A Treat or a Trick?

I am the kind of person who finds it really difficult to change my mind about something when I have determinedly formed a view about it. And for years, the concept of 'Trick or Treat' every Halloween has been no better example of something I detest. I always feared for the little old ladies getting endless gangs of 'old enough to know better' yobs banging on their doors demanding money.

Yes, you're supposed to think that it's all about 5 year olds dressing up for a bit of fun and remembering their please's and thank-you's in exchange for sweeties, with doting Mummy standing just feet away. But come on... you know that for every sweet faced little excitable young cherub, there was a bloodthirsty oik in the next street causing havoc.

Welcome then to Victory Heights (the 'estate' - even though I hate that description - where we live in Dubai). Which is continuing to hold up its excellent reputation as being something out of The Truman Show / Stepford Wives / stereotypical middle class 1950s suburbia. But long may that continue. Because as I drove home tonight, the streets were awash with little groups of well-behaved, parentally-accompanied children of 5 or 6 years old. Not a BMX-er in sight.

Many of the houses were decorated with Halloween decorations. And everyone knew not to go near the houses without decorations or lights. But there weren't many of those it seems as almost everyone was taking the opportunity to get into the community spirit, with not a hint of aggravation or aggression on anyone's mind.

I was only home from work in time to have the door knocked once, before the non-discussed, but somehow universally agreed curfew of 7.30pm came about. But we were greeted by the most polite children - probably about 7 of them, aged between 5 and 10. They were offered a bowl of sweets.. and each took only one, before backing away nicely offering lots of thank-yous! A shame that this took me so by surprise, but a good surprise nonetheless.

And, having braced for an onslaught, we've now got so many sweets left over! To add to the mountains that Jack and Emma brought back from their first Trick or Treating experience (well... in for a penny, in for a dirham). Even Michele enjoyed it (although came home more empty-handed than the kids).

Perhaps I've been wrong all these years. Perhaps it has something to do with the spirit of our community.  Or maybe we were somehow just being visited by the ghosts of communities past...

Anyway, here's a couple of photos of some creatures you wouldn't want to meet on a dark night...

Next week (no doubt): "Penny for the Guy, please Sir?"

35

Ooh-er. 35, eh? That's like, properly moving along in life. The second half of my 30s begins today - the downward half (which probably means it will go faster than the uphill climb towards 35).

It's predictably cliched to say it, but birthdays are definitely coming along faster and faster these days. And (depressingly) I find myself more and more ambivalent to them. Michele asked me last week what I wanted to "do" for my birthday. Between us, we couldn't come up with much.

But the fact is, I don't really mind. I'll have a big party at 40 I'm sure. But right now actually, the kids' ages makes it difficult to organise anything major, and to be honest I'm just enjoying this time of life (not my age, but more the fact of having young children) in a quiet way.

So whereas, when you are younger, it is the presents you look forward to (and cards are, you know, nice and all), you open the cards first, and fast, so you can get to the presents.

Now I am older, the cards were actually what I was looking forward to most today. Michele has started making her own (which are coming along really well - a hobby she started a few months back, and has really taken to - I never knew she had so much hidden creativity!) so I was really impressed with her card to me, because I could tell that she had put time and effort into making it.

And also because Michele had told me how the kids had sat down (of itself, something to celebrate!) and each made me their own card. In advance, Jack had asked me "Daddy - what are you into? Football maybe? Cars? Because I want to make you a really nice card that is all about you."

So this morning I opened cards from Michele, Jack and Emma that had all been personally made especially. And Rhys gave me lots of smiles too. That's really what makes me happy today.

We're Maid Up! (But you couldn't make it up)

And so, 7½ years into our Arabian adventure, we have finally succumbed. We have hired a live-in maid.

To those not familiar with Middle Eastern life, this probably sounds alien, decadent, slightly like we're getting a bit above ourselves ("Live-in" you say? What, like "in your house?").

But it really isn't. In fact, for you eyebrow-raising doubters out there, it is probably fair to say that for some time now we have actually put up with more abject disbelief from friends here who have not been able to comprehend why (and more importantly how) we have managed to live so long with young children without help.

And after about a week, we are beginning to wonder too! Those in the UK possibly take a little for granted the availability of a spare pair of hands now and then to "have the kids for the night/weekend/week/month(?)". But for 'we who have nothing' (especially now that we have 3 energetic and demanding little angels), it has at times been a drainin experience. I know that Michele in particular has been feeling somewhat harassed. And so the release has been enthusiastically embraced.

So - welcome Sally to our life. She is 35 and from the Philippines. And she seems to love cleaning. A lot. Up at 6am (despite our having told her not not to be) she dusts, cleans, picks up toys, polishes, hoovers, picks up more toys, washes, irons, picks up toys again, feeds Rhys, tidies, cleans again, etc, etc, etc. She's great. And seemingly more than happy with her room at the back of our house that measures only about 9' by 6' (large by most local standards).

But now begins the process of getting her a visa. All non-UAE nationals working and living in the UAE must have a sponsored residence visa in order to be able to stay here. For most people the sponsor is one's employer (as is the case with me) and dependents are then sponsored by the principal bread-winner. So Sally (like Michele and the kids) has to be sponsored by me - a process which you would think would be easy to follow through. But this is of course the UAE where 'Bureaucracy is Best', and where unemployment is a proudly low statistic due to the policy of being able to easily make even the simplest of processes that much more complicated by involving, on average, 7 more people that it needs to.

