Prompted by something on Twitter

Prompted by something on Twitter, my reply was Brit embassies are fucking useless.  Here’s why.

What follows is not totally factual but reflects the feeling that one gets, as an expat, in countries like Qatar.  Qatar is Islamic, it works on the Sharia Law, it has a Civil Code but unless you are a member of the Royal Family that means nothing.

So, here you are; you want/need to replace your passport.  You go to the embassy and speak to a very English gentleman.

“Hi, I need to renew my passport because it’s full, it hasn’t expired so can you point me in the right direction please?”

“Have you downloaded the form?”

“Er, yes from the FCO website.”

“Ah, good.  Send it to Dusseldorf.”

“Um, I’m here in Qatar and of course I need my passport for work so it would be really good if you could renew it for me.”

Sharp intake of breath. “Oh no, we don’t do that.”

“Hmm, so why do I have to send it to Dusseldorf?”

“Well we decided that looking after the petty beaurocracy associated with passport renewal was, well, somewhat tedious.  So now we tell people to send their requests to Dusseldorf.”

“But I’m British and it is a British passport!”

“And?”

“Ok, accepting the passport situation, can you tell me what you’d do if I was arrested for say, chewing gum in public during Ramadan?”

“Probably ignore it.”

“Sorry?”

“Well, you’ve come here to work so you obviously know the laws, so why should we worry?  Do you chew gum by the way?”

“No.” 

“Well then what are you worried about?”

Taking another tack.  “Well then, if I were to have a serious accident which subsequently proved fatal, would the Embassy arrange the repatriation of my body and keep my family informed?”

“Are you insured?”

“Well yes.”

“Nope.”

“Er, you are here to look after the British expats aren’t you?”

“Oh, good lord no.  We’re here to look after British interests.  That means we arrange trips for local dignitaries to the UK where they can buy up businesses, spend their cash on various entertainments and generally have a good time.  

As to you, I suggest you go to DHL and send off that passport before you are jailed as an illegal.”

Labour Hypocrisy Pt2 the follow up.......

Just to make things clear, my point yesterday concerned a Labour supporter's view that an alleged breach of the 1998 Data Protection Act, by the Government, was equal to the opposition questioning the government's crime statistics.  I was prompted to reconsider my position by a comment on the blog post, so to set the record straight.

Thecrime statistics quoted by Chris Grayling MP in February and at the time so vociferously refuted by; not only the UK Statistics Office but of course the Labour government, were found to be closer to the truth.  See this report.  I am therefore led to believe that Labour supporters must condone the alleged breach of a statute and at the same time must be completely blind to the obvious increase in crime.

Labour Hypocrisy

I was not really surprised at the assertion of a Labour supporter on Twitter, that the following two posters reproduced from The Straight Choice were considered  "Frankly Disgraceful", yet when I suggested to her that Labour's cancer mail shot which can only have resulted from using protected data (probably medical records) was pretty diabolical, the resulting silence was........................ er deafening.

I do of course refer to s7 of the Data Protection Act 1998 (1998 c 29) wherein an individual is entitled to be informed of the circumstances of where and to whom his or her data is being disclosed.

So whilst the posters may be distasteful they are not illegal.  However identifying cancer sufferers from medical records (unless it was a massive lucky guess) is a contravention of the 1998 Act.  I'd almost recommend those people who were targeted by Labour's disgraceful action, take their case to the European Court of Human rights.

No matter what happens in the General Election the despicable ingrates who perpetrated this opportunist electioneering scam should be locked up.

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Tweet others as you would tweet yourself

As Stewart Mclennan has discovered it's not what you tweet its how you tweet it.  Its all a question of context.

Had he not been the Labour Party's candidate for Moray, nobody would have cared about his extremely rude and ignorant tweets.  However he was that party's man and he was plain daft. As a result many people are looking at what they tap into their keyboards and making sure it doesn't cause problems.  But its not that easy.

