The Wolf of Wall Street - hypocrite's cut

Great - a day off to nurse the well earned head courtesy of the 1,514th birthday of the Prophet so I took myself quietly to the cinema. Now here in Muscat there is usually worse than extremely bugger all on to watch unless you like loud noisy boom boom bang bang films aimed at excitable gangs of 12 year old boys brought up on inappropriate video games. Or maybe you have a penchant for loud and noisy Bollywood. If so, then Muscat is good place to be. As such, I've virtually stopped looking at the local film cinema guides as there has, for me in my philistine way,  been so little point.  However I recently heard tell that a new Scorcese film was in town so that had to be good. Moreover, it was a chance midweek to watch a film, The Wolf of Wall Street, away from the TV screen. All good.

The Muscat cinema experience is always er...fun but I have got used to the chomping, crunching, late arrivals, small children and the cursed use of phones. I can live with that. I can even tolerate the rancid cheap stench of nachos and glowing industrial cheese. I know that scenes of an ...er...adult nature are usually inexpertly cut and, but as I get older,  I often think that they do not add much to a decent narrative. What I was not expecting though was that Mummy had decided to cut all the swearing, although they did uselessly miss quite a few words to giggles. Fools.  At first I thought it might be some new smart Scorcese style editing but now realise that it was done to protect the sensitive ears from such terrible and offensive language. I am not sure who they were trying to protect as, in my experience, the youth of the world are pretty fluent at basic English / American swearing.

Yet, the Wise Ones who distribute the film to the oh so sensitive souls of the Gulf have deemed that the scenes involving boozing - those Martinis and red wines sure looked good - the drug taking - less good - those could stay. Completely haram and nasty to the average subject here, supposedly anyway. Yet those irreligious scenes were all left in but as the protagonist is a Jewish American Mummy, (or should it be Daddy?) may have thought that is was OK to leave in? I have since read in The National over in the noisy,  UAE that Daddy there was responsible for the cutting out of 45 mins  - 25% of the film. Why bother? It concerns the sort of glitz, classlessness and excess that has built that nation. Yet they also left in a telling scene in which cousin marriage, the norm in the region, was duly examined, laughed and sneered at by the di Caprio character to uncomfortable giggles among the audience.

So you know what you are getting. Not the original reasonably well-reviewed film but one which has been hacked, not well re-edited and qualitatively different to what you were supposed to be getting. Perhaps for the oh so super-sensitive children of the Gulf it should be retitled The Wolf of Wall Street - The Hypocrite's Cut?

Just a thought.

It's all god's will innit?

Road rage never had it - always other people - driving is driving is driving. I am of course the best driver going, never had an accident on car or motorbike and all the other blah in a 100 years of driving. I could take the rubbish driving of parts of Asia and most of the Arab world in which I have been with an amused and cheery wry smile - not least as they make good stories. Hereabouts, you can always throw in the Will of the Most Munificent but very angry local unknowable divinity back at folk who bemoan the death of a friend when he, for it is mostly a he,  almost certainly wasn't wearing a seat belt provided for by the same thoughtful one and given the freedom to drive a Very Big Car like a young teenage twat even though he maybe 30.

I digress - for the first time in my life I stopped my car mid-road nearly causing the work bus tailgating me at too high a speed down a homeward bound busy road. Usually you just ignore it as part of what goes on and carry on your merry way home singing along to your music. However, the foul fool had been flashing me for the previous mile or two desperate to be ahead of me in the busy line despite the lack of much movement or any open road or option for me to change lanes as there is only lane ill-discipline. I carried and stopped safely at the lights of course, which here are optional, and in Malcolm Tucker mode calmly strode out and I politely bashed on the driver's side door which he warily opened and gave a volley of fluent Spanish abuse which needed no translation. The cretin, head down,  didn't answer,  had lost face, the Bangladeshi semi-slave workers I suppose being taken back to their rotten quarters, were struggling to hide their sniggering a (a small victory in their exploited lives) for the beltless twatty driver had lost face to an obvious infidel (which must never happen) and worse still in front of them, the Derided, the Used,  the Exploited co-religionists. Best of all as culture dictates, said driver had to ever so humbly apologise which is better than getting the punch in the mouth I would have possibly got back home.

