Camp Mirage: A $300 million moving bill

I don't profess to know very much about diplomacy, but it is kind of hard to imagine that the Canada-UAE spat has come to such an expensive and childish conclusion. It reminds me of when I used to play with my neighbour as a kid: it always ended with one of us slinking home, in tears. Usually me.

Speaking of falcons...

... my colleague was cracking up yesterday, because during her morning commute from Dubai to Abu Dhabi, she saw a man driving a car with a falcon sitting in the passenger seat.

She said you could see the top third or so of the bird, facing forward just like a passenger, so it must have been perching on something. No word on a seatbelt.

Snap caption: Sheikh Mo. Tom Cruise. A falcon.

Mandoos: the official shoe of the UAE

For some reason this billboard, at Muroor Road and 15th, makes me giggle.

This week in goat news

I am pretty excited for the weekend, because that is when I will get to read a first-person account by Jonathan Gornall, a witty British journalist aka Microwave Man living in Dubai, as to how, exactly, his passport came to be eaten by a goat. 

Mr Gornall is in the process of getting a new passport and no doubt enjoying saying things like "My passport was eaten by a goat". I don't really know how or where, as the details remain sketchy. All I know is that only the front cover and a portion of his picture remained. Stay tuned for the Motoring section in Saturday's edition of The National for more details.

For now, however, click below to see an exclusive picture of the guilty party.

The machine, thankfully, is now working fine

I met a very upbeat cab driver from Pakistan this weekend. He loves Canada, of course, (every taxi driver does, or so it seems) and apologised for his English. I apologised for my Urdu, which made him laugh hysterically. After he recovered from the shock of my answer to the question "do you have children?" he proceeded to tell me how he came to have some himself. 

Soon it became clear that he was trying to convey that on his wedding night, at 16 – his wife was just 14 – he was unable to consummate the union. Or, more simply and in his words, "machine no working". As I understand the story – and I could, obviously, have gotten things very, very wrong – his mother (somehow?) stepped in and sorted everything out. Not quite sure on the details, but things were apparently executed properly – to everyone's relief – the second night. "Second night good", he said. He also assured me that his "machine" continued "working very good" after that first hurdle, and I guess so: the couple have four children. Not that I needed to know, but he assured me "machine very good  – no problem", even now.

Overheard in the newsroom

"Baby camels are more delicious than big camels."