Adventures in Dubai - Your Favourite Number One Blog

That Wraps it up for Dubai, Then

2009-11-26T02:36:00.002+04:00

What do I know? Reuters thinks Dubai is in a bit of a financial pickle. Dubai faces financial sheikh-up. If I was the boss, I think I'd just give the place to Abu Dhabi and bugger off to retire in Spain. Cordoba, probably, or Granada - some nice Islamic architecture there. Bits of it look like Ibn Batutta Mall. And it's sunny most of the time.

Nuclear UAE

2009-10-05T15:33:00.003+04:00

Yikes, they're doing it! This is wrong on so many levels. The money spent building a nuclear power station would be better used in developing solar power. The risk of terrorist attack is high, but the risk of another Chernobyl or Three Mile Island catastrophe is greater (based on past experience of how the power sector in the UAE has performed). It's just too scary for words: I wonder which Northern Emirate will be lucky enough to play host to this baby.

Story here.

DEWA Sent Me An Email

2009-07-29T01:38:00.004+04:00

...about the impending closure of Al Safia Service Centre. At dirst I misread this as Al Safa, which used to be my lifeline whenever they cut me off because I'd forgotten to pay them. But then I read further on in the email that the closest alternatives are Al Twar and Burj Nahar. I could be giving DEWA the benefit of the doubt here, because they never did believe people lived on the Dubai side of the Creek - that's where the power stations are.

Whatever. I was deeply amused by the footer of the message, which I reproduce here for your entertainment:

Our Vision: A recognized World-Class Utility
Our Mission: Meeting customer satisfaction and promoting Dubai’s vision through delivering water & electricity services by a competent workforce at world-class level of reliability, efficiency, safety and environment, supporting Resources Sustainability.

They still haven't returned my deposit.

Official: DXB, AUD Getting More Expensive

2009-07-07T19:00:00.001+04:00

A survey out today shows that Tokyo is now the world's most expensive city for an expat to live (it was number 2 last year). London has dropped from last year's 3rd to this year's 16th.

Of particular interest to me (this year's rank first, last year's in brackets):
20 (52) Dubai
26 (65) Abu Dhabi
37 (28) Madrid
38 (31) Barcelona

Full story here.

Kosher Paella

2009-06-02T23:04:00.002+04:00

I made a paella tonight, and Googled 'paella recipes' to check a few things. I stumbled upon a recipre that totally blew me away. The list of ingredients mentioned 'kosher salt and pepper'. A few items later, it mentions 'Chorizo.' Now, as far as I know, kosher-ness means no pork. And chorizo is a red sausage made almost entirely from pork.

Confused, I was. So I Wikipedia'ed the hell out of the subject. It seems the term 'kosher salt' is used more or less exclusively in the USA to refer to coarse-grained sea-salt, because it can draw more blood out of meat than common-or-garden salt. (Might write a book sometime about a Jewish vampire). So the kosherosity or not is a complete misnomer.

Just sayin'.

Here's the recipe, obviously by someone who has never been close to the real thing.

Snow Modhesh

2009-01-13T13:49:00.004+04:00

We had a load of snow in Madrid a few days ago. Imagine our surprise when we went to the park and found lots of snowmen and a snow Modhesh.

The little sod gets everywhere, and I swear I did not make this snow-worm.

Spaced Out

2008-10-30T20:36:00.004+04:00

Look. You know about this Authonomy website for aspiring writers, yes? I'm on it, and so is Alexander McNabb, Mr Fake Plastic Souks. He's a great writer, and he's got this really great, outrageously funny book called Space. For the last two or three weeks it has been in the Top 5 of the Editor's Desk. This means you get a proper review from a HarperCollins editor, and maybe even a publishing contract. But only if you're in the Top 5 at midnight tomorrow (31st Oct).

Here's the thing: Space has just slipped down to number 6. So, all you literaties, glitteraties and arty-farties, get along to Authonomy.com, and have a read. If you like it (and how could you not?), do a very quick sign-up and put it on your bookshelf (the link that says 'Back The Book').

While you're at it, you could do the same thing for Tybalt & Theo, by a slightly more modest author.

Thank youse.

