I did some research before I adopted my kittens. They’re my first ever cats, and my first pet without the guiding hand of a parent, so I wanted to do it right and be thoroughly informed before I took on such a responsibility. I read that a cat will be fully grown at 12 months old. Well, my kittens are now just over two months old, and if their growth continues at the same rate as it has been over the last month, by the time they are one I will have two cats the size of Bengali tigers!

I can’t believe how big they’re getting, and how fast. They’re all ears, feet and joints at the moment; but that does not impede their graceful, high-speed movement. The only time they are still is when they are sleeping, which they still do a lot of actually. I think they’d sleep a lot more if they didn’t insist on being where ever I am, honestly, I can’t even go to the loo in peace! I don’t mind though, I think it’s pretty cool that they want to be close to me all the time and curl up next to me for snoozes.

When they’re not attached to me by invisible string (i.e. when they can see I’m close by and am not making a dash for an exit) they are like hyperactive jumping jacks high on sugar. It’s awesome! They’re always chasing one thing or another, and like all cats they are experts at honing in on the microscopic piece of dust that can’t be seen by the naked human eye.

I’ve had several conversations with Geraint about which of them we think is the best hunter, and I’ve always pegged Mafi as the better of the two. He’s smart, stalks better and has patience. Mushkala, on the other hand, is very gung-ho and charges in without thinking.

Well, the other day I was proven wrong. As house cats, Mafi and Mushkala haven’t had any encounters with any other type of animal other than humans and each other since they came to live with me, so my assumptions about hunting skills were based on how they play with their toys and each other. However, I arrived home a few nights ago and was greeted as normal at the door by the boys. As I was hanging my abaya on its hook behind the bedroom door I noticed Mushkala engrossed in attacking one of my vaguely peach floor tiles whilst Mafi sat back and watched him.

“What on earth are you doing Moo?” I laughed as I wandered forward to pick him up and tell him not to be so daft.

Then I let out a pathetically girly squeal as I was charged by a very tiny baby lizard. It wasn’t the tile he was attacking at all. A new born gecko, all peach coloured and translucent with bulging black eyes, had managed to find its way into my apartment (I don’t like to think about how to be honest…) and was paying the price for trespassing.

In response to my cry of shock, Mushkala charged to my rescue and flung the gecko across the floor, tearing its tail off in the process. Between the wriggling, panicking lizard, the squirming tail and Mushkala’s general glee at having a toy that moved of its own accord I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry or stand on a chair like the real girl I am.

Every time I thought Moo was done with the poor thing and it had gone to meet its lizardy maker, I would approach it gingerly with the dustpan and brush, Moo right by me, his head cocked in anticipation. Five times I went to throw the remains away before I could get to it without it making a bid for freedom and Moo attacking it again. Even when it was finally dead I had to follow Moo around the house whilst he carried his trophy around with him, tail in air all proud of himself.

All the while Mafi just sat and watched totally uninterested; he’s a wimp after all. Who knew huh?

Yours,
Alrac Tabb

 

Five more British servicemen lost their lives in Afghanistan yesterday, bringing the total number of deaths in the Afghanistan war to 184. Despite this the Chief of Defense claims that the forces are still making progress in the region.

Progress? Forgive me, but I must have a very different idea of progress than they do.

Progress to me would involve the evolution of a mature, civilized way of solving world problems and disputes. It would involve the UK and other so-called ‘developed countries’ having their own house in order before they wade into another country and profess to know better. Ok, so I understand the need to do something about terrorism and stamp out the Taliban and other religious extremists, but is this war on terrorism helping? Is the west really selling itself to the east?

Religious extremism in its current form, Jihad, was born out of and grew upon fueled hatred of the western world and its attitude of complacent greed and control. Is marching into Iraq or Afghanistan with guns and bombs making us any more appealing? I don’t think so. All it is doing is aiding the Taliban’s recruitment drive.

I’m not professing to have a better solution; I don’t. If it were up to me I would develop a way of making everyone realize exactly how pointless all of this is and have them all just drop arms and forget about all of this and simply go about their own business. From wars over bits of earth to wars in the name of gods we are just wasting life. That’s all it is, a wicked, meaningless waste.

People choose to join the army, I know this. Those five servicemen that were killed knew the risk; they decided to put their lives in the hands of politicians who only see them as a rank number and fodder for their great cause. Disposable aides in election campaigns and public appearance.

My great-aunt and uncle lost their son in the first Gulf war. Kieran Duffy was a handsome young man who had everything going for him. His parents had worked damn hard to drag themselves out of their working class roots and had succeeded enough to provide him with an excellent private education. He excelled at everything, incredibly intelligent, charming, polite and ambitious. He was very close to his mother in particular and both of his parents were very proud of him.

Upon leaving school Kieran decided he wanted to be a fighter pilot, so he joined the RAF. Now, flying the jets is an honour awarded to very few and only the best of the best achieve this level of greatness. He sat all the exams, passed all the physical tests and was finally accepted into the upper echelons of the RAF. My aunts most prized possession is the photograph of him stood in ranks with his colleagues shaking the hand of former Prime Minister John Major.

Then war was declared. He was excited about seeing active service. Thrilled he’d get to put his training to use in the field. Before he could serve his beloved country a modified jet needed testing and he and several of his squadron were selected for the task. Out in the desert they wheeled around in the sky, just days before they were due to jet off on their first mission.

Kieran Duffy died that day. No-one knows exactly what happened, it’s not clear if there were enemy forces concealed in the nearby mountains who got a lucky shot off. The official version of events was that the jet he was testing malfunctioned and exploded. What is for certain is that he would not have had time to even think about hitting the eject button or reaching for the cord on his parachute. They never found any remains.

What did his death achieve? Nothing.

Last year I visited a relatively new war memorial close to my UK home. The National Memorial Arboretum in Alrewas, Staffordshire is dedicated to all those servicemen and women who have died in active service since World War Two. There are around 60 or 70 mini memorials dotted all over his plot of countryside dedicated to individual platoons or battles, but the central memorial is simply awe inspiring. A chalk coloured monolith rises up from the center of an iron statue of fallen soldiers in the center of a chalk, stone circle which is enclosed in a larger circle of stone. Both circles are divided in half and the opposing halves stand a little apart, as if held at an equal distance by unseen, opposing magnets, as a way of admitting visitors to the spectacle.

The masterpiece is huge, and it sits atop a small hill; raised above the surrounding tributes to the brave souls who died for our freedoms. On the walls of the stone circles, that rise high into the horizon, the names of every single person to have died since World War Two are carved in neat lines. The curved walls are made up of headstone like blocks of sandstone, and both sides of the inner circle are crowded with names. The inner side of the outer circle is almost full too. There is only one quarter that is ominously blank, waiting for the next batch of names to be painstakingly carved onto its smooth surface.

There is a slat on the east side of the monument. The slate is in both circles, a peculiar break in the roll call of dead. Its purpose, as the carved message inside the slat tells visitors, is to admit a single shaft of sunlight on the 11th hour, on the 11th day, on the 11th month; memorial day.


See it for yourself here:
http://www.thenma.org.uk/content/Armed-Forces-Memorial-1339.shtml

A few headstones before this gap is a name that caught in my throat as I read it. A name that tipped my eyes from watery to tearful. A name that made the sobering atmosphere real and yet more surreal.

Kieran Duffy.

