Powerslave

Is it a bird? Is it a plane?
It's Captain Caprine!!

Radiotherapy has been prescribed, and I'm halfway through ten sessions. I'm having a break because it's the weekend. The basic idea is that x-rays are beamed into my lumbar spine and pelvis to zap the cancer cells therein and reduce the pain. There are no nerves actually inside the bones, but the surfaces are covered in nerves and, as this is where muscles are attached, I get bone pain that feels like pulled muscles. The radiation is helping.

There is a thread on Facebook about this with many friends making comments about how being blasted with electromagnetic radiation will turn me into a superhero, or possibly a super-villain.

As I lay supine with heavy machinery whirling around me like some demonically-possessed fairground ride, it occurred that I might resemble some pharaoh.I was wearing the little paper apron preserving a little modesty, and my arms were crossed in the perfect place for the crook and flail. I guess I should also have had one of those stripy head-cloths and maybe a couple of Bangles...

However, unlike the pharaoh in the Iron Maiden song, I have no intention of being a Slave to the Power of Death any time soon.

]}:-{>

Take a tip

The usual species of disclaimer: I am sure that there are plenty of Egyptians who do not drive in the manner described below, and as I’ve experienced similar in the Philippines and elsewhere, the problems are not limited to Egypt.

And the driving aside, I have a particular liking for Egyptology. Queen Hatshepsut’s mortuary temple, the Valley of the Kings, and ancient Karnak were all wonderful memorable experiences. I took loads of photos. The diving was also excellent, but at the time I didn’t own an underwater camera so my pictures were limited to a few around the hotel.


Way back in the late 1990s, for this is a yarn from þe olde days of yore, I was part of a group on two weeks’ holiday in Egypt. The first week we spent in Luxor for a week of temples and tombs. Then, having been generally pharaoed to exhaustion, we headed eastward towards Hurghada to enjoy the Red Sea Diving Experience.

I didn’t really notice the driving style in the transfer coach between Luxor airport and the hotel, not least because I quickly nodded off following a sleepless night and a problematic departure from London Heathrow that involved many hours of sitting around in the terminal.

However, when we went out to explore the town one evening, a weird and less than wonderful phenomenon became quickly apparent along the ill-illuminated streets:

All the bizarre men by the Nile 

They like to drive, for a lark, 

With headlights off (Oh, way oh!) 

So you can’t see them in the dark. 

Drive like an Egyptian. 

Almost every vehicle was trundling around with no lights on. Anyone who dared show a headlight was immediately vehemently flashed by oncoming drivers. The reason for this, I have subsequently been told by Egyptian colleagues, is that using the headlights flattens the battery. Clearly in Egypt the alternator, dynamo, or even magneto are optional extras. I've heard tell of cars hurtling across the desert roads at night running into the backs of slow-moving trucks, neither vehicle showing any lights.

But the true hairy scary wasn’t this; it was the journey west across the fertile Nile flood plain and then the desert from Luxor to Hurghada.

Following at least one incident in 1995 I think, when terrorists hijacked a tour bus and gunned down a load of foreign tourists in an apparent attempt to stem or more likely eliminate the inflow of foreign tourist dollarpounds, these trips now came with police escorts.

We assembled and found our allocated bus, and eventually about forty minibuses and coaches set off in convoy. At the front was a police Hilux with armed guards, at the rear was another, and there was a third in the middle of the convoy. By ‘armed guards’ I do not mean a couple of police officers with pistols. I mean a 50mm machine gun mounted on each truck and about four guys in fatigues and flak jackets, sporting automatic weapons.

So, with nowhere to go except Hurghada, and with everybody having to travel at the same speed as the police, the convoy threaded its way caravan-like across the Egyptian countryside, right? Wrong.

Every bus and coach driver engaged is a constant battle to get to the front, and every other driver closed up the gap to prevent it. About 260km of terror.

Particularly near the Nile, single carriageways are elevated on embankments to keep the roads dry when the Nile floods. So we have two lanes of traffic confined on top of an embankment by rickety-looking safety fences. And we also have coach drivers attempting overtakes.

