Beep Beep Arghhh.

Alright. I am fed up. If I get one more f$%!ing text message ad courtesy of Batelco I will kill something. I never subscribed to anything. I never gave them permission to include my number in a database of numbers that they could sell to clients for SMS broadcasts. I have no recourse, no option to opt out of the 'service'. So I am stuck.

I don't care about the latest SALE at CENTERPOINT. I don't even know what Centerpoint is. I don't want to order Franks a lot. I have no desire to give BisB my money, even if they claim I can win loads of prizes. I will never, ever go to the SkyW@lk cafe in the Marriot apartments, so the two identical back-to-back messages they sent me were a double waste. This is harassment.

And then I get messages in Arabic. My phone doesn't support Arabic, so the messages read

shoe mart

oooooooo oooo oooooo oooooo

What utter bullshit. Why would anyone want a text message from shoe mart? I don't care how lonely someone is... getting a text message from shoe mart is just pathetic, plain and simple.

And who the hell wants not one, but three text messages from RAMEZ? Surely this is harassment. I'm going to start sending Batelco some harassing emails. I'd text them back, but I don't have their mobile number. I don't care how self-defeating that'd be... if I could annoy a handful of Batelco management with messages like -

'SPECIAL OFFER HAPPY TIME. FREE ONE FOR TWO, only TODAY. SEEF!!!!'

it'd be worth it. Totally worth it. Some Batelconians claim there is no way that our beloved Telecom would ever do something like sell broadcast messages to random clients. But that's a lie. Who the hell has ever given RAMEZ their phone number? And other Batelconians, some of whom were directly involved in the whole broadcast message thing, have made it clear that they'd sell anyone's number to anything. If a sheep wanted to tell the world that it was feeling slightly horny, Batelco would facilitate as long as it had some cash.

I'd ask the TRA to help me but I have a thing against flushing my time and energy down the toilet. I'd call Batelco and demand a free text message for each and every ad that they enable the godforsaken advertiser to annoy me with, but can you imagine how frustrating that conversation with customer care would be?

Fuck this. I just got another message, from Ramez. While I've been typing this rant I've received FOUR text messages from RAMEZ. No lie. Not one, not two, not three... but four. And they're all the same.

They discovered a new medium with which to harass the public, and true to form, they've abused it to the point that it is no longer even slightly effective. Just like they did with billboards. Just like they did with those goddamn streetlight ads. I remember, not long ago, the Ministry of Transport and the Municipality were arguing over who was entitled to the revenue from those lamppost ads. One Ministry took them down and the other put them back up. Maybe if I call the Ministry and tell them that Batelco is taking all the revenue from broadcast messages.... Telecoms fall under the domain of the Ministry of Transport, or at least they once did, for some reason I'll never quite understand... That might be fun. Although, has anyone ever managed to get a Ministry to answer a phone. I've heard stories, from the days of old... but I think they're lies.

I don't care if they send me four thousand messages. I'm not going anywhere near Ramez. Even if I really, really wanted to wander around a dirty warehouse full of reject Chinese merchandise, I couldn't bring myself to do it. Please, boycott every business that sends you stupid, annoying, harassing messages. And then, maybe, someone will learn something. It's doubtful. There's far, far too much stupidity going around these days, but it cant hurt to try.

The Great Swine Strategy 2: The Rethink

It just keeps getting better, but only in a sarcastic way.

So there was the great rethink of our wonderfully bright Kingdom's swine flu strategy. Where all the decision makers got themselves together in a one-off attempt to do their jobs. Bravo. Pause for applause. And it was at this meeting of the 'minds' that it was decided to stagger the opening of schools. According to the GDN:

All secondary schools will stay closed until October 4, intermediate until October 11, primary until October 18 and kindergartens and special needs centres until November 1.

This new schedule of brain-numbing stupidity comes after a senior WHO (not the band) representative declared that keeping schools closed 'is not an option'. In fact, instead of doing any good, it would seem that delaying the inevitable until a season where oink-cough will spread more rapidly is irresponsible in the extreme. Let not this bother our decision makers though, for they have decided. God forbid we, y'know, listen to some advice. Naah. We know better. All the other countries are doing it wrong. They're stupid. They probably don't even know what a full-option S-class looks like. We on the other hand, we know our shit.

