Gaudiamus

The Goat has been instructed by his M.I.L. that another blog post is required. The teeth need to be pushed down the page in order that visitors to this little corner of the blogosphere aren’t greeted by a hideous grinning rictus.

So, instead of further complaints about the state of medical care, motoring, the Crumbling Villa, officialdom or customer service in the Lands of the Sand, the Goat shall reminisce about a delightful recent week in Spain.

M and J got married in Barcelona in February, and the Goat and Beloved Wife were among those invited. Thus any plans for heading east and going diving were put on hold. Tickets to Barcelona were obtained: Austrian Airlines, via Vienna. Beloved Wife wanted to go and do a pastry cooking course in Vienna, but a week in France became a better option. Travelling through Vienna nevertheless remained a fixed feast.

M greeted us at Barcelona airport, and we taxied to the hotel; the same hotel as most of the other wedding guests and about five minutes’ walk from M and J’s apartment where everyone met for pre-wedding drinks the night before. On the Big Day, we all piled into the underground train and headed into town to the registry office.

Although first in line, all the happy couples were kept waiting. The authorities wanted to ensure that everyone was ready so they could be processed very quickly by the judge. At one point in the ceremony, M was nudged by her Spanish-speaking friend. “This is the bit where you say, ‘Si.’”

Champagne Celebration

And then we were all outside for photos before heading off for a slap-up meal of predominantly steak followed by a little sightseeing.

Breakfast: A silly name for a lobster

More sightseeing followed over the next couple of days. Gaudi is Mr Barcelona, and a visit to the world’s most expensive building site had to be on the itinerary. Sagrada Familia was astonishing. It’s not going to be finished until 2040, but the interior was almost clear of construction paraphernalia. Once finished, the clear glass will be replaced with stained glass. There’s a lift to near the top of one of the spires, which will eventually be dwarfed by the final spire. The whole construction works are apparently funded by admission fees.

Sagrada Familia. From Wikipedia, with the cranes digitally removed

The nave of Sagrada Familia

Looking up at the roof

Organ pipes

This stone turtle supports one of the columns

Art Deco knight

We rambled down La Rambla, and explored the Gothic Quarter and Gaudi’s Park Güell. Always mindful of the allegedly ubiquitous pickpockets, both of us were very careful of miscellaneous buskers, living statues and pairs of young gentlemen one of whom would typically ask the time whilst the other one would help himself to the content of the target’s pockets. We were left alone, possibly because the Goat does appear to be a big hard bastard. I was, at one level, spoiling for an attempt so that I had the excuse for pugilism. Presumably, because the local Plod seems disinclined to do anything about low-level criminality, a similar attitude would be taken with someone who broke the nose of a deserving scoundrel.

The splendid warm (for Spain in February) and sunny weather didn’t last. Whilst at Park Güell there were some spots of rain, although not enough to warrant the raincoats that we’d left at the hotel. Gaudi originally conceived the park as a retreat for Barcelona’s upper classes. Nowadays, everyone’s allowed in to see the buildings and vegetation. Gaudi was very much into ceramics, it seems. And his ‘more organic than real life’ style appears to have inspired the set designers for all of the Alien films.

Gaudiesque mosaic roof

Gaudiesque columns

Canine gargoyles

A feral budgie

Getting the hang of a ‘hang’

Levitation on La Rambla

Cowboy on La Rambla

Gothic unicorn gargoyle

In the Gothic Quarter

Our next stop was Madrid to visit Keef and Noëlle. Madrid was much colder than Barcelona. Art and Kulcher were on the menu in Madrid. The Prado art museum was jammed full of splendid paintings and sculptures, including Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights and miscellaneous variants of Three Large Pink Women and One Small Piece of Gauze by Peter Paul Reubens. (Thank you, Terry Pratchett - Thief of Time).

Taking photographs was forbidden, although I was allowed to retain my camera. My little tripod was confiscated and held to ransom in Left Luggage for inexplicable reasons.