For any Western visitor to the UAE, you would ordinarily arrive at the airport, face the usual mumblings that pass for immigration questioning at passport control ("Where you from? Why you come?"), and get a well placed, never to be removed (due to the force with which it is quite literally stamped) 'visit visa' stamp in your passport, enabling you to remain for 30 days (or so it says; actually it's 60 days, but let's not let a thing so trivial as accuracy get in the way of good old fashioned confusion here).

The problem for Sally is that, being from the Philippines, she is not allowed to simply show up and obtain a visit visa. Like all other people from the short list of specific countries from where maids can only be employed (also including India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh) she must apply, before coming here, for a 30 day "Tourist Visa".

And here's the punch - once here, and having found a maid's job with a family like ours, you go to convert your tourist visa to a full length residence visa and find..... that you can't. It is, of course, only possible to convert from a visit visa (the one you can't have, being that you come from the Philippines) to a residence visa.

In other words:
- you validly hold Visa Type A;
- you want to convert (and have the sponsor backing to allow you to convert) to Visa Type C; but
- you cann't go straight from A to C. First, you must go and get yourself Visa Type B (the one that you weren't allowed to get at the outset because of where you are from, and the one that you don't ultimately need or want anyway and are only being forced to get so that it can be immediately cancelled and replaced with Visa Type C).

A painful process. But presumably (you, and logic, would think) this cumbersome A to B to C process just requires some more form filling doesn't it?

Well know. Obviously... it requires you to leave the country, and then immediately turn around and re-enter with a (this time pre-approved) visit visa, in order that the authorities can then immediately cancel the visa (presumably with the ink still wet) and convert your visit visa into the residence visa you wanted all along.

And here's the best part of all. Is it simply a case of simply walking three steps over the border, before turning 180 degrees and returning, I hear you ask? Well, no, nothing so mundane.

The official line is, of course, to get on a plane.... and fly to Iran. To the island of Kish to be precise. I swear this is the commonly advertised solution that the Government state is the solution to the problem that the Government created.

All to be funded by your generous, afore-mentioned bread-winner.

On second thoughts, does anyone want to come and have our kids for the weekend?

Moon

Based upon a review that caught my eye in Empire magazine a few months ago, and because I then saw it in the sales at HMV when in the UK a few ago, I bought and this weekend watched a film called Moon.

Quite low budget by today's standards (around US$ 5m), and even lower in terms of principal characters (one, if you don't include Kevin Spacey's voice), it was really rather good. Here's the basic plot summary, reproduced (without any permission, kind or otherwise) from Amazon.co.uk:

"Sam Rockwell plays Sam Bell, an employee of Lunar Industries, the company responsible for mining a fusion energy source called Helium-3, which is vital to Earth's efforts to reverse a serious energy crisis. Sam is all by himself, and as he nears the end of his three-year contract, the solitude is starting to get to him, while his sole interaction on the Moon is with GERTY 3000, a computer voiced by Kevin Spacey. Things start to go seriously sideways when Sam crashes his vehicle while out inspecting one of the giant Helium-3 harvesters. He comes to in the base infirmary, seemingly none the worse for the wear; but an unnerving surprise awaits him when he goes back to check out the accident site..."

No big effects as such, this movie stands or falls on the acting of the lead actor Sam Rockwell (him of Frost/Nixon, The Green Mile and, er, Charlie's Angels). And in one crucial respect, the role demands his acting to be (literally) spot on. Which it is.

At only 97 mins long, it can easily be watched in one sitting (or perhaps two if, like me, the existence of children in your life has made it virtually impossible to watch anything any more longer than about 45 mins without falling asleep).

The sleep thing by the way is no reflection on the quality of the film. I thought it was quite original, and really enjoyed it. Michele, on the other hand, thought it weird and not really her cup of tea (which I attribute to the same originality and, perhaps, its lack of Jennifer Aniston/Julia Roberts/Matthew McConaughey).

An "Old Love"

I have become increasingly aware recently that I have unintentionally but perhaps unavoidably allowed my once lauded knowledge of (and interest in) music to drop down life's list of priorities. In part this is no doubt due to ever increasing distractions of having kids daily life. But the silver lining to this otherwise really rather dark cloud is that it does occasionally enable me to stumble across albums of yesteryear that, in my humble opinion, still trump the sheer awfulness of 'what kids call music today' [cue eery sensation of deja vu from various conversations I recall having with my Dad around 20 years ago].

And so, for no particular reason other than that it was what my ipod shuffle threw at me yesterday evening on the drive home from work, I present:

 Eric Clapton's 1992 MTV Unplugged Album

I remember first hearing this album, randomly, in a colleague's car (someone who was at the time old enough to drive, while I was still taking lessons) on the way home from a WHSmith inter-branch 5-a-side football tournament in Richmond. An oft-quoted memory for many I'm sure.

The thing about this album is that it suits any mood, and any time of day. It is just about the right length, it is not made to sound better as a result of clever production. It's just a very talented guy, in front of an intimate audience, singing some great old songs in a simple but (at the time) fresh style. I collected a number of the MTV Unplugged albums (including, if I recall, Kermit the Frog's - get it here! - worth listening to if only for the cover of "Wild Thing"!). But Eric Clapton's is still my favourite by far. I will listen to it once every few months, and then forget about it for ages, until I rediscover it again. Timeless quality.

Anyway, this shameless plug also enables me to try out some of the new features of this upgraded blog, such as linking in MP3 clips from Amazon. Hopefully this link provides you with a taster. Enjoy.

Blog v.2.0

Time for a new blog post, and a fresh look to the blog as a whole. Problem is that, as a result of tweaking and playing around with the layout, it is now quite late and I now need sleep.

But, as they say, a rest is as good as a change...

More to follow.