BLBG Meeting 13th December

What do etiquette, ethical hacking and efficiency have in common?

They were all discussed at the BLBG meeting last Tuesday 13th December.

Sonia Sabbah, a Lebanese brought up in the UK, returned to her native Beirut and decided that a manual of how to treat one’s fellow (wo)men was needed. She has written a comprehensive guide on how to behave on the road (treat it as shared), in nightclubs (don’t bring weapons!), restaurants (don’t flick your fingers to attract the waiter’s attention) and … well perhaps you’d better buy the book “Etiquette in the City: Beirut” to find out.

A fish in sea (say it out load) were up next. As well as being a BLBG sponsor , they are a UK consulting, design and software development company. Kais al-Kaissi is building their client set in the Middle East from a base in Beirut and gave us a quick run through their capabilites.

And then we welcomed Tony Chebli from Credit Libanais, a poacher turned gamekeeper if ever there was one. Starting as a teen-age hacker of web-sites he now uses his skills and capabilities to advise companies on how to avoid “being promoted from Target to Victim” of Cyber-Crime.

And what skills! Here’s a man who can guess your password by seeming to crawl around inside your skull and work out how you think. He knows how to turn a simple document into a stealth weapon. He knows how to hide himself inside your computer and make it do naughty things in your name. I’m glad he’s on our side!
If it were just him who could do it, that would be fine, but no, there’s a lot of people out there and the baddies are busy – some web-sites are being attacked at the rate of seven times a second or over 5,000,000 times a day, and the average is thirty times an hour.

What’s more anyone with a computer and credit card is at risk of fraud, identity theft or being turned into a zombie, OK not a a real “Village of the Damned” one, but creepy it is to have your stuff, in this case your PC, taken over by faceless controllers.

So what do we do?

Well, it’s the usual common sense stuff that gets the best reward. Here’s a loose translation of what your Mum and Dad taught you as a kid. “Don’t talk to strangers” equals “Don’t open strange emails”. “Don’t leave your door unlocked” becomes “create difficult passwords” – me123 isn’t good enough. “Be alert” becomes “Keep your computer up to date”. “Beware Greeks bearing gifts” becomes “Don’t use free software from an unknown source”. And last but by no means least, listen to those in the know. Like Tony.

Now it has to be etiquette to offer thanks to all our speakers for their effort, enthusiasm and knowledge.

Sue died on Monday

Sue is, or rather was, my baby sister and only sibling. Statistically expected to survive me by a good dozen years, the fates decreed that she got her turn first.

Ever since she was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer in May last year the outcome has been inevitable, but what a fight she put up. I know now what a battle with cancer looks like. More like a full scale war really with major battles on the way, some of which she won. Medical science (chemo and radiation), an iron will (“I’m living with cancer, not dying from it”) and a constitution any ox would be proud of contributed to her post-diagnosis stay in this world being about double what we had a right to expect.

During what turned out to be our last conversation, Sue asked me if I’d deliver the eulogy at her funeral (a one-time banker, she didn’t like leaving things to chance). When that’s done, I’ll post it or a précis at least, this is much more about my personal reaction.

Even though some pre-grieving had been done, nothing prepares you for the moment. The ‘phone rang just after eight in the morning. No-one in Beirut calls that early, especially on the house ‘phone. The hairs on the back of my neck began to stand out before I picked up the receiver; Sue’s husband’s tone told the story before the words tumbled madly out, no more than confirming what was already known.

I’ve written elsewhere in this blog about dealing with grief. Part of mine is to communicate, so I phoned steadily for about three hours. Then I began to organise myself to go across to England and I realised that something odd had happened to my memory. I would start purposefully across a room, only to realise half-way across that I’d completely forgotten what I’d set off to do. Of course my memory was fully occupied with playing memories of Sue, not worrying about keys, clothes or even credit cards.

I got here yesterday morning. My brother-in-law rang. My mobile announced “Sue calling”. He wanted to explain the funeral arrangements, which were stated and absorbed in a matter-of-fact way but I can’t bring myself to delete her name from my mobile yet, that’s far too final. The same thing with Skype.

During the last few difficult weeks, we’ve spoken most days. Fairly early on we came to an agreement. She didn’t want my last memories of her to be as she was at the end; “it’s grim” she said. And, as someone (she not I) with a strong belief in the next world, she didn’t want her last earthly memories of me to be of me looking at her physically diminished self. I had much the same opinion. Fortunately we’d spent a late summer weekend revisiting places of long ago family holidays with our parents in the South of England. That was an implicit goodbye.

What is truly important is to remember that she has been part of my life for over sixty years and a good part at that. Not only are there those shared childhood memories that only siblings can have but all the family events, the triumphs and disasters, the happy and sad, the commonplace and unusual as well as the births, marriages and deaths.

I know we should all “celebrate the life” “head for the future born on the strong wings of the past” and other fancy sound-bites, but I can’t help feeling that the world is now a lonelier, emptier place.

New Chancellor for Cambridge University

Cambridge University elected a new Chancellor this week, HRH Prince Philip having stood down after thirty-five years. The Chancellor is the figure-head of the University, awards honorary degrees, is the public relations voice of the institution and is the guardian of its public image. He gets to wear a really great coat (black silk, gold, a hat to go with it and so on) when representing the university; oh, and there’s a big stick that comes with the hat and coat. No wonder HRH looks so happy.

Except for a three year stint by Field-Marshall Jan Smuts, Princes, Dukes, Earls, Marquises & Lords have held the role in unbroken line since Cromwell’s time. Chancellors are elected by the Senate of the University, a largish and eclectic bunch of people including HRH Prince Charles (I think) and me (I know!). Since all that is required to belong to the senate is to possess the right sort of degree (not just any of the collection please note) from Cambridge, my only claim to connection with royalty is shared by tens of thousands of others, but I degrees, I mean digress … again.