A man I would never know, and who I feel I would have liked. Bright, funny, ambitious; a kind family man who never got to marry his fiancé. A wasted life and an unrealized future.

I used to work in a shoe shop, and the daughter of the manager was the Saturday girl. I got to know her quite well. A sweet girl who liked to have fun and who worked two jobs to save money for her car. An 18-year-old, beautiful girl. She joined the army last week. Passed all of her tests and started her training. She loves her family, has many friends, and a loving boyfriend. A promising future. I hope to God she lives to fulfill it.

Yours,
Alrac Tabb

 

Yesterday I was scanning several news sites in an attempt to keep up to speed with the outside world and not live completely cocooned in my own bubble of an existence. There were several interesting articles, not least of which was a report about the murder of two midget wrestlers who were drugged by the two prostitutes they were “entertaining”. However, one in particular caught my attention and made me quite mad. Michelito Logravere, and 11-year-old boy, had killed 6 bulls in a bull fight in Mexico.

An 11-year-old child bull fighting? It appears that his proud father had submitted all the necessary paper work for someone to be a matador on behalf of his son, including the written approval of the bull fighting association/committee - I forget the official title. Animal rights and child welfare activists campaigned to stop the fight, but a judge in south east Mexico rejected their bids to put a stop to it.

Michelito entered the ring and took on six calves, no more than two years old. I was angry; but the more I thought about it the harder it was for me to determine exactly what had made me angry. Was I angry at the parents of this boy, who has been bull fighting since he was six, for putting their child at risk? Was I angry that this boy thought bull fighting was such an acceptable thing? Or was I angry because I simply detest bull fighting?

The more I thought about it the more I decided it was a combination of the two latter reasons. I hate bull fighting, I think it is barbaric and the people who take part display such a level of cowardice that it sickens me. The thought of hundreds of thousands of people turning out to watch a group of “heroes” out number an animal and slowly kill it whilst baiting it and increasing its agitation makes my blood boil.

For those of you who don’t really know all that much about the alleged sport I will explain what happens during your average Spanish bull fight. There are several types of bull fighting but the Spanish is probably the most common, and the most barbaric. If you thought a bull fight entailed one man entering a ring with a bull armed with nothing more than a little red cape, you are sorely mistaken. That would involve a measure of courage, a shred of heroism and a smidgen of decency. No, a matador is accompanied into the ring with an entourage, or a cuadrilla to give them their traditional name. These accomplices take turns to throw spears and barbed spikes into the bulls’ neck and shoulder muscles. This forces the creature to bleed and stops them being able to lift their head as high when charging – making it safer for the matador to get close enough to stab the bull between the shoulder blades; after having tormented it with a little red cape of course.

The cape is not red to anger the bull. Bulls are, in fact, colour-blind. It is red to mask the amount of blood that comes flying off the bull as he passes the heroic matador.

It’s vicious, cruel and disgusting to me. I cannot find a single redeeming feature of the process.

Then I came across an article in the Times that made me stop and think. The writer was discussing the comments of the “comic”, and I use the term loosely, Ricky Gervais. Mr. Gervais had appealed for bull fighting to be banned because it was cruel and barbaric, and the writer of this article was disagreeing with him. I was quite prepared to let my anger build and grow as I read the article; how could anyone support this? However, as I read I found myself liking the writer, and agreeing with him.

He makes the point that too many people are over sensitive about animals and behave sentimentally towards, what is essentially, dinner. I agree with him, a cow is breed for beef, I eat meat, it has to die for me to eat it. Fair point. I’m not sentimental when it comes to dinner. He also points out that bulls bred for fighting have a better quality of life than those bred for food, as well as reminding readers that death in an abattoir is no picnic for the cow either.

He then makes the argument for tradition, cultural and historical importance and relevance.

This argument really got my cogs whirring. My mind flitted back to an argument I had had with a friend at university when parliament spent weeks debating whether or not to ban fox hunting. The words he used to describe the cultural significance of bull fighting were almost exactly the same as the ones I used in defense of fox hunting. I have no issue with fox hunting, not a fleeting squirm or feeling of injustice and cruelty involved in the sport. See, no ‘so-called’ or ‘alleged’; fox hunting to me is a part of British culture. Part of my support for it was born out of my irritation that so much time was taken up debating it in the House of Commons when there were so many more important things to work about like a war on terrorism and a failing NHS.

That’s my finger on the pin point of the argument right there – people matter more. I care more about the little old man left to suffer in his own excrement by incompetent nurses who don’t give a shit, than I do about a fox that has to run for its life. It’s a fox, they live in the wild, and part of that existence is to be hunted. We’re people; part of our existence is, unfortunately, Governments and Presidents etc. Surely they have more important things to worry about than a little fox?

A bull is a lot bigger than a fox, and a hell of lot fewer people attack the bull than in a fox hunt. Perhaps I have an issue with it because it is not my heritage. Perhaps I don’t like it because it is people inflicting wounds, not dogs. The more I think about it though, I think my biggest issue is with the way people revel in it. Thousands, upon thousands of people crush into amphitheatres to watch the blood bath unfold. There’s something repulsive about that isn’t there?

The author of the Times article claims that people go to face up to the inevitability of death. We are all going to die, and knowing that the bull will die when you buy your ticket and going along to watch it is meant to represent that. The bull is us. You suffer then you die. Life’s a bitch, and then you die.

Poetic isn’t it?

It worries me that people glorify death in this way. It is held up as something magical, to be enjoyed as entertainment. So long as there is a meaning behind the torture and death it’s ok. People can invent meanings, it happens everyday; and the masses are willing to swallow the excuses, just so long as they get their bit of flesh.

Personally, I don’t like it. I think that is just an excuse, a load of bull. But what do I know? All I know is I would rather it carried on, and the Spaniards, Mexicans, Portuguese and whoever-else continue to uphold their traditions and enjoy their blood baths. Rather that than watch the UN waste months deciding whether it should be banned. I think they have bigger fish to fry.

Yours,
Alrac Tabb
 

Ominous and black the surprising smoke wound its way heavenward. It shimmered in the heat of the morning and wove itself, in a hypnotic dance, through the molecules of sweaty humidity. Bizarre it seemed, no reason for its presence. Confusion, worry, thoughts of terrorists and road side bombs dash through my mind, all the way across they tug at nerves that connect to my stomach. It contracts a little before my ears assert their point of view. No sirens they say. No sirens; that must be a good sign. No alarms, no sirens, ordinary morning sounds of traffic, traffic and more traffic.

The driver makes the right hand turn, we move away from the horrid blackness that is marring the cloudless, sandless sky. The roads here were designed to be fool-proof, idiot-proof; straight lines, few turnings – you can’t go wrong. The problem with them is they seem to have been designed by fools; thus they are not fool-proof, but intelligent proof. A concoction of U-turns, signals, highways, exits and entrances. To reach our destination the driver should just be able to make a nippy left turn and then a right, a 2.75 minute journey. But no, the idiot-proof system will not allow this. So a right turn, 5 minutes in the wrong direction, a red light and then the inevitable U-turn.

Idiotic.

Now we are dodging other drivers, maniacs who think a car crash will only have the same effect as two camels and riders colliding. Camels to Cadillac’s, and tents to top floor pent houses in such a concentrated space of time is never a good thing!

