"The trees are strong, my lord. Their roots go deep."

I thought biofuels were supposed to be carbon neutral. Not according to this recent report commissioned by Friends of the Earth. It seems that bio-ethanol and bio-diesel are going to produce more carbon dioxide than the fossil fuels that they’re supposed to replace.

In fossil fuels, CO₂ that was photosynthesised into organic matter thousands of millions of years ago is released into the Earth’s atmosphere. Strictly speaking, ‘back into’, but because the planet’s atmosphere has changed since the Carboniferous age, let’s assume that burning fossil fuels creates new CO₂ that causes a greenhouse effect, melts the polar ice caps, and generally annoys Ursus maritimus.

Now, what we were previously sold was the idea that biofuels were carbon neutral. You plant a field of, say, sunflowers. They grow, photosysnthesise, and turn sunlight into sunflower seeds. Processing those sunflower seeds, peanuts, oil-seed rape, sugar cane, or whatever, produces a liquid fuel that you burn in your internal combustion engine to produce energy, releasing the CO₂ back into the atmosphere. That’s the important bit: ‘back’. If the cultivation and manufacturing processes also use a biofuel energy source, there is zero increase in atmospheric CO₂ levels.

But this is wrong, according to Friends of the Earth. The report says that over the next 20 years, converting European land (presumably moors, forests and other non-agricultural land) will produce around a billion tonnes of CO₂ as a one-off: equivalent to ‘up to’ an additional 6% of total European Union transport emissions in 2007.

Where is all this extra CO₂ going to come from? Destroying the trees? ‘Land-use change’ appears to assume that the trees are all torn down and burned in a vast bonfire.

Therefore we should leave the trees alone, right? What would happen if those trees were not replaced by fields of biofuel crops (that are basically carbon neutral)?

The trees would eventually die and rot away, releasing all their CO₂ back into the atmosphere, that's what.

If we cut down the trees and made furniture, what would become of that furniture when it’s old and broken? Landfill? Firewood?

It doesn’t matter if we leave those trees untouched, burn them, or turn them into tables or boats, all the CO₂ absorbed by the trees is ultimately headed back into the atmosphere. Pretending that trees absorb CO₂ for all time is self-deluding to the point of being disingenuous tosh.

What does the FoE report suggest we do? Lobby to reduce the amount of biofuel in our petrol. Amend biofuel policies and prioritise energy efficiency and renewable electricity. What it doesn’t say is where all this renewable electricity is going to come from without, presumably, turning vast areas of natural wetlands into tidal power stations, putting enormous windmills on every hilltop, or mining the planet for cadmium, indium, gallium, palladium, selenium, silicon and tellurium to make photovoltaic panels. At least silicon is almost literally as common as muck.

Meanwhile, what we really need to do is throw away our gas-guzzling cars and aircraft. Go back to horse-drawn transport. But wait: doesn’t a horse consume biofuel feedstock and turn it into energy and carbon dioxide?

Perhaps Friends of the Earth and their ilk would advocate that we go back to a simpler age when the human population of the planet was a lot smaller. But that’s too politically incorrect to suggest, isn’t it?

Link to FoE website

Link to the report

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Why are we waiting?

The Automatic Teller Machine, also known as the ATM, ATM machine, fruit machine, or even fuloos-o-mat is a wonderful device that can magically dispense real crinkly cash into my hand whilst simultaneously deducting that same sum from my bank account. The wonder is that the machine and the bank might be half a planet apart. Red Triangles bank even sends me a text message when the transaction occurs. Such magic!

The system does upon occasion go wrong. I should like to offer my heartfelt thanks on behalf of Beloved Wife to the staff at Red Triangles for the prompt and courteous manner in which the Bank handled a recent ATM problem.

Unfortunately, I am unable to do so, because of the abominable and egregious customer service provided by RTB, in apparent accordance with normal custom and practice.

