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.