Funny how you can know someone a short time, #2

It's just part of it, isn't it? We come to work here from all over and some people like it, and others not so much, and they leave. And I guess you can stop yourself from getting closer to people you probably won't always know, but that wouldn't be any fun. And besides, when it comes to personal relationships, I find I have increasingly been tending to err on the side of tepid restraint. While I am not advocating a return to the headlong passionate messiness of my 20s, caution was never really my style either. I vow here and now to try and find some sort of middle ground.

My good friend and Jordan travel partner got on a plane today; he's moving on after just a few months here - and it's a good move for him. I was really sad when we said goodbye, because even though he has infuriated me on more than one occasion, I am seriously going to miss that guy. He is one decent person. Ordering lunch will not be nearly the event and I don't know who will help me sort out all my IT-ish issues or give me lots of useful stuff. And not to sound too dramatic, but he is going very far away and I will probably never see him again. So, you know, bummer.

He took the piss a lot, as the Brits say. It made me laugh. The most gullible I've been was last week, when he showed me a video about new Mac laptops that replaced the keyboard with an iPod-ish click wheel. As I seriously pondered whether I would be interested in such a feature, he revealed it was, of course, from The Onion. I shall never again pass through groups of families reuniting in an airport reception area without giggling at the thought of him saying "it's a scene the world over". And I did not put a Gloria Gaynor song on the CD I made for him, even though he joked about one being there. Then again I gave him the nickname Mister Spaz Pants, for frequent fits at work due to high standards he won't compromise - he's a cracker journo. I am pretty sure I told him about that. The nickname, I mean.

So I am feeling atmospheric and at loose ends today. Thinking I've had a nice start to 2009. Kinda blue, but better off than if I had not bothered.

Definitely.

Snap caption: A bike and a big box

Guest blog: On tattoos

An exclusive essay by the distinguished Rupert Wright, a senior editor at The National, one of my favourite writers at the paper. Mr Wright, take it away:

When not toiling in the office or sitting in traffic, I have spent most of my time in Abu Dhabi at The Club. Nicknamed the ‘British Club’ by taxi drivers, this is an expatriate enclave near the new bridge to Saadiyat island. It has a sandy beach, gym, swimming pool, tennis and squash courts and many facilities to entertain the children. There are lots of rules to observe and notices such as “No horseplay or disruptive behaviour”. There is even a splendid beach restaurant, where at night you can sit and eat and watch the building work on Al Reem island. It rather reminds me of a boarding school, except that you can order beer and there are women around the swimming pool.
One thing in particular has struck me: the number of those bodies that are tattooed, particularly the women’s, many of whom are no longer in the first flush of youth. I had always thought that tattoos were the preserve of seamen and Samoans. In eight years of living in France – down near the Mediterranean, so there was plenty of opportunity for observation – I only saw one tattoo, and that was on the heel of a Goldman Sachs partner. She said that she had it done with her daughter in a kind of bonding ceremony. There was a time when that could be accomplished by a trip to Harvey Nicholls, but I guess a butterfly on your ankle serves equally well.
But clustered around the pool are women in bikinis, the majority of whom have something tattooed on their shoulder blade, or on their ample stomachs, or daringly down their back. What is the etiquette here? Can one say: “Nice tattoo. Where is the head of that snake that stretches down your back?” I suspect not.
My wife holds that these middle-aged women had their tattoos when they were younger, possibly on a hen weekend, but I don’t think this is the case. I suspect that the tattoo for a woman is the equivalent mid-life crisis that sends a man to buy a sports car. The person is hoping to send the message that they are still fit, eager, sexy – maybe a little dangerous - but in most cases it rings hollow. I recall a man who used to roar around our Sussex village in England in a red Porsche. That was fine, until he stopped and tried to get out. It would take him ten minutes or so to make it from the parking space to the pub. These women with their tattoos may think they look like Angelina Jolie – but just because you have ink on your buttocks that doesn’t make you one of the most beautiful women on the planet. It probably doesn’t help that the staple diet of these tattoo-wearers appears to be chips. Those tiny butterflies on the belly risk expanding into something more resembling giant bats.

Jordan: Among other things, I floated in the salty, salty Dead Sea

Of course, as with many travel adventures, some things you just have to learn for yourself. As in, one really does not want to be in the Dead Sea for long. First off, you bob around looking like an idiot (that is why everyone is laughing so hard the first time) You cannot get water in your eyes. And it burns in funny places. They never tell you about that in the travel guides, do they?

It was a quick, greatest hits, four-day tour of a spectacular country: Amman, Mount Nebo, Petra, Wadi Rum and the Dead Sea. It was just about the best trip ever. Jordan is amazing. I had a travel partner who is interesting, considerate, fun and also looks pretty good in a keffiyah, which, if you think about it, is an excellent combination of attributes. It was too short for anything to go wrong and the Jordanian people we met were amazingly friendly and funny. (Apart from the silly, silly airport security) Then there was the wicked, kinda crisp weather, our gentle guide Awni, the rich history and the posh hotels. The best part was that I was able to just mostly sit and soak up the moment. I highly recommend it: Jordan, and the moment thing too.

Snap caption: Toilet store no more

A possibly useless and quite pricey product for New Year's detoxification

Why I bought this product, I have no idea. I guess I basically hoped that a five-day regimen of applying weird, smelly patches and eating lots of vegetables would be able to undo all the damage I've done to my liver since moving to Abu Dhabi by sucking it right out the bottom of my feet. Even if I didn't really believe that, a small part of me must have wished it to be true to fork over the cash, right?

And I call myself a journalist.

Crikey! Censorship!

I bought this crappy women's magazine a couple of weeks ago for a flight - for some reason, crappy women's magazines are about all I can focus on while in the air, that and completely dumb movies - and was killing myself when I noticed what one of Abu Dhabi's censors had blacked out. I'd heard about these black markings ever since arriving, just never saw it for myself. Then, there it was, in British Cosmopolitan, part of an article called... well, you can see what it's called.

The thing is, shouldn't pretty much all of British Cosmo, and Glamour, and just about every other women's magazine that fall all over themselves to write about things of an, ahem, extremely personal nature, be subject to the black marker too? I am not, repeat not, asking for this to happen. I simply wouldn't mind if things made a bit more sense sometimes.