And it gets better (again, sarcastically). Much, much better. Apparently, this latest 'step' was taken to "safeguard the return of pupils to classes, particularly vulnerable groups such as young children and to alleviate pressure on the country's health services". Allegedly. But the Ministry of Health, the people charged with cleaning up the messy pandemic, have made it clear that they disagree with this decision. So, I wonder, aloud: who made this decision? Neither the WHO nor the Ministry of Health. In fact, both of these organizations, the very same institutions that logic would dictate have the most qualified opinions on this matter, disagree with our latest 'strategy'.

Now, if there was a meeting that was attended by the ministries of Health and Education and had some input from the WHO, and two of the aforementioned parties are against the new 'plan', logic dictates that the one remaining party is the party responsible. So, by using regression analysis and a bit of coin tossing, we come to the conclusion that the Ministry of Education is now Bahrain's foremost authority on health matters. And pandemics. Who would have guessed?

Whatever. This is getting old, quickly. It's clear that we have no idea, not even a faint sniff of a clue, how to handle anything that resembles a problem. Who cares who gets the blame? WHO doesn't. They offered us their advice and we roundly dismissed it. But to tell us that this plan is somehow in the best interests of the children and a responsible approach to alleviating pressure on health services when it clearly is not, well thats just a cheap lie.

Apparently the logic is that its better to be safe than sorry. Seriously, these were the words that were uttered to the GDN by an unnamed Ministry of Health official who, like anyone else with sense, thinks this plan is stupid. But is it better to be safe than sorry now and a whole bunch sorrier later because we were stupid before in a pathetic, ill-advised attempt to be safe?

The strategy, and I use the term in it's loosest form, seems to involve nothing more that thumb-twiddling until the great western vaccination is so kindly sold to us for a brutal profit. Some people, myself included, assumed that the first batch of vaccinations would be used to immunize the little kiddies before they got sent into their educational petri dishes, because of how they're high-risk, and, well, little kiddies. Perhaps then we would be able to find a nugget of logic in this series of absurdities. But no. Not a chance.

It seems that the first batch, all 40,000 doses of this entirely unproven elixir of hope, have been allocated for the pilgrims. Two doses each (even though from what I've read , only one is required) for 15,000 haaj-goers. My math is a little rusty, but what happens to the other 10,000? Mmm. I wonder. Vaccinate Important Persons perhaps?

Let it be. If someone wants to be my guinea pig, hooray for me.

If we're still playing the prevention game lets stop people entering the country. That'll help a bit. And while we're at it, close the malls. We should've cancelled eid, but it's too late now. Cinemas are a bit tight, so they're gone. Cafes too. And eateries. And public transport, because that's rather popular. And gyms. And supermarkets. Let's not let a silly thing like logic get in the way. Hell, why not just close Bahrain 'until further notice'.

The Great Swine Strategy

Idiots.

We've all heard about Bahrain's incredibly retarded swine flu strategy. Y'know, the one with the schools. If a student goes and gets all infected, the whole school will be shut down for one whole week. And if ten percent of students get sniffly, the school will be shut down for a week.

How the hell could this 'plan' feasibly work? Seriously... think about for a minute or two. What the flu that has barely anything to do with swine lacks in severity it more than makes up for in virulence. The statistics that are spewed about with reckless abandon in our media lead us to believe that a fairly respectable percentage of Bahrain will end up being part of this annoyance of a pandemic. I reckon, had they thought about it and, y'know, consulted with anyone who reads, they would have come to the conclusion that the probability of at least one student from every school in Bahrain contracting oink-sniffles is very close to 1.

And now, after five schools have been shut down in about four days, they're discussing a 'rethink' of their strategy. A rethink implies they thought about this strategy in the first place. Which begs the question: How utterly stupid are they?

