Blogosphere: April 4, 2007

PICK OF THE WEEK : Saving the beach

Hooray
Yay. Apparently Jumeirah Beach is no longer going to be developed on.
http://onebigconstructionsite.blogspot.com/index.html

The beach is saved
Excellent news for beachlovers and for Dubai's future tourism targets. His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, has instructed Dubai Municipality to stop the construction work on Umm Suqeim beach immediately and remove the construction fence which cordons off the beach for the planned project. The beach should be left open for the public, the municipality was told.
http://dubaithoughts.blogspot.com/2007/03/big-boss-saves-beach.html

The fall of the wall
Dubai's last decent stretch of public beach (the beach in Jumeirah 1 is too overrun by perverts to qualify as usable without body shields) appeared to be under threat earlier this month. A huge great wooden barrier was put up, with construction of yet another yawnsome beachfront development project set to begin. But then suddenly this beachside Berlin Wall is to come down by order of Shaikh Mohammad, with construction work to cease:
http://secretdubai.blogspot.com/2007/03/fall-of-wall.html

A quiet weekend…
After a marathon of six weeks constantly travelling I was looking forward to a relaxed weekend in Dubai. I was in the midst of mooching around Ibn Battuta shopping mall looking for somewhere to get my ever growing hunger under control when I got a number of text messages urging me to go to the Dubai World Cup horse racing meet.
I had been interested in going but I had failed to secure corporate tickets - however I wanted to go and have a look as I was told it was a "do not miss" event. After a text message exchange I dusted off my best suit, most ridiculous shoes and hopped into a cab to Nad Al Sheba.
The International Village is where it seemed the majority of people were and I was impressed. It was very spacious with a number of the major bars from around Dubai being present such as The Irish Village, Barasti, Double Decker and Waxy O'Connors, to name but a few. The weather turned up for the day and sunglasses and big hats (for the ladies) were de rigeur.
http://an-englishman-in-dubai.blogspot.com/index.html

... except for the World Cup
Yesterday was The Dubai World Cup. This is billed as the world's richest horse race.
Over the day there are seven races with a total prize fund of US$21 million (Dh77.07 million). The final race is worth US$6 million (Dh22.02 million) alone ...
http://dubaidailyphoto.blogspot.com/2007/04/dubai-world-cup-212.html

Ouch
I took my friends Alex and Joyce out towards Hatta in search of an exciting UAE quadbiking adventure. Unfortunately, we had more than an adventure when an over-zealous Pearl of Dubai popped off a deceptively high dune and got thrown from his bike, which then flipped over and landed a few feet away. While the episode only resulted in a few nasty bruises and a crack in my Armani sunglasses, it should serve as a safety warning to other prospective, beginner quadbikers: proceed at your own risk!
http://pearlofdubai.blogspot.com/index.html

Writing proper
I probably spend too much time on the internet, reading email, chat boards and blogs. However if there's one thing that's going to cure me it's got to be the appalling spelling and punctuation I keep running into. It's driving me mad! I'm not talking about people whose first language is not English. They can be forgiven. I'm talking about native English speakers who have been through 12 years of school and, possibly, several years of university or college education and STILL can't spell or punctuate their writing.

This morning I came across a woman complaining because her daughter brought home a school report with several spelling mistakes. Her post was entitled "Teachers spellings!" She started her tirade with "I was appalled when I received my daughters report yesterday." Aaaargh!!!!

What made it worse was that several other posters, commiserating with her, made even more mistakes, such as "teachers college in australia." Whatever happened to apostrophes and capital letters? Is it really so hard to press the shift key, or do they just not know?

My own son is just as bad. Years of expensive private education, now studying at Canada's top university and he still can't recognise a possessive!

I know that English is an evolving language and on some issues I have already admitted defeat. My mother's incantation of "similar to, different from, as compared with" still rings in my ears every time I hear "compared to" and I grit my teeth and bear it.

But I'm not willing to give up capital letters and apostrophes! Or at least not yet. http://wifeinasuitacase.blogspot.com/index.html