...and why launch the magnificent volley in Spanish? Well, on the Middle Eastern rumour circuit there are terrible tales, sometimes in the unreliable press,  of  folk being jailed for road rage finger giving and of course English swearing is one of our finer exports which can also land you in trouble with Plod whereas life threatening driving seems to gain respect. This is ungood, double plus ungood indeed and certainly a sign of something. There are plenty of clips of Drifting online which is a popular past time among bored youth here

The backed up traffic hadn't really noticed and it was all over before the lights changed. Road rage really isn't done, and rightly so, doing  it as a guest worker in a foreign country, albeit one with a gold  level passport, is just rude like being a bad guest in someone else's country like the many expats who regularly drink to excess and drive.  Driving like a tosser with the divine wind of a well-known deity behind you is an accepted part of the ...er....culture or so it seems. It is, I believe, the highest cause of death among the under 30s in the Gulf. So why did I allow my usual amused cool to be lost and become a rude and crass expat wanker? Pulling over was not possible - signalling and slowing down are not part of the macho compensating-for-a-little-dick road culture so worryingly I guess I saw red and allowed my inner- arrogant scumbag expat to emerge.

Ugh.

New Year street theatre, post - mortem

Well, back an entry or two  (http://whingingteacher.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/my-hero-my-sultan.html )  there was me going on about how enjoyable the impromptu street party, racing, dancing, dressing up for National Day was. A huge release of peaceful, boisterous, happy energy. I tried to engage the studes with it in ensuing lessons asking whether the boys, who all must live off campus, were there (girls not allowed out without a family penis to accompany) in their fright masks, wigs and er...dresses. A silent fumbling and mumbling, heads down exclamatory no came through at three decibels. I feigned a burst of  surprise, showed some inappropriate shots of New Year of National Day in different countries to try engender conversation and for once nothing came of it. I left it...the collective hive mind was not going to talk. The hive mind is wont to do that.

However, a few days back it emerges that one of my colleagues who really is in the know with local journos and local Really Big People through consultancy work and being fat with the British Council, explained over a friendly pint that Plod did get involved late night / early morning to close down any semblance of fun and genial disorder and drag off anyone in a wig, mask or girls' clothing.
It disappointed me but then did  sound sadly familiar. For plod and power the world over does not like being overawed and appearing pointless and useless...what kind of small-willied example would that be to a hitherto dutiful and respectful population - cuddly bits of the early Arab Spring notwithstanding. Word is that next year spontaneous joy will not be happening...which may of course be a way of bottling up trouble which a look over the region might not be a good idea especially when you are getting on a bit and had the best part of 50 mostly benevolent and beneficial years in power. Ah well, not my place to speculate but it is good to know folk with an ear to the ground which fully explains the 'shame' felt or at least dutifully modelled to the curious, nosy outsider.

Psychological psoriasis

 The two year itch...

Oh dear, the first signs happened quite a while back, familiar as they happen most places I go...the unconscious move from taking things seriously and professionally to having to try to take them so. Of course I participate, like my work and students and colleagues, an friendly, open and social but...but...but...

...but indeed...

... as we know, or indeed should, everything before but is foul and rancid  bullshit so no point in elaboration...my good pal here called me a commitment phobe, which struck me initially as strange to use from someone past 35,  it is  a  word laced with the benighted judgement of certain cheesy single wimmin's mags and accompanying crap films - to crap movies rather, there is a difference. However, there may be some truth there or simply the wish for some more refreshing excitement for this is a very sleepy conservative place. Natural beauty and friendly people can only go so far especially when you need a license to drink...



That creeping scratchy itch has been morphing slowly into some sort of psychological psoriasis turning  my usual insouciant bonhomie, affability and geniality to mildly irascible, grouchy and worryingly, on occasion, broody and bad tempered as I ponder horribly that some feelings I get towards the nice but conservative and culturally constrained kids are similar to the ones that made me leave education in England although for far different reasons. Said itch has not started inflaming, suppurating or seeping yet but the signs are worryingly there and I am not too sure what I can do about it. Answers on a post-card or tweet please...

My Hero, My Sultan

The Yanks have one, France has the best one well, that I have been around for,  even bloody Canada has one - in fact most places in the world have one except us English which we cannot really justify. These things are possibly a gory, cheesy and up-itself wankfest which is probably what the politicos would turn it into, it can though of course be and should be a great excuse for a party not just  an excuse for saying how fantastic we are while boosting the Chinese disposable flag making industry. That's right National Day. A punctuation in the year when most nations celebrate their birth often after a nasty bloody struggle against some exploitative overbearing power from far away whose language they might now speak.

Coming to the party in...er.. style(?)