The following day, we went to Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. Try as I might, I was unable to appreciate pretty much all of the ‘art’ on display. Even Picasso’s obscenely famous Guernica did very little for me. The photo gallery and preliminary sketches were more interesting than the finished product. Taking pictures of Guernica was supposedly forbidden, but photography was permitted everywhere else in the museum. Like anyone would want to take pictures of spilled acrylics mopped up off the floor with an old piece of tent (and then framed and sold at auction for $100,000,000.) Sorry folks, the Goat is an uncultured savage where a lot of modern art is concerned. Who remembers the little boy in the tale of The Emperor’s New Clothes?

I did find a sculpture I liked: Pablo Gargallo’s The Prophet

The weather took a turn for the worse, fortunately after we’d done our outdoor exploring. After trying one of Keef’s English Breakfast pies, which was very yummy actually, we headed off to the airport. Many thanks to Keef and Noëlle for their hospitality.

Why did we fly between Barcelona and Madrid? What was wrong with saving a few polar bears from drowning and taking the train? Well, as flying cost half the price and a fraction of the time, there was very little incentive to do otherwise. How ridiculous!

Perhaps it might have been nice if the Goat’s employers had given him the Sandal Up The Jacksie before the holiday, rather than immediately upon his return. That way, he could have accompanied his Beloved Wife on her exploration of France the following week and possibly helped out a bit with the language.

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Down in the mouth (edited)

My toothache started up again on about 10 February, and was so maddeningly painful that I made an emergency appointment with my local dentist on 14 February. This proved to be my first mistake because, although Welcare Clinic Mirdif is ‘in the network’, it turns out that dental cover is through reimbursement only. So much for the all-singing and all-dancing new and improved medical insurance.

The dentist looked, x-rayed, and agreed that the tooth was cracked and the gum underneath was infected and inflamed, hence the excruciating agony. She prescribed mild painkillers and comedy antibiotics, and told me to come back in a few days. She could do nothing until the inflammation had gone down.

I helped out the painkillers with overdoses of what I could find in the medicine cabinet to dull the pain, and at last got some sleep.

Having got rid of me for a few days, the dentist took more x-rays on 19 Feb and ground the top off the tooth so I didn’t press on it when chewing. It would have to come out.

Glory Hallelujah! I have been saying this every few years since about 1979. Long-term readers of this blog who have elephantine memories may remember this polemic.

She made me an appointment with an Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon. He couldn’t be arsed to look on the Welcare Clinic Mirdif computer system for the x-rays and insisted on taking more, including a gloriously-named orthopantomogram for some unfathomable reason. All at my expense, of course. And then made an appointment for me to come in and have the offending Lower Right Seven and its impacted neighbour dug out.

So when I turned up at the clinic on 8 March expecting surgery, I was less than impressed to learn that no such appointment was recorded on Welcare’s system and Dr Vinod was in fact on holiday for three weeks. The receptionist assured me that the absence of an appointment was my fault, and came within a gnat’s todger of suggesting that the dentist had not made the appointment as I alleged he’d told me, and that I was lying. No, Welcare couldn’t suggest an alternative dental surgeon. Perhaps I would like to make an appointment for after Dr Vinod’s return in about three weeks.

I don’t think so. Goodbye Welcare, for ever. I am currently making enquiries pertaining to an alternative means of having those troublesome things removed from my head. If I’d known this was going to happen, I’d have accompanied Keefieboy on his recent inexpensive and successful dental experience.

Would I recommend Welcare? Based on my experience of booking appointments when doctors aren't going to be there; not letting me see a doctor until over an hour after my appointment was due (because the previous customer was an hour late); telling me my condition wasn’t covered by insurance and refusing to check (it was covered, actually); booking an appointment and then sodding off on holiday; probably not. In fact, I'd recommend a policy of total avoidance.

Edited 16 March to add...

After emailing my letter of complaint to Dr Vinod and the management of Welcare Clinic, I received apologetic phone call, voice mail, SMS and email. Essentially, the Doctor had been called away on emergency leave for a couple of days. He was unable to explain why my appointment had been lost, neither could he figure where the estimate of three weeks vacation had come from.

So I went back and had the offending teeth pulled out as various pieces of shrapnel.

I also had the chance to voice my concerns about Welcare’s management face to face with the said management. Most of the problem appears to be with the front desk; I have little or no issues with the actual medical part of the medical process.

