Follow the Bear...

Ahh! Remember the heady days of Hoffmeister? Yellow tin, lad-bear with a Rude Boy trilby, shitty beer, the stunningly effective strap line 'Follow the Bear' and only 59p (or 65p) a tin?

Well this has nothing to do with that.

This is about following this blog. Signing up to follow the blog will not do anything really useful other than make it look like I have lots of followers. It's not like facebook where you have LOADS of REALLY GOOD friends WHO LOVE YOU and can prove what a DEVASTATINGLY POPULAR person you are. It will not even email you to tell you there is a new blog for your delight. It just says 'I follow this blog'.

NO! It's true, I looked it up on the Blogger help page. It just lets other people know that the blogger has some readers. How crap is that?

But it's the best they can offer. So go on, hit the Follow button and let me know I am not blogging into the unknown.

[Yes, please do, if only to keep him off my back. He's stuck it to the top of the page by lying about the date it was posted and says he won't take it away until there are enough followers. Personally I think it is a Messianic delusion. Ed.]

Shopping - You Want It, We Got It

I promised to do a little more on shopping, can't remember where, but I know I did - and it's easier to do it than look for the source of the promise and quietly delete it.

One thing that is apparent is that in Oman independent shops flourish alongside the supermarket chains, and even the small shops offer an astounding amount of choice. Say you want some nail clippers, you go into an appropriate shop (the enormous, illuminated sign over the entrance and visible from Mars, will say something like 'Sale of General Goods' see blog: Fun with Words - Signs of Oman) and there are so many to choose from that your nails will by visibly longer by the time you have made a considered decision. Well you wouldn't just take the first pair you saw. Would you...?

You want nail clippers?
We got nail clippers.

You want more nail clippers?
We got more nail clippers.

If you want plastic household goods you will find them under a 'Sale of Plastic Items' sign, or it may say 'Sale of Household Goods', but whatever it says you will be in little doubt about what is on offer. 

You want colourful Plastic Items?
We got colourful Plastic Items.

Other things are sold in many different colours and sizes.

You want about 5 metres of cord?
We got about 500 metres of cord.

(UK string dealers take note)

You want light switches?

Go to a Supplier of Electrical Items and Fitting Thereof shop
These are for turning our lights on (and off)

You got roaches? We got Pif Paf.

You want Pif Paf?
We got it.

They are not free of course and must be paid for. In the larger shops you will be guided to the tills by the 'Pay Here' sign.

 In the REALLY big shops there is the additional sign:

You have to admire a shop that has a 'Pay There' sign...
(well, I do)

Bling should have its own section but there is only so much you say about it (see also blog: Mosque for Sale). It is a case there a thousand pictures say about the same as a single word.

The wonderful thing about bling
Is that bling is a wonderful thing...
(with acknowledgement to AA Milne)

The wonderful thing about bling is that it doesn't mind what you do with it, it is always bling. The picture above is a random collection of pictures mashed together, this would not work with many things, the picture would always look wrong, but 'bling don't care'. You want Bling? We got Bling.

You want kiddie rides? We got kiddie rides...

And they are all fenced in.

We got kiddies too. Here is Master (only slightly) Creepy

 You want pretty lady? Well, we got Mrs Grim.

You wanna nice frock? We gotta lotta frocks.

[Yeah, yeah, I know - any colour you want as long as it's black. Ed.]

You wanna pink wheel barrow? We got one.

But it's not all glamour... We got shelves of useful stuff (Supplier of Building Materials)

Or tools (also Supplier of Building Materials)

 Talking of useful things... You wanna religion?

Christmas cards alongside
a quote from the Holy Koran

We do all the major brands...

So next time you are in Carrefour, Tesco or K-Mart (and derivatives) see how many nail clippers they have, or extracts from the Holy Koran in the Christmas card section, or lengths of rope in a dozen colours, or little boys with vacant stares (not including customers).

