Tables, Chairs and Foodcourts

Hello darlings! 

JetDriver has returned from the "dark place" - where computers and mobile phones are not allowed - nor are microwave ovens! :)

Nice to come back to the eclectic spread of blogs and rants - gives me an hour's entertainment on an otherwise mundane Thursday. 

National holidays eh? According to colleagues, our Omani staff got struck down with illness on Saturday and Sunday, and then a funeral in Salalah on Monday - terribly unfortunate for them. 

Anyway......

What the fuck is wrong with people who walk into Costas, Starbucks or wherever, sit down, take out the phone and open the paper and sit there......WITHOUT ORDERING SOMETHING?! 

And then look at you like you're mental when you ask if they are going to move, because you have actually paid to use the table.

Does this place want me to write "A Guidebook To Civilised Consumerism" ?

If you want to have the shopping malls and the bookstores and the boutiques; and you want the visitors and the tourist-money and the positive international press - you have to start learning how to behave properly. 

Here's the basics:

It's a queue - a line. Wait your fucking turn!

Folks. Pay attention. It's a 4x4, it's real and if you walk out in front of it, pretending not to see me in the car-park, it's going to hurt - really hurt! 

Gentlemen. You are going to get punched and it is going to happen sooner than you think. 

Tourism is on the up. 

More couples are visiting, ergo, you have a higher, almost imminent chance of having your teeth smashed in for leering. 

Also, most tourists are in better shape than you (even the girls), so that punch is going to have a lasting memory for you! Stop gawking!

(And just to add to this, boys: If you touch, you're in serious trouble. I mean it! 

To the guy who rubbed himself against my girlfriend in MCC last month......someday mate, she will see you again, and she will point, and I will put you in traction. You have my word.)

As for the person who stopped his Yukon at the entrance to Carrefour and waited for his wife and housemaid to come out with two trolleys and then proceed to load it all up, while the line of drivers behind you were going apoplectic - not cricket, old chap.

Hacking up your lungs at the table next to mine in the Foodcourt ..... just don't, ok? Don't.

Get your laptop, go to Google and look up "Common Courtesy" and "Manners" - and while you're at it....."Sexual Harrassment" and "Having your jaw wired".

End of rant. It's great to be back!

Qurum City Centre

Last night, I was coming back in from the yet-to-be-messed-up Salalah (trust me folks, that is in the pipeline!), and as we turned at about 3,000 feet over Muttrah, I saw a funny line of red lights that I had not seen before, worming it's way down from the back of MQ and along the ROP Hospital - a queue of about two miles long. 

"What could it be?" I thought to myself. "That area is always so peaceful and undisturbed. What could be happening that would break the tranquility of the regular night-time strolls of the diplomats and CEOs that picked that area to live in?"

And then, with the satisfaction of seeing one's enemy slipping and careening over a cliff-edge, I worked out what was going on.

Another monumental symbol of Muscat's well thought out and planned developments has opened the doors to its haven of all that both the locals and the expats love to do: shop and eat - all under one roof!

Shouts of "It's Aliiiiive!" rang around as thousands, THOUSANDS of people descended on the place for a look-see at what wonders were in store for all. 

Well, actually....they descended on the motorway at Qurum and on the backroad at MQ and then sat there gridlocked. 

It's the roads you see. A quick drag and drop resize on the architect's computer does not a reduced car-park make. 

One thousand cars all funneled into a one lane car-park entry. The other lane will be opened soon - reducing waiting time by a few seconds as the locals drive down the centreline. 

The access lanes inside are tiny - you cannot fit an Armada down there, or a Denali, or a Yukon, Range Rover Sport or a Land Cruiser without alloy-shredding difficulty! 

It will take about a year for people to cop onto this, and then it will become like "Little India" with Corollas, Echos, Serions and a host of other "mid-management delusional" cars all parked in a row, with people going in and trying on shoes and what-not and then after an hour of discussion will walk off with "I'll come back" disappearing off into the furore.....

The radio crackled to life and the controller gave us permission to land, we packed up, and as I drove back home in the opposite direction, there was an eerie lack of traffic on the motorway. 

I quietly wondered where they had all got to?