Perhaps, if anyone really cared about the oink-cough, we would have pretended to give a shit beforehand. Nah. It was inevitable. We can whine and moan and bitch and scream and wear utterly pointless masks that allegedly increase the chance you'll get something, but instead of really doing anything about anything the only thing our government managed to accomplish was, well nothing. Unless you count parliaments attempt to ban the import of pork. That would've saved us all. Muppets.

I cant wait for the new 'strategy'. Maybe they'll make everyone who gets sick huddle in the corner while the healthy point and them and make pig noises. The shame will banish the illness to less proud parts of the world. Maybe the police will roam about the streets, impounding everyone who sniffles. Maybe, just maybe, they'll say that it is illegal for expats to leave their homes, because this disease is a foreign, expat disease. Bahrainis would never play a part in spreading something so unfashionable. Never. It is worthy of note that all five schools that have been closed are international, private schools. Bahrain's public institutions would never be host to a disease named after a filthy animal. Never.

Morons. Bahrain has hosted its fair share of nasty flu in the past. We, as a nation, are demographically prone to get whatever illness is annoying the planet and there is nothing we can really do about it. Sit back, relax and when the sniffles arrive, blame parliament. Why? Because they're probably blaming you. And because they honestly believed that banning pork imports would save us all.

The sound of sunshine

I haven't complained in a while. It might be because summer makes me lazier than usual, or perhaps because nothing has agitated me enough to get the drivel flowing. The lack of complaining is also, undoubtedly, directly related to Parliament's summer break. But it was only a matter of time.

A lot has happened since I last posted. Gulf Air got themselves a new chief, Bahrain beat Saudi at the kicking competition and Swine flu is the new black. Come to think of it, not much has happened at all. Ramadan arrived with a whimper and will disappear with a sigh of indifference. More on Ramadan later. For now, I'll complain about the mundane.

Radio Bahrain. The sunshine sound. The gulf's 'number one'. The worthless exercise in public media who's shameless profiteering has turned it into a veritable parody of a real radio station. The headache inducing pointlessness that suffers from a cavernous deficit of vision, ambition or logic.

Despite being government funded, Radio Bahrain have sold every last nugget of air time to anybody and everybody. Advertising on Radio is necessary, particularly in a country like Bahrain where it is essentially the only public media that is ever actually entertained by the populace.

I don't mind ads, but when the news bulletins are sponsored by something I couldn't care about, and when the weather is brought to me by something I don't know what is, and best of all, when the TIME is sponsored, I get annoyed. It's silly. And pointless. And clearly, demonstrably over-saturated with constantly repetitive drivel.

Furthermore, has anyone ever noticed how a fair chunk of the ads broadcast feature the voices of Radio Bahrain's very own 'DJs'? If Krazy bloody Kevin provides the voice for an ad during his torturous show, shouldn't it be considered an endorsement? If so, does the Ministry of Information and Culturification not mind that the people that it is paying to annoy us are also blatantly recommending a whole host of products, services and events to Bahrain's impressionable public? Probably not. It was probably their idea.

Fire some people. Hire some new people. Figure out how to develop some local talent who can a.) read, and b.)speak. Preferably someone who does not play house music at 3pm. Put Ian Fisher on a plane and send him far, far away. I don't care what they do or how they do it, but they've got to do something.

Why does Radio Bahrain even have news bulletins? They must be aware that if we need news, we've got BBC radio. I might not like BBC all that much, but they're a Bentley next to Radio Bahrain's beat-up Skoda. Old Skoda, before they were owned by VW. The news we hear on 96.5 is regurgitated tripe. There is no local news, save for the occasional message informing us of some 'cable' of good wishes sent to somewhere by someone. Surely email would be more efficient? How does one go about sending a 'cable'? Is it like a telegram or something?

They don't entertain. They certainly don't inform. So what do they do? They exploit their captive audience. They milk us by assaulting our senses with a barrage of useless, ill conceived, amateur adverts. They annoy us by employing the least qualified, most irritating, verbally challenged DJs'.