A minibus pulls into the opposing lane and overtakes a coach. The coach driver accelerates. Meanwhile there’s an oncoming truck bearing down on us, yes US, and nobody has anywhere to go but through the barrier and into the date palm plantation. Our driver stomped on his brakes and inserted his vehicle back behind the coach. The truck roared past with its horn bellowing stentorian abuse. Then our driver tried it again.

At this point I spoke to the tour guide. “Are you going to tell him, or do I have to? Because I will be a lot less polite.”

Not that it made the tiniest scrap of difference. All forty drivers spent the next several hours in a competition to see who could drive closest to the police Hilux which, of course, still trundled along at a steady speed.

At last, at dear sweet last, we rolled into Hurghada. As is custom and practice, everyone in Egypt expects to receive a gratuity for doing absolutely anything at all. Our driver stood at the door of the bus with his hand out as we all dismounted. Nobody gave him anything.

Actually, not true. I was the only one to give our driver a tip, which was this: “If you don’t scare your passengers, they’re more likely to give you money.”

]}:-{>

Norse saga. Part I - Wonderful Copenhagen

Sunday 04 August

We're both happy to be off on our hols.

The news feeds were busy suggesting that there was likely to be chaos at Dubai airport, so we left early. As if the Authorities would ever tell Joe Public that Terry Taliban was actually going to attack. The taxi arrived 15 minutes earlier than requested, so we made a mad rush from the Crumbling Villa, which was followed by long and tedious queue at DXB to check in to Swiss.

The flight was 30 minutes late departing, which is usually a capital offence in Switzerland, but they never found out at Zürich because it arrived on time: disgustingly early on Sunday morning. We had 40 minutes before our connecting flight took off, naturally from the far end of the airport. We had to do the hand-luggage inspection and passport control too, but got into our seats with minutes to spare.

Final approach to Copenhagen – København in the vernacular – and I got my first ever look at Scandinavia. I could see Sweden out of the aircraft window, just over there near Malmö.

Copenhagen central railway station.

Easy train trip into Copenhagen central station. Beloved Wife spotted our hotel from the train window, and we soon found our way there. But first, we reserved our seats on Wednesday’s train to Stockholm. They charge extra for this, which seems disingenuous. After paying for a ScanRail pass, to be told that reservations are compulsory and at additional cost, seems a little unfair. What’s wrong with You Pay What You See? Anyone remember Fascinating Aïda’s “Cheap Flights”?

And then picked up the charge

For using VISA, which was drastic,

‘cos how the feck you s’posed to pay

If not with fecking plastic?

Speaking of VISA, I also discovered that in Denmark, foreign credit cards attract a charge, in addition to my getting screwed by an unfavourable exchange rate. So much for being the international way to pay.

Anyway, we’d arrived before noon and the room wasn’t ready, so we dropped off our bags and went in search of refreshment. Luckily the sun was over the yard-arm, so a litre or so of Carlsberg and a slice of apple tart later, we unpacked in the room and crashed out for three hours.

It was warm and sunny! Pleasantly so. And Copenhagen is a very bicycle-friendly place, with bikes, cycleways, and bike racks everywhere. During the summer, I’m told the Municipality offers free bikes for a returnable deposit. These have to be taken from one official bike rack and dropped off at another.

Sunday afternoon is quiet in Copenhagen city centre, at least as far as shopping is concerned. And museums are shut on Mondays, so tomorrow it’d the shops and maybe a boat trip around the harbour. Tivoli is a park with a hairy-looking funfair.

That looks high and very scary.

We went up the spiral ramp inside the world’s oldest working observatory and, erm, observed. We observed Copenhagen’s rooftops. Later, we ate Japanese food, and I had yet another large beer. The calorie-controlled diet was going to take a pasting over the forthcoming fortnight. I resolved to try and keep track of what I ate and drank.

Observatory tower.

Round and round we go, seven times.

I can see the Øresund bridge from here. And Von Fresler's Kirke with its spiral spire.

Rosenborg Palace, with irritating factory chimneys in the background.

