pirates, vegans, and clowns

An eventful few days again, bringing me to the conclusion that my life is rather eventful at the moment. There are a few things that have been blog-worthy recently - in short, otherwise I'll forget -

• Meeting random UK people in Dubai - like Dom from university with ben who lives here, and John from wwav, through Harriet who now lives here but was also wwav, or the boy Tarb, all the way from West Kirby sailing club, via RAYC in Beaumaris. Random. But fun.
• The propensity for people to enjoy the sound of their own voice in meetings, and the strange absence of my voice in a meeting this morning, which wierdly then started to oppress me, resulting in me becoming completely unwilling to speak. Which is not a state I'm familiar with very often.
• The clever idea of joining in a 24hr sailing race, setting off with a hangover on thursday, only for it to decide to cloud over, rain, when I've only brought shorts and a sweatshirt, cooked curry for 15, which poisoned our vegan, ripped a sail fighting with a tanker, nearly got boarded by pissed emirates pilots pretending to be pirates at 2am, slept for four hours on a sail bag to awake to the joyous news that the course was shortened, which meant we made it to the club for 8am opening for celebratory fried breakfast and bloody marys. Bliss.
• karaoke on thursday night. enough said.
• How much I love sporting events in Dubai. Reprieve from the red sell out stickers this weekend when I rocked up to the Dubai Classic Golf Tournament at the monty and watched Tiger play (third) and Els win. Tootled in straight after the sailing, with no forward planning. Yet the tennis is completely sold out, and I'm going to have to do some serious corporate blagging. The ability to say "I remember when you could just turn up..." is definitely not a plus point.
• Random weather - fog and rain yesterday, wind and sunshine today, all of the above in a 19hr period when on the boat the other day.
• Annoying service sector - tried to get internet and tv hooked up yesterday at the same time as I had a client meeting - got the prentals involved thru bribes and pleading, thought it had gone very smoothly, till it didn't actually work when I returned home, meaning I missed Wales losing to Ireland at Rugbcy. Instead I watched another seven hours of the OC, an addiction that is neither big, clever nor cool. And definitely not watercooler chat - unlike prison break and lost which are high up there in terms of cred factor. Apparently.
• The onset of the Ahlan Hot 100. Having slated it for months, now that there is a potential invite in the post to the official party, I'm torn between admitting defeat, going, having a blast, and supporting my mate who works at the mag, or making some crap excuse to avoid the indignity of being at a party devoted to the kind of people I don't like, and spending the evening trying to justify my attendance to myself. I'm going to cave and go. Of course I am. To summarize the glitz that is the Hot 100 - it holds itself up to be the annual bible of who's too cool for school in our lovely shiny bubble that is D. So my mate has been sweating blood, coming close to murdering various glittery types full of their own importance, ref their dot com empire, polo pony, russian hooker wife... or other similar alternative. We have been on hand to make sympathetic noises as she bemoans their muppetry and curses the pageant that is the Hot 100 - a glossy thick mag that goes on sale with Ahlan soon. Ahlan being a cross between Hello & Heat. Yay.
• The onset of the Maktoum trophy, and the distinct lack of any crew list or holiday form submitted to request time off to sail in said trophy.
• The onset of my brother's wedding and my distinct lack of organization of clothing or wedding present.
• The rapidly escaping chance to go to Quidam (Cirque du Soleiel) as I apparently have no mates who are not attached at the hip to someone with the desire and means to treat them to a night at the circus - even though I had a marvellous conversation about clowns with the new scouse on thurs.
• Work politics, which I wonderfully succeeded in rising above, with a beatific smile on my mug and a glint in my eye.

Which is about it for today. Could write about a thousand words on any of the above, but that would be a bit dull, and take quite a lot of time I think. Which clearly I have lots of.