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 ….”