When instructing that twenty Omani Rials be dispensed from a RTB machine in Muscat on 7th April, the sum of around Dh190 was immediately deducted from Beloved Wife’s account. Behold the SMS. Cash was not forthcoming; instead merely a receipt stating

Please contact the Bank

Cancelled

Beloved Wife went immediately into the Bank and brandished the receipt. She was told that RTB (Oman) couldn’t help, and she’d have to take up the matter with RTB (UAE). Pah! So much for allegations that this particular bank is both local and global.

Back in Dubai a couple of days later, and RTB’s telephone helpless desk advised that Beloved Wife should wait three days, after which the bank’s ghastly error would be corrected and all monies automatically refunded. Yeah, right.

On 13th April, the bank’s Business Centre in Mall o’ t’Emirates handed us an ATM Dispute Form. This would have to be faxed to 04-390 6788 because it couldn’t be handled in person by either the Business Centre or the actual branch, the latter being inconveniently located in Sharjah and not open for business except when Beloved Wife is at work.

So the Dispute Form was faxed on 13th April. And again on 24th April. Having had no response by 9th May, a month since the Bank stole the money, it was time for some phone calls. One of the problems was that the RTB fax machine was now permanently off-hook, seemingly at any time of the day or night. The helpless desk now decided, following some irate bleating from an extremely annoyed Goat, that it would be possible to email the Dispute Form (despite the Business Centre minions declaring two weeks earlier that this was not possible), so off it went through the intertubes.

Again, stony silence and tumbleweed. The promised phone call to Beloved Wife to confirm that the complaint had been elevated never happened, exactly as anticipated. Once more, a Bank employee stating: “Yes we will,” actually means, “No we won’t.”

So, on 19th May, another email to hbmedisputes@hsbc.com:

Gentlemen --

Yet again I am contacting you about this issue. Yes, is "only" 190.85 dirhams, but it is MY 190.85 dirhams.

Please rectify this situation and replace this amount in my account immediately.

My patience with the lack of customer service at [Red Triangles] in the UAE is wearing very thin. I see little point in continuing to do business with institutions that ignore their customers.

And without apology, the money was immediately credited.

Well done, Red Triangles! A Bank error rectified in only 42 days, after two personal visits, three phone calls, two faxes, three attempted but abortive faxes, and two emails.

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Dunspeedin

Driving to Abu Dhabi yesterday was a new experience. I’ve not made the trip for several weeks, and it’s true that yesterday’s journey and this morning’s return did not involve the rush hour.

The new experience involved an almost unheard-of adherence to speed limits.

In the Bad Old Days, it was common knowledge that the 120kph posted speed limit could be flouted because the cameras were all set to flash at 160kph. Coupled with virtually non-existent police patrols, the result was tailgating at 159.9kph.

And then on 2nd April, there was a 127 vehicle traffic pile-up caused by people driving inappropriately in foggy conditions. Gulf News ran a story on 4th April suggesting that the reduced speed limit was as a direct consequence of the crash. Not so; the new 140kph signs were erected but covered in sack cloth back in March.

Putting aside for a moment the possible confusion that might come about because of enormous

ATTENTION
140kph
MAXIMUM SPEED LIMIT

signs in apparent contradiction with the 120kph signs, and also that 140kph, 120kph or even 60kph might be lethally excessive in fog, the Powers That Be have now decided that enforcement is the answer.

The practical legal maximum speed limit on the Abu Dhabi section of the Dubai - Abu Dhabi road is just a trace under 140kph; exactly the same as on the Dubai section, where the posted limit is 120kph and the cameras are set with a 20kph leeway.

Today, to my surprise, most of the traffic was bowling along at 130ish. Apart, that is, from one red Mercedes, the driver of which seemed to consider that speed limits only apply to other people. He went roaring past at probably 160kph, only to attract the immediate unwelcome, inconvenient and expensive attention of a large red and white car with blue lights on its roof that had been cruising in the right-hand lane. Time for a Muntz moment.

And there we have it. The fundamental means to keep traffic speeds to within limits is to tell everyone what those limits are and then to enforce them.