Candidates for the job need to be proposed by a group of fifty senators. So, the senate creates a nominating sub-committee made up half and half of the great and the good and what might be termed ordinary members. Lots of thinking goes into choosing the right sort of chap (there hasn’t been a female chancellor yet) as the official candidate and that’s supposed to be pretty well that as the election hasn’t been contested since circa 1850. No election needed. Lord Sainsbury, head of the food retailing family, was approached, wanted the job and was nominated.

Every city and many towns boast their Sainsbury’s supermarket and its stores have even been mentioned in popular song Chas & Dave's "Rabbit". Indeed the retail chain are about to build one in Cambridge itself. Now building a supermarket is a really good way to upset local shop-keepers. Enter Abdul Arain, a Cambridge grocer who got the support of fifty senators and thus a nomination for himself, as a protest against the new supermarket.

But it didn’t stop there. A renowned lawyer joined in and then up popped Brian Blessed, a well-known actor with perhaps the most physically powerful voice in Britain and a capable climber (three attempts at Everest). He can sing too. His face book campaign projected him as committed, dedicated and an enthusiastic potential ambassador for the University. He is also one of the least politically correct people in the universe. This is the candidate I’ll go for.

OK, so how do I vote? While the campaigns have been fought over the internet, senators have to go to the University senate house and vote in person – that’s the way it’s been done since 1246 or thereabouts. Even that’s not enough though, you can only get in to vote if you are wearing the gown of the degree that qualifies you as a senator. “Would that be the first time you’ve worn a dress to a public occasion?” a friend asked. “It’s not that sort of a gown” I had to explain.

I am somewhat ashamed to say that I did not take a flight from Beirut, never mind the taxis and trains needed to get to Cambridge from Heathrow. And that’s perhaps why the Blessed Brian did not get in. So I’m going to make a public plea – pamper us next time. Tradition is a fine thing, but, like moderation, should not be taken to excess. I mean, there’s a railway station in Cambridge, a motorway specially built to get there. And quite soon there’ll be a modern Sainsbury’s supermarket, not to mention a Sainsbury’s Chancellor.

So voting on-line isn’t going to be such a big step. I’d even wear my gown to vote and upload the event to YouTube!

Another form of virtual reality? Yes, your CV!

How do you write a CV that will impress?

Now you’d think that the business of reading and writing curriculum vitae was a seriously boring subject, in fact, if you’ve got this far, then well done, BUT …

Advising on how to condense into a few words your working strengths, personality, character and approach to life has become a veritable industry. I’m on the receiving end at the moment, trawling through tens of CVs to try to find candidates that will be able to perform a job that I want done. It seems to me that the first rule of CV writing is to throw out all modesty and recognize that the objective of the CV is not to tell the truth but to get an interview.

For a potential employer, the no-no is an unexplained gap. I remember being persuaded to interview a chap who’d had eight consecutive years unexplained on his job history. Now, OK, I’m not David Frost, but people do sometimes open up. It transpired that the fellow had been insulted in a pub and, in a fit of rage turned on his tormentor and … killed him. Convicted of murder, he was released after eight years for “good behavior”. Now what does that mean, that he didn’t knife anyone else while inside???

OK, so not all the gaps will be explained by prison sentences, and anyway, the whole idea of a prison sentence is that on completion the debt to society has been paid and the slate wiped clean. (Do I hear a ragged chorus of “yeah, right”.) There are plenty of other reasons for spending time without work, that is being (and get ready for the word) unemployed. And a terrible word it is; unemployed is a word with innuendos of poverty for my parents’ generation and failure for mine.

For the current generation, however, it’s become an opportunity for the CV spin doctors. Hide it with other words. How about “dynamically exploiting the opportunities for creative self-awareness”, or “touching life’s endless bounties during every waking minute, unfettered by externally imposed interruptions”. I have to admit that the second one is a bit of invention, but I saw the first one on a letter attaching a CV a few weeks ago.

OK let’s leave the realm of nothing at all and get round to those menial jobs of youth. How do we spin those evenings spent serving beer for cash at the Student’s Union? “Client facing national beverage dispensing operative, with full revenue responsibility” perhaps.

Having a paper round? “Information logistics supply specialist”.

You get the picture, I’m sure. So onto another aspect of document writing, how do you put a security classification on CV? Out goes “highly confidential and top secret” ’cos you want it read by anyone who’s going to give you a salary, so how about “highly un-confidential and of extreme self-importance”?

Now what actually inspired all this? Well, seeing on a CV lists of supposed knowledge. The inventive individual concerned grouped skills under “expertise” and “technical knowledge”. Technical knowledge meant he’d read a book on the subject and expertise meant he’d tried to use the knowledge at least once (with or without success was left to the imagination).

So, to answer the question posed at the start of this little piece,
• By all means gift wrap reality, but don’t create expectations that can’t be fulfilled
• Be creative about what you got out of an experience, but don’t make the experience other than what it was.
• Remember that if the CV is going to get you an interview, you’re going to have justify what’s written on the CV.

Now how will I package the writing of this blog, I wonder, on my own CV? Well I won’t. I just attach the blog address to the bottom of each email and hope that people enjoy at least some of the pieces I write.

A poem about the Internet

Well now, after some months of hiatus, there's a new government here. So there's a chance that not only will someone see this, but might actually take some notice. OK, I can dream can't I?

Electrons do not make a sound
As nuclei they circle round
Nor in the wires both short and long
No sight, no sound, no hint of pong.

Well that last one is not quite true,
Some melting insulation drew
A crowd, attracted by the smell
And then repulsed, it ran pell mell

But I digress, that’s nothing new,
From what I want to talk to you
About, and that’s the internet
And what it does, let’s not forget

It joins up people everywhere
And in an instant, always there
With words and pictures, even sound
On every day the whole year round.

How is this miracle achieved?
And doing all at near light speed?
It’s those electrons running well
(They go just like a bat from hell).

From here to there’s no time at all
For them, it’s like our “down the hall”
To go from Frisco to Beirut
While passing Birmingham en route.

