Dell's UK call centre....In Mumbai???

With less than 10 days to go until I fly out to KSA, I'm currently having to battle with Dell computers to ensure they deliver my new laptop on time.

I thought it would be a good idea to buy a laptop to take out to KSA so I could keep in touch with all my friends and family at home by e-mail and Skype. Being a bit of a computer games nerd, I opted to go for a top of the line, high spec laptop from Dell known in Gamer circles simply as "The Beast!"

This has cost me a fair old whack...and unfortunately, Dell have let me down. First they Promised delivery on the 10th of April which soon got put back to the 22nd of April. Ive now been told it could be as late as the 8th of May....which is the day I fly out :-(
Unfortunately, trying to get any sense out of anyone at Dells "UK service centre" is like as difficult as trying to get into Kelly Brooks knickers! Whenever I call, I'm greeted by a very polite Asian sounding voice. Unfortunatley no matter how hard I concentrate Icannot understand a single word they say. Oh, I'm sure they are speaking some form of English, but not one that I understand. I used to think Rab C Nesbitt was the most unintelligible English speaker I had ever heard. This was a guy who had to have subtitles on the TV when he was speaking English (I'm serious!), but he was easy to understand by comparison.

This is not very encouraging seeing as many of the Engineers I will be dealing with in KSA will be Pakistani. I'm hoping I wont have similar difficulties in understanding what they are saying.

I tend to end up having to pretend that I must have a bad phone connection because I cant hear them properly. Eventually, the nice people at Dell give up trying to communicate with me and end up sending an e-mail instead. And this is where things get even more mysterious.

After speaking (but not understanding) to someone called Tina for half an hour, she decided to send me an e-mail to try and justify the tardy service I was experiencing. However I noticed that the name at the bottom of her e-mail is Veena. The same thing happened another time. I was told I was speaking to a guy called Mike; which sounded a strange name for a guy with an Asian voice. When he e-mailed me later that day it was clear his name was in fact Mitran!

Hmm... I think to myself. Where exactly is this UK call Centre? London? Birmingham?....or just perhaps Mumbai?? Who can tell? I would have asked the lovely Tina/Veena, but as I wouldn't have been able to understand the reply...I thought better of it.

No Naked ladies!!!

Ive just realised (a bit late in the day I know!) that while over in KSA it will be against the law to possess pictures of naked ladies!!!! Not even naked in fact! Just a picture of some old biddy showing a bit to much ankle is liable to get me in jail, or even worse, my willy chopped off in public! This obviously creates quite a dilemma! I'm going to be stuck on a European housing compound with hundreds of other sex starved men. Obviously there wont be any women as even the married men on the compound wont be stupid enough to drag their loved ones to a country where they have to wear a blag bag when out and about in public. (although perhaps their laws preventing women from driving shows some enlightened attitudes???)

The thought of living on a housing complex with a sex starved Frenchman who's not seen the female form for several months is a very worrying prospect! Will I have to be eternally vigilant of people called Pierre trying to get there hands on me to satiate their carnal desires? Will I have to continually turn down invitations from Sven to join him in the sauna? Even worse, after 6 weeks without any action, am I going to start believing that Pierre is actually quite a good looking and very sensitive man? God forbid!

I have been thinking long and hard about the potential solutions to this daunting matter. I have come up with one solution.... to distribute porn amongst the complex inhabitants to keep them at bay. This brings me onto the problem of how? I cant overtly take naughty pictures into the country. And even the Internet is no good. In KSA all ISP's go through a central filtering server monitored by the religious police which stops you downloading any material that is in the slightest pornographic.

I have come to the conclusion there are only 2 possible solutions:

a) Smuggle images on my laptop and hope that the customs at the airport don't go through the documents folder on my laptop too carefully.

b) Find a source of Bromide to put in my tea

Any ideas? Help me!!

A New Begining.....Im shiting my self!

Hello my English chums.

This is the first post on my new Blog. Isn't it great that Ive entered the 21st century only 8 years behind everyone else?

As I'm sure all of you know, on the 1st of May I'm jetting off to Bahrain to live and work for up to 2 years as an International Loss Adjuster.

I'm hoping this blog will be the ideal way to let you all know how I'm getting on and hopefully to let you know what life is really like in the KSA (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia)

Its now only 3 weeks until leave and I'm frantically trying to get everything organised for my imminent departure. At this moment I'm not sure what to expect when I get out to KSA so its going to be quite a shock to the system.

Im feeling ambivalent at the moment. I'm both incredibly excited and also shit scared about the move but whatever happens its going to be quite a ride!

Obviously, my number one priority is to complete my AA course to get used to the lack of any alcohol in the KSA! I think this is going to be the scariest change in lifestyle that Im going to have to cope with. I have heard that the main pastime of ex-pats in KSA is secretly making their own moonshine and I have a funny feeling that this topic may feature quite a bit in this blog!

In the meantime, as you will see at the top of this page, you can email should you wish to do so.

I was in Egypt recently and whilst there I bought some clothes to fit in with the locals.... I'm not entirely convinced that I should walk around the streets of Riyadh wearing this get up tho????