Me New Book

2008-10-22T22:24:00.003+04:00

I mentioned Authonomy in my last post. A couple of weeks ago, I started a new novel, Tybalt & Theo. I've uploaded the first six chapters to Authonomy, and had loads of brilliant comments from members of the site. You can read the book sample and the comments here. But if you can't be bothered to do that, here's a selection of comments:

You're right. It's funny. It is very ,very funny indeed! It's a terrific idea but that doesn't matter doodlesquat if the writer louses it up which you certainly don't.

- JAK

My comments are - eggy, eggy eggy! That means fantastic, by the way.

- Zoeb

Great start. Instantly reminded me of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and Blackadder, which is good on both accounts.

- The Real Nick

Thanks for making me laugh...It's a great farce...I can't fault it.

- Richard P-S

Laughing like a veritable drain and looking forward to more.

- Max Brandt

Now this, I loved... I adore the quick back-and-forth between Tybalt in the 21st century and Theo in the past...SO many gems, like "Crap, he hadn't got caught up in one of those time-travelling larks, had he?" and "...like it wasn't properly rotted," made me laugh out loud... This is one that I expect to see in print. Funny!

-Melissa Conway

I think you have a lovely feel for dialogue. Have you tried any scriptwriting, I wonder?

- DeniseJane

Overall, I really liked this. You've taken on a huge task with the seventeenth century dialogue, but my, it works. Love the plot, the situations the two protags find themselves in...Stuff that made me laugh out aloud:

"….Thee Papist bastards wilt have thy grunions around thy necke afore thee canst say--"

"In-vest-meant wanker…"

Great fun and I'll be back for more.

- Diane Oliver

Great start in a style which lets readers know there's not likely to be much messing about. Great, mate, will add more as and when I get through a little more, cheers.

- Josh Rogan

...I chuckled my butt off consistently all the way through [to] chapter 6, not only is this entertaining, but I think it should prove popular too!). We zip along merrily from scene to scene, with just enough description given for the purposes of mockery, and just enough characterization for the same.

I thought the fake, unbelievably agrammatical Elizabethan was very funny. I mean, you're not even TRYING to make it remotely real -- "drefs" is a purely VISUAL joke, not even an auditory one!

- Kate Kasserman

This is a very funny book. Trust me, I read it. Or most of it. I'll read the rest very soon. So original, Keef. And with a few prescient..or pressy ant.... lines...e.g. Investment banker...'No, what thou dost is steal from thee poor'... Bliss.

- Scott Kenny

Brilliant, sharp, witty, with a touch of Blackadder for those who like it.

- Maria Golubeva

I really like this one - being a history graduate I usually hate historical novels and especially anything where people try and use the speech of the time, but this is very funny, and the plot idea is particularly unusual.

- Sheila

Funny and witty in equal measure. Grunions, indeed!

- Peter Booth

Love the fast pace and funny commentary/dialogue. An enjoyable read already in the first few paragraphs.

- Dave King

Hi Keef - this is great fun and I am going to bookshelf it. The premise is hilarious and I have to say the opening section is eeeeerily prescient, aside from being hilarious.

- Robin Duff

Okay, that was hilarious. You made me laugh more than once. Especially the part about forgetting to tell Theo his task. Elizabethan sarcasm is ten times funnier, for some reason.

I'm really intrigued at the hints that Theo may not be the only time-traveller in Elizabethan England (am I reading that right?). Nice, job Keefieboy. I wish I had it now, to find out Theo's role in the new Gunpowder Plot.

- S.F. Winser

This is a great idea. I loved the switches in time and Tybalt's introduction to (presumably) McDonald's.

A brilliantly funny read.

- Berni Stevens

Authonomy

2008-09-05T18:08:00.001+04:00

I was alerted to a new website yesterday: authonomy.com. It's run by publishers HarperCollins, and lets authors upload samples of their work and then suffer utter humiliation by being reviewed by other members of the site. Each month, the top five manuscripts are promised a perusal by HarperCollins editors. Cool idea, methinks.

I signed up yesterday and uploaded about 12,000 words of my book (10,000 is the minimum for you to have your work made public, but it's an achingly difficult process to upload the stuff - you have to make each chapter into a separate Word file, and the upload process frequently falls over for no apparent reason).

So get on over there and say nice things about my book.

One Year, Already

2008-07-07T11:39:00.002+04:00

One year ago to the day, MamaDuck and I headed for Abu Dhabi Airport and left the Sandlands. We have not been back, and really have no intention of returning. There's not much we miss about the place - although I haven't had a decent curry since we left. We do miss our friends though.

