Barring them from falling is an offence and it's all about being negligent

So it's been all over the news for the past few months. There's been a wave of kids falling from high storey buildings. Killed on impact. Especially in Sharjah.

Doing something about it like trying to prevent these tragedies has now become illegal according to the authorities. What?!!

Yep. Putting up barriers to prevent children from falling off balconies has led to the authorities clamping down on the highly dangerous criminal conduct of several concerned parents and even land-lords.

According to building regulations, all balconies have to be covered by walls at least 1.20 metres tall. That's fantastic as the average four year old is probably about 80 cm tall, if not more. That leaves another 40 cm for the monkey like antics to get onto the ledge and with the average four year old's ability to keep his or her balance on a five cm ledge firmly in mind, chances are that gravity might eventually take its toll and the newspapers will have another tragedy to write about. Oh. And the authorities might have another set of parents to hold in custody for negligence.

Yes. People should not leave their kids home alone in high storey buildings. Yes parents should not put boxes or crates on their balconies, but tables and chairs...? If I had a balcony... oh, I actually have one, I would put some furniture out to have a seat to enjoy the sun and maybe even a high altitude barbecue every so often.

Yes. People should make sure that their children understand the deadly consequences of climbing up the balcony wall and the possibility of falling to the ground floor, but what's this rule about building regulations on putting up barriers to prevent tragedies like children dying after a fall of seven floors?

Yes. Landlords need to be informed of every new attachment or erection attached to their property, but maybe landlords need to see the light and erect the precautions themselves - even at a cost to the lessee if necessary. However, I'm sure no one wants to have the blood of an innocent child on his/her hands if it could have been avoided by putting in place the necessary preventative measures - including proper discipline, but that's another subject for another time....

H of Arabia

Too many ex-, stalking girlfriends may get to you in the end Harry.... The return of the Psycho-the-rapist

The thick fog lifted a little bit as the moon peaked through the clouds for a fleeting second. The snow covered landscape looked like a scene from a fairy tale where frosted trees threw long and daunting shadows over the untouched white carpet.

Suddenly a caped shadow moved from a cluster of trees, leaving boot marks in the direction of the quiet, dark castle.

A flash of ginger coloured hair was visible for a fleeting moment from below the hooded figure and then he... or she disappeared in the darkness of the castle walls.

It started snowing softly. The flakes covered the very dead and bloody body of a the unlucky girl, while pale white hands were scrubbed with soap and water in the stables to put distance between the murder and the hands responsible for the vile, unimaginable act.

*******

The man from MI5 looked at the miserable wet figure. It was 03:00 in the morning. He noticed the red, tired eyes and the shiver in the clasped hands. It reminded him of prayer. The confession he just heard stunned him, but there was no surprise.

He turned and stared out the window towards the trees. The snow was at least one metre thick by now. All the tracks were covered. Tomorrow Her Royal Highness will take her horse out to the fields and be none the wiser. No one will have to know about the dead girl in the royal grounds. By the time the snow melts, the body would hopefully have been decomposed and become one with the soil. His charge and the confession would be something of the past. It would have never existed to start with. He would have nothing to cover up.

Not being a medical practitioner, he did not take into account the preserving powers of the ice and snow. He would have his hands full in the morning....

Groete uit die woestyn en van al die Arabiere

H of Arabia

* DISCLAIMER

An act of pure fiction and a very warped state of mind...

Murdering a fetus?

This week was an interesting week in Dubai, to say the least. A Lebanese woman was convicted of murder after accidentally killing her fetus when she was involved in a car accident. She was 9 months pregnant when the accident happened.



The question now is; did the public prosecutor have nothing else to work on? Is there so little crime that he should go after a mother who lost her unborn child and traumatize her further? Reckless and negligent driving and not keeping a proper distance is one thing. I agree. Fine the living daylights out of those, but don't take it to a point where it becomes laughable.



