Millhouse

When I first came to the UAE my employer (AD Government) put on an excellent Gulf Cultural awareness course... it was run by an extremely well spoken, presentable, intelligent and open Emirati*. Sadly, I cannot remember his name for the life of me and I want to rehire him again for my new shop to train the monkeys I have to work with.

He has been discussed here before, has done a couple of books and is often in the media. Any ideas what his name is?? I seem to remember Meow mentioning it before...


* try and avoid the obvious jokes guys.

mathematist

ali al-saloom who features in The National in the 'ask Ali' section. i went to a recent one and the guy doing the presentation was a guy called Ali al-sayegh on cultural intelligence I thnk. He was a v. Smart and clued on emirati.

Millhouse

Thanks. I have been googling and came across him. Looking at the picture it could be him - than again, they all the so very similar

Cheers - I think we will get in touch with Ali and see what he can offer.

lullabelle

Ali al saloom is a Complete and utter cock.

Try the other one...

jackthehat

Wael Al Sayegh (Emarati educated in Edinburgh) He usually provides good Cultural Information on Dubai Eye, and used to have a regular slot on Thursday Mornings. Do a Google Search for him, as there is a lot of information.

Millhouse

Ah, good man. I just searched google images. This is the chap I'm looking for. Excellent. Thank you so much.

jackthehat

Pleased to be of help!

Jim Smith

Born in Edinburgh actually!

Meow

Ha ha! I was told he doesn't actually write his newspaper column himself...

flares

The guy who reads the news on Dubai One is a bit of a dish. He has different grades of stubble.

Miss Anne Thrope

Any chance they do a course on getting monolingual anglophones to stop mangling basic Arabic place-names. Where the f*** is Abu Derby? Or Abboo Dabby? Or the worst of the worst of the worst: the bloody "maddy-gnat" which even seems to have taken hold in some radio commercials. Madina is the Arabic for city. You stick a "t" on the end as the convention when it precedes another word e.g. Madinat Zayed, Madinat Qaboos etc. But it basically sounds the same. Calling the souq Madinat Jumeirah "the maddy-gnat" is like referring to Covent Garden Market as "the marquee". It just sounds ludicrous!

Think how snarky English people get about daft pronunciations like Shrewsbury, Derby, Greenwich and the like. Now think if people came and lived in those places and couldn't be bothered to learn how to say them broberly, er, properly??? Not bloody acceptable!

Rant over....

Millsyisland

How do you pronounce Abu Dhabi then if it's not Abboo Dabby??

al dente

It's when people say Abu Derby that i get the urge to throw a punch. Trying to turn it into 'it's how we say our 'a's in the the South of England, don't you know'.

And i talk like a southerner!

csdf

Ubbu Thubbi

Millsyisland

Think I'll just stick with Abboo Dabby.

(And I agree about the 'Derby' pronunciation being irritating).