They’ll stick together, as a group
Forming an odd quantum soup
To carry letters, videos,
And pictures of a baby’s toes

Beginning forty years ago,
The internet, it started slow
Just joining learnèd ’cross the seas
For each to share their latest wheeze

But now housewives and judges use
(As long as nothing blows a fuse)
Oh, yes it’s here for everyone
PLEASE SPEED IT UP IN LEBANON

"For a Brighter Future"

Losing a child is perhaps the most devastating blow that can be imagined for a family.
All credit to the family of Karim Rayess then for setting up the Tamanna charitable foundation in 2005 to celebrate his short life. The aim of the foundation is simple – turning tears into laughter. It’s a sort of latter day “Jim’ll fix it” for kids who are seriously ill, and they’ve persuaded the British singer James Blunt to give a charity concert at Biel on 27th June, tickets available from Virgin. How have they done that? Well, because a child expressed the wish to see him sing!
Announced at the start of the British Lebanese Business Group’s meeting last Tuesday, it’s being strongly supported by the British Embassy here, as an initiative from a local foundation and as a British cultural event.
Which led us neatly (you'll see why) on to our main speaker, Bashra Salha, who gave us an exposition of the work of an organisation, the British Lebanese Association, set up in the UK during the Civil War by concerned Lebanese living there and British Friends to promote cultural links between the two countries. As a by-product, it has generated money for charities since its inception.
Again, the focus for benefit is the young, and specifically through education. For example, there is a Scholarship Fund for assisting Lebanese young men and women pursue post-graduate courses in Britain and direct assistance to Arc-en-Ciel, who are integrating disabled children into mainstream schools here in Lebanon.
Fund-raising has so far been exclusively in Britain, but this year will spread to Lebanon for the first time.
More details can be found on www.britishlebanese.org and www.arcenciel.org
So our meeting this time was not for planning, and money and facts but to provide us all with the opportunity to reflect on the most important of activities for those of us lucky enough to have achieved some standing in life – to pass our knowledge and wisdom (such as it might be) onto the next generation, and across the spectrum from those with obvious ability and talent and to those whose start has been less fortunate.
And so to the title of this little piece - it's the slogan of the British Lebanese Association's flagship fundraising event this year. A concept, however, with mulitple applications, and even useable in the worst imaginable situations.

Don't forget the Duty Frees

“Did you know the Irish invented duty free shops?” asked an Irish acquaintance a day or two ago.

Now it was April Fools’ Day, suggesting that perhaps I was having my leg gently pulled. On the other hand, “don’t forget the ‘duty frees’!” has long meant get your quota of cheap booze when you travel, so, given the Irish desire to pack away the hard stuff, it seemed quite reasonable that the they might well have invented the idea. Before I get a whole pile of complaints about insulting the Irish, let me point out that a lot of my great-great-grandparents left Ireland in the 1840’s famines. It was only a matter of luck and great good fortune, at least from my perspective, that they caught boats going east to Liverpool and Glasgow, rather than west to New York.

Anyway, I tried to do a bit of checking. The manager of the DFS in Dubai is Irish; the manager here in Beirut is Irish and the connection is there in others around the globe too. One exception is London’s Heathrow. Although the airport is owned by the Spanish, the DFS is owned by an Italian company – QuickGrill – a name that doesn’t really capitalise on any aspect I recognise of the cuisine that country is famous for.

“Famous for” well, let’s strain links a bit and connect to the “Famous Five”, a series of children’s adventure books written by that most English of authoresses – Enid Blyton. At least one of her series (Mallory Towers) is being added to many years after her death – but by a German.

In that spirit of globalisation, the British Company Gauchos which concentrates on Argentine specialities has opened its first restaurant outside the UK here in Beirut and have kindly offered to host the British Lebanese Business Group’s next meeting.

Whoops that wasn’t so much of a digression more heading off in a completely different direction; so, let’s get back to the subject in hand. It seems that there is indeed a very significant Irish business owning and/or operating DFSs all over the globe, so hats off to the Irish for finding a way round customs duties. Who invented them by the way? (Customs duties, not the Irish.) Well it seems that that the Romans did and the Boadicea uprising was at least partly inspired by the abuses of corrupt Roman tax collectors.

There is a sense of irony then that nearly two thousand years after an English revolt against Roman customs duties, the aforementioned Heathrow duty free is owned by Italians, albeit Milanese.

Surgery - the aftermath

I’m really glad to be back home after Wednesday’s surgery at Beirut’s American University Hospital (AUH).

Don’t misunderstand, the hospital staff, all Lebanese, were wonderful. Food appeared at regular intervals. A succession of nurses wrote their names and drew smiley faces on a strategically placed white board and insisted on pouring pain medication into me at regular intervals. I was interviewed on my experience by the head of nursing, the head of administration, a team of no less than six surgical residents (at least I think that’s what they were, sincere apologies if I have their titles wrong). The only problem was that my best thing had become sleeping; I’d suddenly got very good at it, dropping off without warning anywhere, anytime, probably because of all the pain killers! So my main experience was the bed and my major problem staying awake.

Topics of conversation were basic and limited. The sort of questions you’d hesitate to ask yourself in the privacy of your own bathroom had suddenly become subjects for group discussion. Normal rules of modesty and decorum had flown out of the window. “Do you mind if I shave you now, or would you rather wait until you’ve been anaesthetised?” my face was not in the equation, so I decided to watch and at least feel some semblance of control over the process. Some chaps, it seems, get quite exercised over the loss of body hair and can only be “done” when safely unconscious!

Strange it is then that in spite of having a veritable army of highly trained carers able to approach the most sensitive of topics with a disarming mixture of empathy and unconcern, I’m glad to be home in spite of all the problems posed. Problems? Well it’s amazing what we take for granted in daily life – the bed was too low for me to get back out of without assistance, so I spent the first night back home on a recliner – a friend once congratulated us on our swimming pool when seeing the master bathroom, but the sides assumed Everest proportions for a day or so; as for getting in and out of the car, well it’s just as well I can dial out the sound of horns honking.

I am under strict instructions to avoid driving and stairs for a week (especially at the same time, presumably!), and then not to cough, nor lift heavy weights nor take any exercise other than walking for six weeks. I’m not supposed to sneeze either, but have no idea how to stop that happening, oh and I have to watch what I eat but since the visual appeal of food is important to me, I always do that!.