We’re chasing the black beast that is thicker now, fattened on oxygen and the soggy wind. Then I see it. The white, square behind of a mini-bus, not dissimilar to the one I am in. It is being devoured by the smokes creator. Huge, orange flames that spewed the smoke into existence are tasting the bus, the doors are open, the glass is gone from the windows. Forlorn, desperate, abandoned the decimated vehicle has accepted its fate.

No one stops, there are no authorities to be seen, no second glance. Oh my god, I pray, the passengers, the driver; did they forlornly accept their fate? I can’t help as we pass, a lane away from the ravaging inferno that reaches out its thick fingers of melting heat for fresh food. The sweat on my skin runs in rivers, I feel the pain of the fire. I don’t want to see, I don’t want to bare witness to the mangled corpses that were surely melting within. I look. My mascara softens in the heat, my vision struggles through the sticky haze and vicious wave emanating from the carcass in the next lane.

Nobody in it. Not even a driver. The bus was murdered. Empty and alone on a rush hour highway it was torched. Either that or the unlucky passengers it had once proudly carried had fizzled into oblivion long before we passed by the sorry scene.

I arrive in the office and, shell-shocked, turn on the computer. It boots up and reveals new e-mails; one from my lover, one from my friend, and one from a distant acquaintance. The acquaintance warns of a spate of robberies. Mobile phones and wallets are all they take; they leave corpses floating in blood.

It wasn’t the best start to today.

Yours,
Alrac Tabb



 

Ok, so we all know what Facebook is. Well, I’m going to assume you all do because there have been several blogs recently about the site. Not to mention the fact that every one on the planet, with the possible exception of the goat herders stranded in outer Mongolia with no internet, no TV and no radio, has heard of Facebook and social networking.

I read Sarah ’s blog today and it got me thinking about the pro’s and con’s of social networking. In Sarah’s blog she talks about witnessing a political debate on Facebook that rapidly spiraled into personal attacks and general unpleasantness. Kay Jordan has mentioned that she has become a Facebook addict and during one of her fixes she came across an inappropriate comment on her son’s profile.

The dark side of social networking; and believe me there is a dark side.

In the UK there was a wave of child/teenage suicides across the country that had been triggered by, or linked to, severe bullying via social networking sites. Admittedly it was Bebo and not Facebook that was ‘blamed’, but what’s the difference? In Bridgend, Wales, another spate of teenage suicides. They were mostly unexplained, but investigators believed that many had been triggered by the desire to be immortalized on the web through dedication pages on social networking sites.

Online, talking through the medium of microchips and broadband connections, people can be who they want to be. I’m not talking about the pedophiles who stalk chat rooms, and no doubt sites like Facebook, I’m talking about everyday people like you and me. Sure, we put up our photo’s, we talk about everyday things, we chat with friends who know us well; but in many cases, the faceless medium can create a massive reduction in inhibitions. It’s a freer form of communication in a sense. No-one can watch your for body language and facial expression, no-one is listening to the tone of your voice; you can say anything. You can exaggerate, lie, deceive to your hearts content.

Not only that, but with the inhibition gone, you are much more likely to speak your mind. The darkest, most evil thoughts that cross people’s minds are more likely to spew out over the keyboard. With no one close enough to challenge you, with no physical deterrent, it is perfectly feesable that you would just type as you thought.

Now, I’m not saying that anyone reading this does those things, but I’m sure we all know people who do, either in our real social networks or the virtual ones.

Then there are the people who hide behind Facebook and their virtual selves. People who seem to be losing, or have never had, social skills. There are certain things we wouldn’t do in normal, everyday life. For instance, it is considered unacceptable to follow a friend around for a day or two, pick out their best looking friends/acquaintances that you have never met, and then approach the selectees and ask them to go to bed with you. However, on Facebook, it is very common for people to peruse a friendship list of someone they know, select a pretty target and then proceed to add them as a friend and then harass them. I know a hell of a lot of people that this has happened to. So the person on the receiving end should have refused the friend request, but should they really have to? Many people join Facebook to make friends and meet new people; why should they have their enjoyment limited because whoever they may add might be a weirdo?

On the positive side of the argument, Facebook is fun! I love Facebook. I keep up with friends, share jokes, pictures, and stories. I’m half way across the world from most of my loved ones; I can’t sit and write an e-mail to each and everyone of them! I’m bound to forget one person and offend them. With Facebook I can log on and be caught up with everyone in an hour or so by checking their statuses, new pics, sending a quick message here and there. It’s fantastic.

I do the quizzes when I’m bored, and every once in a while I’ll join a “food-fight” or I’ll “poke” someone. However, I do not feel the need to set up groups here there and everywhere, I do not stalk people, I don’t live through it. Facebook has different ways of hooking different people. Some, like me, are hooked on “seeing” friends and being seen, others are hooked on the applications (I think the latest craze is a farming one), and then there are those who are hooked by the ability to prey on others and take advantage of not having to face the consequences of their words or actions.

So is Facebook good or evil? I don’t know really. All I know is that I keep myself private on there and I have a good time when ever I log on.

What do you all think?

Yours,
Alrac Tabb

 

I finally brought the kittens home guys!

I was a bit nervous about helping them to settle in. I've not had cats before, and bringing a baby to your home and separating them from their mother is a very stressful time for them.

I needn't have worried. As Arabic speakers would say, Mafi Mushkala; or 'no problem'. They were straight out of the cage and wandering round checking things out. Within a few hours they were completely at home and now it's like they've always been here helping me type and playfighting on my lap!

I love my kitties.

Here are some photo's.

** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only **

** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only **

Yours,
Alrac Tabb


 

As I have mentioned in a previous blog, I am not very good at sports. In actual fact, I stink at sports. Part of the reason is the sheer lack of coordination and physical fitness. In terms of physical attributes, I’ve never really had what it takes to be a sportsperson of any kind. I’m equally lacking in the ambition, drive, determination and competitive departments. I just have never been able to see the point of running around, getting all sweaty and struggling for breathe on a bitter, frosty morning just to get hit in the face by a hockey ball. Seriously, what the hell’s the point in that? What do people get out of it?

I’ve never really followed sport either, it bores me. I’ll watch the occasional football or rugby match to be patriotic and when I do watch them I can get quite into it. However, I can’t be bothered to pick a team and follow them. The amount of your time it takes up to follow every match, know who’s on the team and when they were bought or sold and how much for, not to mention the history of the club and all the other gumph that goes along with being a supporter.

Besides, especially where football is concerned, I get pissed off at the thought of scrimping and saving for a ticket to a match when the morons on the pitch who can’t string two words together off the pitch get paid astronomical amounts of money for kicking a bloody ball around! I mean, heart surgeons, the armed forces, the police force, fire fighters, these people save lives, or put their own lives at risk to protect others and our liberty. Did you know that if you average it all out properly someone at the basic, bog-standard level of infantry in the UK army earns less than the minimum wage? That means that the snotty bitch who serves the over paid “sports personalities” gets paid more than someone who will be on the front line facing down terrorists and road side bombs!

A slight detour from my point there, but you get what I’m saying, right? I have as little to do with sport as I possibly can.

You may all know already that The Literary Penguin and I recently became members of the BBA and, through is organization, we have attended several functions. Know, I was ready for political discussion, business talk, educated conversation. I brushed up my current events, made sure I read through the days headlines so I would have something to offer to the conversation and was prepared for anything. Anything except the topic of conversation that seems to have dominated every event we have been to – SPORT!

Seriously, am I going to have to start learning about football, cricket and rugby just to be able to do something other than stand there and look pretty?!