But as I was at pains to point out, the front desk is the first point of contact for a customer. It is also the last point of contact, and will provide the lasting impression when someone leaves. So it is imperative that this front desk is not populated by folk who don’t know what they’re doing.

Does Welcare have a resident proctologist who could perhaps take a rocket and do the needful?

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It's cheap 'cos it's crap

This is getting to be too much of a habit. I took a week’s vacation last April, and was made redundant upon my return to the Lands of the Sand. It was fortuitous that I dropped straight into a new job, albeit in Abu Dhabi, but such good fortune does not last for ever.

I took a week off at the end of February to go to Barcelona for the wedding of two Dubai refugees, and to visit other ex-Dubai friends in Madrid. More fool me: I got my redundancy notice out of the blue the morning of my return.

Here commenceth the rant. Normal service will be resumed in due course.

The official reasoning behind my sudden enforced departure is that bids for new work have not been won, jobs for Abu Dhabi government have been cancelled and there is, well, insufficient work to go around. Despite money pouring out of Abu Dhabi’s ground at $105 a barrel, there seems an over-riding desire not to spend this mineral largesse. With little in the way of construction work going on elsewhere because of the Great Global Downturn of ’09, we find such contracts that are available being bid for at suicidally low rates. Much to the delight of Purchasing Departments, no bid is low enough.

The only construction firms able to win anything at all do so by bidding at or below cost, and hope desperately to make money with additional fees. Commonplace becomes the contractor who waits until the ink on the contract stamp is barely dry before hitting the client for a massive claim for additional payment because of a shoddily prepared contract. Maybe spending a bit more at the design stage instead of rushing it out the door without checking it would have avoided that unexpected piece of nastiness.

Good luck with getting the money: the track record for getting payments out of parsimonious clients in the Middle East (and elsewhere) is not good... Everything remains negotiable, from the tender, through negotiating discounts with the lowest tenderer prior to award, until finally demanding further discounts prior to making actual payments: “Ya Habibi. You can have 40% of your bill now, or nothing ever.” etc.

And so develops an incentive for a design team to take short cuts, to schmooze, possibly even – horror - to utilise the sort of lubricant that comes in a plain brown envelope.

But that is not the way the Goat plays the game. Basically, if you wanted someone who would cheat, lie and behave in an underhand and treacherous manner, you obviously employed the wrong Goat. This one lacks the social skills necessary to do politics; he scores almost zero in so-called ‘emotional intelligence’ tests. The result is that this particular Goat does honesty, professionalism and moral rectitude. (This blog post notwithstanding – names have carefully remained unnamed.)

And the Goat’s inability to achieve the impossible and his consummate refusal to produce crap have resulted in this new entrant into the job market.

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Race relations

Last year I received a phone call out of the blue from someone looking for a motorbike for the 2010 Ras Al Khaimah Half Marathon. I was pleased to help, and this resulted in my piloting the Goatcycle around the route with a video cameraman perched backwards on the pillion.

I did the entire course with the world-class runners. These wiry east Africans set off at 21kph and sustained that speed for an hour. Amazing to watch them close up: the determination in their faces was tangible. If I’d crossed the finish line I’d have got 59’45”, but the motorbike wasn’t allowed. After the men finished I turned round and followed the women into their finish.

This year I volunteered again, figuring that it would be a similar arrangement. Glad to have me on board again, the organizers said this time things would be a little different.

There was the need for live television, so instead of a cameraman with his machine on his shoulder, the bike additionally had to carry a TV antenna and a pair of truck batteries to power all the electrickery.

So on Monday I went over to Navigation Films in Dubai Media City to have the Goatcycle measured for a frame to hang all this equipment from. Naturally, being a modern motorbike that’s covered in plastic, the bike has few places to bolt stuff on, and the final product was a Heath-Robinson affair of alumininium tube, cable ties and gaffer tape. We even cobbled up some footrests for the cameraman that were less uncomfortable than last year’s. The guy fabricating the frame commented that it had been easier to do the other bike, a BMW R1200GS, because that one was apparently made of scaffolding.

