Welcome to rascott.com.
This is a personal site that reflects my interests in news, current affairs, aviation and travel.
email me at robert@rascott.com
Photo Albums
My
photographs have been moved off this site and are now stored on Picasa. They
were simply taking up too much space on my web host.
Please use this link to see my list of photo albums.
Some
Useful links:
Information:
World Time Clock
Exchange Rates
Journalism:
Nationsonline.org
Project Syndicate
Amnesty International
Reporters w/o borders
The Guardian - UK
BBC World News
CNN Asia
Bangkok Post
Daylife.com - news
Gulf News
Arabian Business
Good causes:
Sister
Joan - Bangkok
Regional Info:
BKK Magazine
HK Magazine
In
Singapore Magazine
TimeOut Dubai
Travel:
Circle of Asia
Tales of Asia
Smart Travel Asia
Finance:
FinanceAsia
Aviation:
Amadeus (airline
schedules)
Airliners
- aviation forum
Thailand Info
thailand.com
learningthai.com
sawadee.com
bangkok a-z
Back in the UK:
Newton Ferrers
Government:
The
"new" White House
And for fun:
Lin Ping live panda tv
EarthCam
The opinions expressed on these pages are entirely personal unless they are credited; you may not agree with all, or anything, that I write. So please use the feedback page to respond, comment or berate me.
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An Occasional Blog
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Thailand Blogs Bangkok Pundit - politics Bangkok Metblogs - city life Thai-blogs.com - rather serious
2bangkok.com
- not really a blog but always up to date
on Bangkok news
BKKOK.com
Thai Girl The exotic
adventures of a literary sexagenarian.
Thai Films
Al - Emarati - English language
UAE blog In China Danwei - media and advertising news from China
Shanghai Diaries - self
explanatory My Olive Tree - Macau blog In Singapore: Xiaxue - self-confessed mean, bitchy, sex goddess who says "wah" a lot!
Mr Brown
- colourful commentary from Singapore Aviation Amadeus (airline schedules) Airline meals - see it b4 you eat it !
Airliners
- aviation forum, trip reports and pix
archive Planenation - commercial aviation news Airchive - a web museum of commercial aviation.
CrankyFlier - mainly US
commentary
Sharjah - 1937 News The Guardian - UK
Arabian Business China sites Bangkok info sites Worthy Sites Niall Ferguson - my favorite modern historian
Rconversation - from Rebecca MacKinnon, ex-TV
reporter-turned-blogger. Fun Sites
Penguin baseball Technology Ideas
Stuff -
gadgets
Author
Robert Scott lives and works in Dubai; born in England I have since lived in Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore and Bangkok. I am very happily married to Tai.
If you want to know more you only need to ask! ask.
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8 February 2010 Through friends of friends we had a visit yesterday from a Finnish journalist and photographer - working on a magazine feature on post financial crisis Dubai ! They had seem some of my pics and comments on the apartment and Dubai properties and I think enjoyed the view! And they must be the only thing that is "Finnish - ed" in Dubai !! Anyway they stayed for an hour - took a few pictures and we had a good chat - i tried (really, really tried) to be balanced !
**************************** 7 February 2010 How about this wonderful note on the Etisalat price list - "Installation: Installation of the service is within seven working days, depending on the waiters."
***************************** Well I have painted walls in the living room and main bedroom and put a bit of colour in the place. And made far less mess in the process than the contractors. The floor tile grouting is cleaned easily using spare hotel toothbrushes - just don't ask Tai to get any for you. Because she may give you toothpaste instead. It remains unclear to me how to use tubes of toothpaste to clean the floor tiles. The bathrooms were all designed by very small people. A dwarf's bathroom. Which makes little sense in a 1,550 square foot apartment. The bath is so small that it does comply with Dubai's rules on conservative behavior. Because there is no way in the world that you could get two people into the bath or shower. The built in wardrobes in the spare bedroom have been finished (again) - but they have taken tiles off the skirting board and plaster off the surrounding walls.....more work for the working men to do - if anyone remembers old Flanders and Swann songs. Still no working cooker....though update from later on Sunday is that this has now been fixed after some gentle persuasion.
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******************************* Hit some lovely iron shots yesterday - and the 5 wood was working well - even the putter behaved. Was not driving as well as I like to - and not consistent. But close......and after so much rain the bunkers were almost unplayable....