And believe me folks, I looked pretty last night!

I guess I should go and start researching the offside rule …

Yours,
Alrac Tabb

 

I get my first ever puddy tats tomorrow night folks!

Not really a blog worthy topic I know, but I'm so excited that I can't think of anything else to blog about! I've never had a cat before. Growing up we would have dogs and rabbits and the occasional hampster. My mom said it was because she didn't like cats, but then she ould go on to tell me about ht ecat she had growing up that she adored and that just confused me. I love animals and so I'm not one of those people that discriminates and says 'I'm a dog person' or 'I'm a cat person'. To me that just limits your chances of being loved by an individual. Cats and dogs are very different, and each cat or dog within their own breed is unique. I'm really looking forward to watching my kittens grow up and having them become part of my family.

Ger and I have another busness dinner tonight too; with the ambassador as the guest speaker! So I shall get a shimmy on with the last hour of work, dash home and collect the last few cat things from a friend on the way, and scrub myself up so I look presentable. Wish me luck with that!

Yours,
Alrac Tabb
 

I blogged yesterday about some of the newest friends I have made who have enriched my life in a way I could not have imagined. That got me thinking; thinking about the friends that have been enriching my life for years. I’m lucky enough to have known some remarkable people who I have made deep and lasting connections with, but there is one friend who knows me just a little bit better than the others.

Sarah and I have known each other since we were about 9. I changed primary schools as a result of bullying and we were in the same class at my new school. We didn’t spend all that much time together then. She was the sporty tom-boy and I was the shy, quiet, atypical girl’s girl. That’s not strictly true about me, I used to climb trees, bike ride and roll around and get as muddy as the next tom-boy with my then best-friend Lauren, herself a self-sufficient tom-boy. However, Sarah was the one that took on the boys in the playtime football matches – and let me tell you she wiped the floor with all of them! Then there was me, on the edges of the playground quite literally away with the fairies and quite happy to be too.

Time moved on and we went on to the same secondary school. When we arrived we were in different tutor groups and, as a result of the school tradition of dividing the year group in two, we were on different sides of the year. Our school was called Cardinal Griffin after its Roman Catholic founder and so the form groups were C, A, R, D, I and N. I was in form D and Sarah was in form R. Being on different sides of the year meant we didn’t have lessons together and there was a, mostly good-natured, rivalry between the two halves that widened the gulf. P.E. was the only time we mixed. To make sure we all got enough P.E. lessons a week they combined form groups. C and A had P.E. together, I and N had P.E. together, so that left R and D.

You’d think, as Sarah was ultra sporty and naturally good at anything the teacher gave us to do, and I was the absolute antithesis of that, we would not have much in common and therefore nothing to do with each other. Trust me, I have about as much co-ordination as an old woman with a wooden leg walking down the aisle of a moving bus that is going over speed bumps, whilst trying to balance a cup and saucer full of scalding tea in one hand, carry a bag of wriggling kittens in another, and balance a book on her head; all the while trying to avoid things thrown by the ASBO youths at the back of the bus. Exactly, it can’t be done; and I can’t do sport of any kind.

The two of us did have common ground though. There was the St. Mary’s solidarity (our primary school) and there was the fact that neither of us paid any attention to the strict code of teenage girls that says if you are academically inclined, as I was, you could not mix with the sporty folk, which Sarah was.

Our friendship didn’t really take off properly though until we were about 15/16. When we began our GCSEs the math’s groups were mixed up beyond the year dived limit to give the better students a chance to excel I guess. Don’t ask me how, but I ended up in the highest set. Seriously, I suck at mathematics. I always have. Sport and numbers are the two things I avoid at all cost! Anyway, I got good grades the year before as a result of my math teacher hauling my mom in to ask if there were problems at home because I was struggling. There were no problems at home, I just couldn’t do maths; but the fact that she was so rude spurred me on to show her where to shove her stupid assumptions and I did quite well. GSCE is another step up entirely though and I would have drowned completely if it weren’t for Helen McNamara. She also went to St. Mary’s, her parents worked at the school as my mom did and she was in Sarah’s tutor group. I got through maths by keeping a firm grasp on Helen’s coat-tails, ignoring the teacher and relying on her checking my homework, or doing it for me altogether if it was anything above the most basic level!

From this mutually beneficial relationship (I’m not sure what Helen got out of it but it makes me feel better to think that she did!) a friendship blossomed and as I started to socialize more with her outside of school I saw more of Sarah.

Sarah was a bit of a rebel in her own way really. Still is actually. She was always quiet, shy around strangers, and very polite and respectful, but she hated the thought of being generic or even remotely similar to the next person. With her red hair and dimples (she got the unimaginative nickname – Dimples!) Sarah would wear big biker boots, army jackets and had bags covered in stitched on badges and home-made key chains. People found it hard to believe she listened to Guns and Roses and was the first in line at rock concerts, but she was wicked. I loved spending time with someone who was the same as me; an individual who knew how to be unique without sacrificing any morals or disregarding the need to respect others around you.

We’ve been inseparable ever since.

Over the years we have got ourselves into and out of too many scrapes to tell you about all of them and we can laugh about every single one. I love when we meet up and get to talking about old adventures and we don’t even have to tell them anymore we know the stories so well, but we laugh like they had only just happened.

For example, on a biology field trip when we were 17 we had slipped out of the dorm in the middle of the night to warn friends (Helen was one of them) that the teacher had noticed they had gone. In the middle of nowhere in the Breacon Beacons (Wales) they had disappeared to one of the far flung corners of a nearby field to have a much needed smoke after a day with our neurotic teacher. Sarah and I crept down the fire escape that hung from the dormitory window and began ducking and diving among the shadows to try and get to our friends. We were working unbelievably hard to suppress the giggles at the thought of how ridiculous we must have looked in our jammies and wellies when we approached the lit kitchen window where one of the teachers stood waiting for the other miscreants to return.

We were doing quite well, shimmying and crawling under the window ledge. We got past the window and thought we were safe. Jumping up to make a dash for our mutually agreed next point of cover we were mid sprint when a motion activated security light blared into life. Sarah, being the sporty, level headed tom-boy that she is, immediately dived for cover behind the nearby dustbins. It was quite an impressive roll actually. Me, being the girly wimp I was (still am), couldn’t decide whether to head for the bins, the next point of cover (a bush), or turn and run to the last point of cover (the mini bus). I was there like a lemming, hands held out in defense and confusion, jumping around on the spot looking at all my options with a look of absolute terror on my face. Have you ever seen John Belushi in Animal house when his character, Flounder and D-Day are sneaking across the quad to play the horse prank? You know the little jumpy bit he does to see if anyone is around? That’s what I looked like. Except I wasn’t half as cool as John Belushi and I was a little slimmer!

At the very last second I noticed Sarah absolutely wetting herself laughing watching me. I dived at her to give her a whallop and tell her it wasn’t funny and she dragged my to cover just as Mr. Thomas emerged to see what had set the light off. I’ve never laughed so hard in my life! How he didn’t hear our hysterics I’ve no idea. By the time we could straighten ourselves up it had started to rain. We headed back to the dorm, reasoning that the smokers could look out for themselves, and returned up the fire escape. We got back to discover that the others had been back for nearly an hour before we were!

Between that story and the one about the time we capsized the boat, and out of fear of the toothy fish we had been warned about, kept our feet squarely on the side of the boat and so didn’t realize we had drifted to an area of the lake where we could actually stand up, the two of us always have something to laugh about.