There were no visible police patrols on the journey back, but again everyone seemed to be staying below 140kph. Maybe the message is starting to sink in.

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T'weekend is comin' an' it's time for a bath

Last weekend was exhausting.

Dubai St George’s Society Ball was postponed from its traditional 23rd April, presumably to avoid clashing with the Royal Wedding, and to ensure that the Band of Her Majesty’s Royal Marines would be able to come. On the run up to the event, the Goat was chasing around for jobs, passports, visas and so forth, and with less than one week to go, it at last became apparent that You Shall Go To The Ball!

Beloved Wife’s Aunt in Abu Dhabi has a colleague who wanted to attend the Ball with his wife, but the couple didn’t wish to leave their son Kay home alone. A plot hatched that entailed the Aunt and teenager being dropped off at the Crumbling Villa on Friday morning, shopping, errands and entertaining Kay all afternoon, and then Beloved Wife and Goat heading off for a riotous evening including Roast Beef of Old England, unlimited special beverages, a military band, patriotic singing and then dancing the night away to the Royal Marines’ Dance Band. Another task was to find enough gear in the Crumbling Villa’s emporium of dive kit, tools and bicycles for four snorkellers. That was part of Saturday’s plan.

Kay, who is thirteen, spent Friday afternoon ably demonstrating how Beloved Wife’s latest toy, an X-Box Kinect, should be used. Naturally, he has set the bar so high that certain middle-aged owners of said X-Box are going to have to reset the unit or else become unbelievably fit. No prizes for guessing which is more likely.

The Ball was huge fun, with the added bonus of the Goat actually winning a spot prize. Turning the voucher into the actual prize will entail a trip behind the Red Door in Ras Al Khaimah.

So we got home at 2am, dirty stop-outs that we were, and were up again at 6am to go snorkelling.

Any excuse for the Goat to get the bike out and head off to the mountain roads and the east coast.

Kay had allegedly never snorkelled before. Fortuitously, the Goat is a snorkel instructor, and because Kay took to snorkelling like a duck to water, the pool session took about ten minutes and then everybody headed for the sea.

There were the usual tropical fish, large shoals of juvenile barracuda, but no reef sharks or turtles, and the water was a bit murky. It was very smooth though, and there was no current, so the underwater Goat with snorkel and flippers set off with Kay around the seaward side of Snoopy Island. Aargh! Oil slick!! As soon as he realised, the Goat dived below the surface and made a U-turn into clearer water, dragging Kay along. Generally a lucky escape, although the Goat needed to find some olive oil and Fairy Liquid to get the noisome sticky bituminous mess out of his hair. Due thanks to the beach-bar staff at Sandy Beach for being helpful with detergents.

After lunch, the whole party had time to flop in the pool before heading back to Dubai to drop off Aunt and Kay for their trip back to Abu Dhabi. The Goat got back on the bike, and headed south through Fujairah to Kalba. He’d not been in that area for a year or so, and was amazed by the amount of recent construction in Fujairah. It was better to refuel at Al Ghayl before hitting the mountains. The Goat once ran out of petrol on the Sharjah-Kalba road; an embarrassing exercise he doesn’t intend to repeat. A very therapeutic ride on the bendy Kalba to Sharjah road, included entertainment provided by persons unknown piloting black-windowed sports cars. They vanished beyond the horizon upon hitting the monotonous straight bit at Shawka (N 25°04.9' E056°01.6').

Meeting back at the Crumbling Villa, the Goat had changed out of his sweaty biking gear. Everyone piled into the Goatmobile to drop off Aunt and Kay for their trip back to Abu Dhabi, and retrieve Beloved Wife’s car from the Grand Hyatt’s valet parking.

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Sic semper capris

Plenty of things have happened since the Goat’s previous post, including a Wedding, some outrageous Millinery, the death of a Terrorist and the UK’s first Referendum in 36 years. All of these have been commented ad nauseam by others, and the Goat doesn’t feel able to add much in the way of new thoughts.

