Mahmood's Den

Double Oleander, originally uploaded by malyousif.

This is the only “double” oleander I have and now I think I should have gotten all of them in this variety.

Very beautiful.

Have a lovely evening!

I love la vache qui rit, don’t you?

I don’t particularly care about the recently concluded summit in Riyadh in which all but one Arab leader attended. 21 of 22 is not bad, but anyway, I don’t care about what they discussed nor any grandiose declarations they emitted; the betting is that it’s nothing earth-shatteringly-new.

What I want to know is how do 80 year-old men manage not to have even one white hair between them? I’m half their age and I am almost completely bald, and what fuzz I do have is almost purely white.

Now if they can just share with us their hair-care regimes and secrets, the summit would have concluded constructively, for a change!

In the early hours of this morning in Al-Bustan hotel in Manama a scuffle broke out between drunks, purportedly American, and hotel security guards. It is reported that one of the servicemen drew his pistol and shot the Bahraini night-shift guard Abbas Ali Salman Al-Shakhoori in the head.

Al-Shakhoori has been taken to Salmaniya Medical Centre where he has been declared brain-dead. He is said to be in a very critical condition and his doctors do not expect him to live beyond today. His family, friends and people from the village are now at Salmaniya hospital by his side and the situation is very tense.

I hope a full investigation is launched and the person responsible for the death of Al-Shakhoori – regardless of nationality or position – is apprehended and handed justice.

I hope too that this situation is handled calmly by the people and the government so that it doesn’t get politicised and blown out of proportion.

I wish to extend my deep condolences to the family and friends of Al-Shakhoori. May he rest in peace.

White Cheeked Bulbul, originally uploaded by malyousif.

The environmental agencies in Bahrain are trying to eradicate those threats by banning people from selling bulbuls in popular markets here and by trying to eradicate the crows.

I don’t know how successful they are in their program, I can tell you though that I have noticed a marked increase in these very welcome visitors to our garden in the last year.

This guy posed quite happily for me at the tip of a palm frond in our front garden this morning.

Have a wonderful, happy, peaceful and fulfilling Friday my friends.

Happy Prophet’s birthday! May it return to us with health, happiness and remembrance of a great man.

Bahrain, once again is celebrating this auspicious day by announcing it as a holiday, but as this time it will fall on Saturday and as Saturday is already the second day of the normal weekend, public sector employees will be compensated and given Sunday too as a holiday!

Nothing new there. It’s a de facto standard.

But not so for our friends in the UAE:

The UAE Government announced in a circular today that Sunday April 1st 2007 is a working day for the Federal Ministries, according to a WAM report.

“As Saturday will be a public holiday to mark the Prophet’s birthday, Sunday will be a normal working day and there will be no compensation or extension of the holiday,” said the statement.
ArabianBusiness.com

Once again, the UAE is leading the Gulf (especially) in forging ahead and breaking with tradition. Good for them. Maybe, just maybe, this will rub on us too before too long.

The 27th bloggers gathering is coming up next week. It will be held at 7pm at Al-Bareh Cafe. Everyone is welcome. Please give yourself plenty of time to arrive at the venue as the roads will be busy (judging by the last time) and you need to start making tracks at least at 6.30 to arrive at 7.

The Agenda:

• Welcome & introductions – Mahmood (5 minutes)
• Highlight of Bahraini blogs discovered over the last month – any volunteers? (5 minutes)
• Themed presentation and discussion – we need to decide on the topic, please enter your suggestions in a comment (15 minutes)

end of formal side of the evening

• Chat, mingle, drink, eat and be happy for the rest of the night! (or at least for another 1 hour and 35 minutes!)

Heads up: in order to improve the performance of the site, the good people at Rackspace‘s technical support and I are looking into some problems the site has experienced off and on in the hope that we will identify the problem and enact a fix.

The first step is upgrading some components on the server, which means that you might find the site down off and on over the next 24 hours. I’ll let you know when the maintenance concludes and share any discoveries – if any – here too.

Thanks for your support and I’m sorry for the inconvenience.

UPDATE 29 March, ’07: Installed PHP 5.2 and the latest APC accelerator. There are some issues still that need to be resolved. Generally it works fine and so far the site has not crashed as often as it has previously (touch wood!). Will keep you updated, if you notice something weird, please confirm it and then let me know about it. Thanks.

UPDATE 2 29/3/07@1849: There are various incompatibilities between PHP 5.2 and various PHP programs, WordPress included. I’ve asked tech support to downgrade to 5.1.6 as soon as possible. You might notice strange behaviour until then (most of the tabs and the pages are gone for instance). Bear with us a bit longer please.

