London 2006: Pink Cabs

BPC loves pink. Imagine her joy when she spotted a PINK CAB outside the train station! LOL ... 10£ worth of pure joy.

A tip: there's a bus to East Croydon Station straight from Heathrow. No need to change buses/trains/tubes. I LOVE London's public trasnport system.

NOTICE

Dear All ... I have just been informed by one of my blog loyalists that there is something rather funny happening with the comments on my blog whereby the poster of the comment is informed that the comment has been sent for approval to the owner of the blog. I can assure you I have received no such approval notices, even though I enabled the said feature on the blog. I will now open up the comments as before, so please feel free to shoot me down.

Enjoy .

Notes From A Summer Holiday (episode1)

BPC will most probably not be blogging for quite a few days now. Reason is a rather good one. One of the best actually ... BPC and Arfiman are on holiday.

In a very nice English house in Croydon. Where we wake up at whatever time we want and choose from a seemingly endless choice of breakfast options and then bum around till we need to catch a bus and then a tube into London. And then we spend all the money we've saved all year. Ah, I love London. And shopping, of course. Shopping in London? An exceptionally delectable combination.

We met up with D. yesterday. At the British Motor Show. The motorshow was quite entertaining. It warrants a whole entry on its own, but lets just say that I did quite a lot of pointing an laughing. What at? Well, here's a taster:

1. A bunch of people standing around a Lumina Coupe, starinig in awe and some inside, caressing the interior. SUCKERS! I really wanted to poke a few and tell them I drive one IN THE SAME COLOR everyday. LOL.

2. A bunch of people lining up for hours to be let into an enclosure to be able to 'touch' an Aston Martin on display. ROFLMAO. In Dubai, all you would have to do is walk into the dealership. And here were people who spent good money and hours taking a bus, then a tube and then a train to do what? To touch a car. ROFLMAO.

3. A HUGE BUNCH of people gawking at the car Max has just bought. I videoed it for Max, so he can have a good laugh.

Speaking of videoing, BPC did a bigtime boo-boo. She broke her camera. Fucking cheap point and shoot digicams. I'm never travelling without my Nikon EVER again!

So last night Qasim bhai was taking everyone out to dinner and we drove for a loooooong time to get to ... Edgeare road. Noooooooooooooo ... did we come all the way to London to eat Arabic food? It was surprisingly good. We stuffed ourselves silly and even though I kept my eyes peeled later for Dubai and Abu Dhabi number plates, we were totally disappointed to find none.

We did however spot a car - the driver of which we are ready to bet money on was most definitely an Emirati. Lol .... this big ass Mercedes S Class in TWO SHADES OF PINK. No kidding. Honest to goodness. Heh. I have a picture ... I shall put it up later :)

So we did some fun car spotting before saying goodbye to qasim bhai and family - who incidentally are leaving on holiday to Tanzania. Wow. That's a country I'd like to go to.

Speaking of coutnry's one would like to go to, the motorshow had an interactive display where visitors could leave comments on what their ideal ride would be and BPC spotted at least two about Dubai. Yay! AND she spotted a little boy in a kandoora by the quay. Go figure.

So,even though it was late after dining on Edgeware Road and car-spotting, Khaloo decided to give us a Hussain's Tour Of London By Night and even though I was tired and it was FREEZING, it was fun.

I saw some actual World War II bullet holes and the building from which the British used to rule all their colonies way back when and lots of interesting stuff along those lines.

Oh, and let me not omit the mention of day before yesterday. We were invited to Jumoiz's housewarming and being the sweethearts they were, they totally surprised Arfiman and BPC with a cake-in-advance for our second wedding anniversary - which both of us had almost forgotten was just a few days away. Wow! That so caught me off-guard. Jumoiz are such sweethearts.

Right now we are waiting for Khaloo and Salma to come back with some croissants so we can stuff our faces before going into town. Plan for today? Lots of shopping at Boots for me: hair stuff. face stuff .. yum yum yum. Lots of comic shopping for Arfiman and fish n chips for lunch. I hear there's a BBQ planned for tonight in the backyard.

I love summer holidays :)

Work Hazard #005: Acronyms

Acronyms. Sometimes you lose control.

I sent this email out today:

Subject: RFQ: DIC

FYA, PFA RFQ for DIC BPs PR re:GITEX

Regards,
BPC

!!!!

And the scary thing is, all of the five people receivin this email knew exactly what it meant.

*shiver*

Ramble Ramble Ramble

Do you have days when you have so much work and you're so weighed down that you cant even start your first task?

*sigh*

BPC is having one of those.

I 'm looking at my list. It's got at least fifty things on it. Among it are three new brochures (ALL NEW TEXT!), an update of the company e-induction, some speeches (i HATE pseeches) and a gazillion little tidbits. All of which are due TOMORROW.

And what have I done since the morning? I have checked my scraps on Orkut maybe 2568 times. I have checked my Yahoo mail a few dozen times. I have googled a lot of the people I know. And now it's 12 and it's halfway through the workday and I DON'T HAVE NEARLY ENOUGH TIME TO MEET MY DEADLINES!

I need help.

No, not the psychiatric kind (shame on you!) but the 'other people in the office' kind.

Do you know that I have been doing three people's job for about three months now? I guess it's pretty amazing that I didn't lose it till now. Hopefully, we have a new recruit coming in next week part time and then full time from the week after.