They're building a new studio, or something to that effect. A new studio wont fix the problem. It's beyond institutional. Radio Bahrain is a problem. It creates the closest thing Bahrain has to celebrity, which in turns stifles innovation. Krazy Kevin is your example. I know Kevin. He's a nice guy. But he belongs in a bar in middle England or some holiday resort or cruise ship. He was brought here by JJ's back in the day and stayed, because the tacky appeal that is lost on those with taste somehow worked on Bahrain. And now we cant go a day without hearing his wheeze, listening to his latest annoyance of choice or pretending to ignore today's mildly racist remark. But he'll stay, as long as he wants to stay. And he'll hum the same old tune, because that's what seems to work. It gets him a nice villa, a sponsored car, a host of personal appearance events and countless pseudo-endorsements. All because the powers that be that lurk somewhere in a ministry building just don't care.

And compared to Ian Fisher, Krazy Kevin is awesome. The 'Fish' is a personality free hack who seems to be in radio by virtue of being able to speak in English. With no charm, nothing interesting to say and the most repetitive show in the history of existence, nowhere else in the world would even consider employing him as a DJ for the one and only national radio station. Yet here he is a veteran. A (god help us all) trendsetter. A regular presence on our airwaves with whom a generation of Bahrain has grown up. It's just plain wrong.

The only way it could be worse is if Roy (the racist) Silverthorne were to return.

Yes, this is nothing more that an unstructured rant and for that I apologise. Now I'm going to bang my head against the wall for entertainment. It's better than listening to the radio.

Vaguely newsworthy nonsense

Every now and then the great fountain of knowledge that is the GDN spews forth a little nugget of amusement under the guise of news. For example, today a story entitled 'Funds blow tocorniche facelift plan' demonstrated:

a.) The sheer idiocy of municipal councillors and

b.) The GDN's remarkably inept excuse for journalism

For over a year there's been talk of a massive revamp to the dimly lit pointlessness that is the AlFateh corniche. Work was allegedly scheduled to start in July, at a cost of BD8 million, to turn the urban beachfront into "a family development, in which families come first, and not a place where bachelors hang out at their expense".

There was just one problem. One tiny little hiccup. Funds. You see, in all the hullabaloo about thehubbly bubblies, the people with the 'plan' didn't actually secure funding. It turns out that to execute an eight million dinar project, you need about eight million dinars.

It's okay though, because the Manama Municipal Council has a plan. They're going to offer up parts of the corniche for investment to help generate income for the project. The project that is supposed to start in a couple of weeks. Genius.

And now for some 'reporting', courtesy of the GDN:

"The municipality doesn't know from where it would get the money, it only knows that it would lease parts of the development to investors," said council services and public utilities committee chairman Sadiq Rahma.

"It is easy to come up with a timeframe, by saying that work would start in July next year and take up to three years, but I don't know how work can go ahead without funding.

"This project is something that everyone is looking for, considering that it is the most popular seafront for bachelors, couples and families in the country.

"I don't know why municipality officials are willing to announce the project when the issue of coffee shops there is still not solved."

Fantastic stuff. So not only do they not have money, they have unsolved issues. Namelyshisha. The coffee shops on the corniche that serve shisa are apparently doing so illegally, or not, depending on how you interpret the GDN:

Licensed coffee shops at the corniche are currently operating without up-to-date contracts, as many refused to sign new ones when they were banned from serving sheesha.

The new law was issued in July last year, although the decision was reversed a few days later. If the decision was reversed a few days later, the new law would be a dead law, would it not? I am really confused.

"These coffee shops will be closed down to pave way for the development, whenever the municipality comes up with a serious timeframe for work," said Mr Rahma.

"Owners of coffee shops wishing to continue in the new development are welcome, but withoutsheesha being served.

"What we have in mind is a family development, in which families come first, and not a place where bachelors hang out at their expense.

"We are not saying bachelors shouldn't enjoy seafronts, but attracting them with sheesha is wrong."

As we all know, shisha is bad, because it is what bachelors do, and bachelors are bad, because they are not married, which is totally gay. Tobacco is not the hardest thing to make a strong argument against. They could've gone with the whole 'it'll fucking kill you' argument which seems to be gaining a bit of traction these days, but instead they went for the whole 'it attracts bachelors' approach.