I really miss Sarah. My partner in crime, my dance partner, my drinking buddy, my best friend. I know that she will always be my friend, no matter how far around the world I go; she has to be, she knows too much!

Yours truly,
Alrac Tabb

 

I stepped off the plane in Saudi Arabia at around 10.00am on the 28th of January this year and was very lucky in all aspects of my arrival. I have heard horror stories of people, women especially, being stranded at Dammam airport because the expeditor had failed to show up for around 12 hours. Women can’t leave the airport without a male sponsor collecting them. I, however, was whisked through customs by my super efficient expeditor and my luggage was even deposited in the car for me. My driver then took me to my compound.

I was told there that the compound manager was running late and that I would have to wait in the car for him to arrive. Here we go, I thought, the flights were smooth, there were no delays, customs was easy, the driver was waiting, this is where things were going to start and go wrong. But no. I was waiting a grand total of two and a half minutes and there was a knock on the window of the car.

So I met the compound manager. He was more nervous than me! At the time I didn’t know why he would be and I couldn’t work out why he was in his best suit when his secretary was in jeans and a T-shirt. I later discovered that my contact in the company, who had had a hand in arranging all aspects of my arrival because she didn’t trust the people who should be doing it, was actually the PA to the head of my department and the company chairman’s daughter. She had been to visit my apartment the day before I arrived to make sure everything was ready. The poor guy must have thought I was someone important!

So after a tour of the facilities and being shown to my apartment I spent an hour or so unpacking and then was picked up by a driver and taken into the office. Yes, by midday after a very quick freshen up and having had no sleep as I had spent the night on a plane I was in the office for the first time. Now I could spend a paragraph or two telling you about how gob smacked I was about the marble-clad, chandelier bedecked lobby or the marvelous old-meets-new luxurious offices, but that is not the point of my blog today. No, my blog is about the woman who made my transition to Saudi as easy as it could possibly have been and her family.

Nadia Tunstall has become my closest friend out here, aside for Geraint of course. She wouldn’t hear of me spending my first night here alone and so she took me home with her after I had been shuffled from personnel, to the hospital for another medical, and back to the office again. As it was my birthday I was treated to dinner in the restaurant on her compound and the next day I was taken on a family day out and stayed another night in the Tunstall residence.

It’s actually quite spooky how much the two of us have in common, we think the same about a lot of things, we have the same work patterns and ethics, and we are both from the same area of England. If I am perfectly honest with you guys I think the last fact was what got me the job! Nadia didn’t really interview me as such; we just had a bit of a natter and a few days later I was sent an offer letter! A friendship was born.

I had only been here a week or so when Nadia and her husband Mike told me they were taking their daughters (they’re both awesome by the way, although you wouldn’t believe two girls who were so different could be sisters!) to the British Beach and invited me to tag along. We pulled up at a shed just inside the entrance where a man was waiting to collect the fee for our entry. I was in the back sandwiched between the girls and Mike and Nadia were up front. Now, at 5’4” I’m not all that tall, and I have always been baby-faced, but I do not think I look like a child. However, we were not charged for me. I guess looking all angelic and innocent pays off once in a while!

Keep your comments to yourself about that last bit; I only said that’s how I looked !

So anyway, since that day it’s been a running joke that Mike and Nadia are my parents. I call them mom and dad and always ask for my pocket money. I’ve not had any yet though … I’ll have to do something about that!

That’s how it is though. They have both looked out for me since day one and I am learning so much from them. It was Mike and Nadia that suggested Ger and I would be perfect for the BBA newsletter, it’s Nadia I see the most socially as well as everyday at work and they are the first people I ask if I am unsure of how something works out here. I really would be lost without the both of them and I am truly thankful that I have been blessed to have them in my life.

To Nadia and Mike; I hope you all are lucky enough to have such warm, genuine and caring people in your lives.

Yours,
Alrac Tabb.

 

I mentioned in yesterday’s blog that in one of my clearer moments over the weekend I was hint with a spark of inspiration and came up with an idea for a short story. I’m actually not convinced it will be all that short to be honest and that’s putting me off working on it as I already have a novel on the go; and to be honest I don’t spend anywhere near enough time on that as it is.

The idea was actually germinated a while back when Ger and I were browsing through sites about mythical creatures. I forget why, he was probably trying to prove me wrong about something as usual. The guy is so full of useless information it’s not funny; I never thought I’d meet anyone who knew more useless crap than me and then I met the Penguin – and boy does he leave me on the starting block when it comes to random knowledge! We were looking through a list of mythical creatures anyway and we were having fun learning about beasts and the like that we had never heard of before. Yes I know, we need to get out more, but there are limited ways to entertain yourself out here! Among these birds, beasts and fishes was a Chenoo.

A Chenoo is an incredibly large stone troll. But to me the name Chenoo sounds like something small, cute even. Chenoo the stone troll who couldn’t grow big was born. That got me to thinking. If there’s a stone troll who can’t grow big, what other kind of misfits are there in the mythical world? As I read down the list I discovered the Imoogi, almost dragons but cursed so they could never become dragons; perfect! An ally for Chenoo! Were there anymore pieces of tinder to feed my developing flame of a story? Asrai, a water fairy – what if she were hydrophobic?? Aki or Oni, demons devils ogres or trolls. Hairy and evil with long horns, straggly hair and crooked teeth. Brothers perhaps who were pristine and good natured with perfect dentures no matter what they tried.

I have a cast! Almost. I needed a villain. I scanned the list a bit more. Did I want a generic bad guy or someone a bit weird? I came across the Lich.

“A sorcerer that usually willingly turns itself into an undead creature. Lichs look like a skeletal like creature and usually have their old cloths on, usually torn and ripped due to the fact that they have usually been around for a long time. They do this in order to obtain great dark powers, much stronger then a normal sorcerer or necromancer, also as an undead they will have alot more time to study. Lichs have the ability to control the undead, they can also make dead things into undead similar to a necromancer. It is also said that a lich can turn living creatures into undead without having to kill them first, although it is not completely certain.”

So I had good guys, bad guy and a vague idea that they would all have to over come some sort of set back to their own development; a bit Wizard of Oz-ish I’ll grant you, but it’s going to be a children’s story and there has to be some kind of well worn familiarity to it right? I began to work on I the same way I always start a writing project. I jumped straight over the planning stage and tried to scribble out an opening. Who needs a plot anyway? I opened it with druids performing a rain dance. Don’t ask me because I haven’t the foggiest why I did but it added another flame to my bonfire. The Lich would be causing a drought and would have the power to give water; his way of bringing all life under his control. Pretty cool huh?

That’s as far as I got and as soon as I have something readable I will post it. I should also let you read something of my novel shouldn’t I? That way you can all help me to decide if I let myself get carried away on the sparks of a new, exciting idea or if I have some follow through for a change and get my arse into gear with my novel. Hmmmm, leave it with me …

Yours,
Alrac Tabb

 

Ok, before you all die of shock at me actually posting a blog after so long let me explain my absence.

It all began on the 8th as I sat and tried to think of a blog topic. Nothing. I was completely dry creatively. Maybe it was becasue I was loosing fluids via sweat and all my creative juices were going with the salty perspiration. Gross I know, but the temperature is creeping skywards on a daily basis out here folks and sweating is a fact of life - deal with it! Anyways, whatever the reason I was uninspired to blog, and that lasted a couple of days. No big deal, I thought, I'll be back to blogville soon.