Time to finish, I feel another snooze coming on, but at least I can choose now, the bed or the chair – that’s the main difficulty in being back home, all those decisions!

Surgery? - It's just routine!

On Wednesday I go under the surgeon’s knife.

“Don’t worry, a hernia is a very common problem in men, putting it right is a routine operation with a 96% probability of success,” intoned the instantly likeable fellow whom I’ve chosen to fillet me and stitch me back together again.

Now that sentence really needs some close examination. Routine. ROUTINE!! No it jolly well isn’t. Routine is having a cup of tea on waking each morning, routine is going to the supermarket once a week, routine is changing the bed sheets regularly, historians suggest that the Elizabethan habit of taking a bath twice a year was routine even if it was more regular than frequent. But injecting me with just enough poison to render me unconscious without killing me and then invading my insides with instruments I don’t ever want to see is definitely NOT routine.

And what about that 96% chance of success? Twenty-four to one on as the bookies put it. Pretty well a racing certainty, but would you bet your life savings even at those odds? Put differently, how would you feel about “your captain and crew wish to welcome you aboard KamiKaze airlines, there is a 4% chance of failure, but don’t worry and have a pleasant flight”? Get me to the emergency exit NOW.

Finally how about that rather arrogant “I have chosen” – it’s to give me the impression I’m still in some sort of control. Hmmm Graham, glad to see the art of self-delusion isn’t dead then are we? I was warned that he is a fanatical devotee of a certain European football club, so we consulted the match schedule to ensure there was no possibility of him operating on me the day after his side loses, an eventuality that brings on something akin to clinical depression apparently, and the last thing anyone needs is a suicidal surgeon. See - I’m still at it, kidding myself I’m controlling the date, when it’s actually just the first available one on his list.

Just in case you hadn’t spotted it, underneath this calm Anglo-Saxon sang-froid (this is Lebanon so mixing up languages is er, well, yes that’s the word - routine) logical acceptance is trying hard not to turn into emotional panic.

And then came a ‘phone call from a family friend – “Why didn’t you choose my husband to operate on you, he’s a pioneer in this field!” Oh dear, I’ve managed to offend someone as well. Suddenly the answer struck me, "Sorry, I didn't think he'd be interested in something 'routine'"!

Public speaking anyone? The English Speaking Union addresses the BLBG

What would you do with a spare $100?

Enjoy a celebration dinner for two? Buy a designer label shirt perhaps? Order the top five or so best selling books from Amazon? Start a successful organisation to promote the English language?

“Whoops, sorry, could you run that last one past me again please?” do I hear you say? Certainly, no problem, because that’s exactly what Youmna Asseily did in 2003.

Youmna is chairman of the Lebanese chapter of the English Speaking Union (ESU). A British charity, founded just after World War I, there are now over sixty other chapters in such diverse places as Australia, Brazil and China. Yesterday evening, Youmna addressed members of the British Lebanese Business Group (BLBG) with the stated objective of explaining the work of ESU Lebanon and as an aside showed us the power of oratory in action (that’s speaking to inspire - without the “help” of PowerPoint). A joy to watch and to listen to she was.

To digress, yesterday was International Women’s Day centenary, so to have Youmna address the BLBG on that day was both serendipitous and apposite. Her audience was not quite half ladies, but did include HE Ambassador Frances Guy, and the Director of the British Council, Barbara Hewitt a grouping that would have been rather different in 1911. Given that sixty per cent of UK graduates are now women, I suspect that the currently lowly percentage of women on the Boards and in charge of British companies will have changed dramatically in less than another hundred years.

But back to the ESU Lebanon – Youmna explained that it has four main programs to achieve its stated aim of promoting international cooperation through the use and practice of English. There’s an annual public speaking competition; ESU Lebanon are rightly proud that it was won by a Lebanese student last year, earning him a trip to Buckingham Palace to receive his award from Prince Phillip: doubtless a treasured memory for life. The Debating challenge, drama experience through a tie-up with the Shakespeare Globe Theatre and workshops in creative writing with the help of the University of Iowa make up the other three. Donations and memberships fund these and provide the means for sending a few lucky young people on scholarships too.

If you want to help the work of this organisation or just want to know more, click on the links to go direct to ESU Lebanon’s web-site. And if you can’t think of a way of spoiling yourself with that spare thirty odd dollars, never mind a hundred, you could always become a member of ESU Lebanon with it.

Don't just do something - SIT THERE!

“Don’t make a drama out of a crisis!”

So ran the slogan for an advertising campaign to promote a major insurance company some years ago; strange that it worked really, as theatres are full of people every night who pay to see a drama while crises are no great audience pullers that I’ve noticed.

Since life is supposed to ape art, let’s have a look at books and plays for a bit of inspiration. There’s really only one plot. Hero(ine) needs something badly and there will be dire consequences if (s)he doesn’t get it: Hamlet wants a crown, Harry Potter wants rid of Voldemort, Amanda wants to know who her father is (Mama Mia). Part I – Explanation of the “what” and “why” of the need, usually loss of life, self-worth, love, power or possessions if item isn’t obtained. Part II – Hero(ine) has numerous little triumphs and unexpected set-backs in pursuit of item. Part III – Hero(ine) ascends to glorious success or descends into dismal failure with feared adverse consequences. And it works for Lord of the Rings and Homer’s Odyssey too.

Those surprise set-backs are, of course, crises and the triumphs the resolution of them. Add heat (stir emotion into the mix) and take away light (so we can’t see what’s happening) and there it is – a drama. Well hey-ho, a crisis is a nasty surprise that’s got seriously out of hand and a drama is much the same but with more heat and less light.

This gives us a clue on how deservedly to earn that great complement “(s)he’s a good (wo)man in a crisis.” Keep the lights turned up, the heat turned down and best thinking cap firmly on head. “Analyse before doing anything else” is the first rule of crisis management.

