Canadian foreign affairs minister John Baird will visit the UAE (and Kuwait) this week “to underscore Canada’s commitment to working with regional partners to help build strong democracies that respond to the needs and interests of their citizens”, according to the ministry.
Might be nice if he could settle this spat over UAE landing rights, so “Canadian citizens who need/want to travel to the UAE don’t have to pay for it with hundreds of dollars and loads of bureacracy in securing a visa”.
He will join other leaders at the Sir Bani Yas Forum. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I still can’t believe that the only two countries in the world I have ever lived in are so grumpy with each other.
… the outlet in Mushrif Mall is supposed to open tomorrow. Inshallah, of course.
“My housemaid has run away and she has taken all my gold.”
“My housemaid has run away and she has taken all my gold.”
Relations between the two nations may remain frosty, but there is a
ship bearing a refrigerated container with the UAE’s name on it, holding with pure Canadian greenery in the form of fresh Balsam fir trees from Nova Scotia, heading this way.
I am of course Canadian and I have a fondness for real Christmas trees, but I have to be a bit of a Scrooge here and ponder the environmental impact of this particular operation. I completely get the sentimental pull here though. I would love to hear from anyone who’s decided to get one. Also, it’s hard to make a tree last past New Year’s Eve when you buy it from a tree lot in mid-December. I have no idea how these trees, arriving on November 30 after what had to be a long and arduous journey, are going to hold up.
It’s weird because he can see out, so he just sits there and watches everyone.
He’s given our lawn some kind of lawn STD because there are mushrooms growing all over it
I want to work somewhere normal, where people act as they should.
I wanted to dress up as swine flu for Halloween, but then I got sick.
It’s alright in the winter but in the summer it’s hell.
I cross-stitched Tina Turner.
That’s it. I’m so having carbs today.
Add
slipping in a cat nap to the list (which includes kissing, eating and bringing along any sort of luggage, even though the Dubai Metro ends up at Dubai International Airport). An American visiting her parents nodded off on the southbound Red Line, only to wake up past her stop to a ticketing inspector handing her Dh300 fine (about $83 Canadian).
Two train attendants confirmed to XPRESS that passengers caught
taking a nap inside the train may be fined. But one of them gave a
qualified answer: “If a passenger falls sleep and snores or disturbs
others – by drooling or falling over on to someone else’s space – that
can invite a fine.
“As long as they don’t disturb other passengers when they sleep on the train, then it’s OK.”
I have got to admire this kind of chutzpah in a place like the UAE, where I cannot recall seeing the word for vajayjay in print in all my 3.5 years.
So if you’ve caught the television promos for Michael Bolton’s show at Madinat Jumeirah in Dubai next week, and you are not from North America, you may have thought to yourself “why is he wearing a pirate costume and singing about Johnny Depp”? (And people are: I overheard two editors at work talking about this just yesterday)
Turns out that the footage that is being used to promote the show is from a gag digital short produced this autumn by Andy Samberg’s Lonely Island crew for Saturday Night Live. The premise is that a bunch of rappers have hired him to do the soaring hook for their hard-core video, but he only wants to belt it out about Jack Sparrow. Like most of their shorts, it is very stupid and completely hilarious. Please watch.