All things considered, I think leaving was the best thing to do. I just wish we'd done it a few years sooner.

Worrying

2008-06-16T18:42:00.002+04:00

When I lived in the UAE, my family and friends in Europe worried that
a) I wasn't getting enough beer and bacon
and
b) I might be blown up in a terrorist attack.

I repeatedly told them there was no cause for alarm - beer and bacon are readily available to non-Muslims (I think it's about time the UAE tourist authorities came out with a definitive statement, along the lines of 'this is not Saudi Arabia, you can get as much beer and bacon as you want!'), and the UAE has never suffered a succesful terrorist attack (although there have been at least two credible attempts that I know of).

I bring this up today because the British Foreign Office has raised it's terrorist threat level to 'as high as it can go'. Conspiracy theories abound as to why the UAE has been safe up until now; it's generally reckoned that the enemy are paid good hard cash to stay away. So why is it now thought there's a serious threat? Has the money dried up, or what?

Travels in Xanadu-du: The Book, it has Landed!

2008-03-26T00:45:00.003+04:00

I know most of you are desperate to know about the progress of my novel, Travels in Xanadu-du. Not least because some of you have actually paid good, hard cash money to get a hold of a copy. Only a month late, I am pleased to announce that it is shipping! Not without glitches, of course. Life would be so boring if everything went to plan, now wouldn't it? The plan was that the printers would make a big pile of books. The bulk of these would be shipped to Liverpool where my publisher is based, and ten copies would be delivered to me in sunny Madrid to do with whatever I like. Hmm. Some bugger got it wrong. The doorbell rang at about noon today, and the nice (but sweaty) young man from UPS delivered box upon box of books into our micro-piso (if you've been following the plot, you'll know that we live in the world's smallest flat, but we love it because it's right in the middle of Madrid).

I've seen my name in print many times. But to stack up a bunch of books like this, well; it's a bit unusual.

So, I spent the afternoon printing shipping notes and address labels, printing and signing maps of Xanadu-du, signing the books themselves, and then packing up the pre-ordered books and taking them to the Post Office to wave goodbye to them. Please take note: no author that you've ever heard of went to such great lengths to keep his punters happy!

Actually, this cock-up didn't work out too badly: we saved a good old British pound on postage to the UAE. But we gained an extra one on postage to the UK.

Until the current stock is exhausted, you can get your book signed and personally taken to the Post Office by the author, and a signed colour map if I feel like it. So get on over to Xanadu-du, and place your order NOW!!!

I love you all.

Hard Rock To Close in Three Months

2008-03-17T22:15:00.001+04:00

Apparently the land that the Hard Rock Café stands on has been sold to somebody who wants to build a skyscraper, and we know how desperately Dubai needs more of those. So yet another Dubai landmark will be pulled down. There's a Facebook Group. As I remarked on there:

What a shock! I remember when HRC was first built, and I thought 'what a crap location'. Now it's in the heart of New Dubai. I think I left Dubai at the right time: the powers that be have no idea how to build a city: they only know how to build buildings (well, some of them know how to build buildings). But cities are about much more than the buildings that they are made of: they're about soul and culture and character. Dammit.

Anyone can join this group: I wouldn't expect it to make a difference, but it would be nice to think that the authorities do take a bit of notice. Not that the evidence bears this out, of course: the Exiles and Country Club gone, Satwa and Safa Park under threat. Surely there must come a point where you stop throwing away the good stuff that you have and replacing it with tacky and soulless rubbish? Oh, sorry, this is Dubai.

Travels in Xanadu-du

2008-03-13T22:08:00.000+04:00

Aaargh. We've had a couple of weeks of completely unexpected delay in the production of my wonderful novel. Firstly, I thought I had uploaded the files to the printer's website. There was no obvious way to verify this, so I emailed my 'client services representative', who ignored me for a few days and finally, after a whole wasted week, said the files had not been received by them, and explained the completely impossible-to-find way to find out what the situation is on their (absolutely bloody horrible) website. Marvlious.