Listen to the news: earthquake, fire, flood, revolution, they’ve all happened before – and people have coped well and/or badly with them (the Titanic was an example of both). So there’s plenty of prior experience in dealing with those sudden surprise set-backs. That leads to the second rule of crisis management, once you know what you’re dealing with, find something that worked previously and use it to make a plan.

A general principle of my life, noted elsewhere on this blog, is applied laziness. Work out once how to do something, then re-apply it. In the course of a crisis, if you can re-use someone else’s plan, do so. There are ethics & laws that mean we cannot steal the creativity, the patents or the work of others, but coping with a crisis? Not at all, use anything available, providing only that it has been proven to work, in short – Plagiarise. Some people call that experience, but, whatever you call it – make a plan. These first two phases (Analyse then Plan) can be summed up as the “don’t just do something, SIT THERE!” part and wow, is that difficult!

Right, we understand the problem; we’ve got a plan to deal it: only after that should we do and then with the utmost despatch. “Action this day” to quote Churchill. Get moving and don’t stop except to test that the plan is working.

There it is, Analyse, Plagiarise, Execute (I’d liked to have written an alliterative ‘exercise’, but the meaning’s wrong) – APE for short. Crisis managed.

Of course, if we want to sell tickets, turn off the lights and turn up the heat to create a drama – not advised. Now I see why the slogan worked.

First Impressions of Saudi Arabia

Finally I’ve seen it, well a bit of it anyway.

I’m talking about the largest Arab country, in size anyway – the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, aka KSA. “What do you think of it?” “How did you find it?” have been common questions both while I was there and since coming back to Lebanon.

Well, it’s like Nevada, but without Las Vegas. It’s very flat, there’s lots of sand and the roads are wide and well made. Pedestrians, however, are rare and the driving standards don’t really match the road system: dawdlers in the fast lane are a regular feature, even though a full tank of petrol is less than a tenner. And there’s a lot of land, so, while real estate and petrol are both ridiculously expensive in London, packets of land and tanks full of petrol are readily and cheaply obtainable.

I liked the appearance of the buildings in Riyadh, not just the spectacular Kingdom Tower (known locally as the bottle opener) and the Al Faisaliyah Centre with which it’s aligned, but the ordinary shops, offices and houses. There isn’t the architectural indigestion that Dubai’s tallest, widest, longest, biggest approach creates, nor is there that feeling of utilitarian concrete overuse apparent in some of the Beirut suburbs, so good marks on that score.

On a completely different note, though having been to a boys only school and men only college at University, single sex education did not inspire me to a life of separation and celibacy. Indeed I used to organise dances and parties at University bringing in young women by coach from single (and opposite of course!) sex teacher training and nursing colleges in outlying small towns. I’ll leave you to imagine the effects of the combination of youthful hormones, dance music and alcohol on groups who hadn’t even seen members of the opposite sex for sometimes weeks. Perhaps, understandably, both the educational establishments that attempted to equip me with knowledge for dealing with life have seen the light and become co-ed.

KSA gave me flashbacks to those times, and not the ones shortly after the coaches had arrived either. The excellent fish restaurant where we lunched, had two doors onto the street – one marked “Restaurant” which was for men only and one marked “Families”. Women do not go out alone and the doors lead to completely separate establishments on different floors. I did not see anyone of the female persuasion neither in the two businesses visited, nor on the streets, nor behind the wheel of a car the whole time I was there; those on the plane from Beirut magically evaporated at airport arrivals to reappear only in the departure lounge, I really hope they hadn’t been there the whole time.

Home life, at least the one I was delighted to share for all too short a time with my step-daughter, her husband and their three kids, seemed like an oasis of normality – and then friends of theirs arrived and a party happened centred on an Indian take away so even more social normality, according to my standards anyway.

I’d been warned not to speak to strangers, but predictably ignored that. I asked a fellow traveller if I was in the right queue at the airport check-in area, he was a local and instead of the curt “yes” normal in most places, proffered his hand and struck up a conversation, in English, before we went to our separate queues, and that made me feel good about the place.

On balance then, I’m glad to have been and seen, and, having broken the duck so to speak, will go back, not much future for it as tourist destination though. Oh, sorry I didn’t answer the second question, “how did I find it”. Well I didn’t, I let the pilot do that.

Could you just say a few words please?

Thanking family and friends for coming to a birthday celebration, giving a FOTB (father-of-the-bride) speech, entertaining after dinner, introducing an honoured guest … the list of occasions when just saying a few words is not just appropriate but downright essential goes on. Those are just the some of ones I’ve had to do within the last couple of years.

Now the mechanics of human behaviour and psychology make it a most precarious business. Staring someone straight in the eyes with a blank expression and making no sound is received as a threat gesture – if you don’t believe me, try it on someone - preferably someone you know, a stranger may be a martial arts expert and react as if being threatened!

“Come on – gather round”, so now you’ve got a whole group advancing on you, looking you in the eye, without smiling. Underneath the intelligent, thinking, organising brain, there’s a basic animal survival one that takes over when you’re in danger and, let me tell you, if you have three, never mind thirty odd people coming towards you displaying apparent threat behaviour that basic part of the brain decides you’re in serious danger and whips into over-drive, getting you ready to “fight or flee”. Adrenaline is pumped, heart rate goes up, breathing gets deeper, and thinking is pushed aside to make way for instinct. So just at the moment you wanted all your wits about you to deliver a really good little fireside-chat/speech/monologue you’re in the grip of that which was developed to help the frog escape the hungry snake.

How to cope? Be ready for the body’s violent response and prepare the words, the gestures, the tone of voice and everything else in advance. I actually write down every word of a speech before giving it, even the “Hello and good day to you all.” That way I can play with the structure, the words, and the oratorical tricks in rehearsal mode, having them all polished and ready for when adrenalin takes control. After the greeting, trying something witty or funny, no matter whether it’s plagiarised, is a great idea, as many of those faces confronting you may well break into a smile, and that is a “welcome” signal – so you tell the joke to make the audience smile in order to make yourself feel better! Don’t forget to smile back.

