UAE Uncut thanks YOU! And the UAE, without the UAE this would just be a blank, pointless website.
Well, we did it. We got to 100 blog columns. In just 9 months I have strung together nearly 100,000 words about all things UAE. When I first started ranting in my own little corner of cyberspace I envisaged posting one missive of thoughts each week. Before she was launched, I scribbled down a few areas that I could cover in what is now called UAE Uncut. I struggled, but I got as far as 23 subjects that I felt I could write about. For a start I thought that that would be suitable; 23 weeks worth of guff that should cover 6 months.
But no, every morning I opened the paper there was something else that grabbed my attention that required instant ridicule or discussion. Over the last 100 blogs we have examined many, many different things. We have spoken of acrobatic plumbers who twirl and dance whilst installing boilers with boot laces. We have identified that the Apple classes have too much money to spend on what is basically the same product as the one they are replacing. Tables and chairs not making sense, music all sounding the same and the need to use the hot water tap for cold water and the cold water tap for hot water. We have compared Emirates Road to communism and have identified the Toyota Land Cruiser as perhaps the greatest threat to mankind since the invention of the nuclear weapon.
Most of the writing I produce is rubbish. Hatchet job scribbles with spurious connections laden full of poor factual references, sloppy explanations, flawed solutions and highly questionable conclusions. But now and again sometimes a good one slips through the mill and makes its way through some cables to your computer. These are usually the ones that do the worst on the stats page, unlike the rubbish ones, which seem to be the most popular. It is clear, then, that I do not understand my target audience at all.
Every now and again I get to a stage when I think that I have bled the land dry in terms of subject matter. In the same way that the UAE is worried about the oil running out, I am worried about the blog matter running out.
But no, all it takes is for a mad law to be passed that bans the use of air conditioning between noon and 3pm or for a story about a man who claims to the courts that he was tricked into mainlining heroin into his veins by some children, and bang, we’re back in the game.
Of course without my readers I would just be an angry man shouting at his laptop whenever the mood struck. Yes I have offended a couple of people, but it’s not my fault that you’re thick and don’t understand irony. The rest of you guys have been very loyal to UAE Uncut. For that I am truly grateful.
So, then, 100 down…we’ve barely scratched the surface.