Now here’s a dining experience I never thought I’d have in my entire life: dinner … while strapped in a leather seat … suspended in the air … by a wire rope … at more than 160 feet!
Really? Yes, and that is winning (to borrow from the great Charlie Sheen).
It was completely unplanned and that’s what’s so cool about it. A couple of days ago I went to the Dinner in the Sky’s location to meet the franchisee and check out the venue and the feasibility of hosting events, or recommending some sort of a loyalty scheme program to clients, and the Dinner in the Sky guys, Dreamdays, invited us for a test drive. I happily obliged.
You get strapped to your chair on a safe platform with a roundtable on it, while a crane slowly pulls it up, reaching heights more than 160 feet . Obviously, the Dinner in the Sky is for those hungry for the adrenaline rush more than the food itself. I must say the platform is completely safe and is very stable. While you’re up in the sky, the platform rotates so everyone on board gets a cool view.
The Dinner in the Sky concept is not new, but this time around they chose the Dubai Marina area as a location, where the view of JBR Towers and the Dubai Marina Yacht Club is (perhaps this is not the best use of words here, but it is) drop-dead gorgeous!
Oh and fyi, there are no toilets up in the sky, so you know, do whatever you have to do before you get up there.
A UAE daily newspaper recently ran the below image of an artwork.
The artwork is part of a collection by artist Atelier Van Lieshout that Tim Van Laere Gallery recently exhibited in Spain. A quick look at the the artist’s works can show that the he has some sort of an obsession for, ummm, symbolism.
Of course the reporter did not realize that the artwork is in fact a phallic symbol, and that’s why it was published, but a friend told me the reporter is now in deep kaka.
I’m not sure if he’s being punished for running the image in the first place, or for not knowing that it resembles a massive male member, or maybe for the fact that it’s pointing directly at an article on celebrations of Al Mawlid Al Nabawi (Prophet Mohammad’s birthday) around the world!
I was one of the lucky few to get a brief preview of the upcoming Kathakbox performances that will be taking place in the UAE this week. Kathakbox (pronounced Katak) is a mixture of Kathak, an Indian classical dance, and beatboxing. Put the two together and you’ve got Kathakbox!
Here is more info on the production, but in brief, it’s an awesome modern artistic production, by Sonia Sabri and Company, that combines “movement, gesture, expression, music and the spoken word”.
I managed to take the following video during their kick-off press conference at the Abu Dhabi Women’s College two days ago, where some members of the band gave a sneak preview of what they will be offering audiences in both cities. Very cool stuff if you ask me and much more than what I had expected. The first segment of the video shows Sonia Sabri, followed by Shan Bansil, the awesome beatboxer (who surprisingly majored in Mechanical Engineering!), and finally a Shan Basil and Marcina Arnold duet.
The production will be showing in Abu Dhabi on the 26th of Feb at the Abu Dhabi Theater and in Dubai on the 28th of Feb at the Dubai Community Theatre and Arts Centre. The show will also be traveling to Jordan in March, and you can follow them on twitter.
I recently read, and ranted, about a ridiculous article that appeared in the first edition of Elle Arab World. I was surprised, to say the least.
As you can see below, the provoking piece encourages misconduct by highlighting where people can have public sex in Dubai. See if it were a blog, it would have been less of an issue, but this is a magazine, in its first issue, mind you, that is printed and published regionally and one which targets readers in the Middle East in general and the UAE in specific.
I suppose the only element the story lacked is the jail terms for each of these misconducts. Perhaps something along these lines:
In their next issue, however, the magazine apologized to the UAE authorities and the readers “a 1001 times” and even went as far as to announce that it has subsequently sacked the author of the above-mentioned piece.
Now I don’t think blaming it all on the scapegoat, i.e. the ignorant reporter, is fair. I mean for sure a magazine such as Elle, especially in its first issue, would have assigned stories to each of its staff members.
Even if they didn’t do that and gave their writers absolute freedom to choose which topics they want to cover, does that mean their stories get filed and printed without going through some sort of an approval process?
Surely, someone else agreed on the idea and context of the story, then reviewed it, and then edited it, then proofread it, then approved it, then laid it out, and then finally granted permission for it to go to press. So clearly it’s not just the sole mistake of the reporter here, yet he was the only one to be blamed and fired.
I’m sure in his mind, the writer thought well. Perhaps he thought he was doing Dubai residents a favor by spicing up their lives, but alas, you can’t always get what you want.
Having said all that, and for the sake of boosting my testosterone, that has dramatically decreased in my attempts to write this post, back to its normal levels, I feel a pressing need to highlight that I don’t really read Elle and the entire issue was pointed out to me by one of my colleagues.
This just happened a couple of hours ago and I’m still absentminded with the whole situation!
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Setting: My direct boss sitting behind her desk, with her boss sitting on one of the two chairs in front of her desk, crossing one leg over the other, his left bare foot on his right, talking while playing with the ugly toes of his ugly left foot with his ugly right hand, like there’s no tomorrow!
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I walk in with a big smile on my face.
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He stands up, pulls out the same right hand, that a moment ago was thoroughly unearthing the ugly stuff between his toes, and gives me a really firm hand shake, as if shaking the hand of his long-lost brother.
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Ever the talker, he asks me 7 or 8 questions – all different versions of ’How are you?’ – and I respond with 7 or 8 answers – all different versions of ’I’m fine thank you!’ – all while clinging on to my hand like a drowning man.
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After making sure I’m sincerely fine, and that he had successfully transferred every kind of a germ that could possibly exist between any two toes to my hand, he slowly loosened his grip and set my soul free.
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Now isn’t that just a wonderful way to start your week?!
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(This post was recovered through Waybackmachine.com)
