Indoor Tennis

I apologise for the brief hiatus in updates but I have been extremely busy over the past few days. Myself and Matt have been ironing out the creases in our new past-time. It does not actually have a name yet but it involves a tennis ball, a racket and a set of goals. Oh, and a master bedroom.

Basically, seeing as we have secured ourselves this massive bedroom, we thought we would make use of its spaciousness and 'minimalist furnishings'. Also, Scrabble is getting a bit of a touchy subject in the Big Brother Arabia house.

The new game is simple: Hit the tennis ball past the goalkeeper as many times as you can. The only way you can lose is if 1) the 'keeper makes a full catch, or 2) you swing for the ball and miss. There is no running, or fielding or wickets; just plain hard aggression and the humility to admit when a full catch is a good catch. My bowling technique has come on incredibly in the last few days, but I must admit (and this is when the graciousness is required) Matt's batting has also improved. We've been playing for a week now and still no breakages. Nothing like living on the edge.

However, one slight problem, is that we still don't have a name for this phenomenal activity. The best we have got so far is Tennis-Football, which is, in my opinion, a terrible, terrible name for such a great sport. Ideas on a postcard please...

We have also passed time by returning to the days of our early youth and playing 'one touch'. Also known as 'wally', 'shapes' or 'TWAT!'. You get one kick and the ball must hit the wall. If you miss you get a letter, if you miss enough times to spell out the pre-determined word ('TWAT!') you lose. Matt beat me at TWAT but I reaped my revenge when I beat him at a hard-fought game of 'CRUMB BUM' (pictured left).

Anyway, that's enough drivel.

Eid Mubarek! (Happy Eid)

Ramadan is officially over. Which should, and in a way does, mean celebrations. However, Dubai do celebrations rather differently to Britain.

Instead of having a day off work and heading down the Red Lion -- where you will proceed to neck six pints of Stella and swing some plastic garden furniture above your head while singing sectarian anthems -- in Dubai they celebrate by having three days off work and not drinking any alcohol at all for the first 24 hours.

So Eid Al Fitr is now upon us, which means the restrictions that Ramadan enforced -- restrictions that saw me crouched, yoga-like, in the back of friends' cars while pouring water down my throat, and stuffing full pies into my mouth to chew in rapid bursts whenever there were no cars close by -- are gone. No longer applicable. Kaput.

Today I drank a Lime and Kiwi shake and ate lunch in broad daylight. And nobody tried to have me arrested.

I could even have drank a cold beer in public today, but that's not because the holy month is over, but rather because I was in a different emirate: I was in Umm Al Qwain. Alcohol is forever forbidden in public in the emirate of Dubai but it seems in Umm A Qwain you can booze by the beach.

I went to Dreamland Aqua Park which seems to be in the middle of nowhere, but, word of advice, if you are ever looking for it, don't waste your time asking an Arab, just grab an expat because Dreamland Aqua Park is next door to Barracuda (Booze &) Beach Resort. One of only two places (and the only legal one) in a 100km radius where you can buy the blood of Barry Ooze.

I bought 72 cans of beer (x24 Carlsberg, x24 Stella Artois, x24 Beer X), two bottles (75cl) of Stoichnaya vodka and a bottle of Filipino Rum. I also bought a keg of beer which is probably as undrinkable as it is unpronounceable. But it was cheap.

Final bill: Dh285 (£44).

So tonight, just as soon as the slumbering Mr Smith arises from his stinking, godforsaken pit, we are celebrating the end of Ramadan. And seeing as he's off tomorrow and I don't start until 3pm, something tells me things could get messy...

Cooking With Gas

Having completed our weekly shop -- and it came to a grand total of Dh132 (less than £20) -- myself and Matt have now given ourselves the nasty predicament of actually having no excuse to keep eating out. We have a perfectly able gas cooker and all appliances, and of course I have been talking up my culinary talents -- "I used to be a chef at a top-class Italian restaurant you know?"

So the time finally came today to cook. And it was more so by the fact that the food was expiring tomorrow than the fact I succumbed to hunger or pressure. I cooked a mean steak (medium rare of course) and covered it in an onion, mushroom and cream sauce. It was delicious. I was going to take a photo of it but it wouldn't have done the meal justice.

Anyway, time for work...

A Lethargic Lieu Period Before a Life of Luxury

Getting somewhere to stay has been tougher than I had expected.

For instance, a studio apartment in Dubai Marina (on the outer west edge of the red part in the graphic below) can cost up to Dh120,000 and certainly no cheaper than Dh80,000 per year. With the current exchange rate of Dh6.8 to the pound, that means the landlords are asking for a minimum of about £11,700. Oh, and they also don't want to be hassled with having to chase you up for your £975 every month, instead it is easier if you just give them the year's rent up front. One payment. Easy.

So, it's £12,000 for a studio apartment, but if you get a two-bedroom, or better still, a four-bedroom, the price falls a little. Four-bedroom villas in the nice areas (the red part (Umm Suqeim, Al Sufouh and Al Manara) and some of light green area along the coast (Jumeirah)) will set you back on average, about Dh230,000. Between four that is Dh75,000 each. A little cheaper but still daylight robbery by the greedy, godforsaken landlords. And there is still that little matter of paying in one cheque. But hey, it's only £33,700 each year. To rent!