Research has shown that people tend to remember what was said during a talk in the first forty and the last thirty seconds; sometimes there’s about twenty seconds in the middle where messages get through too. So, if you must speak for more than a minute and a half, (but please try not to) those are the places to get the key ideas in. Look at Bernard Montgomery’s inspirational “here I am” speech to the Eighth Army for an outstanding example of clarity in a few words if you don’t believe you can get over what you want to say in that tlme, the humour was there too, even if of the “gallows” variety.

“Could you just say a few words please?” The answer’s yes, but make them few and concentrate on saying them well.

So that’s it then, I’m officially old.

I’ve finally achieved the age at which Her Majesty’s Government give me a pension. They’ve renamed it “The State Pension” but it’s still called the “Old-Age Pension”, most notably by relatives and friends who want to irritate me, which, thanks to vanity, they succeed in doing. But Old-Age Pension used to be its official title.

Now how do I come to terms with this - the hour glass having been turned enough times (569,784 and yes, I had to do that) - to clock up sixty-five years? Have a party to share the moment? Yes, ok, done that. Eat and drink more sensibly? I don’t think so. Go out, to buy a pipe and a pair of slippers? Errr, you want me to start smoking again and sit around a lot, no thanks. I know, let me do something outside the box and get a job. Since the whole idea of getting a pension is supposedly to stop working, that would seem to be an appropriately contrarian thing to do.

So I have. And it’s not stacking shelves in the local supermarket for a couple of hours a day either, it’s a full time, full on, engage brain and keep your wits about you job; but more about that another time, this is about dancing with the years.

The next thing is to realize that there is not a d****d thing I can do about it – the physical clocks run on and everything is forced to keep pace with them, there is no escape and no such thing as a time machine. Yet.

Finally, for today, there is the realization that I don’t feel different. Different from what? Well, umm, err, how I used to feel, I think, as far as I can remember. But I do feel different from how my grandparents felt at this age. Both grandfathers had shuffled off, grannie had become a catalogue of aches and pains, albeit an energetic one and I don’t recall grandma in any other pose but seated. As an over-active child, I can recall urging grannie to “do it just once more” whatever "it" may have been, and when wanting to know why the answer was in the negative, getting the response “you’ll know when you get old!” Which led me to ponder how I would know when I had crossed the magic line and become old myself. And then I spotted it. Old people climbed stairs one at a time. In my eight-year-old eyes, there probably wasn’t much difference between being an adult and being old, but I was convinced that the holy grail of age measurement had been found. I had discovered an acid test – when I started climbing stairs in singles, that would be it, no going back, youth would have flown and given way to … what exactly … well another piece of eight-year-old inspiration arrived … oldth.

This is Lebanon, and there are regular power cuts. When I returned from a short errand a few days ago there was no lift, so nothing for it but the stairs. So powerful was that distant revelation that off I set up seven flights, still two at a time!

There hasn’t been a power cut today. Yet.

Listening to the Australian Open

Hopes riding on Andy Murray, the early part of today was scheduled for savouring or agonising over each point played in the Melbourne tennis tournament final – otherwise known as the Australian open

Mr. Murray didn’t have a good day. His third tennis grand slam final and third loss. Not much consolation, but that makes him by far the best male tennis player Britain has produced in three generations. And he’s only twenty-three.

Now there were various options for my vicarious participation. The BBC has a web-page where each game is summarised by a paragraph, but there is a delay of about four or five minutes, so although good, it’s hardly live ball by ball commentary. BBC 5 do a live broadcast of many sporting events, but instead of broadcasts of the main tent items of tennis' big four, there’s a recorded message that says “due to contractual reasons, you are not allowed to receive this program in your area”. Eurosport with Arabic commentary is one of the channels my cable provider offers, so that gave me a visual. And then I had an idea …

Google Australian Open, go to web-site, find AO radio button and lo! and behold, real-time live commentary. That’s it then, EuroSport picture and AO commentary. Except that the AO delay over the internet was just long enough that the voice over was pretty well always for the previous point to the one I was watching. Not too bad as I could then play a game with myself to see if I could spot what the commentators were going to say. Sadly I could – "Murray’s not playing at his best". Weeeell maybe not, but Kolya wasn't letting him either.

While things still seemed pretty equal, the Aussie commentator read out an email from someone in, I think, Macedonia and mused about the number of countries that must be listening. I couldn’t resist it, off goes an email from me “Thanks guys, keep talking, I’m sitting here in Lebanon, able to visualize the match between a Serb and a Scot in Australia – great commentary” or some such. A good hour later when the writing was well and truly on the wall in day-glow paint and hopes gone so far South that penguins were sighted round them, the commentator read out my email “Hey here’s another country to add to the list, Graham in Lebanon says [my email] … pity he can’t visualize Murray turning this round.”

There’s the (probably apocryphal) story of another famous Scot, Robert the Bruce, watching a spider re-build her web and vowing to learn from her determination and come back from a reversal. He learned the lesson so well, he became Scotland’s King.

I hope Mr. Murray knows his Scottish folk lore as, ever hopeful, I’m looking forward to Roland Garros – the French tennis open – and another chance for Britain’s number one men’s player.

Let's tax again

Finished it at last!

At something of a crossroads in life over twenty years ago, I did a bit of soul searching. I realized that being rich was not an ambition, just having enough money to enable me to spend time doing those things I enjoyed. So, I stopped trying (not having bothered that much anyway). In hindsight, the logic was pretty stupid, I’ve NEVER had enough cash to do all the things I enjoy. I suppose what I really meant was that I didn’t and don’t get a kick out of reading bank statements with lots of noughts all written in black. Put more succinctly, I make money to spend not to keep and count.

Partly as a result of that wayward thinking, my financial affairs are not that complicated. Nevertheless, once a year, I have to report them to the taxman.

It isn’t all just numbers, wading through the differences between “resident but not ordinarily resident”, “non-resident but domiciled” and “domiciled, ordinarily resident but a non-resident landlord” is necessary before the full stop symbol is allowed to become a decimal point. That last one describes me, by the way, (non-resident landlord not a decimal point!) in Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC) speak.

