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Gulf News web editor Adam Flinter plunges headlong into the blogosphere to find out what bloggers from the Middle East and beyond have on their minds.
Star blog: Head for heights
Photo taken from what is, so far, the top of the Burj Dubai, the 157th floor.
And there are guys wandering around on the girders! I'd feel sick looking out from the mezzanine floor!
http://dubaithoughts.blogspot.com/
Metro is here!
Finally it is here. Dubai Metro arrives to Dubai. The first batch of Dubai Metro carriages, consisting of 10 cars (each train consists of five cars), has arrived in Dubai and five cars have been transported to Jebel Ali Metro Station, announced Mattar Al Tayer, Chairman of the Board and Executive Director of
the Dubai Roads and Transport Authority (RTA).
http://www.jean.ghalo.com
Crazy
In the past three months, I got at least a dozen headhunters offering me jobs in Abu Dhabi. Half of them offering crazy jobs paying more than two times my salary.
I turned them all down. Abu Dhabi can't lure me enough like the good ol' D to the X to the B. What do you think guys?
http://dubaiconsumermirror.blogspot.com/
Free at last
A man is taken from his home in the dead of the night. He is held in solitary confinement and subjected to days and nights of interrogation. After 137 days, just as suddenly as he was brought in, he is released, with no word of explanation from his captors.
Add in acres of international media coverage and a vocal, well organised, online campaign from local supporters and you have the makings of a great story - Midnight Express meets Erin Brockovich by way of In The Name of the Father. But that won't happen.
For now, Fouad Al Fahan, the Saudi blogger snatched by police in late December and now released without charge on Saturday morning, will be relishing being home with his wife and two young children.
You can bet there is a queue of media operators wanting to hear his story. Fouad's supporters will be hoping he can tell the story himself when the time is right.
http://19thfloordubai.blogspot.com/
The seasons
Before I landed in Dubai, I had not been further south than the Canary Isles, nor closer to the desert than a Greek beach. Plenty of preconceptions about what lay in store, but not the faintest real idea.
I spent the night before my flight watching the Dubai Gold Cup on television, trying to figure out what people were wearing as an indication of what the climate might hold for me. Anoraks and flowery hats, apparently.
And on the morning of my first day, our company driver came to pick me up from the hotel. It was raining, which seemed to make him inordinately pleased and upset at the same time. Little did I know then that the next rain we would see would be eight months later.
But on those regular morning drives, I did come to understand some of the layout of Dubai, the changing landscape, the flux of the traffic.
And the most surprising scent, the air full of the most unexpected tang of freshly cut grass, an aroma from childhood, and all the more evocative for being encountered in such a strange context. This was a city built on sand, or so I thought.
Fast forward and I now measure the seasons by changes in shirts. As we approach the end of April, the days are getting sporadically hotter, though recent wind has been dry, bearing improbably fine dust from Iran and the Gulf. Being from that quarter, it is also relatively dry, though last night my suspicion was that the air was unseasonably cool.
http://eyeondubai.blogspot.com/
3G iphone?
I placed an order for an iPhone a week ago and thought something went wrong when I didn't receive a tracking number after a few days (they usually ship them within a day).
After checking the order status, I found out that the iPhone isn't going to be shipped out until May 13, which is almost a month after my initial order.
In addition to knowing Apple's history of keeping quiet about new products and the pending rumours about the new iPhone, I am guessing that the 3G iPhone is released next month.
If this does turn out to be the new iPhone, I wouldn't suggest purchasing one until the current unlock method is confirmed to be working.
http://www.248am.com
Bush on Palestine
Bush plans on visiting Israel next month to celebrate the catastrophe that drove much of the Palestinian population into exile, robbed their homeland, and subjugated them to generations of humiliation and oppression, and, if time allows, give Israel a whipping for spying on its biggest ally.
Try to stop this one, Olympic flame dousers.
Needless to say, a meeting with any Palestinian leader on the said trip would be... awkward. But have no fear; you can always remedy that with a consolation-prize, meeting with Palestinian Authority Chairman Abbas in the divine oval office.
Still, Abbas apparently loves awkward.
http://www.kabobfest.com
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