my neighbours & friends, suzanne, louise & colm (Left to Right)

a few photos from today in doha

outside the office

an abandoned headdress and camel hobble in the arabic canteen

doha by night from a crappy phone cam (toward saudai)

office body armour watch: desert camo US flak jacket

i presume this is either a sample or hasnt been reskined into civilian/journalist blue yet

blog metta:

god there are some geeky searches hitting my site - #3 on google with the search string " off OR blurry OR boyfriend OR prettier "without my glasses" "

some frustrated geek with glasses hit this site looking for an answer! nice!

and i have a shiny new haircut thanks to sue in makeup, the only perk ive got as part of the job so far, fantastic haircut, thanks sue!

Well im back and as cool as a fridge and as big as a cucumber, or maybe the other way around????

Days off watch: Christmas shopping for food, care four and giant stores, got the essentials really for xmas day.

Nights out: movenpik Tuesday night, Wednesday quiet night in watching 9 episodes of Frasier, Thursday night bash at the watering hole at the Sheraton about 200 aje employees, i ducked out at around 1am. Had a blast, chatted with lots of good friends made some more, and met a few of you dear readers.

Doha dodgy advertising watch: Early learning center: Santa came early and emptied his sack here! – WTF????

also didn’t realize the watering hole was LGBT friendly but they fly the rainbow flag!

Doha bureaucracy watch: 2 hrs for eye test that I could of passed if I didn’t wear my glasses, nice photo of the sign outside the eye test center with ‘found photo’ on the top stuck to the wall above it.

Well days plod forward here, in Doha its cold and wet, the entrance to the compound has turned into a quagmire, two days off are bound to be filled with a beurocratic nightmare, tomorrow is ostensibly a day off however im not sure how much of it im going to get to see as im scheduled to do so much, shopping and photo hell, baking etc in prep for xmas.

The Day after its driving license beurocratic day kicking off at 1pm.

More on that when I get back.

ive started a sister blog to a man in the desert - doha nights (www.dohanights.blogspot.com) which is aiming to be an adhoc honest review of nightlife in doha, im calling a spade a spade here, im sick of overly gushing reviews of doha nightlife as spouted by many guides and supposed reviews, if its kack im going to call it kack - if its good i will call it good.

rember folks im a londoner used to ammenitys so doha is going to score low on the horizon. i fully expect NOTHING to score more than 5 out of 10, if you think im missing something tell me, if you there is somewhere cool you think i should go let me know too.

this one is right up my street - retro paper ads and caberet all in one!

Your No-Cover, No-Minimum Guide to the Seamier Side of 1959 Chicago With Your Cordial Host Dave Burge

http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2006/12/welcome_convent.html

when asked what i do on an average weekend (and why this last weekend i decided to have a mega redux blow out on parties i replied via email)

i currently work a very hard 12 hour shift from 9am till 9pm, or 1pm till 1am, i dont exactly have a huge amount of time to randomly jump on random missions outside of work on any given day, given that everything here takes 1-2days inshalla and nothing official is open for more than 3-4 hours at a time (the bank opens from 8am till 1pm 5days a week)

classic example is today i get my bank statement through, after specifically asking the bank about clearing my credit card ballence on the 1st of every month twice (and reciving written confirmation of this) they didnt clear my ballance -

so i now have late charges on my card, i ring the bank about this but they cant do it over the phone, so i have to go to the bank branch directly to sort this directly with the bank - however the branch is half way across town, is going to cost me at least 60 rials in taxis and a couple or hours of my time to sort out(given there is always a que around the block at the bank), the charge is 160 rials (the policy of the bank im sure is to sting you with lots of little charges that you cant be bothered to sort out and just pay them),

but now im cross and have to sort this issue out, however i cant fit it in this week as i have 5 days at work and more beaurocuracy than you can shake a stick at (i have to get my photos for my driving licence (they have to have me wearing glasses - as the ones for my rp wont do as they dont allow you to wear glasses for the rp ones - which involves me walking through a building site for 40mins to the closest mall which has a photo booth, having my photo taken & waiting for prints (20mins) and walking back to the 20mins mall with nice/propper food, then head home (another 20-40 mins)) then go (taking a taxi) to work to meet the external affairs guys to take me and 'facillitate' the beaurocuracy & have my eyes tested and also do the beaurocuracy for the licence swap(which is going to take half a day and arguing in arabic with a police officer/junior beurocrat as something is inevitably wrong with the paperwork), as well as do a couple of present shopping missions) i may get out for the departmental drinks on thursday night, then i go back to work for 3 days untill 1am on christmas day and im going to be blown if im spending christmas day/boxing day in the bank argueing about late bank charges. in which case the earliest i can sor the late charges out is the 27th.

this is how i generaly spend my days off, chasing nonsense beaurocuracy and using systems that dont work.

my new favourite obsucure occult book lithography blog!
http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/

well im back at work after 3 days off, and ive partied pretty much non stop.

thursay night i went to the movenpik for dinner and drinks, then ended up at the party for the asian games, topfloor penthouse at p7, grat vibe and tonnes of booze and a great view got home very late.

friday night, dinner with louise on the compound good vibe

saturday was the company xmas party in the desert in torrential rain, passable but not great. drinks at sherahazad afterward good fun.

comedy night last night at sherahazad good laughed a lot, went with wallai brighton based journalist who works in the newsroom , really nice guy good to really get to know him. also picked up my birthday/xmass pressie to myself.

dismaly failed to find a car so that one has gone on the back burner.

back to work, late shifts will be at work for the next 2 days then 2 days off to do xmas shopping, photos for driving qatari licence, which need me wearing glasses (unlike the qatari rp ones where im not alowed to wear glasses) and eyetest for the q. driving licence, and given that im as blind as a bat without my glasses i guess that im going to have to get the glasses

also did my uk tax return - thank god thats done.

also started the whole xmass cards thing.

More later