Good Morning from sunny Salalah where yours truly is on the beach with her feet in the sand working on her laptop (heaven bless wireless modems that work on Dahariz Beach - Amen):
1. As many of you know, offices in Oman were pretty much empty on Wednesday after 11 a.m because everyone went home or to their favorite Sheesha (hookah) cafe to watch the Oman-Thailand game. To everyone's surprise (and sheer delight), Oman won 2-0. We might actually have a chance to participate in the 2014 FIFA World Cup (Brazil). His Majesty the Sultan was so pleased, he immediately gave each player 10,000 Rials and announced he's investing 2 million Rials to prepare them for the next stage. (# Only in Oman)
2. Another busy day on Wednesday as the Sultan re-shuffled the cabinet of ministers yet again (following last year's post-protests shuffle). The Minister of State & Governor of Dhofar is no longer H.E Mohammed Marhoon Al Mamari. This came as a surprise to all of us down south. Our new Governor is H.E Sayyed Mohammed Sultan Hamood Al Busaidi. New Minister of Information, new Minister of Justice, new Minister of Tourism, New Minister of Commerce, etc, etc. Following the whole scandal with Al Zaman newspaper, I'm surprised to see the Minister of Justice gone.
3. I enjoyed the Morris dancing on Wednesday. It was fun and I have a soft spot for clogging. Did I think they were very very talented? Not really. Thankfully, no beer-bellied men. The cast were a mix of men and women, most under the age of 25 it seemed. Thank you 'Clashing in the Gulf' for sending videos. I'll post a list of future events soon.
4. I enjoyed this article. My sentiments exactly. The only other article I saw about the first anniversary of the protests was in the Gulf News (Sunil Vaidya). You can read it here. I was even quoted for some odd reason.
5. And finally, did you all receive a really weird SMS about civil defense yesterday? This is what all Omanis numbers got on their phones yesterday morning "Be Aware that the civil defence equipment are important - to block this service SMS 2*Civil Def to 90096". What the hell is civil defense equipment?
Good news for players,/Thanks
ReplyDeleteI think the civil defense thing refers to fire extinguishers and the like. I'm pretty sure 90% of ppl that received that msg were like wtf?
ReplyDeleteI was also thinking 'wtf' when I received it. Somehow I've come to believe it was a very bad translation of الاجهزة الامنية in Arabic
ReplyDeleteI received a slightly different SMS:
ReplyDelete"Train your family on how to use means of Safety"...