Talking of HMRC, HM Customs had, and may still have for that matter, powers so Draconian that those of the notorious Nazi SS were modeled on them. Under the name of Customs and Excise, they had the right of entry to search any premises, private or business, at any time, under their own authority and without having to give a reason. It’s best not to mess with them then.

With that last thought in mind, out came the full armoury of bank statements, spreadsheets and receipts, all marshalled under the leadership of MicroSoft Money before the well-checked numbers were fed into another piece software, TaxCalc which in turn talks to Mother, otherwise known as HMRCs master computer for receiving on-line tax returns.

When Mother speaks you listen and obey. This year she was kind, announcing that I had overpaid tax. Would I perchance like to leave it with her, or gave it to charity, or (be sure about this) would I like it back? Such is the power of HMRC that I actually gave the question a few milliseconds thought before plumping for having it back and by electronic transfer immediately please not a cheque in the post. No, Mother, please do not misinterpret what I said before as a dislike of money - oh no, not at all.

It used to take my father a week, with not just the dining room table but the floor of that room being littered with papers and a menacing buff form before his Eureka moment of … "It's done for this year!"

So what I've finished is the tax return and not all my cash yet.

Burns' night in Lebanon

Who was the greatest Scot of all time?

William Wallace, subject of Mel Gibson’s “Braveheart”, Alexander Graham Bell, scientist and inventor, David Livingstone, explorer and … there’s a pretty long list of candidates from the worlds of science, politics, literature and entertainment.

He who got the vote in a recent Scottish TeleVision survey was a chap known to Scots to this day simply as the Bard, Robert (“Rabbie”) Burns by name. Like Mozart, he lived only until his thirties, often pursued by a whiff of poverty, was much taken by the ladies (thirteen known offspring by five women according to some sources) and, in spite of all that, he managed to leave behind a large body of work, full of insight into his fellow man and woman. We all know some, at the least a ragged struggle through Auld Lang Syne’s chorus each New Year.

His most abiding achievement though was to inspire an annual worldwide party in his honour, still going strong over two-hundred and twenty odd years after his death. Yesterday was the day, and Scots all over the world, celebrate with a “Burns’ Supper” on the night of each 25th January. They generously extend the fun, the food, the whisky, the speeches, the poems and the dancing to other nationalities (yes even the English!).

Never mind wit, charm, ability and a devotion to hard work, such a celebrated memory takes a really serious dose of charisma. Absolutely no sign of an annual Shakespeare’s breakfast, a Newton’s lunch or even a Churchill’s dinner.

HM Ambassador to Lebanon, Frances Guy, is an ex-pat Scot, an attentive hostess and an apparently indefatigable Scottish country dancer and she’d invited us to join her gathering for the evening. So there we were, my wife and I, fuelled on Cock a Leekie soup, haggis (yes haggis! heaven only knows how) and of course the Scottish national tipple, out on her floor, frantically trying to follow the twists and turns of the “Dashing White Sergeant”.

And it was really good fun as well as being a splendid antidote to the rather tense situation on the streets in the last few days.

Would Burns get my vote for the greatest Brit, should anyone ask me? Well, anyone who can engender that much entertainment and bonhomie for more than a couple of hundred years has to be in the running.

I should be on a flight

... to Saudi Arabia. Right now. I’m not supposed to be here at all.

So what happened? It was announced yesterday that Lebanon had a new Prime Minister in waiting, the cabinet of the previous one having fallen apart a couple of weeks ago, as described in “Collapse of a Coalition”. There must have been some horse trading behind the scenes, as one of the groups supporting the downed executive announced a change of allegiance. This isn’t the first time that group has changed sides. I’m reminded of the Churchill quote, after he’d crossed the floor of House of Commons for the second time - “Anyone can rat but it takes a certain amount of ingenuity to re-rat!”

In looking for the precise words of that quote, I came across another of his many recorded utterances “If we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find we have lost the future.”

But that is precisely what people here are most afraid of and the first omen of the morning was not propitious. A text message arrived warning that the supporters of the previous government were being exhorted to “take to the streets”.

In anticipation of something like that happening and it getting out of hand, three of us who were going to a business meeting had decided during yesterday evening to postpone it rather than risk getting stuck outside, separated from family, duties and responsibilities here. It was probably the right thing to do, as even if all the fuss blows over and nothing happens, the ability to focus to perform at one’s best is stretched and distorted by worrying about possibilities over which we have no control.

And that’s why I’m here, tapping at my keyboard seven floors above a strangely quiet street that should be bustling at this time in the morning rather than almost empty. Let’s hope that the present can part amicably from the past in the very near future.

I’ve never been to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, but have resolved it’s merely a postponement and not a cancellation.

Elfin Safety, sir, it's more than my Jobsworth

It’s a bit narcissistic, but I’ve been reading past entries in this, my very own blog.

I think it’s a turn of the year thing, looking back at achievements or lack of them in 2010. One conclusion stands out, I have some pet likes and pet hates. The hates seem to include being told what to do rather than persuaded: see the improved and upgraded services pieces if you want to know more. Another is the close cousin of the instructing petty dictators, the “jobsworths”. And then there are the Health and Safety Act (usually pronounced Elfin Safety) industry workers.

Maybe a bit of defining is needed here; you’ve all heard the expression, “it’s more than my than job’s worth to do that, sir!” Translation - “of course I know how to do that, and could if I wanted to, but I’m not. So nah-nah-na-nah-na to you.” Well a perpetrator of that approach is a jobsworth.

“Could you send someone to clean the outside of my windows please?” This for a flat in central London. “Well we’d need scaffolding, which will need an erection permit, and a parking suspension permit to deliver the scaffolding and there’s insurance against injury to passers by and then another permit to get the scaffolding down.” “But it’s on the first floor! How do the top floor people get on? Whatever happened to the friendly local window cleaner with ladders, a bucket and a well worn piece of chamois leather? Can’t you just send some-one to wash them.” “The ‘Elfin Safety’ act requires it, sir. It’s more than my job’s worth even to ask one of our men to take a look.”