I've been involved in a major contractual litigation, which resulted in my being cross examined under oath by one of the UK's leading Barristers.  Clearly, other than to explain my absence from various tweetups etc. I've mentioned nothing about the case, however it has resulted in a lot of air travel between my work location and the UK and because I've been in London, I obviously took the chance to attend one or two of my favourite pubs.

The first question I encountered in the witness box after the affirmation was "Did you enjoy your pint of Young's Special last night?".  This was a reference to a tweet that I had sent at around 7:30pm.  It was not actually a surprise because I'd noticed the opposition's solicitors had been browsing my linked in profile over the previous week or so.  However it was a surprise that he'd open up with that.   His next one was quite interesting.  He quoted a post from a week before which went "Before criticizing someone take a walk in their shoes, then when you do you'll be a mile away and you have their shoes."  Missing out the second half he asked me if I wrote it.  Yes, I said, "And is that how you treated my clients in your dealings with them?" or words to that effect. Of course there's no answer to that because he'd taken the post completely out of context.  I just suggested it was a good way of working.  Then we carried on for approximately four hours.

So, in my case it wasn't anything bad just how it was used against me for other purposes.  This is where I think Iain Dale the political blogger is coming from when he suggest that all tweets of the party activists should be reviewed.  Its not that people cannot be trusted indeed other than the complete idiots such as our ex Labour Party candidate, people will just tweet good stuff.  But as I've demonstrated above, these things can and will be used against you.

Of course it also beggars belief that leading members of the Labour party were reading Mr McLennan's tweets, yet did nothing about it.  Perhaps they shared his views?

ET Phone home

So here's the deal.  You're a grown man living in the modern world.  A world that you've seen change a few times admittedly, but still here you are.  Trouble is you're the leader of the political party that is actually governing one of the most strategically important countries in the world.  As leader of that party you are also the leader of that country and you've spent the past three years effectively blaming the rest of the world for making your life difficult.  On top of that, you've sold off all of that country's gold reserves.  But it doesn't stop there.

You are called to an enquiry to explain why the army that your then leader sent to a foreign land to fight for oil,  you didn't give them the necessary cash to buy the proper equipment.  Your explanation is that nobody told you it was a problem and you increased the budget anyway. To use a well worn phrase, tell that to the army.

So you are coming to the end of your tenure and an election is near, although only you can call it and so far you've missed two opportunities.  In fact today you are in Afghanistan to see those troops you mentioned yesterday as having all the equipment their generals said they needed.  Then today on twitter, we are told that you've given an interview to the Tesco magazine about your mother.

Now if very sadly your mother is no longer with us, I offer my condolences.  However with us or not, what do you take us, the voters, for?  Do you really think we are daft enough to believe that the perpetrator (or should that be perpeTRAITOR) of the acts of selling England by the pound, killing our soldiers by reducing funding and wasting the country's remaining funds on saving the banks (which as we knew then was totally unnecessary), has actually got a semblance of heart.

Well, I'm sure you do but as the doyen of afternoon TV would say.  Goodbye Gordon Brown, you are the weakest link.  And I would add that if you had a semblance of backbone you walk now.

Brown's Britain 2015 and even the Queen has fled

Dateline: London, March 1, 2015


The State of Emergency introduced in May 2010 is to be extended for another five years, Prime Minister-for-Life Gordon Brown announced in London yesterday.

Such was the scale of the crisis facing the country that a General Election could only lead to instability.

Labour would continue in power indefinitely, Brown pledged. He was getting on with the job, taking the difficult decisions, which is what people wanted him to do.

This was no time for a novice, the Prime Minister-for-Life insisted. The people had spoken when they rejected the Etonian salesman Cameron in May 2010. There was no need for a fresh mandate.

Even though the Conservatives won the popular vote and became the largest party at Westminster, they failed to secure an overall majority in the Commons, as a result of boundary changes introduced by Labour.

For almost a week after the results were declared, Brown refused to leave Number 10 Downing Street. The only evidence that someone was still inside was the fusillade of mobile phones and computer keyboards being thrown out of the windows.

Eventually, he put out a deranged statement on YouTube in which he blamed the election result on the low turn-out caused by the worst winter weather in 30 years, which began in America.