However, having said that, as I was driving to the office this morning, I saw another woman driving like a total maniac. Swerving in and out of lanes and break-neck speed. So I thought of this case and I wondered if this was not exactly what happened in the case mentioned above.



Surely if this was so and there was evidence of such driving, there might be some explanation of the prosecutor's decision to go after a young mother-to-be.



Critisising the prosecution, without applying the audi alterem partem rule is being an arm chair critic, which most of us are when we read these kind of stories in the newspapers. The question therefore is what were the circumstances and why does the prosecutor not spill the beans.



If I think of what I saw this morning and take into account that a fetus is a living being -according to the prosecution - then living cells must be deemed living organisms as well. So if she of the daredevil driver did have an accident this morning, I think the prosecution should do their homework get a medical done and see if she actually killed some of her eggs in the process. If so, prosecute her for murder. The same would go for sperm, but then killing sperm might turn into a huge back log for the prosecuting authority, with all the w*nkers in Dubai....

Playing that stale old card smells like rotten feet.... or blood...

So Nelson Mandela has paved the way for all to see. It was easier for him to do though, but at least he showed balls and this is what the rest of the world lack.

Nelson pulled Naomi Campbell off the stage at his party, as he was "disappointed" with her behavior on the BA Flight to the States the other day. I say well done oh wise one.

She of the lost luggage primadonnas, however, threw the very familiar race card on the table as expected.

Is it just me or do people of color have this thing with their skin? The moment things don't go their way the card is played and everyone cringes because another black person with the "you owe us" attitude has been aggrieved.

Alas, this was the lesson leant the hard way a few years back. Cape Town was bidding for the Olympic Games and in the final stretch it was Cape Town and Athens neck in neck. What did the old wise man do? He told the committee "You owe us as Africans". Maybe not in so many words, but the message was loud and clear. Those boys did not fall for it and I applaud them. Athens got it and nearly screwed it up, like South Africa is currently (potentially) doing with the Soccer World Cup.

The World Cup was given entrusted to South Africa as a gift from the world as far as I'm concerned. The rest of the world said, you can do it. We'll give you a chance. You are unlike the rest of Africa. You have a proven record with the Rugby World Cup and the Cricket World Cup. You have done it and you succeeded.

I'm afraid the time has come to have another look at this. Crime and corruption is making the rest of Africa look like clean cut school boys... Except for that monkey just north of the Limpopo River. Fully (apparently) backed by the government of South Africa.

Today is the Presidential run-off and no one is even trying to prevent the syphilis ridden monkey faced creep of a Mug-ape from fucking up the place even more.

And this is where I'm circling back. I am no racist and neither is most of the world. I am, however, fed up with those of color playing the card and those of none holding back, just in case those of color may be proved right.

The rest of the world owes nothing to Africa anymore. The time of begging with the white bread under the arm should be over. The rest of the world need to open their eyes and pressure those who play the card while their people are dying in droves because they cannot govern without corruption. In fact this apparently is not in the African blood to do democratic things, like they profess to do (or want to do).

It is time Mug-ape is taken out like Sadam and prosecuted for fucking up a whole country.

It is time the rest of the world tells Mbeki to straighten out the crime and corruption in South Africa. Take away the Soccer World Cup before the rest of the world sees the real problems, so expertly hidden by threatening with the card. Embarrassment will not be the government’s only. The Nation of South Africa (color or no color) has a reputation to clean up and it needs to start at the top.

Stop playing the card and act like beggars guys. No one owes Africa. Slavery has come and gone and those Ogerous Colonists for the good of everyone developed the countries. It is the beggar culture, which drove them back to the Stone Age after independence.

The racist card is old and stale and the rest of the world needs to take notice and stop feeling guilty.

Secretaries

So now it is illegal to have a non-local secretary. Will they sit on your lap?, will they take down notes and type it up?
What will they wear under the Abaya?
Who wants to be a secretary if she is a local lady anyway.
Difficult legislation and it will probably be applied like the non-smoking laws in the UAE....