UPDATE 3 29/3/07@1903: PHP downgraded to 5.1.6, sites appear to work normally now but will keep monitors (let me know if you stumble upon something) but please clear your browser cache in order to ensure that you’re seeing the correct version of the site.

UPDATE 4 30/3/07@1901: reliability is still not as good as I expect and as you have seen there are still some incompatibilities (pages not displaying and the tabs at the top of the page have disappeared) to resolve. So Rackspace tech are now downgrading to PHP 4.4.6 (better compatibility with APC). Let’s hope that at least the pages make another appearance!

Elham, in cooperation with Al-Riwaq Art Gallery, announces a series on Language, Culture, and Expression to coincide with the University of Cairo book fair: tonight, it’s some of Bahrain’s finest bloggers are going to participate where they will read from their blogs, showing the world that we also have a literary aspect to Bahrain Blogging too, and more power to them.

After we hear Hisham Khalifa and Deonna Syed have read, the discussion will focus on how technology enhances or limits creativity.

An assortment of blog readings from around the island, the discussion will focus on questions of expression in the context of the technological world.

• Where is the line between a blog post and a piece of creative prose?
• Does the context of ‘blogspot’ diminish or detract from the literary value of a piece of prose?
• What happens to a blog once it is removed from the anonymous ether of the internet?
• Is recital more dangerous because it increases responsibility?
• Do bloggers have to be politically/socially responsible?
• What role can blogs play in the context of cultural society?
• What makes a ‘Bahraini blogger’? Is there a common thread?

Al-Riwaq is in an alleyway by Lilo’s in Adliya, their telephone number is 1771 7441. Call them for directions, or me if you don’t know how to get to it (and I’ll probably get you thoroughly lost!)

The event starts at 7pm. I hope to see you there.

If you wish to see anyone in Bahrain having an immediate epileptic fit, just mention the numbers 8/1970 and stand back and watch the antics! Feel free to laugh or cry with them.

What you have done is infer that the poor mug has lost a parcel of land.

A parcel of land probably bought on a 10-year installment plan for which he has to sacrifice a lot in order to make the payments so that they might, one day, build a dream home on or leave for descendants or indeed keep as a safe investment. That law gives the government the absolute right to appropriate that parcel of land with everything on and in it (be it a built property, water resources, plants, etc.) for a price determined by a supposedly independent pricing committee, the members of which are all appointed by the Ministry of Municipalities! I have never heard of a “fair” compensation for any appropriate land yet.

There is another law – I could not find a reference to yet – which allows the government to appropriate up to 30% of any parcel of land without offering any compensation to the owner! This is even more damning and I think parliament is discussing a law to repeal it (or supposed to discuss it at least – when they finish from burning Shaikha Mai on the stake that is).

Therefore it is rather shocking to read the news reports this morning ^(Arabic) in which they carried an unprecedented move by the Constitutional Court yesterday when it issued a decision negating the constitutionality of Law by Decree number 8 of 1970 ^(Arabic) which dealt with the appropriation of land by the government for “public interest”.

This is very good news of course and one that I hope will continue to be the hallmark of the Constitutional Court. Ensuring its independence and protecting the constitution elevates the level of trust citizens will have in the country as a whole, as they are sure now that they can look to the highest court in the land to protect their interest and stand with them against unconstitutional laws.

Well done! More good news please.

Frances’ car is about crapped out and she needs a new one. So out we went this morning to test drive a few and visit the various car showrooms in the island, but although we have almost decided, we still are unsure on what it would be.

Requirements:
1. Family car with space for 3 kids, a maid and a couple of dogs
2. Not expensive and not flashy
3. Easily maintained
4. Have some resale value

Although I promised not to buy a Ford, their SUV is at the top of the list at the moment, we were not impressed with Nissan’s offerings and although the Toyota Avalon was very nice and we liked it, it is missing a space for the dogs, so that’s out of the equation at the moment.

Any ideas what else we could look at in Bahrain before we plonk the down payment? Our budget is about BD10k.

Update 26 March, ’07: Khalas, the deed is done! No more car shopping for a while…

Lumberjack Mahmood?, originally uploaded by malyousif.