To my irritation, I couldn’t get the hotel’s internet to talk to my computer. A technician turned up at the hotel room, but when the problem turned out not to be a defective LAN cable he was stumped, as was I. No matter what settings I used, how I configured the firewall, whether I used LAN or WiFi, all made no difference. None of my browsers would talk to the internet. Meanwhile, Beloved Wife’s iPad connected and ran just fine.

Monday 05 August

Another sunny day, and a healthy start with a hearty continental breakfast comprising cereal, bread, yoghurt, eggs, and several types of ham. That should stave off the hunger pangs until mid afternoon.

Beloved Wife suggested that we go and see the Crown Jewels in the Rosenborg Palace. This seventeenth-century edifice in the Flemish style was full of, well I described it as ‘Baroque on Crystal Meth’ all on three floors. And the incredibly ornate Crown Jewels were in the basement.

Ridiculously overdecorated ceiling.

Charles I of England.

Christian IV's crown (1596) is an impressive piece of bling. At one point he pawned it.

Small statue of Herakles (Hercules) giving the centaur Nessus a good hiding for running off with Deianeira.

Yay, a satyr! Chasing a scary-looking nymph.

You don't get female satyrs for ages, then several come along at once. 

The park was green with a mixture of sunny spots and shade, so after Rosenborg we paused a little and then headed off to the Nyhavn canal, which is the trendy waterside bit of Copenhagen that adorns the covers of the guide books. On the way we stopped in a pub that was doing a BOGOF offer on bottles of Carlsberg. Huzzah!

Nyhavn.

An excellent alfresco lunch outside one of the buildings on the cover of the guide book later, and having been serenaded by Lord Petyr Baelish on the guitar, we took one of the long, low, wide tourist boats around the harbour and canals for an hour. I hadn’t realised before that the famous Little Mermaid statue was on the sea front; I’d always assumed that she was perched on a little island in the middle of the harbour.

Littlefinger playing the guitar.

The Little Mermaid and some of her fans.

The cake shop that Beloved Wife wanted to visit after the boat trip was disappointing, but another one that we found on our way back through the pedestrianised city area was much better, and they served beer too.

We decided, having got back almost to the hotel, that visiting the Tivoli Gardens was too much. Instead, we’ll go tomorrow. Today I spent 20 minutes on a machine in the gym before meeting Beloved Wife in the pool. Here, I attempted to burn off more Carlsberg.

Ah, the pool. The hotel is part of a sport and leisure complex, and the pools include a 100m circumference oval pool 1.8m deep for swimming distances, and a rectangular exercise pool in the infield. There are also leisure and diving pools, and a Jacuzzi. However, the management throws everybody out at 2130, so I just had time for fifteen minutes of breast stroke. At an average speed of one lap every six minutes (which is 1km/h) I’m not going to break many swimming records.

This evening, the internet had decided to connect sporadically. It wouldn’t do the LAN thing at all, but from time to time I got a slow WiFi connection. The fact that WiFi worked but LAN absolutely refused to remains a mystery.

Tuesday 06 August

Ugh, it was cloudy this morning. When we emerged from breakfast, it was obvious that we’d missed a light shower of rain. Museums all seemed to open at 1100; we hoped that the rain would go away before we hit the streets.

Not only did the rain go away, so did the clouds. Another glorious sunny day, with a cooling breeze.

The first port of call was the Glyptotek museum. Ground floor was full of statues, mostly from ancient Greece and Rome, but also Egypt. And there were Egyptian grave goods too. Cue the inevitable humming of an eighties Bangles song, and I don’t mean ‘Manic Monday.’ Also on view were Danish neoclassical sculptures and stuff by Rodin and related luminaries. Upstairs, there was a lot of nineteenth and early twentieth century art: mostly oil paintings. And then it was beer o’clock.

Walk like an Egyptian.

Gods and heroes.

Unlikely attire for playing the fiddle, but very well executed.

Must be wine o'clock.

