Biting your tongue...

This is a frequent occurrence in the UAE. Such an occurrence happened to me tonight in the extreme.

I was already pissed off because I had been to Yas Marina Circuit to run and my Garmin GPS's battery had died at 4.8KM, leaving me not knowing what my time was for 5KM. Annoying.

So, the route home from there takes me through a short tunnel (imaginatively called 'Yas Tunnel') which has a 40kmph (c.25mph) speed limit. This in itself is ridiculous for a three lane (or is it 4, can't remember?) road, even if it is in a tunnel. So, I am driving in the outside lane of said tunnel, absolutely not doing about 80kmph and neither was anyone else (!) , when a twat in a (wait for it.... yes,  you guess it.....) a Land Cruiser (shock, horror!) came tearing up behind me, flashing his lights and positioning himself about 4" from my rear bumper. This is in a tunnel remember? 40kmph limit.

So anyway, as he didn't actually have anywhere to go i.e. no hard shoulder to overtake on (which is a favourite) and cars on my inside, I do my usual thing....just sit there. Save ramming me (which I wouldn't put past some) there wasn't really much he could do, except continue flashing his lights, sounding his horn (he did, a lot) and kind of swerve from side to side like a demented cobra. As he was being a particularly irritating rear orifice, I did in fact slow down somewhat just to wind him up. Yes, childish I know, but it just had to be done. This was "bite your tongue" moment no.1. I'll explain later.

When we exited the tunnel, I sloooowwly pulled over so he could pass, which he did and performed the totally predictable "lets try and swerve in front of you to make you break hard" manoeuvre, which they learn as small children on their bikes in the street most nights between the hours of 11.30pm and 1am. I followed him as he screeched round the roundabout and up to the traffic lights, which much to my amusement, were on red. As I pulled my car up behind his, I thought this is it, I'm going to get out and have a quiet chat to him and explain the error of his ways. Or something like that. So I put the car in "park", undid my seatbelt and then started counting to 10. I reached about 3 and had my second "bite your tongue" moment. I put my belt back on, waited for the lights to change and let him speed off.

So why all the tongue biting, the uninitiated may ask? Back home it would be for different reasons. Back home, these days you never know who you are dealing with and could end getting stabbed. But the odds are more in your favour of this not happening, so road rage kicks in and arguments abound. So why here? Because the odds are totally stacked against you. Try to argue your case against certain people and you are just going to fail every time. So when my instinct in the tunnel is to slam on my brakes and let the pillock smash into the back of my car (why should I care, it's a lease car and the insurance will cover it),  I have to remember that when the police are called, all he needs to do is say is that during the inevitable confrontation that would occur after, I had verbally insulted him and flipped my finger at him. This will be enough for me to be arrested, thrown in jail and eventually given a short jail sentence, followed by deportation. No need for witnesses. No burden of proof. My word against his. Happens time and time again. Same at the traffic lights. Whatever I may have said to him, would just be relayed as something totally different to the police and include the inevitable finger flip too.

So - biting you tongue my friends is the way to go. Not very satisfying, maybe galling, but will keep you out of jail. After nearly 5 years here now, my tongue is very sore.

Abu Dhabi F1 Weekend

We have just had a great weekend with my brother, Steve and his wife, Dora, who came over for the F1 weekend. Steve has been before, to the first Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, but it was a first visit for Dora. So, inevitably, we did some of the tourist visits again. I actually like showing people around and don't really get tired of seeing some of the best sights, like the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque below....

On Friday we spent a day in Dubai. We hit a couple of malls, they went to "At the Top" at Burj Khalifa, we went to the old Spice Souq and Gold Souq and in the afternoon we spent some time at "The Walk" by Jumeirah Beach. We saw this nice "Cobra" car....

We stopped at Bob's Easy Diner for lunch......

....I was a bit worried about what Walter was doing with his wife on the beach though - you can get arrested for that out here!

I was also a bit worried when they brought these out......

...but (phew) they were for the sticky Buffalo Wings!


Dora and Caz went to a spa on Saturday while me and Steve went to the track. And then Sunday was F1 race day. For once the Abu dhabi GP was a really interesting and exciting race, with lots of incident.  Before it has been a fairly boring "parade", so it was a nice change.

....gotta love the Safety Car!

Jenson Button......

Lewis Hamilton...

Hamilton getting pole in Qualifying....

...and a quick video clip showing the first lap and last lap from our position in the North Grandstand. The leading four on the final lap were all World Championship winners: Raikkonen , Alonso, Vettel and Button.

Train Yas

We have been threatening to go to the free training evenings at Yas Marina Circuit for some time and last night was the night we actually did it! Basically you can run, walk or cycle round the F1 circuit for free on Tuesday evenings. You can hire bikes and helmets there for 25AED each (less than a fiver) which is what we did. It was great, apart from the heat which was 38C still at this time! So a very sweaty time was had by all! But it was quite nice to go around the circuit and I am sure it must have done us some good! I would definitely like to go back.

My pass for the circuit

Fresh out on the track! (doing Watford FC proud)

Riding past "Pole"

Formula Drift - Yas Marina Circuit

We took our young nephew to the Formula Drift yesterday. It's the first time I have seen this live myself. I have to say it was really pretty cool. Some of the drivers have been stunt drivers in films like "The Fast and the Furious" - they are seriously skillful. The Yas circuit was a great venue for it - using the chicanes and hairpin of the North Stand for the action. The "duals" where they send out two cars at a time were particularly exciting.