Then a painful tragedy befell me; I got ill. Not life threateningly, paralyzingly ill, but migraine, debilitating kind of ill. I've suffered from migraines since my mid-teens and usually I take a couple of pills and deal with it; an early night and it's over and done with. Every once in a while though I get a serious bitch of an attack from within the nerve endings and synapses in the old brain and it cripples me for a few days.

Through the end of last week I pushed on and worked through it as best I could sat at my computer screen working on damn spreedsheets for someone else (please don't ask...that's a rant for another time I think!). Wednesday I was a wreck. I had no balance, was so nauseous I couldn't face food and was a funny colour, and my head was hurting so much I wanted to gouge out my agoy ridden eye balls as a distraction. I took some more painkillers, was fed home-made chicken soup by Ger (I know, I have a super star for a boyfriend) and by the time I crawled into bed I was on my way back to human.

After a sleep in on Thursday and an afternoon doing not much I was back to normal for our friends joining us for an evening of movies, fast-food and impromptu high-jinx that involved Ger's penguin boxershorts, my bra, two other girls and a camera ... no boys in sight (they'd gone for food!) and good clean fun - I promise folks! After all of that we still got to sleep relatively early and I was great on Friday morning. After my usual "I hate mornings" routine I was up and ready for the day in Bahrain that Ger told you all about in yesterday's blog.

No need to re-tread worn territory so I will skip over to us all sitting in the mall in Bahrain waiting for our driver to sober up. Out of absolutely no where there are a thousand and one very sharp corkscrews working their way through my skull and brain matter. I thought I was going to die. Even though the serial, tear inducing pain dulled quite quickly after some more good old Panadol I was still moving rapidly down hill again.

I speant Friday night hanging over the edge of my bed vomiting into a mop bucket. Nice image huh? I seriously need the number of the Merry-Go-Round conductor for the next migraine because the bastard wouldn't let me off! Needless to say, I didn't make it to work yesterday. The deciding factor wasn't the vomiting all night, it wasn't the vice-like grip on my temples that was trying to squeeze my little grey cells out of my ears, it was the fact that I couldn't stay on the loo when I went for a pee. Seriously, if you can't hold yourself vertical on a stationary loo how in God's name are you meant to sit on a swivelley chair all bloody day?!

Anyway, between the prowling beast of a migraine that slept and then pounced repeatedly, and being busy and popular, and just not knowing what to write about, I've been a bit slack in blogging of late and I will do my very best to make it up to you.

You should know though that in among all of that I did have an awesome short story idea that I will fill you in on tomorrow, and I found out that my kittens are on their way ready to come home! I should be able to get them this time next week!!

Yours,
Alrac Tabb


 

There are a lot of things out here in Saudi Arabia that are very hard, or even impossible, to do as a woman. Aside from the obvious, not being able to drive, there are many hurdles that I have to cross daily.

First I have to cover up. Now, I have mentioned the abaya to you all before, and as I have said previously, I have no real problem wearing one. They are pretty, stylish and cover a multitude of sins! However, the weather is getting hotter and to work I have to wear clothes that cover me up as much as possible. So you combine that with an abaya and you get HOT. Also, if I am wearing something that makes me look and feel good I don’t want to have to cover it up. It’s heathen vanity I know, but I’m sure you all know where I am coming from. I also have to be very careful when walking, particularly up or down stairs – I have quite a prevalent clumsy streak!

The next hurdle is shopping. You’d think this would be an easy thing for a woman to do; especially when you wander around the malls and see exactly how many women out here shop hard! Seriously, it’s all a lot of the Saudi women have to do all day. The husband earns the money, the maid does the house work and sees to the children and the wives and daughters shop. They could make it a sport and the Saudi women would always dominate. Maybe they don’t feel the difficulties as much as I do because they don’t know any different, but I struggle. So do many other ex-pat women.

The main reason boils down to the shop assistants. They are all men. I’m not being sexist here folks, but in a make-up store or a lingerie store the guys don’t have a clue! Fine, I can deal with clueless assistants, I like to shop without being bothered anyway…but there’s the next problem. They don’t leave you alone! The follow you around the smallest shop and are right up next to you offering you a different size, colour, or telling you the price. When I go with Ger, they leave me alone. Funny that isn’t it?

And you don’t want to get me started on the store assistants that blank me when I shop with Ger. The whole ‘you’re a woman and so invisible’ thing really pisses me off. I don’t care what Ger says about the store managers instructing them to talk to the man and not the woman!

This isn’t meant to be a whiney blog though, no, this is a happy, stick it to the man kind of blog! I discovered an area of life out here where women have it much easier than men. Oh yes, women have the upper hand for once – and I’m not talking about cooking!

I am talking about banking ladies and gentlemen. I opened my bank account a few months ago now and today I went into the local branch to transfer some money home. I’ve been dreading it. Ger had filled my head with horror stories of waiting hours for service and queuing forever. But it had to be done eventually and as my wages have finally made it to my account I decided that it was now or never.

I arranged my driver for 10am and we left rather punctually. I had my bottle of water and I had visited the little girls room in advance so I was prepared for a long wait.

10.30am I was back at my desk. That includes travel time and the time it took to fill out the form and help the Egyptian lady behind the screen to decipher the English.

Maybe this is one of the benefits of male/female segregation; the women have their own section. Maybe it’s because only women work in the office and they are more efficient than the men. Or maybe it has more to do with the fact that precious few Saudi women bank; they’re either not allowed to or there’s no point as the husband does the earning and so the banking.

Who cares what the reason is, I got one over on the men around here today and I’m pretty damn pleased about it!

Yours,
Alrac Tabb

 

I don’t really know what to blog about today and I’m not entirely sure I have the time to if I am honest. It’s really strange here in my job as my workload is incredibly sporadic. I can go for weeks on end where I get nothing new and I can focus on the long term projects like the style guide that I am working on for this department. Then there is a condensed period of time, usually a week or two, where it all comes flooding at me as it escapes the bottle neck of the previous steps in the process.

Perhaps my blog should be a bit about what I actually do here at work. Boring, I know, but it’s where my focus is today so I’m afraid that’s the best you’re going to get from me! Hey, at least I warned you in advance that this was a boring blog! You can opt out now if you like!

I work for the Saad Group in Saudi Arabia, as most of you know already, and I am an English Language Editor. In actual fact, I am the English Language Editor. I work at Head Office in the Publishing and Media Department, not at the hospital where The Literary Penguin works, and I am the only member of the English Department here. It’s pretty cool really as I have a relatively easy ride at work. Yes, the work can get stressful occasionally, but not all that much and there isn’t anyone I clearly report to. Also, as I am the only one doing this there isn’t really anyone to challenge my decisions too much.

The woman who was editing the English text before me is actually the PA of the company’s chairman’s daughter who is the head of finance and media. She’s a pretty good editor to be fair, there isn’t much that gets past her in terms of technical errors and she has been a massive help to me in learning about the company and the processes out here. However, she has it in her head that she is an editor and she’s not. I find her a little overbearing on occasion and it is very hard to make her see she is wrong and that I actually do know what I am talking about.

