About time I uploaded some new pictures of the kids I thought. So here are Jack and Emma, having lots more fun in the UK (with my parents and brother) than they would be having in the 48 degree heat of Dubai that Daddy is having to battle through alone at present....
Come home soon.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Going south
The football season is merely 3 days old and in the space of just two matches Southampton have managed to position themselves at the bottom of the Championship, and exit themselves from the Carling Cup.
What a relief it is to know that it is the "taking part" that counts.
What a relief it is to know that it is the "taking part" that counts.
Thursday, August 09, 2007
Quality Journalism
As is common in most newspapers these days, the Gulf News (the local UAE 'broadsheet' - a reference only to its size and certainly not to its standard of journalism) runs a Daily Gulf News Poll, inviting readers to vote online to the question that the paper presumably considers to be the most topical issue of the day.
Given the number of different issues that impact and affect modern society and the planet generally, one might expect a topical, insightful, thought-provoking issue to be the norm. An issue, say, where the responses are destined to show an interesting diversity of opinion, and which might speak volumes about the public perception of key issues affecting modern life.
And so it was with yesterday's question:
"How are you feeling today?"
Don't be fooled. For some, this was clearly a challenging question to ponder. One that should not be met with a knee-jerk response.
The Gulf News deemed the results so worthy of note that they justified a full article explaining the results on today's front pages. 3 full column inches in fact.
The best part was that while 42% were feeling happy, and 34% were not, and full 24% (that's basically one in four) opted for "I don't know".
I DON'T KNOW??? It's a simple enough question isn't it? How can a quarter of the people in this country, when invited to 'vote' in response to the most commonly asked question in regular conversation ("How are you?"), actively take the time to log on to the Gulf News website in order to choose the "I don't know" option?
And then how can the Gulf News not only justify filling a large portion of its front page with a report on this poll, but also then choose to focus on the "problem" that only 42% consider themselves happy and thereby miss the more alarming fact, without any hint of irony or sarcasm, that 24% of the country (or at least readers of this poor excuse for a newspaper) are clearly comprised of indecisive, mentally challenged morons?
Thank goodness the UAE has the good sense not to entrust more radical issues, such as parliamentary democracy, to the will of the people.
Given the number of different issues that impact and affect modern society and the planet generally, one might expect a topical, insightful, thought-provoking issue to be the norm. An issue, say, where the responses are destined to show an interesting diversity of opinion, and which might speak volumes about the public perception of key issues affecting modern life.
And so it was with yesterday's question:
"How are you feeling today?"
Don't be fooled. For some, this was clearly a challenging question to ponder. One that should not be met with a knee-jerk response.
The Gulf News deemed the results so worthy of note that they justified a full article explaining the results on today's front pages. 3 full column inches in fact.
The best part was that while 42% were feeling happy, and 34% were not, and full 24% (that's basically one in four) opted for "I don't know".
I DON'T KNOW??? It's a simple enough question isn't it? How can a quarter of the people in this country, when invited to 'vote' in response to the most commonly asked question in regular conversation ("How are you?"), actively take the time to log on to the Gulf News website in order to choose the "I don't know" option?
And then how can the Gulf News not only justify filling a large portion of its front page with a report on this poll, but also then choose to focus on the "problem" that only 42% consider themselves happy and thereby miss the more alarming fact, without any hint of irony or sarcasm, that 24% of the country (or at least readers of this poor excuse for a newspaper) are clearly comprised of indecisive, mentally challenged morons?
Thank goodness the UAE has the good sense not to entrust more radical issues, such as parliamentary democracy, to the will of the people.
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