Beloved Wife wanted to visit the Museum of Danish Design. This was up at the northern end of the city, past Nyhavn. Unfortunately the museum was undergoing refurbishment when we visited, and half of it was closed. After looking at twentieth century fabric prints and a lot of chairs, it was time to grab a beer.

I should mention the Bumblebee, a 1934 motorcycle officially called the Nimbus, that had an in-line four cylinder engine and shaft drive.

The Nimbus 1934 is both more practical and more comfortable than a Nimbus 2000.

Having walked the length of Copenhagen, it seemed daft not to go and get a look at the bronze mermaid, along with every other tourist. We wandered past St Albans Church, the ‘English Church’ in Victorian Gothic Revival style, that played ‘Dear Lord and Father of Mankind’ (on tubular bells, by computer, apparently) after the 1700 hour bell. After the obligatory photos of the mermaid statue, we headed back to Nyhavn along the quayside and past an enormous moored yacht that I could never ever hope to afford. The 64m Felicita West, the internet asserts, was up for sale two years ago for a mere $40 million.

Felicita West, currently registered in Douglas IOM.

St Albans church.

Dinner at Nyhavn, and then we headed back along our chariot ruts through the pedestrian precinct and were briefly entertained by buskers.

This guy looked and sounded amazing. His musical instrument is inexpensive, but about as portable as a church organ.

The hang is an eerie-sounding percussion instrument.

In Tivoli, an elderly couple prevented us from watching an open-air stage show by persistently moving and standing in front of us, no matter where we moved, so we gave up and went for a walk around the park.

This walk was brought to an abrupt halt by a Bottom Inspector who insisted on throwing me out because I was barefoot. It seems that it’s not necessary to wear shoes, (otherwise about 30% of the patrons would have had to be ejected), but to have some on one’s person. As I’d schlepped my shoes unused around Copenhagen for two days, and had no problems with broken glass, dogshit, or gaining admission to shops, restaurants, museums, and boats, today I left my camera bag with the shoes in it at the hotel. But “Tivoli is private property.” 

Of course I’m not going to sue Tivoli if I stand on a sharp object, but my promising to take responsibility for my actions was not good enough. Not that there’s a sign, and they were happy to take our money. It’s only explicitly obvious from the signage that Dogs, Roller Blades, and Outside Food and Drink are not allowed. At least we got our admission money back.

Screw you, guys; I’m going home. It was too late to hit the pool, so I showered and fell into bed. The following afternoon we were due on board a train to Stockholm.

]}:-{>

Les Mis

Cruise control is brilliant. Simply get the vehicle up to speed and hit ‘set’, and with hooves off the throttle, the Goatmobile maintains that speed up hill and down dale. Of course, the Goat needs to keep both eyes open in case he catches up with a slow-moving Echo or a Sunnyman, and naturally there remains the obligation to keep his wits: both halves.

The technique for not getting speeding tickets on the daily commute whilst, as they say in the Institute of Advanced Motorists, ‘maintaining adequate progress’ appears to be to set the cruise at just a trace under the speed limit plus 20kph. And a two-tonne Goatmobile at 139.9kph is a lot of metal at a lot of velocity. The system seems to work. Both the Every Emirate Except Dubai and the Dubai (because Dubai is Special) traffic fines websites confirm no outstanding violations up to today.

Speeding tickets seem to be attracted to the Yaris like wasps to a jam pot. With no cruise control, the threat of a BMW-shaped dent in the blunt end encourages ever increasing speeds. Maybe the Goat should watch for the cameras rather than obsessing about that radiator grille filling his rear-view mirror. Or else dawdle along in the second lane at a sedate pace with the wobbly-wheeled pickups.

Why, incidentally, do the slowest drivers pick Lane 2? The Goat’s theory is that it’s because trucks are limited to 80kph and restricted to Lane 1, where they drive in convoy at that speed limit. The ancient van driver either can’t or won’t exceed 65kph, neither does he want a Mitsubishi Canter in his load bed, so he drives in Lane 2 and allows the trucks illegally to undertake. A side effect is that, in the absence of trucks, it’s theoretically possible to drive in a completely empty Lane 1 at R17 (which, as any fan of Douglas Adams will realise, is ‘no fixed velocity, but clearly far too fast.’)

