Dawkins

You wouldn’t be able to do this here.
There aren’t any buses.

Shipping Departures Arrivals Landing

I packed up house contents into attic and into shipping pile before H came back to the UK for our wedding.
Our shipping left our house in Nottingham on 24th July.
H arrived in the UK on 26th July.
We were told the delivery date in Al Ain was indeterminate.
On 20th September the shipping left the UK.
It was [...]

Photocopiers

You know that one about photocopiers always breaking down/getting jammed/running out of toner just when you’re having a last minute/running out of time/should have done this yesterday moment? Over here the photocopiers are slow but there are about three people responsible for each photocopier. They are the Photocopier In-charges. Photocopiers are therefore [...]

The Guardian

You can take a woman out of Britain but you can’t take away her British newsmedia. Praise be to the Guardian and BBC websites. Here I get to hear about floods and snow as I sit in the (quite nice now) 38 degrees of the afternoon. And here I get to read [...]

Pulling Teeth

Yesterday I visited the dentist again to see if there were any other teeth that she wanted to pull out. Luckily all she needs to do is clean them. Which will take about two hours and subject me to injections once more to stop me jumping all over the chair.
However I didn’t escape the [...]

HSBC

Which part of, “This is an international phone call so please can I not be put on hold”, means, “Here’s HSBC Radio for you to listen to for 5 minutes” ?

Tints

Each morning I have a conversation with Sayeed.
“Allo?”
“Hello Sayeed, good morning, this is Rachel, how are you?”
“Werri fine”
“Can you come to my house at 8am?”
“Ahh. ……. Yiiiz”
“Thank you, see you at 8, Good bye”
“Ahh” ……… Click.
Sayeed drives a taxi. And speaks English. Sayeed also has a band of mates to call on [...]

US of A

It’s enough that I have to learn about the US University System. And now that this guy has joined us, my work is directed in the style and aims of the University of California and all its component bits. Like Berkley.
I’m still trying to work out why a class that happens twice [...]

Differential Labour

H and I are about to be paid. The cleaner at work is also about to be paid. She’s Sri Lankan and works at the College where I have my office. Her hours are 6am to 9.30pm with an hour for lunch. That’s 14 and a half hours work, 6 days a week. [...]

Just call me Gappy

The tooth is out. Kindly extracted by a British trained and registered dental surgeon who is Hungarian and has a Greek surname. My dentists in UK were from Spain, Colombia and Poland (all women called Christina but distinguishable by body shape). My last tooth was taken out by a Bolivian. Hey, I’m on [...]