I had to shout for the guy driving the Mazda RX8 'cos it reminded me of my car back home...I couldn't seem to find a picture of it in full, but it is the red one behind behind the silver MR2 (I'm sure you can guess whose that was?!) ....

Some video and pictures below......

Formula Drift Yas Marina Circuit

Go careful with your camera!

http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/two-fined-for-taking-yas-marina-racetrack-photos


So two guys have been fined for taking pictures of Yas Marina Circuit, lately possibly one of the most photographed landmarks in Abu Dhabi. This is actually quite worrying; the fact that no common sense can be applied and that a ridiculous judgment has been upheld. Apparently, according to the prosecution, there are signs prohibiting photographs. So I guess on Nov. 14th last year about 50000 people broke the law! Even more stupid is the courts statement that the onus is on the photographer to establish whether it is legal to take photographs or not. So, by default you cannot take photos of anything, unless you have established that it is legal. Seriously, who would you ask?

No doubt this will be all over The Sun and The Daily Mail in the UK tomorrow, doing their usual "Muslim bashing" , but really the authorities here bring it on themselves when they do stuff like this. For a country that is heavily reliant on tourism, and will be more so in then future, they have to stop making these ridiculous decisions that just put people off coming in case they get locked up for something innocuous.

Wedding Anniversary

Today is our 7th wedding anniversary. I thought about buying Caroline some itching relief cream in case of need, but didn't get round to it! This was us with our sprogs on our wedding day:-

Tonight we had dinner at the Cipriani restaurant at the Yas Marina. We have been lucky enough to eat at Cipriani's "Harry's Bar" in Venice and also their Rainbow Grill on the 65th floor of the Rockefella Centre in New York (now closed), so I thought it would be nice to try out the new Abu Dhabi venue. It was lovely. The food was great (calamari followed by langoustine "scampi" for me!), the decor is lovely (I particularly liked the port holes either side of the bar complete with video of an ocean scene!) and the overall ambience was very nice. As the weather was good we decided to sit outside, where we had a nice view of the Yas Hotel ....

The funniest things was as we were leaving. A local guy was leaving the restaurant and gave his ticket to the valet parking attendant. The attendant proceeded to drive his Mercedes SL63 AMG 5 yards, parked it and opened the door for the guy! The car ended up further away from him that it started! Brilliant!

Yas Marina Drag Centre - best drag night since Danny La Rue!

Last night we went to the Yas Marina Drag Centre for the inaugural Abu Dhabi Drag Festival. Caz and I went with Caz's aunt and uncle (Doreen & Steve) over from the UK. I had never been to a drag event before (well not involving motors anyway - ah hem!), but I have to say it was awesome. The raw power of the cars is amazing and fills all of your senses - the smell of the rubber and fuel, the sight of the flames and the wicked speed of the vehicles, feeling the heat of the flames and the rumble of the whole area under you as the cars roar away, and the sound so loud you really do have to wear ear plugs!. Well exciting.

The event builds up through different categories of vehicles; bikes, cars - some which don't look too different from the modified cars you see racing up and down Southend sea front at the weekends! Then you get to the serious stuff, first what they call the "funny" cars - I'm not quite sure why, but I don't think it is because they are supposed to make you laugh! They are basically hugely modified muscle cars with nitrous oxide injection systems.

Then we came to the main event - the "Top Fuelers". These things are truly amazing. The video below gives you an idea and some of their stats............ 0-100 mph in 0.8 secs, hitting 310mph !!

The drag centre and the two top fuel cars have been designed in partnership with Don Schumacher Racing - Don Schumacher (or "The Shoe") being a legend of the sport in the USA. Below is a news story about the partnership. Don's son Tony is himself now 7 times champion of the sport and is sponsored by the US Army.

http://speed.ae/2010/01/17/yas-marina-in-partnership-with-drag-racing-legends-don-schumacher-racing/

We left the event after the second run of the top fuelers, just before 9pm. We had booked dinner at the Noodle Box restaurant at the Yas Hotel - which I have to say was excellent, Kung Pao Chicken, yummy! After dinner we went up to the Skylite bar under the coloured roof of the Yas Hotel. From this location you could still see most of the drag strip, although it was at least half a mile away. As we knew the top fuel cars were due to go off again around 11pm, Steve and I were standing at the side watching. I got talking to a couple of American guys stood next to me and it only turned out to be - one Mr Don Schumacher! He joked that this was race control for the night! He was being fed all the stats to his iPhone from the strip. He was very chatty and friendly and shared with us some insights from "behind the scenes". He said that he was trying to persuade the "powers that be" that they should end the F1 days with top fuel drag racing afterwards. Now that would make an awesome way to round off the day!

I have some video clips I took on my phone below (sorry for low quality). When you see the top fuel cars you will notice that as they reach a way down the strip some fireworks go off. Where we were watching from the bar, we didn't hear the initial roar until long after they were through the fireworks. Was cool to see.

Here's an album of my photos from the night........

Yas Drag Festival