On Wednesday after work it was back to Media City for a final fitting, and then on Thursday I was off to RAK to have this scaffolding cage bolted on and all the electrickery plugged in.

Getting to Dubai Media City at a civilized hour after work entailed commuting by motorbike to and from Abu Dhabi. “Keeping my wits about me” doesn’t even come close to describing how careful I’ve been among the usual plethora of headbangers. The bike comes into its own when the motorway comes to a halt because of yet another crash.

On Monday, there was an amusing incident. A car had ended up all over the road after tangling head on with the safety fence. (This was not the amusing bit; this part was inconvenient, expensive, painful and scary.) I threaded my way to the front of the queue in time to see a policeman and a blue-gloved paramedic wheeling the wreckage to the roadside. I imagined that some clown would be whizzing down the breakdown lane, and might squash flat one of Abu Dhabi’s finest. So, putting the bike across the breakdown lane, I signalled to the inevitable white Mercedes, employing the universal police-esque “STOP” gesture.

Did the driver come to a gentle halt? No.

Did he ignore me and squeeze past? No.

With 50m to go, he stuck his left indicator on and tried desperately to insert his Merc into the traffic queue. All the hallmarks of “Oh, no! I’m gonna get a ticket for Dh600 and six black points for driving on the hard shoulder.”

Gotcha!

But back to the main subject: the RAK Half Marathon. All the kit was bolted and cable-tied to the Goatcycle, and I set off on a slightly wobbly test ride, what with a pair of heavy batteries perched well astern of the back wheel. The first hazard was the starting arch. It knocked off the microwave transmitter. So both bikes were modified by chopping down the antenna poles to a mere 2.5m high.

The entire route was run a couple of times to ensure that live TV signals could be picked up everywhere. Then we made a short test run with a pillion and a TV camera. On the day, the actual cameramen turned up, so there were final checks that the technology was working, and we rode half the race route as a final dress rehearsal so the there’d be no unpleasant surprises when the runners set off at 7am.

A couple of incident-free hours later, we were back at the media cabins. All the gear was stripped off and packed away. There was a general agreement that the TV company should consider storing the ally frames. They’re customized for a BMW R1200GS and a Kawasaki 1400GTR. You never know; they might be needed again.

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Sleeping policemen

I don’t go down the Hatta Road beyond Big Red very often. And by motorbike even less frequently than that. So last Friday when I found myself following a fellow biker through Madam at 120kph I began to suspect that we were both grossly exceeding the speed limit and I slowed down. But no; despite Zebra crossings and roadside shops, the posted limit is 120kph. So that’s alright then.

There’s no excuse for putting a solitary vicious speed hump a couple of hundred metres from Madam roundabout. Yes, presumably there is a need to get traffic speeds down before the roundabout, but how about some progressive signage? 100kph, then 80kph, then 60kph? How about sticking to the design standards that control the width and height of speed bumps?

No, what we get is one speed bump that briefly turned my bike into a bucking bronco rodeo ride. There were no warning signs (perhaps they’ve been stolen or demolished), and although the bump had originally been painted with cheap yellow emulsion so that it wouldn’t be invisible, that had worn off.

At least with the roundabout approaching, I had slowed from 120kph to about 80 when I actually hit the speed bump.

Anyway, why don’t I take this road very often? Because of the border controls beyond Madam. The road crosses part of Oman where the Sultanate bizarrely loops north into the UAE, so all motorists get to stop and identify themselves.

“You have Emirates ID?”

“Yes.”

“OK, go.”

At the re-entry into Dubai near Hatta it wasn’t nearly so straightforward. I had to rummage in my pocket, remove gloves, extract ID card, replace ID card, don gloves... So I was doing about 0.2kph over the speed bump when I heard the clang from the bike’s undercarriage. I thought I’d hit the exhaust, but it turned out I’d scraped the sump. There’s a protective plate cast into the sump that protects the oil drain plug from damage, and this plate had taken the impact. Numerous scars on the concrete suggest I wasn’t the first. I think 130mm is excessively high for a speed bump. Again I say: how about sticking to the design standards?

The signage, together with uniformed guys toting machine guns ought to be enough to get drivers to slow down. There’s no real need to destroy their vehicles.

