There is a fascinating story in the Gulf News today about a guy living in his car in Saudi Arabia.
Apparently he broke down in the western desert, some 18 years ago, and has stayed put. He lives in the car, and passers-by give him food and water! Is it just me or is this rather bizarre?
Full story is here.
The image I borrowed from an article on ehow.com about how to survive breaking down in the desert. Kinda appropriate isn’t it?
Happy Mother’s Day incidentally. 🙂
Author: Cat Russell
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[where-ever I lay my hat]
[source: ehow] -
paper in all it’s guises (ok some of them anyway)
Over the last month or so Stu and I took part in a paper recycling drive, called “My Tree In Dubai”, launched by EEG in March. The idea was to recycle 60kgs of paper, and earn one of 250 trees that would be planted in Dubai. If you managed to qualify your tree would be named after you. The only hassly part was having to take the paper down to the center in Beach Road, but the rest was easy, and fun, especially considering there was even a facebook application where you could update the weight deposited with the date, and a few more leaves would be added according to how close you were to the target as a percentage.
[the plaque]
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local organic veggies….at last!
I am extremely excited to read about the opening of a farm shop selling locally grown, seasonal, organic fruit and veg – right here in Dubai! The best part is, it’s just around the corner (kinda). The produce is grown at their farm, which is on the Dubai-Hatta road, about 50kms from Dubai.
I will check the shop out Sunday morning I think, and let you know.
The farm’s name is Nazwa and the story in the National can be found here.
Did I mention how excited I am? 😉
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the Russell tour of Dubai
Yes, it’s been a while since I wrote, I know. I have two good reasons (excuses) for this, first, the hard-drive on our laptop crashed during the night, about 2 weeks ago. It seems that a particular windows update that downloaded and installed itself automatically (this little Vista nastiness has now been disabled) conflicted with the anti-virus I was using causing a crash. I removed the anti-virus but then the machine would not boot properly, anyway, long story short I did a panicked backup, removed a whole lot of programs, bought a new hard-drive just in case and now the problem seems to have gone away. But nevertheless I will be installing Windows 7 on the new drive and hope that it’s slightly less evil than Vista. Next step is a Mac I think.
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SpeakZA: bloggers for a free press
Today’s blog has nothing to do with Dubai, but is in fact about my home country, South Africa, and part of a blogging protest (#SpeakZA), so apologies but this is NB to me. Thank you, Catherine.
Last week, shocking revelations concerning the activities of the ANC Youth League spokesperson Nyiko Floyd Shivambu came to the fore. According to a letter published in various news outlets, a complaint was laid by 19 political journalists with the Secretary General of the ANC, against Shivambu. This complaint letter detailed attempts by Shivambu to leak a dossier to certain journalists, purporting to expose the money laundering practices of Dumisani Lubisi, a journalist at the City Press. The letter also detailed the intimidation that followed when these journalists refused to publish these revelations.
We condemn in the strongest possible terms the reprisals against journalists by Shivambu. His actions constitute a blatant attack on media freedom and a grave infringement on Constitutional rights. It is a disturbing step towards dictatorial rule in South Africa. We call on the ANC and the ANC Youth League to distance themselves from the actions of Shivambu. The media have, time and again, been a vital democratic safeguard by exposing the actions of individuals who have abused their positions of power for personal and political gain.
The press have played a vital role in the liberation struggle, operating under difficult and often dangerous conditions to document some of the most crucial moments in the struggle against apartheid. It is therefore distressing to note that certain people within the ruling party are willing to maliciously target journalists by invading their privacy and threatening their colleagues in a bid to silence them in their legitimate work.
We also note the breathtaking hubris displayed by Shivambu and the ANC Youth League President Julius Malema in their response to the letter of complaint. Shivambu and Malema clearly have no respect for the media and the rights afforded to the media by the Constitution of South Africa. Such a response serves only to reinforce the position that the motive for leaking the so-called dossier was not a legitimate concern, but a insolent effort to intimidate and bully a journalist who had exposed embarrassing information about the Youth League President.
We urge the ANC as a whole to reaffirm its commitment to media freedom and other Constitutional rights we enjoy as a country.
Blog Roll
http://thoughtleader.co.za/siphohlongwane
http://rwrant.co.za
http://vocfm.co.za/blogs/munadia/
http://vocfm.co.za/blogs/shafiqmorton/
http://blogs.news24.com/needpoint
http://capetowngirl.co.za
http://thoughtleader.co.za/sentletsediakanyo
http://thoughtleader.co.za/davidjsmith
http://letterdash.com/one-eye-only
http://boyuninterrupted.blogspot.com
http://amandasevasti.com
http://blog.empyrean.co.za/
http://letterdash.com/brencro
http://6000.co.za
http://chrisroper.co.za
http://pieftw.com
http://hamishpillay.wordpress.com
http://memoirs4kimya.blogspot.com
http://thoughtleader.co.za/azadessa
http://watkykjy.co.za
http://fredhatman.co.za
http://thelifeanddeathchronicles.blogspot.com/
http://blogs.timeslive.co.za/common-dialogue/
http://clivesimpkins.blogs.com/
http://mashadutoit.wordpress.com
http://nicharalambous.com
http://sarocks.co.za
http://blogs.timeslive.co.za/stompies/
http://helenmoffett.book.co.za/blog/
http://01universe.blogspot.com
http://groundwork.wordpress.com
http://iwrotethisforyou.me
http://fionasnyckers.book.co.za
http://attentiontodetail.wordpress.com
http://blogs.women24.com/editor
http://www.missmillib.blogspot.com
http://snowgoose.co.za
http://dreamfoundry.co.za
http://www.vanoodle.blogspot.com
http://www.exmi.co.za
http://catinthedunes
http://alistairfairweather.com
http://www.zanedickens.com
http://www.nickhuntdavis.com
http://guysa.blogspot.com
http://book.co.za
http://baldy.co.za
http://skinnylaminx.com
http://blogs.african-writing.com/zukiswa
http://www.mielie.wordpress.com
http://blogs.timeslive.co.za/gatherer/
http://thoughtleader.co.za/sarahbritten
http://stii.co.za
http://blogs.news24.com/FSB_AP
http://twistedkoeksuster.blogspot.com
http://whensmokegetsinyoureyes.blogspot.com/
http://trinklebean.wordpress.com
http://commentry.wordpress.com/
http://matthewbuckland.com
http://blogs.news24.com/colour-me-fran
http://gormendizer.co.za
http://helenmoffett.book.co.za/blog/
http://ravingfans.co.za
http://khadijapatel.co.za
http://simon.co.za/speakza
http://gnatj.com
http://moralfibre.co.za
http://www.exmi.co.za
http://synapses.co.za
http://www.macgeek.co.za