So I uploaded the files again, and after a three-day wait the pre-flight crew in the US complained about 'multiple missing fonts'. We're talking about PDF files here, and standard practice when creaing PDFs is to embed any unusual fonts, but not to embed things like Arial or Times New Roman which are present on every PC and have direct equivalents on Macs, Linux boxes, etc. So these #$%#$^ in the US were quibbling about the absence of Arial and Times New Roman. Arial is actually used in the headers of the bookblock, but TNR appears nowhere. Anyhow, I had to produce and upload another file for the bookblock, and force the embedding of these common-as-muck fonts, and then wait another three days while they got around to opening it. Finally: two days ago the status was 'printing'. Yesterday, the status was 'shipped'.

Hopefully I will receive the proof copy tomorrow or the day after. If it's ok I can order the initial print run and fulfill the pre-orders that we have. So those of you who have not yet ordered your copy: the special offer of a full-colour map of Xanadu-du, signed by moi, still stands, but only until the point where the book goes into production. So get thee over to the Xanadu-du website and place thy order.

Carnage On Sheikh Zayed Road

2008-03-12T00:28:00.003+04:00

Driving on SZR always used to give me the willies, even in clear weather. Driving on it in fog had me turning religious and hoping there actually was a God who was listening to my prayers. Because the sad fact is that 99% of people on that road have no clue whatsoever about how you should drive in fog. This morning there has been absolute carnage on SZR. Accurate figures are yet to arrive, but we can say at least six dead, 300 injured, and 200 cars trashed. In one out of about five incidents. This is completely insane. Nobody seems to know or understand why this happened. I hate to be a smart-arse, but this is why it happened: they were going too fucking fast.

Simplissimo.

Gulf News gives some tips for driving in fog. Not bad, not wrong, but they missed the absolute crucial point. It's all to do with visibility and stopping distance. The GN article says 'slow down'. This needs to be expanded upon. What it should say is 'slow down so that you are confident that you can stop within the range of your visibility'. In dense fog, this can mean that you are travelling at 10 kmph. Or less. But it means that if you suddenly encounter a pile of 200 blazing wrecks, emerging out of the fog 6 metres ahead of you, you will be able to stop or avoid becoming wreck #201. It also means, of course, that there's a good strong chance of some other moron hitting you from behind. The only consolation is that they might be in the outer lanes while you are sticking to the inside one. If you possibly have the option: don't drive in fog.

Let me get really boring and repeat: if you can only see 10 metres ahead of you, you should not be travelling so fast that you cannot stop within, say, eight metres. Got it? Your car is probably no longer than 2.5 or 3 metres long. To be able to stop in such a short distance, you should be crawling at less than 10 kmph (166 metres per minute). And forget about being late for work. You are going to be late for work. And so is your boss and so are your colleagues. You will not score any Brownie points for beating them. Especially if you are dead.

The point is that in seriously thick fog, you must think like this: can I stop within the bounds of the wall of fog I see before me? If you don't think you can, SLOW DOWN!

A Bridge

2008-02-20T19:32:00.006+04:00

Looking at my last few posts here, you could be forgiven that I've turned this blog into nothing more than an advert for my book (which you can buy here). Sorry an' all that. Here's a proper post.

The majority of the world's great cities are built on or near water: rivers, canals or creeks. And where you get a body of water dividing a city, you need to build the means to cross it. Ferries and tunnels are fine, but nearly invisible. Some cities have become defined by their bridges. Think of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, Tower Bridge in London, the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol or the Forth Bridge near Edinburgh. They are all marvels of engineering design.

More recently we have the Millenium Bridge in London, which is purely for pedestrians. And what a beauty it is. It opens up a vista between St Paul's Cathedral and the Tate Modern Gallery, and is a superb example of what city governments can do to improve the environment for citizens.

So, I was very pleased today to come across images of a new bridge to be built across the Creek in Dubai on the UAE Community Blog. I've always thought that Dubai needed landmark bridges. The Maktoum and Garhoud Bridges are nothing to write home about: they are utilitarian devices for getting vehicles across the Creek without them getting wet. The Business Bay Crossing is also nothing more than a road over water. The new one, as yet unnamed, although I suggest that The Keefieboy Krossing would be a suitable name, is sexy, curvy, big and bouncy, and I love it! Kudos to the designers, FXFowle of New York and even to the RTA for commissioning it.