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************************* 4 February 2010 The one advantage of moving and unpacking while Tai is away - I get first go at all the storage space - for a big two bedroom apartment there is a woeful lack of storage space and the built in cupboard units were obviously designed by a man who has only one suit and one pair of shoes....and must have been designed by a man - a woman would have known better. ************************* *************************** My humble view - after only one day it really does not look bad at all. If only I had internet and tv I could put my feet up and have a nice rest and a glass of wine.
******************************** Last night I had to go to bed listening to the Fillipino rythm on Dubai One radio - 103.8. Not much rythm - so many sad sounding songs...it was suitable music for me! I will get online - but that will mean hiking to Millennium Tower or to a wired coffee shop. Someone has to explain to me why a building that is two years late has not already been wired by Du. These were apartments that were supposed to "come equipped with modern amenities, high-tech facilities" according to the Dubai (take your money and run) Properties. There is only one elevator operating in the building. Which is a real problem for removal and delivery people. But it is leading to some fun conversations with other owners and tenants in the elevator. No one has a good word to say about the building or DP. Anyway someone must want an update on my move - though judging by the number of phone calls and SMS I have had (precisely none) most people dont give a flying fig ! The movers did the best they could in the circumstances - given dodgy elevators. I have no idea what they did with the laundry basket - though I did find the dirty laundry! But when they finished at 6.30pm yesterday I was left unpacking what it had taken 4 guys to pack! The cooker and washing machine were both delivered - one Italian and one Korean. It was the Japanese who screwed up. A call from Hitachi said they would deliver between 4.30pm and 5pm. She called 15 minutes later to say they would deliver the next day instead. I gave her an earful. She said I will call you back and never did - and three calls to there office went unanswered. So it came today instead. After I had thrown out a collection of rotten fruit and veg. Useless. And I already have a spectacular orange wall in the living room. Two coats of paint. The contractors are proving to be highly entrepreneurial. They seem to have a period of overtime that starts at 5pm precisely. My favorite curtain contractor was in this morning and will deliver new curtains on Monday. Expensive but I think he does a good job. But - the contactors are still here rebuilding the spare bedroom. The closets have all been taken out and rebuilt. They were crap. But they should have been finished before the move and are still working away. And they are not going to finish tonight - too busy earning their overtime doing things that they get paid for ! As tomorrow in Friday I guess it will be Saturday before the second bedroom can be used.... And the cooker has no switch yet. So I cannot cook. And they are supposed to clean and polish all the door frames and doors. One day! My cleaners also came in today. They cleaned all the surfaces and scrubbed the floors and bathrooms and cupboards etc. Good job. But there will be more for them to do on Saturday. Still it actually does feel like it could be home for a while. But for the moment - not much privacy - the contractors come and go when they want....lunch breaks, tea breaks, and a burst of activity when it is time for overtime! And who put the toilet roll holder the far side of the bidet rather than next to the toilet - you need extra long arms and the flexibility of a contortionist to get anywhere near to it. 3 February 2010 Concerned at his declining popularity President Obama has entered the second year of his term with a presidential makeover:
2 February 2010 This will be my last night in Falcon Tower. I was meant to be here for a year - and have been here for 33 months. It is a nice, well finished apartment. But the building still has no road access and there is a permanently leaking sewage pipe at the back of the car park. The area has been transformed with new buildings all around. The movers will be here in the morning - the new apartment is not really ready to move into. The fitted wardrobes in the spare room have all been gutted to be re-installed. And hopefully they will make a better job second time around. There will be no internet or tv access until at least the end of the month. Bizarre really. The building is two years late. So Du - the sole telecom provider should have got the fibre optic network installed. Guess I will be doing a lot of reading. And start listening to the radio again. Will be able to use the wireless access at Millennium. But dont seem to spend much time there now.
************************** 31 January 2010 Tai has gone for the week - to SIN and MEL. We really do not seem to have much time together.