It's all over the place. First he said it was the most popular seafront for bachelors, couples and families in the Kingdom. Then he said it was going to be a family development and 'not a place where bachelors hang out at their expense.' So bachelors are welcome, but not really, because they are a nuisance to families. What about couples? Is a couple technically a family in the eyes of the Municipal Council? How old do you have to be to no longer qualify as a teenager and fall into the dreaded 'bachelor' category?

I hate the GDN. I learnt nothing whatsoever from this story. In fact, I think I know less now than I did before I read it. Instead of asking questions, the reporters are content to scribble down the pointless utterances of absolutely anyone and print them, word for bloody word, to fill up space between overpriced advertisements and press releases about air conditioning. Or fridges.

In capable hands this story could have been used to unravel the idiocy of yet another institution of our 'democracy'. These people with considerable power and limitless opinion are allowed to plan multi-million dinar projects without actually figuring out where the money is coming from, and we are paying their salaries. Should the press not be horrified?

And amidst all the talk of Family Tourism, has anyone actually defined the term? No. Family Tourism is good because, according to the CEO of the EDB in an interview with none other that the Wall Street Journal, 'there is a higher spend per person'.

"We'd like to move away from the bachelor tourism to family tourism, where there is a higher spend per person"

Sounds like an assumption to me. How is this 'spend' calculated? Obviously there would be a higher spend per person, because that person would likely be shelling out for the entertainment of their entire family. But is that really a justifiable quantification? Family tourism is predominantly regional. In most of these instances, one person pays for everything including the hotel, the shopping, the cinema tickets and whatever else. When they imply that Family Tourism has a higher spend per person, does that mean that the head of a family spends more than a vacationing bachelor? If so, DUH. If not, fuck off. Either way, your statistics mean nothing to me unless I actually get to see them.

Surely alienating an entire, demonstrably profitable target market in favour of nothing more than an idiotic assumption borders on the criminal. Now I'm angry, and I blame the GDN.

Up, up and away

Hah. According to the GDN, MPs have decided to postpone a corruption probe into Gulf Air until after summer because they want to "avoid shaking public confidence during the peak summer months."

Yeah right.

Since when did parliament worry about the public's confidence in Gulf Air? Does it not seem more likely that our overpaid elected confederation of muppets postponed their much-hyped corruption investigation because they want to go on holiday?

They want to sack the CEO immediately, but corruption... that can wait. And this is no ordinary corruption. No, this is the really bad kind of corruption. The deadly kind. The kind Bahraini democracy despises. Expatriate corruption.

According to our wise pillars of society, the corruption and mismanagment cases are 'affiliated to six or seven expatriate senior officials'. No Bahrainis, because as we all know, us Bahrainis are immune to corruption. Not like them expatriates. Even the phrasing is racist - 'expatriate senior officials'. Not senior officials who happen to be expatriates, but rather expatriates who are senior officials.

The more I think about it the more ridiculous it sounds. Does corruption in an established bureaucracy seriously damage public confidence? If it did, Bahrain's public would have the confidence of a mouldy turnip.

Perhaps they're worried that during the execution of their brilliant CSI-style investigation it will be discovered that Gulf Air's planes are rubbish. That might scare people. Or that the food is recycled from hotel Brunch leftovers. That might turn them off. But people boycotting an airline because some of the executives are corrupt? Really? This ridiculously remote scenario must be based entirely on assumptions. The assumption that people care enough to actually read about a corruption probe. The assumption that the press would actually, y'know, be informative. And the mind-bogglingly massive assumption that the fare-paying public is so morally indignant that they will specifically avoid Gulf Air to make an ethical point.

"Sorry kids.. We're not going on holiday this year"

"Why Daddy? Why?"

"Because of corruption my children"

"What's a corruption Daddy?"

"Corruption is a disease brought to Bahrain by the expatriates, and there's been an outbreak at Gulf Air. So until they get rid of every last bit of evil expat corruption, we're going nowhere."