If you are disappointed at the lack of choice remember your local independent and support them before the multinationals put them all out of business for ever. [OK that will do. Remember, Asda has a superb range of plastic boxes, some with lids - and Poundland still stocks a wide selection of Hannah Montana items. - Ed.].

Who is Hannah Montana? Who cares.

National Day

This ordinary looking building, possibly a Royal Oman Police block of flats, has a secret. By day it is an austere, sombre block with a rather foreboding crest on the roof.

By night it dons a coat of many colours and is the blingy-est building on the block.

It was difficult to get a good picture  as our drivers did not understand the concept of "slow down,  I want to take a picture". No matter how many times we passed this place at night, it was always at high speed - anyone would think they just wanted to get back to the hotel and go to sleep.

Many building are bedecked in the national colours, from a modest display of national pride...

 

to the full blown rope light dreadlocks seen above. There are also more portraits of Sultan Qaboos bin Said than you could shake a stick at. They are on cars…

…on the walls of shops…

 

(Seen here above a pencil sketch of some I suspect is supposed to be the shopkeeper) 

This is the shopkeeper, you decide.

….and 100 feet high on office blocks.

This book, extolling the virtues and delights of Oman, has 51 pictures of the Sultan. (And, yes, I'm afraid I did count them.)

The cult of the leader is strong in Oman in normal times, on this 40^th National Day, celebrating four decades since he came to power, it is ubiquitous.

I could get all high-minded about the relative merits of democracy and autocracy, but I do not really know enough about it to give a qualified opinion, so, suffice to say I just wish I was the lucky sod with the rope light and large-scale ink jet printing franchise.

Shopping - Electrical Shop Muttrah Souk

Went to Mattrah Souk to buy a 3-way 13amp adaptor. 

Ran the gauntlet of souk stall holders looking for a suitable outlet. Several dozen stilted conversations along the lines of: "No thanks I do not want a pashmina, and, yes it is lovely and probably a very good price, and no I don't want any frankinsence, even if it is best quality and a very good price"  Repeat for dish dasha, hat, cermonial daggers, powder horns, and, and, and...

Finally find an electrical shop which is being studiously ignored by a local stall holder, presumably miffed at not sellling me a pashnia, frankinsence, dish dasha, hat  etc etc

This is looking promising

The shop is presided over by Ali Bin Ahmed, who seems to be able to reach any item of stock without leaving his seat...

which includes a 13amp adaptor. 

To fully appreciate the wonders within I took a Photosynth 360 photo-panorama of the shop. Microsoft shut down the Photosynth site in 2017 and deleted all the contents. I may be arsed to recreate it one day but probably not. If you want to know what the whole inside of the shop looked like you will have to go there - I doubt it will have changed much.

Eating Out

There was not much need for eating out. We had breakfast in the hotel and lunch on site and after a dirty pint -  the one just back from the site, and before a shower - I'd munch my way absentmindedly through copious bowls of pop corn and olives which were served with every drink and must have put on a couple of kilos in the last few weeks [and the rest. Ed.]. The killer combination of beer and a weak will. Still, plenty of time to diet when you're dead.

Herb and Simon came over one night and we went to the Japanese restaurant on the eighth floor of my hotel.

Does just what it says on the door

There was a shed-load of sushi,
sashimi, soups, stews, rice, eggs,
noodles, and not a little saki.

But we managed to force most of it down

A day or so later Herb came over again and we went to the Golden Oryx with a lot of others from the fireworks championships.. 

Everyone else thought it was brilliant, and that included Cindy Cheung (the Chinese Team Leader) and she should know what with being Chinese an' all. But then again she is Hong Kong Chinese and that is different (so I am told).

Personally I thought was the worst Chinese meal I could remember and I remember London Chinese take aways of the 1970s. Maybe we just visited at a bad time on a bad day. And it cost silly money. Personally I would have preferred less choice, plainer surroundings and better food costing less than my flight.

Apart from the Arabic, this place would not have looked out of place in Brighton:

And I just had to have lunch here one day. It is the Omani equivalent of a greasy spoon (a working person's cafe for the uninitiated).  