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*************************** 30 January 2010 A final note on Blair's performance at the Chilcott enquiry - from Simon Jenkins in the Guardian - "Chilcot did finally ask Blair if he had any regrets. It was an invitation to humility. Blair blew it, spoiling a near faultless performance. No, he had no regrets, not for toppling a vicious dictator and not for bringing a better life to the Iraqi people. He would do it again, and even let slip the word Iran. For an audience which he knew included bereaved families it was too much. The room lost its self-control in boos and tears. The ghost face returned, and it stormed grim-faced from the room chased by bodyguards." 29 January 2010 Old Jokes Home:
I went to a casino last night and was stood next The constant debate in the Thai media of a potential coup makes for depressing reading - the old adage of no smoke without fire seems appropriate - something is going on but what ? The Nation's take on this is simple: Why, by who, against who: "If you want an ulitmate "yes" or "no" to the question whether a coup can happen, here's my take: So many questions are still up in the air. By whom? Against whom? On what grounds? To help Thaksin? To pre-empt possible return of his assets? To destroy the reds? To destroy the yellows? To destroy them both and risk the birth of a united front against the military?" The Bangkok Post sees the coup as a coup against the opposition (Thaksin) rather then the Abhisit government that the army installed to deal with Thaksin! The paper optimistically opines the "bottom line is that the military, the Bangkok elite and intellectuals must learn to respect the will of the people. Power must be shared. They must trust the people's judgement and learn to live with the result of what the majority of the people want." Dreamers !
*************************** 27 January 2010 Why does David Miliband sound so like Hugh Grant?
************************* It appears to be a large sized I-Phone - so works well for people with very large pockets or bad eyesight. The stats:
- 0.5 inches thick
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This is the Bangkok Post's history of coups: 26 January 2010 Crystal Palace football club heads into administration. There will be others that follow. Maybe including Watford.
************************* "Ahmed Al Sheikh, the head of a new media affairs unit set up earlier this month to coordinate the emirate's communication's strategy with the press, was unreachable for comment and didn't reply to phone messages." He is only the head of the media affairs unit. In the middle of a financial melt-down in Dubai I think he might want to talk to the WSJ. He can ignore the Sun if he likes - but not the heavyweight press. 24 January 2010 We went to Executive Towers to day to see if there was any progress on our apartment. Sadly the answer is none. In 16 days they have done no work since the handover. It is a continuing charade of broken promises. Pathetic.
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************************* It is just worth a note that in the last 6 months, Charoen Foods PCL stock has gone from 5.25 to 11.8. Current PM Abhisit's father is a Director of CPF. In addition another minister is the former son-in-law of CP's major owner and according to one Dem MP, CP made an 80 million Baht donation to the Democrats; so should anyone be investigating whether there is policy corruption?
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22 January 2010 These guys are worth a listen and probably great fun live - The Heavy
************************** It was the weirdest of acceptance speeches. Mamma Mia on TV for the hundredth time. Chick flick. But just caught the end - and the credits at the end are seriously funny. Pierce Brosnan in the 70s Abba outfit singing Waterloo. A classic. 21January 2010 Outbound on EK 373 from Bangkok to Dubai - a half full A380. It really is a nice airplane to fly on - quiet, spacious, no silly boxes under the seat in front of you. It has been a rather strange few days in BKK. A bit purposeless. But it is always interesting to wander Bangkok's streets - though around lower Sukhumvit they appear to have become rather lawless. Every street and sidewalk is now littered all day with carts selling everything. And this goes on all day - with a change of shift later in the evening from food stands to streetside bars. Tai meanwhile is in Mauritius - and having a beach BBQ. 20 January 2010 Had a very enjoyable dinner with Dennis and Edward last night - so good to catch up and talk and talk !! MiniBar at Citardines soi 23 has a nice patio that you can sit in for dinner or drinks - or both. And they serve a very nice chardonnay by the glass. 19 January 2010 Sign of the times _ Gatwick airport has a "Passenger shoe repatriation area." Meant to write more - but went for a 2 hour massage instead. Sorry.
************************ Other airlines need to think about expanding beyond the big three of Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou.
************************ The network carries some 75 channels - with nothing (except some if its sport) to watch. 18 January 2010 Emirates is developing its A380 plans for 2010 - now take thes with a pinch of salt. Plans can change - and so can delivery dates - but there is an interesting focus on China.
The following routes are currently planned to be served by
Airbus A380-800, replacing 777-300ER:
*********************** 15 January 2010 I am on my way to Hong Kong and then onto Bangkok. The flights are so full to BKK that it is easier on standby to go through Hong Kong and onto Bangkok tomorrow. There is a huge Russian guy in the seat in front of me. He cannot have washed for weeks. Every time he moves the smell floods back down the airplane. It is not good. And the guy sitting to my left - fortunately there is an empty seat between us must be a heavy smoker. The joys of travel.