We have a tall Conni Corpus (not sure what the scientific name or even if this is the right name, it is however what it is being called in Bahrain) which is about 15 – 20 meters high. Half of it broke off and was lying on the road (fortunately not on our wall, it would have broken it!) I thought it looked very unstable and it was best to cut it down…

Out came the chain-saw! I did a bit yesterday – but as it was the first time I use the saw, it got stuck and the chain became loose. I decided that it was too dangerous to carry on and waiting until I took it to the reseller this morning for advice. They told me what to do, came back home, fixed it and together with Arif (my son) helping we cut the tree and then chopped the branches into smaller pieces to help the municipality to clear it. We left a stump of about a meter high in order for it to re-grow from, I hope.

That took about 3 hours to finish.

On the way home from the workshop I stopped off at a nursery in Janabiya and bought 100 gazanias and 20 porulacas. The summer is upon us and I needed to replace some flowers in the borders! So that was my task this afternoon, I planted the gazanias in two borders and the portulacas in a couple of pots by the front door.

Quite an eventful and satisfying day, I suspect that I shall have some deep sleep tonight!

Butterfly on the Lantana, originally uploaded by Hananio.

Butterflies are all over the place at in Bahrain at the moment, I see them at the oddest places, but you will agree that this one is more of a typical location where you might find them.

Hanan captured this at the perfect moment I think and I love the framing too.

Have a wonderful and peaceful Friday my friends!

PR role ‘crucial to end Islamophobia’

The public relations industry in the Gulf has a crucial role to play in preventing the spread of Islamophobia in the world, a top government official said yesterday.

Information Minister Dr Mohammed Abdul Ghaffar says the profession has an increased importance in the new world order and must use its position to help correct misconceptions about Muslims and their faith in the Western world.
GDN :: 22 March, 2007

And of course good PR, according to Dr. Abdul Ghaffar, can correct these situations as well, after all, it’s just that the “West” misrepresenting Islam and all it takes is just a lick of paint judiciously applied by PR and we’re set.

There you go. I’m sure good PR would solve the “Islamophobia” issue. Who knows, the images above themselves could just be manufactured and Muslims never did perpetrate those heinous criminal cowardly acts.

update 22:38: Sorry, this article was pulled inadvertantly into the “private” box for some reason and I only realised its disappearance when Butterfly notified me later on. So thanks Butterfly, it is duly restored.

Wa’ad will be holding an anti-sectarian seminar tonight with some community leaders speaking. We will be there too and intend to distribute over 1,500 buttons!

We would love it if you would come too and help send the message of a One Bahrain.

Al-Waqt :: 22 Mar, ’07

The event will take place at Wa’ad’s (National Democratic Action Society) premises in Umm Al-Hassam at 8pm tonight.

Frances and I enjoyed visiting the Zimbabwean Sculpture exhibition at Al Bareh Gallery a couple of nights ago, this time they have some 40 sculptures and I would like to own each and every one of them. Oh to be a millionaire! These are the times that give you the impetus to work harder so that you too can afford to acquire works of art to enjoy and share your home with.

We are fortunate enough to have bought a few pieces the last time they came to town, we have had those pieces for 2 years in our home and I frankly cannot imagine us being without them. They have become a part of our family.

Well, although we determined not to buy anything this time around, I fell in love with a mermaid and I just had to have her!

I would have dearly loved to buy a few other pieces, alas, I have to remind myself (rather sternly) that I do have a lot of expenditures this month that take precedence and I shall have to just remember them through the various pictures I have taken of them, and occasionally visit their website to remind myself of their beauty.

The exhibit is continuing until April 2nd, 2007 at Al Bareh, should you wish to visit. If you like the arts, believe me you won’t be disappointed.

Zimbabwe means great stone house; it is true that stone sculpture is the art that most represents the people of Zimbabwe. The works are chosen over a six month period, searching the country for the most dynamic, thought provoking pieces. Each sculpture has been masterfully executed in stone; Zimbabwe has one of the worlds most rich resources of minerals and stone deposits. The exuberance of the work, the vast varieties of stone and the great skill and imagination of the sculptors has led to many years of major exhibitions worldwide.

Over 40 stone sculptures will be exhibited from leading world renowned Zimbabwean sculptors in a range of different types of Serpentine stone.

Pieces on exhibition will range between medium to large scale that can be displayed indoors or outdoors, varying in style from abstract, to figurative, and semi-representative.
There will also be 10 Acrylic paintings, representing the life in Zimbabwe as seen by the local artists.

The exhibition will be inaugurated at 7pm on the 20th of March and will run until the 2nd of April,2007.

You can call the gallery on +973-1771 7707.

Well done Spring of Culture to have included this exhibition within your program.