When the Queen invited him to the Palace to ask for his resignation, he declined on the grounds that Sarah was washing her hair that day. He was getting on with the job, taking the difficult decisions, which is what people wanted him to do.

Several days later, Brown announced via Twitter that he intended to form a government of national unity. Although his initial overtures to the LibDems to join a coalition were rejected, Nick Clegg relented when Brown promised to introduce a full system of proportional representation during the lifetime of the Parliament.

In his first Budget, the new Chancellor Ed Balls said that Labour planned to increase 'investment' by £100 billion a year to stave off recession, which started in America.

This would include an immediate expansion of the council house building programme to accommodate the ten million extra immigrants expected to arrive in the next decade, as well as hundreds of thousands more unmarried, teenage mothers living on welfare.

As part of an emergency financial package, Britain's remaining gold reserves were sold off to one of those firms which advertise on daytime television, yielding almost £47.50.

Since this fell some way short of the national debt of £2 trillion, further measures were needed. The 'rich' would have to pay their fair share.

The Government announced the top rate of tax was being increased to 110 per cent on all incomes above £50,000, VAT was to rise to 50 per cent and stamp duty would be levied at 33 per cent on all property sales, except caravans and mobile homes belonging to members of the travelling community.

Hedge fund managers and most of the City of London had already decamped abroad to avoid penal rates of taxation.

They were followed in quick succession by thousands of British plumbers and bricklayers, who decided to seek a better life in Poland.

The financial markets went into meltdown. When the pound plunged to parity with the Zimbabwean dollar, the IMF cut off Britain's line of credit.

In a desperate attempt to prevent national insolvency, Balls approached several of those companies, promoted by Carol Vorderman, which promise to consolidate all your loans into one easy monthly payment, even if you have CCJs. But he was turned down flat.

Unemployment rocketed to 25 per cent, except in Newcastle, the North-West, Scotland and Northern Ireland, where nine out of ten people now work for the Government.

Vince Cable resigned from Parliament to become guest host of Strictly Come Dancing, after being overlooked for Chancellor when Balls resigned following a fist fight with Brown, which the Prime Minister-for-Life later denied, saying he'd never hit anyone, honest.

The LibDems left the coalition soon afterwards, when it became apparent Brown had no intention of fulfilling his promise to introduce PR.

After failing to form a new alliance with Sinn Fein, Respect and Nick Griffin (BNP MP for Barking), Brown declared a State of Emergency, under powers drawn up in wartime.

He claimed that he had the authority, since the threat from the economic crisis, which began in America, was at least as great as that posed by the Nazis in 1939, or his name wasn't Winston Churchill.

As Britain was now a full province of the European Union, pursuant to a little-known clause hidden in the small print of the Lisbon Treaty, Parliament was abolished.

That was when Brown declared himself Prime Minister-for-Life. His position was endorsed by the new President-in-Perpetuity of Europe, Lord Mandelson, speaking from his official suite on board a Russian yacht off Corfu.

Protesters who tried to storm Downing Street were repelled by three divisions of the European Defence Force, under the command of an EU Reichsmarschall from the 17th Panzer Division, now garrisoned at Aldershot.

Several attempts by forces loyal to former Prime Minister Tony Blair to mount a leadership coup ended in failure.

Brown said there was no need for anyone to worry that they might lose their seats at the next election, since he had no intention of ever holding one.

After the publication of the Chilcot Inquiry into Iraq, Blair himself was arrested for war crimes as he arrived at Heathrow from Switzerland, where he had moved after his 'non-dom' status in Britain was revoked.

The European Arrest Warrant was executed personally by the new Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Ali Dizaei, who was promoted and awarded £2 million compensation for 'racism' when his prison sentence for corruption was overturned by Lord Chief Justice Keith Vaz.

At the same hearing, Vaz refused to commute a five-year jail sentence given to a 72-year-old pensioner from Walsall, who was caught on CCTV walking her pet labrador without a licence.

The decision was welcomed by the Prime Minister-for-Life, who claimed it was conclusive evidence that his tough law-and-order policies were cutting crime.