Sometimes I just wonder who comes up with these suggestions. How do they sell it to the powers that be and how do they foresee implementing it?
Just asking this time.

Lifts and the all mighty

In Dubai and probably the whole of the Middle East, North Africa and the Levant, I've come across "very important"people. Very important indeed. They have to push in front of the queue. This is whether they drive or for a brief moment walk form check in to the boarding gate at the airport. That is if the golf buggy was not stopped and some elderly gentleman with a cane was not shouldered and sent reeling down the travelator to get a seat, which is after all for the elderly, injured or pregnant. Now unless the Americans have made more than one male person pregnant - that's the story I read in the local papers- there is usually nothing wrong with these guys. They are just very important!
You would also notice them secretly whispering to the check in personnel or what ever they call the guys who always tear my very expensive tickets. For those who might be in the dark about the reason for the conspiratorial whispering. They trying to get an upgrade from economy to first class, 'cause that is where the cream of the crop needs to travel. No why pay for it if they guy who checks you in speaks the same language and can see from your attitude that you are important.
I have a few rules in life. One is that if the person who wants to turn into your lane an uses his/her indicator, let him/her come in. If there is no indicator, no entry mate!. Learn the rules.
I also have a second rule that if I put on the indicator light and you close the 100 meter gap that existed a millisecond before I put on the indicator light and my car is bigger than yours, I turn and you turn with me. Just because it is bad manners to close a wide open gap. Especially if I indicated first. Never take advantage of prior knowledge of my actions.
Some of the other rules will be dealt with in later issues of this gold mine of information.

Pushing in is a bit irritating and it does make me see red sometimes, but it always brings a smile when the ticket tearer or check in engineer sends them to somewhere warm with a smile. They talk about dogs and tail between the legs. The sight of these sulking important hero's is much sadder than a dog with its tail between its legs.
But I probably have to come to the point of this very important edition.
Important people are always in a hurry. That is a given. In Dubai and again the rest of this region it also seem that even the unimportant people are always in a hurry. This makes people react very strangely and also do things which is totally fruitless.
The invention of lifts was a fantastic innovation not only for the lazy but also the unimportant workers in tall skyscrapers all over the world.
Initially, I suppose they were driven by chains and possibly slaves who had to work in the summer heat in 12 hour shifts.
Then NASA (I think) invented computers and they added computerized motors to these things. You press a button and, unless you live on a movie set in Hollywood, you wait.
I've made a point of trying to understand the things I deal with on a daily basis. That includes the basics of how a computer and a lift works, but totally excludes the inner workings of my car's engine.
I've learnt that pushing the button of a lift once will make it come at some stage. I've learnt that patients is a virtue and that you can press that lift button as many times as you want to. It will not come faster, unless you have a copy of the fire man's key, but then you need to be inside the lift (I think). I've also learnt that the buttons that show you to close the door quicker do not work, while the ones you use to keep the door open will be activated for five minutes after keeping the door open for someone else.
So with all this knowledge I was waiting for the lift the other day. I was there first and I was alone. I pressed the button once and waited. I could see from the little indicator lamp thingamajig that the lift was on floor 3. I was on G for ground floor. The arrow showed the computer received my message and was coming down.
I stood there waiting patiently. It arrived at 2. Stopped for a while and proceeded after dropping off or picking up someone.
It came past 1 and I held my breath.
And then it happened. Rajkumar almighty enters the scene. He must be very important, but he does not know the fine details of the inner workings of a lift. He looks at me like I'm some sad sack of sh.. eep dung. So he walks up to the lift button and while looking at me with contempt he presses the button twice as hard as he can.
The door opens like in the Hollywood movies. He walks in and I can see him shaking his head in his mind at this fool who doesn't know sh.. eep dung.
He is important and he can operate a lift. His is almighty, Rajkumar almighty....