Images from Popular Mechanics

Travels in Xanadu-du: Update

2008-02-20T19:26:00.000+04:00

To those of you who have already pre-ordered a copy of my book: thank you, thank you! To the rest of you, here's a little incentive. Several of my buddies have expressed a wish that I sign their copy (in the mercenary and entirely unlikely hope that I turn out to be the next J.K. Rowling). Sadly this is not possible, because the books will be printed in Milton Keynes and sent out from Liverpool in sunny England, whilst I am stuck here in Madrid in (currently) cloudy Spain. So, here's the deal.

There is a map of Xanadu-du. It will be printed in greyscale in the book, and you may well need to refer to it in order to follow the action. Pre-orderers will get a full-colour version of that map (the same size as the book), personally signed by moi. Is that cool or is that cool? So get your order in: http://www.xanadu-du.com/books.

Have we gone to press yet? No. Awaiting final proofreading by Don Colin (no pressure mate!), and then we get a printer's proof, and then we are in production. We're still aiming at the end of February.

And I love you all! Mwaah! Mwaah!

Travels in Xanadu-du: Get It While It's Hot!

2008-02-08T20:32:00.000+04:00

The deal with the printer is confirmed, so we are now taking orders for my fantastic book, Travels in Xanadu-du. Orders will be shipped before the end of February. So get clicking on the banner below.

Travels in Xanadu-du: News

2008-01-29T22:48:00.000+04:00

I know you're all agog to know what's happening with my book, Travels in Xanadu-du, which I suggested might be hitting the market at the end of January (2 days from now). Guess what. Slight delay. We now have an ISBN for it (978-0-9558318-0-5), which means it exists as far as the cataloguing people are concerned. But you'll have a hard time buying it yet.

The files for the cover and interior are just about to go off to the printer for proofing. Once I've received and approved the proof, we'll be ready to rock. Or roll. Or whatever. We are told to expect a ten-day wait for the proof.

We'll be flogging the book from our website xanadu-du.com/books, with a pound off the cover price. In a few days you'll be able to pre-order it from the site - I'll let you know when. In a month or two it will be available from Amazon and orderable through any bookstore. We don't expect it to be stocked in bookshops because the economics would only work if you were prepared to pay about eighteen pounds for a paperback novel - retail booksellers like to have a 55% discount - if we gave them that we would be selling the book at below production cost! We're not gonna do that on account of needing to eat and stuff.

One interesting thing we've had to deal with is shipping costs. Couriers (FedEx, DHL etc) are outrageously expensive - they want 50 or 60 Euros to deliver a package. That's the fast service. They don't seem to offer a slowish service. I think it would be ok if they would take it end-to-end and get it to wherever in about a week for ten Euros or less. But no, they don't do that, what they do is rush around like blue-arsed flies and get it there in two days. Or three if you live in Alaska or Antarctica. So we are using the British Royal Mail for delivery. This is very fine for our primary market: next day or the day after in the UK. About three days in Europe (including all of Russia!). From five days for the rest of the world. The 'from' is interesting. What it means is they will dump the stuff with the postal authority of the concerned country. What happens to it and how long it takes after that is entirely down to your local postal service (sorry UAE!). But none of it costs you, the adored customer, more than 7 Euros.

Rent a Flat in Madrid, Spain

2008-01-17T00:08:00.000+04:00

If you ever find yourself visiting Madrid (the one in Spain, not any of the impostors), you could do worse than visiting this website: rent a flat in Madrid, Spain. My buddy Mike can sort you out with a flat or apartment, a piso (unimaginably small flat) or a room in a shared flat. They are all in the City Centre, and he has a huge selection of places available as short-term or long-term lets. Mike is a very nice guy, speaks English and Spanish fluently, and will help you out with any dealings with your landlord, utilities companies and the dreaded Telefonica.

So now you know.

My Sympathies

2008-01-15T16:17:00.000+04:00

I followed the Bush visits Dubai fiasco with great interest. And not a little relief that I wasn't tangled up in it - I'd have probably blown a gasket if I had been!

Major roads were closed without warning, a Public holiday was declared at six hours notice, people were stranded all over the place, and for what? For the security of the one man who poses the greatest threat to Middle East peace today. Unbelievable.

And there's Dubya in his limo.

'Pretty quiet around here, Abdullah.'
'Mohammed.'
'Whatever. There's no traffic, the buildings are all empty, what's all the fuss about?'