Despite the dire financial crisis at home and the collapse of the currency abroad, which had seen petrol rise to £10 a litre (when available), Brown continues to pose as a world statesman.

But his plans to hold a 'global warming' summit in London in January 2012 had to be cancelled because of the continuing bad weather.

That month saw widespread power cuts, following the failure of Britain's last decrepit nuclear power station and record low temperatures, which caused every single one of the 50,000 wind turbines erected across the country to freeze solid, snap in half and fall over.

Six months later, Argentina invaded the Falklands again. This time the Argentines were welcomed with open arms. The islanders were so disillusioned with events back 'home' that they said they were ashamed to be British.

When Brown phoned the White House to ask for help, President Obama refused to take his call, on account of the fact he was playing golf with Tiger Woods.

With the Government distracted by the invasion overseas and by the food riots at home, Bradford, Leicester and Blackburn unilaterally declared that they were now independent Islamic states operating under Sharia law.

The Queen abdicated and moved at the invitation of Lord Ashcroft to Belize, where her neighbours include David Cameron, William Hague and Lord Paul.

In March 2015, the number of British citizens seeking asylum abroad overtook the number of people claiming asylum in Britain.

When Brown's last-ditch application to join the euro was vetoed by Greece, the Tory leader Boris Johnson demanded, from his villa in Turkey, that an immediate General Election should be called.

But speaking to TV's Sir Piers Morgan OBN on Newsnight, the Prime Minister-for-Life wiped away tears and said this was no time for a novice, certainly not another stuck-up Etonian salesman.

He was getting on with the job of saving the world, which is what people wanted him to do. An election would only lead to insanity

United we fall?

Ok, I confess, I like British airways.  There I've said it.  Like someone who is an alcoholic it's seen to be something of a major issue to suggest that British Airways is actually quite good.  But it is.  I've travelled on Singapore, Malaysian, Qatar, Delta, KLM, Air France, Lufthansa, Turkish, Aeroflot et al.  All are quite good (except Delta which has seriously scary cabin staff), but when you climb those steps or walk down that sky gate in New Delhi, Qatar, Moscow, Budapest, you know you're home.

About eighteen months ago I got chatting to a lady who, it transpired, is/was a member of the BA cabin crew.  She'd been visiting Doha on personal business, using the airline perk of 10% fares.  At this time I recall paying around £700.00 for my (Premium Economy) return trip to Doha and she'd paid around £30 (10% of coach class fare).  Not that it worried me in the slightest because although I pay my own fares I get good service and if cabin crew can obtain a good deal as a result of providing such a service then so be it.  Anyway we boarded the aircraft and she was immediately whisked upstairs (a 747) to Club class which seemed a very good deal for £30.00!

So, with the above tale in mind I was somewhat gobsmacked, to say the least when at Christmas the first Unite strike ballot revealed that these people get pretty good salaries.  A purser can earn up to £55k per annum (approximately) and still get those benefits.  For what it's worth there are some very highly qualified individuals in the construction industry, responsible for the safety and welfare of workers, known as construction managers, with university degrees who earn a similar sum but get none of those perks.  I'm not decrying the educational standards of the BA staff nor am I suggesting that they should be treated as lesser individuals than the construction manager types.  But for goodness' sake, this Unite bunch are not only trying to close the airline down they're actually making supporters like me reconsider which airline I travel with.  I can, for instance pay a little more and travel business class with Gulf Air and I'm seriously considering it.  Time for Unite to get real methinks.

I will be sad to see it go but having been jerked around at Christmas, I'm of a mind to not worry if they survive or not.  And another thing.  Gordon Brown stole a major lump of my pension, even before the Government imposed recession, so why should I care if these BA people lose their final salary pensions?  Its the way of the world but contrary to the current Labour idea of fairness, it just proves that life isn't fair.

So, my friends in BA, when you find there's no airline to work for and your pensions are frozen at whatever the selling rate is from the bankruptcy sale you'll really enjoy paying full fare for coach class, if and when you can afford it. 

