Mahmood's Den

Desert Rose (Adenium Obesum), originally uploaded by malyousif.

I got these cuttings as a gift this morning, I’ve gone to 4 garden centres in Bahrain before receiving them and they didn’t have any Adeniums in stock, and they didn’t know when they would be getting any in…
These are going to be my pride and joy if [...]

He had this, and threw it away! He just threw away the origin of the revolution called the Internet (ok, I’m emotional and exaggerating, but hey..) while spring cleaning!
Muscati spring DOESN’T EVEN EXIST IN THE GULF WHACHWRONGWIVYOU? You go an throw away A SPECTRUM+?! Man, I’m jumping on a plane right now to come to [...]

If you didn’t catch my reference to the availability of Arabic/English and English/Arabic machine translation by Google as I’ve mentioned here, then this is from their blog. I thought I would highlight it again as this is an extremely important development. At last we have a very workable, and completely free translation service rather than [...]

Whoever did this should receive the maximum punishment permissible by law. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to continue to burn tyres, rubbish bins and most certainly there is not one single reason in the world to throw Molotov cocktails at police cars. This is a criminal act, regardless of political motives.
The country has been [...]

Very pretty aren’t they? Kids fronting a demonstration in Muharraq yesterday in support of “the Iraqi resistance” and the Palestinians. The demonstration was organised by some group calling themselves “National Justice Movement” in cooperation with the Shura Islamic Political Society and National Constitutional Grouping which brought out about 150 people, according to Al-Wasat (arabic).
Now for [...]

Marco did a quite extensive degree research about blogging in the Gulf. He decided to take Chan’ad’s, Saudi Jeans, Farah’s Swaleef and my blog as well as a few others for his case studies.
His study is very well researched and thought out. I hope his uni will translate & publish it as a good reference.
His [...]

No, not me, I’ll probably never stop blogging as it has become such an important part of my life and a great creative release, not to mention a good ameliorator to frustration. But if you are considering quitting blogging, please take a few minutes to read the following from the Boston Globe (hat tip to [...]

Cactus Yellow Flower, originally uploaded by malyousif.

These are going on high-growth-mode at the moment, we have two of them astride our gate, in the street planters. They’ve just started to open yesterday and this is what greeted me as I came home from Dubai last night…
This image also is especially presented to the Dubai [...]

Burj Al-Arab – Dubai, originally uploaded by malyousif.

Everything done, the bag is packed, finished breakfast and now just chillin’ in the room till check-out time in a couple of hours and then onwards this evening back home…
It’s been fun!

blogging the 4th Arab Media Forum in Dubai
and Impressions on the 4th Arab Media Forum
It’s over. Apart from the official dinner and prizes tonight, the conference and sessions have just finished. We’ve had our bloggers’ session this afternoon and it was brilliant! Good organisation, good attendance and very good questions from the audience.
Chairing the panel [...]