Justins Saudi Adventure!: Missed Universe

Monday 22 September 2008

Missed Universe

Well done Miss Turkey for winning Miss Universe. I missed the show, but I'm sure your suggestion to bring about world peace was a sound one.

I wish that just once a contestant would answer the token question with honesty:

Interviewer: If you're crowned Miss Universe, how will you forward the cause for women worldwide during your tenure?

Contestant: Do I look like Hillary Clinton? I didn't just strut around in a bikini to forward the cause for women worldwide. I did it to make lots of money and become very famous. Why don't you forward the cause for men worldwide by talking to my face instead of to my cleavage?

It's natural for men to cast admiring glances at women, I know this and am big enough to admit that, on occasion, I also partake in this male pastime.

Over here in Saudi Arabia however, the sport is practiced on an entirely different level. I catch Saudi men leering unsubtley at western women in the malls all the time.

In Saudi, in spite of all attempts to subvert it, human nature is still human nature and Saudi (and expat) men are still men. But because there are so few outlets, there seem to be fewer admiring glances and many more leers.

Recently I was at Debenhams when I observed a man opposite me go through a typical leering manoeuvre. As the lady walked towards him he stared at her head, and then let his glance travel down her body with a pause to ogle idly at her chest. As she walked past his leer followed her, with his ogle this time being slightly lower down.

Like all leers this was rude, but it was amusing because the lady was completely covered from head to toe by her abaya. In this country the men must have fantastic imaginations!

In Saudi we don't have Miss Universe, but we do have Miss Automobile. Last week I went to the car souk in Al Khobar. When I arrived I noticed an unusually large number of Saudi guys all standing by the road waving frantically. I wondered why all these men were trying to hail taxis. Had prayer time just ended? Had there been an accident? I slowed down.

The men started to swarm towards my car shaking their fists at me! What the hell?! Have I stumbled accidentally into the annual meeting of the Osama Bin Laden Appreciation Society? Lock the doors! Get the hell out of here!

As I sped around the corner it became apparent that the men weren't angry honkey haters, they just wanted to buy my car.

This is a part of town where men drive their cars up and down in the hopes that someone will buy it. All men are welcome to come and watch the show. You can glance at the ones you can afford and you can leer at the ones out of your reach.

No angry husband will hit you for leering at the cars. Just don't restrict your inspection to its cleavage........

....... and don't expect it to have a plan for ending world poverty!

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Glossary

Abaya - A long black robe designed to cover all of a woman's body
Haram - "Forbidden"
Istemarah - Car registration
Khalas - Finished, the end
Mushkilla - Problem
Muttawa - Religious policeman, the "authority for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice"
Throbe - Traditional dress for Arabic men
Ghutra - The tea-towel like headscarf worn by men
Iqual - The black band that holds the ghutra in place
Wasta(h) - Having powerful social connections
Insha’allah – God willing
Insha'allah Bakora - Tomorrow god willing ......or definetly not tomorrow in my experience, more likely next month, if you're lucky!
Iqama - Visa

Monty Python Sketch

Although its not anything to do with living in the Middle East, I find the following Monty Python Sketch hilarious and pub lish it in the hope it also brings a smile to your face:

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye, very passable, that, very passable bit of risotto.

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
Nothing like a good glass of Château de Chasselas, eh, Josiah?

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
You're right there, Obadiah.

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Who'd have thought thirty year ago we'd all be sittin' here drinking Château de Chasselas, eh?

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
In them days we was glad to have the price of a cup o' tea.

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
A cup o' cold tea.

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Without milk or sugar.

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Or tea.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
In a cracked cup, an' all.

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Oh, we never had a cup. We used to have to drink out of a rolled up newspaper.

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
The best we could manage was to suck on a piece of damp cloth.

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
But you know, we were happy in those days, though we were poor.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Because we were poor. My old Dad used to say to me, "Money doesn't buy you happiness, son".

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye, 'e was right.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye, 'e was.

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
I was happier then and I had nothin'. We used to live in this tiny old house with great big holes in the roof.

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
House! You were lucky to live in a house! We used to live in one room, all twenty-six of us, no furniture, 'alf the floor was missing, and we were all 'uddled together in one corner for fear of falling.

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Eh, you were lucky to have a room! We used to have to live in t' corridor!

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Oh, we used to dream of livin' in a corridor! Would ha' been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woke up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us! House? Huh.

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Well, when I say 'house' it was only a hole in the ground covered by a sheet of tarpaulin, but it was a house to us.

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
We were evicted from our 'ole in the ground; we 'ad to go and live in a lake.

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
You were lucky to have a lake! There were a hundred and fifty of us living in t' shoebox in t' middle o' road.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Cardboard box?

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
You were lucky. We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t' mill, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep wi' his belt.

SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at six o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of 'ot gravel, work twenty hour day at mill for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would thrash us to sleep with a broken bottle, if we were lucky!

THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Well, of course, we had it tough. We used to 'ave to get up out of shoebox at twelve o'clock at night and lick road clean wit' tongue. We had two bits of cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at mill for sixpence every four years, and when we got home our Dad would slice us in two wit' bread knife.

FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah.

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
And you try and tell the young people of today that ..... they won't believe you.

ALL:
They won't!

Justins Saudi Adventure!

Monday 22 September 2008

Missed Universe

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Monty Python Sketch

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