Win Mo or S60?

I got into PDA's rather late.  My first was a HP 6515c in 2005 and I like that form factor.  Since then I've had a TytnII which frankly still does everything I want it to do.  The problem comes with having a local (Qatari) business sim and of course my UK roaming sim......

Due to a collapse of my old Nokia mobile which carried my UK sim card, I decided to use the opportunity and replace it with a new E72.  This is a report I placed on the forum at Smartphone Daily.

Ok, having had the E72 for a week and played with it I think its time to give an initial report. I've applied a simple score to each important (for me) criteria. You will note that I've weighted each criteria out of ten and then applied a score based upon my personal preference to provide a comparison. From the table below you will see that from a possible 700 the E72 scores 587 whereas the TytnII scores 511.

Criteria/Weight/HTC TytnII/Score/Nokia E72/Score

Battery Life - 8/4/32/10/80
Apps as supplied - 7/7/49/7/49
Ease of Use PIM - 6/7/42/8/48
Screen Resolution
(Daylight) - 9/2/18/10/90
Phone Experience - 10/7/70/10/100
Internet Connectivity - 10/10/100/4/40
Keyboard - 10/10/100/10/100
Ability to leave
laptop @ home - 10/10/100 /8/80

Totals 700/ 511/ 587

On the face of it then the Nokia wins hands down but there's a bit more to it than that.

Over here in Qatar you don't get all inclusive data usage, I pay 10 Riyals per MB which equates to Pst1.80, so you can see that is a very important issue. Sadly the Nokia will not hold on to the Wireless LAN no matter what I do. So the first week has cost me 53 pounds! For a business device I consider this to be an abject failure. I can make it connect but as soon as I ask it to browse/download it defaults to the cell, unless I go offline, which kind of defeats the object of a smartphone.

I think the installed apps are about the same as a Win Mo device, indeed Quickoffice is basically Win Mo lite, thus to produce the kind of reports I do I will need to buy further software. The pre installed maps thing is no better than Google maps so really a waste of space. Overall no different to the TytnII so no absolute advantage here.

I've always maintained that Nokia make the best mobile phones and the E72 is no exception. Easy to dial numbers/input basic contact info. It does well here compared to the TytnII, but the actual contacts and calendar set up is much better on the TytnII hence there's little difference in the score. Messaging is virtually the same on both devices so again no clear advantage.

Screen resolution is far superior on the Nokia.

As to battery life, this has always been an issue with Win Mo which is why we carry spare booster batteries on long journeys. The Nokia lasts at least 48hrs between charges.

Could I leave the laptop at home? Well with the software I've got on the TytnII then yes, but more than that it behaves like a laptop so scores better than the Nokia thus I feel more confident in traveling with the TytnII.

I realise the TytnII is getting long in the tooth but it still stands up to comparison and it does its job very well. In my opinion the E72 doesn't offer a significantly better experience to the extent that I would recommend changing from Win Mo to S60. That said I do like the Nokia as a "lite" business device so it will do for now.

Oh and the OVI thing? Keeps asking for my login and then rejects me so another failure.

Also I suspect the media software on the Nokia is superior to that on the TytnII but I haven't tried it, other than the camera which is very good but not high on my list of priorities.

Burj Khalifa Branded "Pointless" By Germans

Well is it?

In the Middle East, There is generally no business plan involved in building the tallest/longest/deepest structure, it just has to prove you've got money.  This is the reason it was built.  So there is substance to the pointless argument.  American Architect, Samsung C&T of South Korea as the main contractor and "expat" (read Indian, Philipino, Indonesian, etc.) labour.  Let's face it the only local input was money.  It therefore wasn't built to demonstrate the construction prowess of the local community.

All of which means I can't get into the celebration of the building itself, it isn't even particularly pleasant to look at, although tall structures like the Burj Al Arab hotel are, to me, pleasing to the eye.  But from an engineering viewpoint I look forward to the reviews in a couple of years after the initial start up and "running-in" period, if you will.  Then we'll know if there are limits to what we can build in terms of height.

So, not entirely pointless then.