etc.

Seems a lot of popular music and big-band stuff comes pitched in keys that are awkward for flute fingering. It’s not exactly ‘too many black notes,’ but fingering that’s difficult for a novice. There’s a remark here possibly involving Old Goat and New Trick.

I don’t suppose I’ll ever be a particularly good musician, but I amuse myself. If I can actually amuse anyone else without too much embarrassment, that’ll be a bonus.

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