We have had an absolute nightmare finding somewhere to stay. The people at work have said that they have never met anyone who has had such trouble finding a place to live. Especially when our one and only requirement is that it has a pool. (What's the point in living in one of the hottest places on Earth if you can't squeeze yourself into your speedo for a swim in your back garden?)

We have been all over Dubai looking for somewhere to stay (all travelling in taxis as we have yet to purchase cars -- which is another day's tale). We have looked at two bedroom apartments, looked at four bedroom apartments, agreed to take a six-bedroom villa, then realised we had no chance of getting £32,000 up front. We have looked at five-bedroom villas, agreed to take a four-bedroom villa, paid Dh10,000 deposit, had our deposit returned to us when the current tenant decided she wanted to stay an extra month -- just because -- and finally found a four-bedroom villa that we have verbally agreed to take. We are now just waiting for the real estate company to produce the contract so we can sign on the ......................................

The villa is on the edge of Knowledge Village and Internet City. It has four bedrooms and a maid's room and two of the bedrooms are ensuite -- which have been claimed by me and Matt as our finders' fee. I will be having the master bedroom since I found the villa and Matt has secured himself the other ensuite room by his willingness to get a loan to help pay the yearly rent up front.

The villa also has a pool and a gym, and is situated just a seven minute drive from work. It's ideal. So long as we get this contract to sign we will be sorted. Although, saying that, it is by no means cheap. And we don't get the keys until November 20.

Having managed to blag five weeks free accommodation thanks to some friendly workmates' willingness to let us sleep in their maid's room, and an incompetent HR Department who, after telling us we had two weeks in The Arabian Park Hotel, booked an extension but forgot to tell us and so paid for an empty room for a week, we have now got a proper roof over our heads and can consider unpacking our bags.

We are currently residing in a Sheikh's palace in Al Baarsha (the light green area directly west of my work) on a month-by-month basis. It really is a palace as well; absolutely massive and has pool, two maid's rooms, parking for maybe eight cars, remote controlled security gates etc. It is a really nice villa that is as good as brand new.

As great as the house looks I am by no means living the life of luxury. We have nothing but our clothes that we brought with us so we are essentially squatting in a massive room. Myself and Matt have actually been sharing a bed for the past three nights -- an arrangement I have found myself, rather distressingly, fairly comfortable with. The pool is out of order, which wouldn't be a problem as the beach is only a Dh10 taxi ride, but the villa is in the middle of the desert. And as none of Dubai's roads have names yet it is extremely hard to try and get a taxi to come and pick you up.

In Dubai, "Where The Streets Have No Names", when booking a taxi you tell the driver the nearest landmark and where to go from this, ie, 'take a left after Mall of the Emirates and then a right after the petrol station'. We have had no such luck. We literally have only two landmarks close by: one is the Djibouti Embassy and the other is a tree.

This means that in the mornings before work, we need to walk a mile to the nearest busy road where we can flag a taxi. On a dry day in Scotland that might be quite reasonable, but on a dry day in the Middle East -- and 361 days of the year are dry out here -- it is sweat-inducing and extremely tiring. We need two showers before we even start work and have taken to sponging ourselves down like a couple of old vagabonds in the Emirates Today bathrooms. Not really ideal.

It's all a life experience and it seems we can take some positives out of it: a couple of the girls at the office said that Me and Matt "are pure comic value" and "just a calamity of disasters". Touching words.

And that is you up to date with my living arrangements.

Life at Emirates Today

Salam Alaikum,

Welcome to The Arabian Adventures of Sheikh Gareemi Nahan, the internet's only weblog detailing the goings on in my currently hectic life.

It's been six weeks since I left the dark and dingy climes of Scotland and yet this is first opportunity I have had to write anything other than an odd, short e-mail (odd in both content and regularity). I work at Emirates Today newspaper, which, I believe but cannot proclaim as fact, is the second biggest selling newspaper in the United Arab Emirates. I am currently employed as a sub-editor which basically means I read copy written by other people, edit it for grammar and punctuation, make sure it makes sense and flows well, and doesn't contain any libellous, biased or false statements. I also ensure that the copy is written to conform with the newspapers style guide, ie, 'website' not 'Web site'; 'past' not 'last'; 'more than' not 'over' and hundreds of other such nuances.

Other tasks that befall me are the writing of headlines, photo captions and standfirsts. I take particular delight in getting as many puns into the paper as possible. My favourite successful headline so far is a story concerning the Chinese Military, and how all new students had to enrol in the army before they could become a student. The photo accompanying the story was that of a marching squadron of fresh-faced young students dressed in full military regalia. My headline:

"Gung Ho, Gung Ho, It's Off To School We Go"

So, in summary, work is going well and I am enjoying it. The only down-side I have found so far is that I am not getting to actually write, which is obviously what I want to do. The most I have written so far is a short nib (News in Brief) about the massacre at the Amish school in Pennsylvania.

Life at Emirates Today has now been divulged.