Sadly, offers of permanent employment have remained non-existent, and the Goat is therefore currently in the UAE visiting his Beloved Wife in 30-day chunks.

The process of becoming a Kept Goat under Beloved Wife’s sponsorship turns out to involve various jumps through widely-spaced flaming hoops. Although an official marriage certificate was obtained from the Commonwealth of Virginia in 2007, it now transpires that this original copy cannot be attested because it is more than one year old. How about that? American marriage certificates appear only to be valid for a year, or so it seems.

The document is perfectly acceptable to prevent the Men In White from kicking down the door of the Crumbling Villa and hauling folk off to Al Slammah for adultery, but is insufficient proof of marriage for the purposes of obtaining Resident status.

A new certificate has been obtained from the County. This now has to be returned to the County for attestation. Then it has to go to the State Office. Of course, the document must be returned to Beloved Wife at each stage; it’s not possible to post it to the office just up the road. And then the multiply-stamped certificate goes to the UAE Embassy in Washington DC, again via Dubai, before it has incurred sufficient bureaucracy to be acceptable, and the Residence Visa process can commence.

How about getting someone – a brother-in-law, perhaps – who lives in Virginia to handle the various stages? Not possible: fees have to be paid by cheque* drawn on the account of one of the parties named on the marriage certificate, and the document must be returned to that person each time.

Of course, the moment the Goat becomes re-employed, all this marriage certificate attestation will become moot. Unfortunately, the Goat is not holding his breath.

* Possibly ‘check’ given that it’s drawn on an American bank.

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Who wants to be a milliner?

The Goat’s recent silence on the InterTubes of late has been because of other rather more pressing engagements. One of these involved the Goat’s almost full passport. Others involved beer.

According to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, a British UAE resident has to send his applications for a replacement passport to Düsseldorf rather than the previous system that involved having it done at the local British Embassy. First pay £15 to PayPal to obtain permission to download the application form, then send off the form, old passport and nearly €300. “Up to” six weeks later, the new passport would arrive.

Unfortunately, having his residence visa cancelled upon termination of employment would give the Goat four weeks to leave the country. The potential for being trapped without a passport and incurring fines for illegally remaining in the UAE rather encouraged a holiday in Blighty.

So the Goat applied for a same-day appointment at Nanny Goat’s local passport office, picked up the application form for free from the local post office, and now has a new biometric passport. Huzzah! Visits to the in-laws in the USA without all that pesky form-filling to get a visa are now possible.

The Immigration and Passport Service has to be self-funding. It is, of course, completely unreasonable that the British taxpayer subsidises Mrs Trellis’ holiday from North Wales to Benidorm; arguably more so when the travel involves a tax-free job in Dubai. Thus a standard UK passport currently costs around £78. Same-day service by special appointment and a jumbo 48-page document is £140ish. As £78 apparently covers all the costs of the IPS, the Goat idly speculates as to the justification of nearly €300 for Brits abroad.

Travel costs didn’t count in the Goat’s case because he was going anyway.

Visiting family and friends, the Goat borrowed Nanny Goat’s car and gave it the sort of thrashing that the old rented Yaris received between Dubai and Abu Dhabi, and achieved the same result: 40mpig, or 7l/100km for the rest of the planet. Poor little City Rover.

Thank you to Mr and Mrs Thrash, the Gnomad and Gnomadette, and the Lawful Goods of Cowplain for their hospitality, food and the opportunity for boating on the Thames.

The weather on the run up to Easter was gloriously sunny, even resulting in the Goat getting slightly sunburned in the open cockpit of the MV Jedi between Sunbury-upon-Thames and Windsor. Next time, wear some form of hat. A new record for possibly the slowest passage was caused by repeatedly having the river locks slammed shut in our faces because they were full of other boaters who had had the same idea involving sunny weather and messing about in boats. By the time we arrived, all mooring spots were taken and the Good Ship Jedi had to be rafted three out. This made getting small children ashore an entertaining experience; just as well they’re used to this sort of thing.