The way it works here is as follows. A doctor at the hospital (that is where most of the publications come from though there is also a nursing college, two schools, a transportation department, etc) will write a pamphlet or booklet in Arabic, or very bad English. If they have elected English I have to decipher what they meant and make it make sense. If they have written in Arabic originally it goes for translation first. Easier you would think – you would be wrong! In actual fact the text often comes back to me in a worse state than if the doctor had made notes in English in the first place! I also have some other projects to work on and occasionally I get to help out with a bit of copy editing here and there. I am one of the few native English speakers in the office so there is a regular queue at my desk for slogans and tag lines.

Are you bored yet?

That’s basically what I do from 8am till 5pm for five days a week. It’s such a cushy number that I feel ashamed at the lack of effort my job entails. I know some people would find the prospect of editing a medical text thoroughly a daunting task, but it’s so easy to me. It comes naturally and it was what I was trained to do in my final year of university.

The only thing about this job that stresses me out a little bit and gets under my skin is when people expect the English to be finished faster than the Arabic. Every publication that is released is printed in Arabic and English. Now there are around ten people who work on the Arabic, and there is just me who works on the English; and yet they expect the English to be finished faster. It really frustrates me when they leave the English editing to the last minute, as a kind of afterthought, after the Arabic team have been working on something for months and they ask me to drop everything and have an 86 page book done in less than a week.

Is it me or are they taking the piss a little bit? Maybe I’m just too good at what I do and have made a rod for my own back. Like I say, I am really good at this and I am fast as a result; I guess it’s the expectation now.

Ah well, I can’t complain. It’s time I got back to my cushty job and stopped whining. I’m off in two hours 

Have a good day at work guys, whatever you do.

Yours,
Alrac Tabb

PS Before anyone makes the comment that there are plenty of errors when I bolg – I don’t really edit these entries! I just kind of spew them out and hope for the best lol.

 

So, Ger did it. He murdered Herr Bevore. And he looks so innocent! Gee. I. Joe found out that the German officer was his father and blew him up with a booby trapped Bratwurst!

Interestingly though, only three people guessed it was him; the majority of the other participants thought it was me what dunnit! Maybe I don't look as innocent...

I did win the prize for the best costume though! I have to say folks, I did look the French Resistance part. What do you think?

Tonight’s the night, Murder Mystery night! I’m pretty excited really. You may remember Ger and talking about the lack of commitment from the theatre group we were part of. We were due to put on a murder mystery as a dinner theatre performance this evening, but thanks to several members of the group spending too many rehearsals asking stupid questions and making mountains out of mole hills we are not doing that. We are, however, all getting together tonight to play out a murder mystery for fun. We picked a new game so that we wouldn’t know who the murderer was and it has an awesome theme!

I’m going to hope you have all heard of the 80’s TV show ‘Allo ‘Allo. If you haven’t you are missing out! ‘Allo ‘Allo was a British comedy that was set in France during World War Two. The main focus of the show was a cafe owner Rene Artois who just wants to sit out the war in peace and make some money from his cafe. Instead he gets caught up with the French Résistance and is stuck between them and the resident Nazi and SS troops - hilarious, tonnes of innuendo, and a smattering of slapstick, physical humour.

So tonight I am playing the role of the French Resistance spy. In the TV show she would pop up out of nowhere all the time and catch Rene off guard and her catchphrase was “listen very carefully, I shall say zis only once!” . The murder mystery tonight is a bit of a Mick take and my character’s name is Naomi Doyoo ... brilliant isn’t it? I have a beret, a trench coat and a blue, white and red neck scarf; it’s a kick ass costume! I just have to work on my French accent now and we’re well away!

Ger is the US commando, Gee. I. Joe; I have to say he looks pretty damn good in his costume!!

We were out at the mall this morning getting the last few bits and pieces for our costumes and some prizes for whoever guesses the murderer, has the best costume, or who has the best accent. As we’re wondering around doing what we have to do and having a giggle at the fashion choices of some of the young guys out here, and we saw no less than three women without abayas on and one with an open abaya that was so see through it was a mockery. Not surprisingly, they were all western women. Who the hell do these people think they are? They have made the choice to come to a country where it’s the law for women to cover up and they are refusing to do it. The lack of respect for the culture here really irritated me and I was on the verge of telling one woman, in cut off trousers and a sleeveless top, that she was being extremely offensive. It’s not a huge hardship, and they know when they come here that they will have to cover up. Some of the abayas you can get here are really attractive too, beautifully decorated and you can make quite a fashion statement with them. I have absolutely no problem with wearing one.

A few minutes after we’d seen two of them, a mother and daughter by the looks of things, we passed them again and they were wearing abayas. I’m pretty sure the mutawah caught up with them, and I was very glad they did. They would have been seriously out of pocket too, the only places to get abayas in the malls are designer shops and they are extremely expensive! Serves them right for thinking they could ignore the culture of where they were and force their own views on freedom and human rights on the people around them.

Oh, before I forget to tell you all, I picked out the two kitty cats I’m going to have when they are old enough! One little black and white troublemaker and a feisty white and orange baby. Mafi (no in Arabic) and Muskala (problem in Arabic)! I can’t wait!!
Anyway, I have to go and get ready for my role this evening. The nails are painted, the clothes are laid out, I just need to sort the make-up and apply the fetching 1940s red lipstick!

Yours
Alrac Tabb

 

I have some terrible, horrific, soul destroying news for you folks. Now I don’t want to scare you unduly and I don’t want to cause anyone any injuries so you should sit down and brace yourselves.

Are you ready?

Our wages are late! Ba Ba Baaaaaaaa!

Terrifying isn’t it? I should throw myself out of the nearest window in the face of such a devastating and irresolvable problem. No?

Sorry if that all sounds melodramatic but that is all I have heard for the past three or four days. The wages are late going into the bank and so the world is going to end. It’s driving me insane! Seriously people - get a grip!

Fair enough, the company is going through a rough patch, and there were a few articles in the Arabic press and one global financial website about how the companies accounts had allegedly been frozen. This was claimed by several sources, none of which would give a name. It’s shocking isn’t it, how a story that can’t be founded in anything but hearsay and conjecture doesn’t have a name with it. The Arabic press here has no rules, they can print what they like; it could be an out and out lie and there would be no repercussions for it. Knowing this is enough to calm me down.

Yes, there is no smoke without fire, but even the tiniest flame can produce a hell of a lot of smoke if it’s fed with the right environment. Enter the Rumour Mill. People will not shut up about this and Chinese whispers has been taken to a whole new level. Why can’t people just shut their traps and get on with their bloody jobs?

Now, you may think I’m being naïve about this. Whispers of frozen accounts, no wages; two plus two, basic math right? Maybe, however:

My first ever pay day out here was due at the end of my first month and a bit of work. A month where I lived on the 400 quid I had brought out with me; I had no other money. So, by the time my due payday rolled around I was literally down to my last few halalas. When I should of got wages I got…nothing. No money. No explanation other than, “oh, wages are late sometimes”. A whole week went by. Still no money. And guess what? Not one person was in a flap about it! Not one! And I didn’t whine about it and complain that I had no money, thing like this happen. Now it hasn’t been nearly as long this time and people are beginning to gradually getting paid, it’s filtering through the system.

Maybe the company has had other things to focus on, maybe the banks had a glitch that they are working through, who knows? But just because this delay has coincided with some company cut backs and a bit of restructuring (and of course has passed through the Rumour Mill) it’s a sign that we are all going to loose our jobs.

Ok, maybe there are big problems, maybe my job is on the line, but what can I do about it? Nothing. Whining, moaning and gossiping about it will not get me more information, it won’t put my mind at rest, and it won’t save my job.