And then there’s the approach in Lebanon. I watched in horror as a maid of all work climbed onto the balcony guard rail of the appartment opposite, without any kind of safety harness, hung precariously onto the top of the hinged windows and cleaned away at the outside of each in turn. Perhaps I should say that our flat is seven floors up. I got pins and needles in the soles of my feet just watching her ersatz high wire act.

So which is the right way to go about things? Is it the strangulation at source of any kind of personal risk or the attitude of the circus performer who does away with the safety net?

Some years ago I tripped over a sawn-off tree trunk stub; no more than six inches tall (15 cms), it was sitting there in the middle of a pavement, silently minding its own business. I was sober, honestly, but it was night time and there’d been a power cut so no street lighting. My left foot caught it while striding at full throttle. Next I’m doing a Harry-Potter-on-a-broomstick impression, but, as I was without a broomstick things ended quickly and painfully when I did a three point crash landing; the three points were right elbow, left knee and a glasses case in an inside pocket. The pained obscenities drew the assistance of a couple of policemen who helped me wheezing to my feet, the glasses case had cracked a couple of ribs.

“Who can I sue for this?” I asked a lawyer friend the next day. She’d practiced in the UK and here in Lebanon. First there was a confused silence and then gentle laughter. “There’s no Elfin Safety Act here, and it’s more than my job’s worth to try to sue anyone in local government.”

BLBG meeting Jan '11 - traffic in Beirut

The British Lebanese Business Group (BLBG for short) met on Tuesday this week.

The group has been fortunate enough to attract some really good speakers living and working in Lebanon in the past, but never before a Director of a British Company viewing the business climate here from the outside. Johnny Ojeil is just that, a Director of Arups, the British multi-national construction firm, he’s a son of Birmingham, but with recent Lebanese ancestry. The group was pleased and honoured to have him as guest speaker.

He was actually upbeat listing professionalism, language skills and being technologically savvy as some of the positive traits of the Lebanese workforce. Being a pleasant place to live, having a plethora of local firms willing and able to do business with overseas companies and the ability to move money freely in and out of the country he identified as positive characteristics of Lebanon’s business environment, together with an apparently strong economy is spite of those things listed below.

There’s always a downside and his “con” list included political uncertainty and cash flow in the sense that if cash (not the same thing as money!) is not available, then projects just stop. That there is no urban planning policy and that projects spend a long time gestating were things at considerable variance from European practice so beware and be ready.

Local partnership is the way forward for any company seeking to do business here; this was both his experience and recommendation. He seemed both cautiously optimistic yet with a positive “and here’s a way to do it” message.

Now Mr. Ojeil’s own specialty is urban traffic planning and he’s acting as consultant to Bierut’s Solidere. He painted a grim picture of where Beirut could be heading without a mass transit solution that would appeal to all but the truly moneyed classes. Luxury buses, with train inspired interiors could be an inexpensive solution able to be implemented quickly and cheaply with the political will to make it happen. There was some amusement at the idea of bus lanes in Beirut (“for each bus they’d be five Mercedes in the lane, three in front and two behind”) which stimulated debate on the issue of traffic enforcement. The amusement evaporated as he left us in no doubt as to the consequences of increasing dependency on the four-wheeled friend; “next time you explain that you are late because of traffic, don’t forget that you were part of the problem and not just the victim”, “look where Bangkok got to, four hour queues!” He ran a computer simulaton, to show us future potential Downtown Beirut traffic flow – ouch! Johnny helped solve Bangkok’s problems, so he’s to be taken seriously.

A lively question and answer session followed with many of the over fifty participants joining in until we broke for a final round of networking, as well as a final round at the bar.

Looking forward to the next session already.

Please note that any divergence from fact and reality in the record above should be attributed to your errant reporter (me) and not to our guest.

Collapse of a coalition

“Politics, Religion and Sex should play no part in social or work conversations”. One of my mother’s strictures that.

Now I’ve thought of these little pieces as a social conversation with albeit rather ethereal readers. But they aren’t social (we aren’t taking coffee together) and as comments tend to come back sometimes days after writing, the conversational aspect is, to the say the least (and please don’t take this personally), slow. So, caution to the winds. Lebanon’s cabinet, made up from the start as a rather precariously sewn together sectarian patchwork quilt, fell apart on Wednesday last week. For those looking for the sex in that sentence, don’t bother, there isn’t any. In the words of the well known song though, “two out of three ain’t bad”.

There’ve been rumblings for some time with the fault line, the attitude to the results of the huge UN investigation into the assassination of a former Prime Minister, having been visible for months. That is well documented elsewhere, just let Google do its stuff if you want to know more, so enough of that here.

In other countries, if a ruling coalition falls apart, then that’s it, the ministers who’ve resigned hand over the desk and perquisite country house keys and go home. Sometimes a new executive body is formed from other groups. If not elections are prepared for. But this is Lebanon, where Alice-in-Wonderland like tricks get performed. So what has happened. The current group of ministers has been asked to stay on and keep working as a set of caretakers. And what is really odd is that’s exactly what is happening, so the ousted Prime Minister, son of the aforementioned assassination victim, is still acting Prime Minister for example. After the last elections, it took months for the executive cabinet to be put together, so he may be “acting” for some time.

How’s all that going to work out in practice? I don’t know, but daily life seems to be going on much as before. An acquaintance coming back to the country told me that the first thing he’d done was to buy the English language newspaper, The Daily Star, only to discover that “the political stories haven’t changed, they’re the same as when I left a year ago”. We were at a big party last night with the social magazine photographers snapping happily away for the next issues. The tower cranes are still working on the latest luxury high rise flats and hotels.

What it feels to me has gone though, is the optimism of five or so years ago that Lebanon would become a united country rather than a geographical accident of a group of factions with differing agendas. The country’s constitution is big on consensus, but as another friend once put it, consensus is what you’re left with when you don’t have agreement.

Maybe the politicians should listen to my mum, at least once elected and working “Politics, religion and sex should play no part ….”