Incidentally, the Goat was appalled when his host produced a French flag. In England. On St George’s Day. And Bill Shakespeare’s birthday. There was some feeble excuse about it being an unused courtesy flag for a boat trip over the Channel that was postponed because of foul weather.

Moored in a very busy Windsor, it was noted that Her Maj., Mrs Liz Windsor was in residence up at the local castle. Witness the Royal Standard flying from the topmost tower. The Goat shared his speculation that, because of her grandson’s upcoming wedding, she might have actually been down the hat shop. (Although in Soviet Russia, as the ancient memes say, the hat shop comes to you.) Nanny Goat, who was in London on a coach trip at the time, reports that Her Maj.’s car was actually parked outside Westminster Abbey on Thursday while the monarch was inside doling out Maundy money.

Now back chez Nanny Goat, her offspring is bemoaning the fact that the display on his new mobile phone has died. A fully-functional phone, but no access to any menus, is worse than useless except for receiving voice calls. Imagine being unable to read all the texts that can be heard arriving. And it can’t even be backed up. The Goat has tried and failed to switch on Bluetooth by Braille, and suspects another new handset may be in order.

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Shooed away

To my surprise and irritation, I was refused admission to one of Abu Dhabi’s watering holes one evening last week. A quick check of the posted rules revealed that I was not a member of this private club, and I’d not submitted copies of my passport, visa, liquor licence and two mugshots. But that wasn’t the reason for not being allowed in.

I wasn’t wearing a kandoura either, so that also wasn’t the reason.

I was, in fact, wearing casual business attire, with long trousers and a long-sleeved open-collared shirt. But, disastrously, I was wearing Birkenstocks. And this alone was apparently sufficient to prove that I was undesirable.

Actually, the dress code posted at the entrance permits sandals up until 7pm, at which time the landlord presumably rings a bell and the Sandal Gestapo throw out anyone who’s not wearing closed shoes. Except women, of course. Despite there being absolutely no gender bias in the written rules, it’s only those of a male persuasion who are persecuted in this way. The management had no problem with my Beloved Wife and her flip-flops, nor any of the other women in the place.

Yet that a month or so earlier, I was allowed to exchange my money for liquor in the same place without being challenged about my choice of footwear.

In a different bar on another occasion, I was only allowed to join my drinking buddies after pointing out that I’d recently had surgery, and that wearing closed shoes was impossible. The manager reluctantly allowed us in provided we sat in the naughty corner where none of the other patrons could see my feet. Later that evening, a group of Emiratis turned up in their national dress and were quite happily served beers. So much for the theory that suggests the anti-sandals rule is to ensure that everyone seen drinking does not appear to be a Muslim. This is utterly ridiculous: changing your attire doesn’t change your religion, and open-toed shoes prove absolutely nothing about someone’s beliefs.

The truth is simply that I hate wearing shoes.

There’s nothing like several hours a day in closed footwear to bring on an attack of Tinea pedis, or possibly even Aphtae epizooticae, and that’s even with clean socks daily, not wearing the same shoes on consecutive days and Dr Scholl’s Anti-Fungal Spray (Catering Pack), and sandals offer a sensible compromise where going barefoot would be considered too weird.

The Sandal Gestapo even appeared at work. Apparently it’s a Health and Safety issue. But the traditionally-attired Omani PRO is apparently immune to all forms of foot injury. As are all women. What is on the Y chromosome that makes guys’ feet so fragile? It’s only blokes who are apparently vulnerable to having their tootsies damaged in the office. Note that: in the office, not on a construction site or while riding a motorbike.

I continue to find it ludicrous that I have to dress as if it’s a wet winter Wednesday in Wigan in order to impress the client and his cronies in their loose flowing robes and sandals.

And no, wearing sandals does not make me want to dispose of my SUV in an environmentally responsible manner and instead ride a homespun organic bicycle.

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