Upon crossing the border into Abu Dhabi, it’s possible to go faster. Local legend has it that the cameras are set at 160kph, notwithstanding the 120kph advertised speed limit. The Goat was amused recently to read a letter in 7DAYS, the gist of which was a whinge that someone had been busted for 161kph whereas he’d allegedly been doing not a trace over 159. In the posted 120 limit; can you hear the high-pitched strains of the world’s tiniest violin?

Having calibrated his speedo through Clarissa the GPS, the Goat is confident that his oversized tyres don’t make the actual speed any less than that indicated by the instrument.

Picture the scene: Motoring at 135kph, not daring to go faster owing to the cameras, there regularly remains the very real danger of getting a three pointed star up the arse. In order to get out of the Merc’s way involves slowing to 90kph and moving into the slower traffic to the right. And the slowing is interpreted as a deliberate snub. Cue wild flashing of headlights, horn hooting and gestures that might get the Goat deported if he did them back.

So this morning the Goat experimented. The Goatmobile looks aggressive from the front, so today it was driven from Ghantoot to Shahama at exactly 159kph.

Initially the effect was startling, with the fast lane traffic parting like the Red Sea in front of a bunch of folk being pursued by Egyptians. Yet presently a black Pathfinder appeared in the Goatmobile’s mirror, and the usual tailgating and headlight flashing started. How many speeding tickets did you earn while catching up?

It did strike the Goat as amusing that a Land Cruiser with a vanity plate, for whom he vacated the left lane, was apparently being assertively piloted by Jean Valjean.

“Men like you can never change,
Men like you can never change,
No, 24601...”

]}:-{>

Gold crocodiles, they snap their teeth

They don't only snap their teeth on your cigarette, as the song goes. They also snap their teeth on your - or more to the point, my - wallet.

Regular readers may remember my complaint that I was obliged to pay import duty on the postage in addition to the value of the goods. Today I found out new and inventive additional ways to extract more funds from unsuspecting importers of goods that are Not Coming In Dubai.

The value on which 5% duty is charged ignores any discount applied at the other end! Thus, my goods attract 5% duty on $360 for the full price including postage, rather than on $315 plus postage (which is what I actually paid the seller for my stuff), nor on $270, the value of the goods. I was told to complain over at the Department of Seaports and Customs, but previous experience leads me to infer that this would be a waste of oxygen.

In my case the additional duty paid amounts to only a few dirhams, but the principle as explained to me by the nice Egyptian gentleman behind the desk was that:-

If I import something invoiced at Dh1000 with free shipping, I pay Dh50 duty.

If I import something whose original price was Dh100,000, but is discounted by Dh99,000, I have to pay Dh5000: 5% of the original Dh100,000. And there's something morally obscene about that particular arrangement.

My new Egyptian friend told me that I was lucky: in Egypt there's a 200% import duty, etc, etc, blah, blah. Which is of course part of the reason why neither he nor I live in Egypt.

Insult to injury time. There was an additional administration fee to pay Customs, and a further fee to pay Emirates Post for 'storage'.

Apparently I have to pay for two weeks (or part thereof) of storage of my package. I know it left the US on 06 February, and Track and Trace said it arrived in the UAE on 15 February and landed in my local post office on 16 February, six hours before I collected it. Yet I had to pay storage for the eight days when the parcel didn't officially exist, but was actually sitting unsorted somewhere in Dubai.

The moral to this story is labelled Shop&Ship.

]}:-{>

Norks like an Egyptian

I learned something new the other day. While window-shopping in the Mall of the Emirates I came across this display.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that Anubis, the Ancient Egyptian god of embalming and miscellaneous post-mortem business was a bloke. A jackal-headed bloke, but definitely male. I was not aware of any close relative of his, such as a labrador-headed sister.

She's a fortunate therianthrope*, that Ms Anubis. It appears she's the only female who's permitted to stand in full public gaze in Dubai with her tits out.

*(Possibly actually a therigynthrope)