Musings on doha: there is quite a sizeable population of what is colloquially known as migrant workers (Indians, Pilipino & other south east Asians) here, its quite sad really a lot of them are paid pretty poorly for the work they do, they are building the nation from ground up, even what I would call ‘professionals’ IT, Engineering, etc are paid massively lower salaries than their western counterparts, ive never experienced this disparity before, what my experience in the past has been is you are paid to do a job, independent of the nationality you are, your job is in a pay grade you get paid in that pay grade irrespective of where your from. Not here if your SEasian you generally get paid half to a quarter of western counterparts.

Well its done: im going back to London for a cultural break, the Egypt trip has been canned for this season for issues beyond my control, well maybe next dig season.

Im in blighty from the 26th March till the 11th of April

You know it, I know it, but let me know and we can hook up for a beer or lunch/dinner

The Abjeez - iranian/sweedish feminist folk proto-ska/reggae - Nice



very whimsical but i like it - very dancable, nice videos too

Interview with muslix64, HD-DVD & Bluray cracker.




"IMHO, AACS is totally busted. The only thing I can see for now to prevent the attack I have described is to put different keys on every single every disc! It will cost a fortune for the manufacturing, so I'm not sure they will go that way..."



http://www.slyck.com/story1390.html

Currently my favourite web2.0 mashup waste of time

a fake ad genorator using flickr to grab photos and assigning ad taglines to them, instant fake adverts!

http://www.cogandsprocket.com/adgen/adgen.html

Hello one and all, what an eventful few days that was,

Day 1) got the car: not as beurocratic as I thought – go see a typist for the form to be typed in Arabic, hand over fees, and a little something for the typist, 5min later details transferred – I wish all the rest was that easy.

Day 2) quiet day zooming around Doha in car, rained a bit, had bbq at Louise’s to welcome Louise’s second daughter to Doha.

Day 3) still loving new car – had to go to bank to sort some kind of snafu. Easy.
Went shooting for the first time here in Doha, 25 clays for 50rials – bargaintastic. May try to get my skills with a shotgun and rifle up whilst im here.

Day4) tax returns again ;-( aramexed to London over night so should get it in in time to avoid the non-sense, long email from K. cheered me up no end, watched scratch documentary as well, and a quick drink with Charlie and Sal.