The Great Publishing Adventure

2008-01-11T00:47:00.000+04:00

Avid readers of this blog may be aware that I wrote a novel last summer and have been trying to get the damn thing published ever since. Translation: I've been sending it off to literary agents, because traditional publishers in the UK don't dirty their hands by dealing directly with newbies any more. Furthermore, it seems the publishers don't take risks on newbies at all, and prefer to throw their money at ghost-written 'books by celebrities'. It's a tough market if you're not a celebrity who can't write. Especially for fiction.

So far I've only sent my sample stuff to literary agents who have heard of this thing called email: I've had a couple of genteel refusals, and a bunch of silence. A few weeks before Christmas I fired up the laser printer and sent printed-on-paper versions to three agents. These dudes are the first ones to get the actual final version of the book, but they all say it takes them one or two months to respond. We can probably add a fortnight to that for the Christmas holiday. Whatever, I'm not holding my breath, I could be dead before I get any response!

The important thing is to get the book out there, and then we'll see if anybody can be persuaded to buy it. So we are going to self-publish it. 'We' in this case means my very good buddy in Liverpool, and me.

Is this vanity publishing, Keefie? Absolutely not. With vanity publishing you pay a shitload of money to a company who will sort out your scribbles, print a few hundred or a few thousand copies and deliver them to you. They will then rot in your garage. Our venture means that we become the publishers: we have our own ISBNs, we have designed the cover and the book interior, and we own all of the rights to the material. We won't have a shedful of unshiftable stock, but if you order a copy you'll have it in 2-4 days. And we'll be doing some serious marketing to get the thing moving.

How is this possible? Through the magic of Print-On-Demand. What happens is that we lodge the digital artwork for the cover and the interior with our printer. In theory, if we have an order for one book, they will print one book on their digital printers - they produce around one million books per year, but their average print run is 1.8 books - and ship it to us. In reality, we will always maintain a small stock for immediate despatch. The book will be available from our website, Amazon.com and trade distributors. POD is somewhat more expensive than offset (about 4x), but we think the advantages outweigh the cost: it means we can get the product out there in the market for a minimal outlay and see if we can generate the demand for it.

I think the book will be available around the end of January, so get saving your dirhams: I expect all of you to buy at least one copy, and I'll know if you don't.

Watch this space!

Probably Madrid

2008-01-02T15:22:00.000+04:00

Hi fans. Happy New Year!

I've just noticed that the link to my new blog in my blogroll had a speeling mastik in the URL. Which possibly explains why hardly any of you have linked to the new blog. Here's the correct address: http://probablymadrid.blogspot.com/.

Sudanese TeddyGate Follow-Up

2007-11-27T19:34:00.000+04:00

Good to see a few moderate Islamic blogs expressing their disgust at the TeddyGate affair. Emirati and The Sudanese Thinker are a couple of welcome Muslim voices who recognise the damage this does to the worldwide image of their religion. Well done guys!

Update: 29-11-07
She has been sentenced to 15 days in jail followed by deportation. This has to be one of the sickest stories I have ever heard. Shame on the Sudanese Government and Islamist extremists everywhere. [Sound of puking offstage].

Sudanese Muslim Offence Level: Rising

2007-11-26T22:56:00.000+04:00

The New York Times reports that a British junior school teacher is in jail in Khartoum. Her crime? Offending the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH). It's not reported whether the Prophet has been in touch with anyone to explain about his offendedness, but you know what these Gods and Prophets are like. They never call. They're not even on Facebook.

What actually happened was that the teacher brought a teddy bear into class for a project with the seven-year-old kids. First job: name the bear. 20 out of 23 kids chose Muhammed from a list of eight names.

I don't get this. Really I don't. Why is it considered offensive to give this name to a warm, cuddly toy that kids of all ages love? Is it projecting the wrong image of the Prophet? Would it be ok to name a ferocious warrior toy after Him? And why is it ok for many thousands of men, some of whom have IQs appoaching zero, to be named after him? How is an educated non-Muslim supposed to know what the rules are (answer to last question: you're not - the rules are made up as we go along). And why is everyone assuming that the bear is named after the Prophet - I believe the caretaker at that school is called Muhammed and everyone really likes him.

Once more, Islamic hardliners are making their religion look ridiculous. How sad.