Incidentally, there are numerous little roadside shops on this stretch of road. So why is the speed limit 120kph where people wander at random across the road and motorists pull in without warning to buy terracotta horse’s heads or inflatable giraffes?

“Because it’s a limit, not a target.”

So what possible logic is there if the same emirate then imposes an 80kph limit on the dead-straight Academic City Road (for example) that is for the most part in the middle of nowhere?

Logic: yet another thing that is Not Coming In Dubai™.

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Kitsch tchotchkes

We’ve all seen them. Some have even purchased them. Most of them are brass and glass, and there are even battery-operated ones that flash in various colours. Nanny Goat bought one as a joke last year. Because the title plaque said “Burj Dubai” instead of “Burj Khalifa”, she negotiated a discount. Mazel Tov.

They are all, of course, kitsch tchotchkes. What a fantastic name for a pub quiz team. Or a blog. Not a bad tongue-twister either.

Because these little things please little minds, I am also amused by the snow globe. Not only do we see the two traditional figures caught in an unlikely blizzard, but selected Dubai landmarks adorn the base in front of an incongruous Alpine backdrop.

It is, however, possible to buy rather more up-market twee trinkets. Click on this link and feast your eyes.

Top kwolli’y.

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'Life is good' award

A dubious ‘award’ sent to me by fellow Dubai blogger Seabee.

I don’t normally do these memes, but as this one’s from such an august blogger, here goes...

1. If you blog anonymously, are you happy with this? If you aren’t anonymous, do you wish you started out anonymously so that you could be anonymous now?

I’m quite happy with my anonymous status. Most people who know me personally also know who the Grumpy Goat is, as does everyone who’s chatted with me at a GeekFest. I don’t use a blog (or anything else for that matter) for inflammatory personal attacks. If I did, I’d be a lot more secretive about my identity!

2. Describe an incident that describes your stubborn side.

I won’t let go when Officialdom has got it catastrophically wrong yet again. Of course, complaining is utterly futile other than misery loving company. Please come and comment about your similar experiences with the same workshop, telco or government ministry.

3. What do you see when you really look at yourself in the mirror?

I think I must have anorexia nervosa. Every time I look in the mirror I see a fat person. And older than I like too. Nevertheless, old beats the pants out of the alternative.

4. What is your favourite summer cold drink?

Proper English Real Ale. But a refreshing ice tea – strong; no sugar; loads of lemon – will suit me very nicely thank you if I’m driving.

5. When you take time for yourself, what do you do?

Desert driving in the Goatmobile, riding my motorbike or, if at all possible, scuba diving. I’ve been too busy for the last year or so for nearly enough of any of these.

6. Is there something that you still want to accomplish in your life?

Finalise the design of the Dream House^(TM) in Cyprus, and get it built. And learn to play the piano And fly a helicopter.

7. When you attended school, were you the class clown, the class overachiever, the shy person or always ditching?

The shy overachiever, except on the sports field. I hated being bullied largely because of this, and was relieved when I turned sixteen and a lot of the bullies left school. Further relief when I left school a couple of years later, but that was partly because A-levels proved shockingly difficult. I never played truant from school.

8. If you close your eyes and want to visualize a very poignant moment in your life, what do you see?

I don’t really want to visualize this, but if I think of something poignant it’s my father’s funeral. It was deeply emotional to walk into a large and utterly packed church.

9. Is it easy for you to share your true self in your blog, or are you more comfortable writing posts about other people and events?

Sometimes the blog is ‘My Not Very Secret Diary’; other times it’s a place to vent my frustrations or expound my opinions. There may be a touch of parody and a soupçon of hyperbole, and I do try to write in an entertaining style. There’s very little if anything there that’s total fiction.

10. If you had the choice to sit down and read a book or talk on the phone, which would you do and why?

This depends on my mood. Sometimes I just want a private, quiet time and the book wins. Other times I prefer to chat. Face to face, possibly over a meal or a drink, is better than the phone.

And the three lucky winners are:-ex-Dubai now USA J Edward Tremlett; ex-Dubai now Turkey IstanBilly; and ex-Argentina now Germany Martín with the GTR.

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