Sorry this is a bit of a rant guys but I needed to vent. The topic is really getting up my nose. I’ve always hated people stressing out and worrying other people over something no one has any control over. It makes situations worse and it pisses me off. Just do some work and be more careful with your money next month incase they are a few days late getting your money from one place to another!!

Yours frustratedly,
Alrac Tabb

 

It was reported on several global news sites yesterday that a man was crucified in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He wasn’t hung on a cross like Jesus until he died, that’s not what’s meant by crucifixion out here. He was beheaded, his head was sewn back on, and the he was hung, on public display, from a pole (or a tree, the article wasn’t clear) as a warning to other people.

There has been uproar about this from human right’s activists. In the CNN article they say that “Amnesty International issued a statement deploring the punishment, with the group's Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui saying in a statement it is ‘horrific’ that beheadings and crucifixions ‘still happen.’”

What do you all think about this?

Personally I’m not entirely sure where Amnesty International are going with their point. The death penalty exists in the States (I know that not all states do have the death penalty but I’m not knowledgeable enough to provide one as an example!). Why is this so different? Is it the barbaric act of beheading that they object to? It’s actually quicker than the electric chair, and to be honest with you all, I think the lethal injection is far too gentle a way to go for some criminals. Or is it the act of displaying the corpse as a warning that revolts people so much?

In the UK (I use the UK as an example as it is my motherland) crime rates rocket and in response the laws, rules and powers of those in a position to do something about it soften. A school child threatens a teacher with a knife, but the teacher cannot lay a finger on the child to restrain them and defend themselves. A man kills a child in a drink driving crash and he gets a maximum of 15 years in prison; of which he will probably only serve 6. A woman sexually abuses, tortures, and kills a child and she is sentenced to “life” imprisonment. Life does not mean life. She may serve 40 years. Even then, although I know prison is not an overly pleasant place, she will get three square meals a day, a bed to sleep in, books to read, contact with her family, an education if she so chooses, and probably a regular supply of her choice of narcotic. A life of some sort. What about the child she killed?

It would be a violation of a murderer’s basic human rights to deny them a feeling of safety and regular meals. What the hell is that all about?! Did they give a fuck about the human rights of the people they threatened, maimed, or killed? Why, in the name of whatever you all hold holy, should we protect their human rights? I see the argument of not wanting to sink to their level, but are you seriously telling me that if someone (heaven forbid) hurt, or even killed, someone you love, spouse, lover, child, friend, that you wouldn’t want to see them suffer?

The man that was executed in Riyadh had taken an 11 year old boy hostage during a robbery. He had tied a rope around his neck. Then he slowly tightened the rope, slowly, until the boy suffocated and died. When the boy’s father finally managed to get through to where the boy was being held, the murderer attacked him with an axe. He hacked away at him until he died. As the police tried to arrest him he tried to attack them with a knife.

Personally, I don’t see what was so deplorable about his punishment; do you?

Yours,
Alrac Tabb

 

What are you afraid of folks?

I don't have many phobia's. I'm not afraid of small spaces, I have no problem with heights and I don't feel naseous at the sight of blood. The only "traditonal" phobia I can say I subscribe to is the fear of spiders; well anything with six or more legs really. I mean come on people, that's just not normal!! I'm a girl, I can't help it. I know they're not going to hurt me and they are probably more afraid of me than I am of them (though the coakroach that was climbing my leg at the party on Thursday seemed far to self confident for my liking!) but I just can't stand the way they move. Just writng about it makes my skin crawl, to use a cliche, so I am going to move on.

There are lots of things in this world that people have phobia's of, and some of them are downright weird. Baked beans, cotton wool, raw chicken, all of them weird and bizarre. I have one of these phobia's ladies and gents. But I would like to pre-empt my confession by telling you how that phobia came about.

I was about seven years old when I went to our local branch of a well known furniture store. We were walking around and my mother and grandma were arguing about which would be the most suitable couch for our living room. Then I see it, the most beatiful deep green, leather rocking chair. I stop and stare at it, in awe of the sheer size of the thing. How comfortable the cusioned seat looked, how perfectly formed the rolled arms were, how good it would look in an old library or study (yes I was one of those kids).

"The rocking chair's for display, not for playing with so you just stay where you are whilst mommy and I go and talk to the man about a sofa."

Before my grandma had said it I hadn't even considered sitting my unworthy bum on such a fantastical specimen of craftmanship; but now I was thinking about it. It was all consuming, it was nibbling away at me in my head 'sit on the chair, you know you want to, you'll only rock a little bit, go on'. The opposing little voice that normally made the angel I was (and I was, trust me!) was nowhere to be seen, it was probably already having a whale of a time on the chair.

I looked left, I looked right, no-one to be seen. Then as stealthily as a fat kid trying to steal cookies in fat camp I rushed over to the chair and clambered up into its cold, squeaky embrace. It was as comfy as I'd imagined, more so, and even better - it wasn't an ordinary rocking chair. No, this was a swivelling rocker, the new generation. I was having a ball, rocking and swivelling; every turn, twist and rock moving me around more than I had bargained for. The momentum built, I tipped back and I could see the tiny lights in the polystyrene ceiling, and at the last dramatic second the spring whipped me upright. BRILLIANT!!

The forwards motion nearly flung me across the shop floor before I was saved by the spring again. as it moved backwards the swivelling motion brought me face to face with a rapidly approaching grandma; I nearly wet myself. Really, be glad you will never see her angry face folks! In panic and surprise I jumped back in the chair. The momentum really didn't need the extra velocity.

Crash. Whollop. Bang. Bruises. Shouting. Embarrassment. No ice cream.

I've had a genuine fear of rocking chairs ever since. In fact, I think that may actually have been the last time I sat in one.

Yours,
Alrac Tabb
 

There really is no place like home is there?

Yesterday was lovely. The Penguin and I just spent the day in his apartment chilling out, watching movies and eating junk food. I felt so at home and comfortable. After a really busy week and a packed Thursday of socialising it was exactly what the doctor ordered.

And then I had to leave.

I've only been out here four months and I feel so unbelievable settled, and the main reason for that is that Ger. It isn't Saudi that's home, it's him. I'm 100% certain that if we were anywhere else in the world we would be living together already. But as we are in Saudi, and we are breaking the law by seeing each other, I only stay over on weekends.

The security guys on my company provided compound record when we come and go, and my transport to work is company provided, This means that it is very tricky to stay over in the week and it's not worth the repercussions. So Every Friday night, no matter how good of a day we've had, we both slip into a mini depression and I head back to my apartment.

I called my mom today. I told her that Ger and I had booked our holiday in France for September, and told her we would be heading to see her afterwards. I wish it was September already. I don't miss the place, not one little bit, but I miss my mom (she's my best friend), my sister, the girls; Sarah in particular. Sarah is my best friend and she knows me better than anyone. I really miss having a girlfriend my own age a few minutes down the road. There's no one my age here and the closest woman to my age is strangely cold and distant. I'm not quite inside the loop with the "younger" crowd here. I can't describe it, and I'm not really bothered. Genuinely, I don't care. But I do miss my group from home, the people who know me.

I'm sorry if this all sounds a bit depressing! I'm not really all that homesick or down. It's just that home is on my mind now I've made firm plans to visit, I've been talking to my mommy and I'm sleepy. It happens.

More cheer tomorrow I promise!

Yours Alrac Tabb