**************************** The airport is so small and the damage so widespread that the relief agencies cannot get planes and equipment into the airport. The solution will be to transport through the Dominican Republic which share the island of Hispaniola with Haiti and appears shaken but unaffected by the quake. 14 January 2010 This is a bit obscene - A man named Said Abdul Ghafour Khouri has agreed to pay AED 52.2 Million (US $14.3 Million) for Abu Dhabi license plate labeled "1" at an auction at the 7-star Emirates Palace Hotel here, making it the world's most expensive license plate . Would be nice if that money was quickly diverted to Haiti...
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An Emirates spokesperson confirmed there had been an incident involving
two passengers on flight EK0028 before arrival on Monday. Golf today at Al-Hamra. My game is slowly coming back and I played ok today - especially over the front nine holes. My short game is still poor. But it was a lovely sunny 25C day; a little breeze and a deep blue, cloudless sky. Very nice.
*************************** One thing the world does well is disaster response. To their credit the Americans are always there. They were for the Tsunami. They are in Haiti. So are the Brits and Canadians. You have to admire the Search and Rescue teams from around the world which head to these disaster zones - real heroes !
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***************************** That's an example of the sort of chaos that the weather causes the airlines. And extra cost. 12 January 2010 If you had to choose:
Or:
11 January 2010 EK cabin crew rant - brilliant! I get this every month when the roster comes out - although in Thai !
********************************** "Will there really be a general election? Why would the military brass allow another election when they will then want to overthrow the outcome, exactly as they have done on the last two occasions - first by a coup, and the second time by a parliamentary manoeuvre? A third demolition might be technically more difficult, and politically more risky. A safer route might be simply not to allow a vote to take place. This will take some effort in coming up with the pretext, but several scenarios can be imagined." 10 January 2010 Funny!
*************************************** "Avatar is a phenomenon you can't ignore, monumentally imposing and done with extraordinary expertise – but the same could be said of the Dubai skyline, and I'm not sure that represents any future worth investing in." 8 January 2010 Very nice indeed - the 787 in flight: from Boeing:
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************************** 5 January 2010 The visitors gallery will open today at the Burj Khalifa - but not much else - the Armani Hotel Dubai announced today that it will open its doors to guests on March 18.
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**************************** "After taking the brief ride to the 124th floor in one of the smoothest elevators I’ve ever travelled in, visitors are met with a bird’s eye view of the sprawling city - patches of desert, skyscrapers that appear tiny from such a height, unfinished buildings, the city’s Sheik Zayed road and interchanges - and perhaps the most impressive view of all - the Burj’s own shadow stretching out to the sea. “It’s like a huge sundial,” I heard one reporter say. Even though you’re almost 2600 feet in the air, it surprisingly doesn’t feel that high. Despite my own fear of heights, I felt more grounded than I have done on other vertical tourist attractions such as the Eiffel Tower or the Empire State Building. Perhaps the dirty windows helped. I was told that they had been cleaned just days before but that given their height they are prone to attracting dirt. I was also told that it takes six months to clean the towers windows from top to bottom so I couldn’t complain too much. Inside the skydeck, there isn’t much to see. There is the obligatory souvenir shop and some trick viewing binoculars which allow you to see the view by day or by night, or in a live shot, but little else. Some information on what you can actually see from the viewing platform may be welcomed by the untrained eye, but like most things in Dubai, I put the lack of information down to the fact that the building is being opened when it’s not 100% complete." 4 January 2010 Must remember - BK is Burj Khalifa and not Burger King ! That was a last change - the building has been known as Burj Dubai for six years ! But I guess Abu Dhabi's support does come with a price.
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****************************** Some interesting graphic/art pictures of Dubai and its major buildings can be found here. 3 January 2010 It is almost 2am - and the folks preparing for tomorrow night's Burj opening party are clearly determined to impress the neighbours. So they are practising. The water fountain is going full blast - it sounds like cannon being shot !
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Kraft Foods is preparing to sweeten its hostile 10 billion
pound ($15.9 billion) takeover bid for British confectionery maker
Cadbury, reported the Sunday Times. There will be a price where enough of the shareholders will take the money and Cadbury will no longer be a British company.
Strange - 2 British companies that have dominated my life -
Cadbury - my Dad's company and Reuters (where I had 16 years) - will both
be foreign owned. Alex's last day in Dubai - and a quiet day after a late new year's eve. We went out to the mall of the emirates for dinner - and who should walk into the Butcher's Shop and Grill - Thaksin Shinawatra and entourage! As we left he was gracious when we interrupted their dinner - shook hands and had his picture taken with Alex!
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