This was supposed to be a one-liner psot, but my procrastination has led me to elocute quite ... well, erm ... eloquently.

Much along the same lines, Tabz is in town with her Sis in tow. All they want to do is go clubbing. And I look at them and I look at me and I marvel at how they are three-years-ago versions of me. All I want to do these days is curl up with a shisha and have a relaxed chat with a group of friends. Whatever happened to my partaaaaay days? nah, I don't think I was ever into clubbing that much anyway.

But looking at these two makes me marvel also at how much energy people have on holiday. These girls shop non stop. So energy and money, I guess.

Today they want to go to the beach right after I come home from work,and then bowling and then to Boudoir. Yeah right ... with me having gotten about four hours of sleep last night, i really think that's gonna happen after an eight hour work day. LOL. Oh, and I think I should cook dinner too. I made brownies yesterday at midnight and they all went MAD smacking their lips. And I cleaned the kitchen spotless. Yes, I'm a little bit crazy that way.

I also got little baskets from Ikea to put in my cabinets to stroe my little jars in so I don't have to stack them on top of each other . You do notice how this rambles on and on with seemingly no point, don't you?

The point is, I'm so glad to have come to that realization that even when I have too much work to do and not enough time to do it in, I wouldn't change a thing.

Tabz asked in passing yesterday howthehell I could get up at 6:45 five days a week to go to WORK.

Honestly speaking, I think I'd go mad if I didn't.

I'd go shopping everyday and spend all our money (that would be Arafaat's money, seeing as in tis hypothetical situation, I ain't working!!) in the first week of the month.

And therein lies the dilemma: being a DINKy couple (Dual Income, No Kids) we have more money than we need, but no time to spend it in. And should I quit, I would have all the time I need but onyl half the money.

PS: Our plan for spending all the money we weren't able to spend the past year, is to go to London in Peak Season and spend two weeks there. Ah, pure decadence. Lying in till noon and shopping like mad. Coming home broke and contended that we really are quite Middle Class after all.

Shall I go get some speeches written now?

Work Hazard #004

(Ie, why the keyboard 'o' should not be next to the keyboard 'i')

BPC receives email:

From: Colleague
Sent: Wednesday, July 05, 2006 5:03 PM
To: BPC
Subject: CEO's Message

Dear BPC,

As mentioned yesterday, we need to develop a CEO’s message/corporate statement (1 page) for a new brochure being designed. Find attached brochures that have been developed in the past. You can incorporate aspects of the speech from the docs. attached. I need this latest by July 9th i.e. Sunday.

Best regards, Colleague
Marketing Manager


Let alone the fact that BPC read this email on Monday afternoon WITHOUT having even started the job. Let's focus on BPC email back to colleague:

From: BPC
Sent: Monday, July 12, 2006 2:00PM
To: Colleauge
Subject: CEO's Message

Hi Colleague , Please give me one more day for this one. Too many thongs on my plate.

Cheers,
BPC

Ladies and gentlemen, please note: too many THONGS on my plate.

The 'o' should be FAR FAR FAR away from the 'i' .....

RECALL EMAIL!!!

RECALL EMAIL!!!!!

If Only They Knew ....

I've still not gotten used to it.

My driving up to Building Number Four (yes, in Caps!) in my big red car and swinging my legs out *swoosh*. Handing the keys to the valet and with a *flick* of my hair, pushing my sunglasses up my forehead as I walk into The Lobby of Building Number Four.

Balancing my diary and numerous "notes", I nod at the security guards (a total of three on my way up) and I check my lippy in the elevator.

I open the big heavy wooden door and enter a roomfull of kandooras. The Big Kandooras of the company. The men who I am sure must be pulling in hundreds of thouands worth of bonuses. Men with titles like CEO and GM and Executive Director. And some women.

As I sink into a plush leather chair and pour some bottled mineral water, I pay attention to what's being said.

Surprisingly (for me!) these are things I understand and this is a place where I belong. Actually, this is a place where these Big Kandooras think I belong.

And sometimes, in the midst of frantic notetaking and giving my two cents worth ("do we need to rethink our communications strategy?", "how can we ensure that we don't fall short of our KPIs next month?") I catch myself out.

I see a glimpse of myself ... perhaps in the shiny glass top of the table, or in the windows if I am sitting on the right side ... and I don't really see The Girl in the Suit. I don't see the girl with a sleek blow-dried bob and plenty of ideas to bring up the KPIs a couple of notches.

All I see is BPC. A girl who walks around barefoot ... even in the office. Who closes her laptop (without turning it off) at 4:30ish everyday and drives home with her windows down (even in the summer) singing along to Rashed el-Majed's Mashkalni/Guitara's Ya Ghali/Shereen's Ah Ya Leil. I see BPC of the spit bubbles and 'mujhey ghumaaaaaaaaaao'. The BPC who loves the PowerPuff girls and makes funny faces at kids in next-lane cars.

And then I look around at the Big Kandooras - these are the people who can make or break Dubai - and I think 'Wow! You go girl!" .

So yeah, I've still not gotten used to it. The kandooras. The power talk. The plans we hatch in an office that will impact the whole city.

I wonder sometimes if somebody will catch me out ... catch me out with the twinkle in my eyes that says more BPC and less CCD ... but then I look at myself again and I think 'Nah'.

In this suit, this shiny,blow-dried hair, this impeccable french mani-pedi .... no one, no one can guess that I still blow spit bubbles.

Heh.

If only they knew ;)