If you knows of a better 'ole. . .

"Well, If you knows of a better 'ole, go to it"

What you do, of course, is scramble over the mound of rubble, picking your precarious way until you can go no further, leap across the trench grabbing the red boom to stop yourself slipping back and into the hole, then squeeze out between the red and the white booms to the relative safety of the road beyond. You do this on average three times a day if you're a Doha walker. You do it in Musheireb, in Muntazah, in Mansoura. You do it because the alternative is usually to retrace your steps for up to a hundred metres and walk round the outside of the barriers, cheek by jowl with the crazy traffic. You do it because, second only to demolition, Qatar's national pastime is digging up the roads and pavements. And unlike most other cities, in Doha they generally make no provision for alternative walkways, probably because if you are insignificant enough not to be driving a Land Cruiser you don't really merit 'normal' consideration.

My caption, "Well, If you knows of a better 'ole, go to it" in case you were wondering, was first used by the World War One cartoonist Captain Bruce Bairnsfather. If you've not come across his work, check it out. Nearly a hundred years on, we're still blowing ourselves to bits. Only the weapons change. The inhumanity is constant.

You too can have a Smile like Mine

There's a delightful innocence in unsophisticated advertising that takes you right back to the fifties. The little snippets from domestic bliss: the smiling wife, the preening husband. "It's like a new suit, Jack, thanks to Castlebank Dry Cleaners". Such happy tableaux have long disappeared from Western advertising, but are alive and well in the Middle East.
This cheery couple, let's call them Khalid and Noorh, are in every way the perfect role models. Khalid is traditionally attired and, though he sports the beard and moustache, he is extremely well groomed. Nothing swarthy here. And Noorh, though modestly robed in black with her hair completely covered, is a modern young woman, confident to show her face, at least while in her husband's company. And of course, both have perfect teeth, almost too perfect, which is only to be expected of patrons of Alkharashy Dental Center. Inevitably, they have two children, one boy, one girl, with whom they share and perpetuate their wholesome delight in good dental hygiene.

Welcome to InterNations

If you've arrived here from InterNations - Welcome to PARAPLEXED, formerly The Paranormal Hotel and originally Helga's Chickens, arguably the longest-titled blog in the Middle East. It's always nice to be recognised so I'm grateful to InterNations for featuring my humble efforts here. (In fact, it is the second time we've been 'discovered', the first being by The Chimaera, a bona fide literary e-zine). But that was a long time ago, in the days of Helga's Chickens.

So, thank you for visiting. What will you find here? Nothing too serious, not a lot of politics, for example, but plenty of social commentary, mostly from street level. I'm a walker. I like the detail of city life, the things that don't make it into the papers, the stuff you don't see from a car window: the quirky shop signs and odd juxtapositions, the weird rules and regulations, the characters and eccentricities that constitute local colour and flavour, the human vibrancy that can't be destroyed by mere demolition and reconstruction (Qatar's national sport).

And please feel free to comment on anything that takes your fancy. I like comments, provided they don't try to sell me time-shares in Ibiza...

Arithmetic is Alive and Well in Doha

Doha Intercontinental Hotel Oktoberfest tickets cost QAR 170 each. I was buying two, from hotel reception, for which I handed over QAR 350, not having the exact change. The receptionist, as upright and smart-suited a young man as one would expect in a five-star establishment, placed my money and tickets carefully out of reach below the counter and proceeded to walk the considerable length of reception to borrow a calculator from the cashier. On returning, he entered the following calculation: 170 x 2 = 340. So far, so good. He then took a notepad and pen and wrote down the number 340. Next, he cleared the calculator display and performed a new calculation, 350 - 340 = 10. Returning to his note pad, he wrote the number 10. He looked up at last and explained to me: "You have purchased two tickets at 170 each. That totals 340. You have given me 350, so your change will be 10 Riyals. Please step this way to the Cashier desk to complete the transaction".

And when the cashier's electronic till reconfirmed the complicated figures, the upright, smart-suited young man's face palpably shone with pride and no little relief.