Utter bullshit. They're going on holiday, plain and simple. It's been a difficult year for our simple MPs. Perhaps they deserve a break, especially after all the hard work that went into giving themselves a pay rise.

Three cheers for democracy. Ain't it awesome?

Pesky swine.

Great. 
Fantastic.

Wonderful. 

Swine flu. Swine bloody flu. The man-made disease that has nothing to do with bloody swine has arrived on our sunny shores, despite parliaments ridiculous attempt to prevent it from doing so by banning pork. Hurrah!

It was bound to happen. Not just because of the utter ignorance of our elected peers who were likely delighted by the emergence of this new strain of evil, but because Bahrain is a prime candidate for such a disease - especially now that students are coming home from all across the world for the dreaded summer.

If parliament really cared, they might have done a bit of reading on the subject. Instead of trying to use the panic to pass pointless legislation, which they are guilty of doing, they might have been better served trying to limit the influx of US Military into our Kingdom. That there have been no cases, reported as yet, amongst the servicemen and women in Bahrain does not mean that it wont happen. Look at Kuwait, with 18 or so sniffly new cases. We're hosting an aircraft carrier. There is a lot of room for sniffles to hide on board a ship bigger than Manama. The families of military personnel are set to flood back into Bahrain, bringing with them their savings, pets, thoughts, and quite possibly, disease. But our guardians, the mighty Members o' Parliament think it wiser to prevent our damnation instead of protecting our health. 

Get sick for all we care. As long as you don't eat pork, drink alcohol or try to interfere with our much deserved pay raise, it's all good. We're busy with other shit.. y'know... important stuff. Important stuff, like, well... family law. 

Yeah, we've gone from swine flu to family law. Why? Because, of course, of parliament. And because I'm rambling. 

Last week, parliament passed a long-awaited family law draft that aims to improve the status of women. This law was intended to govern things such as personal status, marriage, divorce and custody. It is, as anyone who has ever read our local excuse for a newspaper knows, a much needed start. And it sounds good. So far. The problem is that this long awaited law will only improve the status of Sunni women. Only Sunni women. No Shiites, because that'd be, well... bad. 

The initial draft, submitted by the government, did in fact cover both Sunni and Shiite women, but Al Wefaq, the voice of Shiites in our 'esteemed' house of representatives, rejected it without compromise. Why? Because according to Al Wefaq, the Parliament is not qualified to debate or decide on family matters rooted in religious jurisprudence. 

So, the government revised the draft, changing the title from 'family law' to 'family law: Sunni section'. It sounds like a bad sequel to an awful movie, starring the woman from Judging Amy and the guy from Law and Order. And it gives way to a two-tiered family status that will be chaotic at best and barbaric at worst. It is patently unfair and unwise, in every possible way. 

And, thanks to the entire Shiite block of parliament walking out, the family law sequel was passed. It has not yet been signed into law, and over twenty NGO's have appealed to delay that happening, arguing rightly that endorsement of the law would slow efforts to introduce a common family law to Bahrain. Who is left for our parliament to alienate? Expats? check. Liberals? check. Non-Muslims? Check. Labourers? check. Women? check.  The only people that are likely to have anything good to say about our attempt at democracy are conservative, Muslim, Bahraini men with no logic... oh, wait... they're the MPs. 

That's what parliament have been up to.  

That, and well, giving themselves a massive pay rise. A pay rise that they believe they deserve. A pay rise that takes them even further out of touch with reality. A pay rise that in the end, will likely be their undoing. I for one believe that parliament should double their salaries. Not because they earned it, but because by doing so, people with brains and qualifications would be more inclined to compete in elections. And these people, with a hint of intelligence and a smidgen of logic, would likely win whatever seats they contested. And the MPs of old will have to kiss goodbye to their fat paychecks and numerous benefits. They will be relegated back to the real world, where their self-righteous indignation will go all but unnoticed. And maybe, just maybe, Bahrain will be able to reclaim a bit of its squandered pride. 

But first we have to deal with that pesky swine flu.