I was probably the only westerner they had served since arriving on the planet. The guy asked if I was from England and I said yes, then I asked if he was from outer space - ho ho ho! how we laughed...

The menu was sparse, just an indeterminate meat curry, a similarly anonymous vegetable curry and some fish which looked as though they had been to the fish equivalent of the university of hard knocks - if they could speak they would probably say 'Hey! Hoo yoo lookin' at...?' - so I had some.

I am unlikely to hired as a food critic on account of my insensitive palette and lousy memory for menus and tastes. I can differentiate  between major food groups but that's about it. However, I do remember that the rice was flavoursome (cardamom maybe? a little chilli and something a little bit sweet) and the fish was just plain delicious (flaky white fish with a crumbly, mildly spicy coating). The green salad with limes and chillis was an excellent foil and pomegranate juice was not too sweet which suited perfectly. Bloody marvellous, one of the best meals I had, I could hardly walk back to the hotel. And only 2.2 Rials (about £3.50)

The other best eating out experience was at the local kebab stall, the only eatery I visited twice. (Later I discover they are called schwamas)

The stall is not much to look at in daylight...

...and still pretty grim in the dark.

 But the people were nice.

and the food was... well, see blog Snippets of wisdom - A night on the Tiles for more details.

Delicious meals are one thing but...

a delicious restaurant didn't really appeal to me, or anyone else it seems as I never saw it open.

Maybe it's not a restaurant at all...

Fun with Words - Signs of Oman

To have a business in Oman you must have a sign. Not some brass plaque on the door but a BIG ILLUMINATED sign and it must say what you do. 

You would not go into this shop to
buy a trouser press or a
table tennis ball.

There is help for those who don't read too well:

That may well include educated Brits as the 'supply of building materials' means tools (above) and hardware such as door furniture (below). They tend not to sell wood and bags of cement, though I dare say they would pop round the corner and get you some if you asked.

As well as describing the nature of the business, the sign may give you some linguistic flourish to further extol its virtues:

Of course it is possible to be too honest.

Well, you'd think twice, wouldn't you...

Some shops think nothing of using endangered species to sell stuff.

And some try to reassure you of their reliability with technical talk (the sign equivalent of the toothpaste advert featuring a chap in a white coat with a clipboard).

Personally I like my pharmacies to be a bit scientific, as opposed to, say, emotional or experimental. So this one does it for me.

Others do not inspire the same level of confidence. Though the idea of viral jewellery is kind of intriguing. And you should be in no doubt about what you are likely to find inside Silky Textiles next door.

You can get most things over the counter, though some signs make you wonder exactly what is on offer:

Malls proliferate and, despite being mainly populated by the major international chains they, too, have a few independent traders who entertain us with some interesting signs. 

The shop on the left just seems bizarre to a non-make up wearer. It is positioned as 'sophisticated', witnessed by the black and grey colour scheme, blow up fashion photos and the flightcase furniture (What is that about? To me it says 'You need so much of our muck that we need to pack it in boxes the size of a small car, which are capable of surviving the rigours of international air cargo')

But I cannot see the fashionista admitting buying their slap from a store called MAKE UP FOR EVER (PROFESSIONAL / PARIS) - they'd be fessing up to underwear from Primark and shoes from Lidl next.

Then I Googled it: MFE was started by someone called Dany Sanz (yeah, likely!) and appear to have 17 stores worldwide. It was also mentioned on several blogs (one sub-titled "where the fashion nerd meets the pop culture obsessed") and I lost the will to go on.

This development still does not make it sophisticated but means it should not really be in an 'entertaining signs' blog  - nonetheless, I am leaving it in as yet another example of how little I know about some aspects of the world I live in.

I just liked the name Beach Sparkle.

But if this were a competition, the winner, would have to be:

Stationary Pivot may be a direct translation of something in Arabic, or it may just be a delightful description of a stable place around which the universe revolves.

And who would have suspected that this singular point would be in a back street in Oman.

(More fun with signs and beauty tips to come... watch this space)