None of my students could really explain why their 43rd national day falls on November 18th - the Sultan's birthday? That seemed to be the consensus anyway which Wikipedia confirmed. It certainly couldn't be for independence? From whom? Oman was, luckily for them, never formally colonized. No one could tell me, or more likely they were loth so to do, for this is a place where standing out is not considered a virtue....until that is you cover your car in red, green and white stickers, bedeck said car in flags and pics of my hero, my sultan, slip off your traditional conservative, and arguably mentally constricting clothing and go racing around the town centre well as fast as you can which isn't very fast in gridlock, but that's all part of the fun as you get to honking, hooting and cheering.

Of course your face is covered in face paint of the national colours, you might also be a wearing a Halloween style horror masks or  fright wig which is odd as Halloween and dressing up as the devil are a tad unIslamic. Perhaps most weirdly to me and cowering car mate, were the Guy Fawkes masks. None of these objects have I seen on sale anywhere - 'cos that kind of frivolity just ain't Islamic or traditional. It was great to see singing, dancing to African, Latin, Arabic  tunes accompanying the screeching of tyres and souped up engines making sounds disturbingly like gunfire. Cowering carmate was from the US so therefore used to the gunfire but completely unused to Omanis out of the strait-jacket happily sticking their heads, unthreateningly through the car windows.

Beep beep etc

There were plenty of young folk hanging out of cars, on roofs and even a few in the boot. All safe as the traffic was going nowhere.  Plod looked overawed, helpless and hopeless which is always lovely to see. The fear of the uncontrolled crowd. However, it was all good-natured and seemingly sober. Us Euros and assorted others on our way to the hotel pub were welcomed, greeted and thanked for  coming along to the party which had naturally stopped us from getting anywhere close - that was a lovely touch but I did have to turn down the offer of joining a group for a dance. Unlike back home there was no (obvious) booze and a complete absence of women aside from the Carmate who embarrassingly feared that she was going to be pulled out of the car and subjected to all sorts of nasties with her head paraded around on a spike. Oh dear the liberal mask had slipped and she won't be a Carmate again.

Apparently there was all the usual other stuff that goes on - fireworks, military nonsense so beloved of leaders the world over, and I was told that the Red Arrows even turned up. Still, all good free-flowing fun, unless you are a terrified plod or over-reacting Carmate and everyone happy and still at it when returning home several hours later....

So Happy Birthday Sultan.

Tony Bloody Blair buggered my tooth

Oh fuckityfuckfuckfuck - that hurts more than having the gove removed did...whisky (lots of) xxx painkillers (by the dozen) antibiotics by the pick-up full.....

So conscious my temporary filling  http://whingingteacher.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/the-wiill-of-allah.html  was about to burst and shatter into rotten shards before a pleasant and enjoyable root canal could be performed, I sought advice from the various shinily toothsome American and German colleagues about where to go - they all said the very expensive American or German dentists over in Qurm. The former Soviets smiled at the glories of Soviet dentistry, and the solidly buck toothed fellow NHS loving Brits...? Well, they all go to the cheapo  London trained Iraqi ten mins from work. 

So off I went smilingly along, he smiled back, saw the x-ray gave me a few chatty jabs and then revealed his painful grudge - for he was the Iraqi who could smell my evil dark and vile secret...that I... er.......ahem ...(sotto voce) voted for Blair in '97 back then the foul and grubby Tories were trying to brand him Bambi but that is irrelevant and was therefore partially complicit in breaking Mr Dentist's country which he then I reckon took out on my now fractured back molar. He began gouging the bugger out in several pieces with bits of gum straggling off and blood coursing out of my mouth through the tissue doubling as a dental bib onto my once white shirt...he let forth a flow of curse s at me and his assistant in Arabic and English stating between sweaty tugs and gouges how it was all my fault. I couldn't ask what was or why? He wasn't happy...but not a lot that could be done with a rubberised hand in your gob with an angry man poking and digging with medieval torture equipment. 30 minutes on it seemed that, with fragments of rotten tooth laid out, slightly stunned and other than to mumble a polite thank you with a mouth full of cotton pads and pay him the 20 quid.

Not to disparage the guy (much)...there is nothing wrong with the medical treatment I have had in developing countries not least as my employers have all stumped up for all the tests usually needed on entry. They will also pay for most else . That said the few times I have needed anything the insurance companies and doctors alike will royally profit from it by ordering  no end of tests and unnecessary analysis, and pointless follow ups. Bit of an obvious problem there allowing markets into medicine. Or have I missed something? Dentistry aside I am near the top of the pecking order here the multitude of other economic migrants are barely covered at all, there is no universal health provision which is bleak. So yes (insert divinity of choice or ideally none)______________ bless indeed save the NHS and all that cos Camoron and his one eyed ideologues and sponsors won't.

A grain of truth in this?