Power Struggle Behind the Scenes

Even though Minister Abulhassan came through on the side of reason today, I'm still worried by some rumors that the previous Minister of Information (MOI) is none too pleased about relinquishing that base of power even though he's now Minister of Energy.

Apparently, being in charge of our oil industry - Kuwait's main source of revenue - isn't good enough for him. During his tenure as MOI, he hired untold numbers of unqualified cronies. He now seeks to run the MOI by remote control, and pre-empt the current minister. Case in point: Abulhassan has invited the press corps to a Ramadan dinner next week. Minister of Energy has pre-empted that dinner and invited the press corps this week. Why he wants to invite them at all is anyone's guess... but it's just petty and unbefitting for a minister to act this way.

And it gets worse.. a whispering campaign aimed at discrediting Abulhassan has already begun. And rumors are swirling around town that pen-for-hire columnist Fouad Al-Hashem, from Al-Watan, has received payment in exchange for attacking Abulhassan in his daily column.

Al-Hashem is banking on Kuwaiti readers' short memories, for while he is now lamenting the golden age of the MOI when our so called emissaries represented Kuwait in the best light... I distinctly recall him trashing them as incompetent fools a few years ago. Back then, the minister was someone else who maybe wasn't as "generous" as Sheikh Ahmad.

The Show Will Go On

Three cheers to Minister of Information, Mohamed Abulhassan, for not bowing to unwarranted pressure from Kuwait's Islamist lunatics. The Pascal Mashalani concert will go ahead on schedule. What I liked about his statement was the tough language. He not only declared that the concert would go ahead, but also warned them against wasting his and their time in future with similar complaints.

Now if someone can get us some decent musical acts...

And now it's Pascal

And they're at it again.. Kuwait's "Social Reform" Society is protesting a planned concert during Eid featuring Lebanese singer Pascal Mashalani. They're pulling the same tired excuses (traditions, POWs, etc.) to call for it's cancellation.

I have my own reasons for cancelling the concert, namely because Pascal SUCKS, but I can't accept the fundamental Islamists chokehold on our lives. The matter has been raised to the Minister of Disinformation, so lets see if he has a spine and if he has the guts to to tell them to mind their own damn business!!

Ramadan Mubarak

Just passed the first week of Ramadan (quickly, I might add) and so far it's been a flurry of social obligations plus a weekend away for Umra. My digestive system gets destroyed during Ramadan, so my next few posts will be quite ill-tempered and cranky.

You have been warned..

Mob Scene at Nino

A naive attempt to have lunch at Nino today. The parking lot was overflowing with cars all the way to the Gulf Road; it was so bad the police had to come and maintain order. Inside, the restaurant was packed with a loud young crowd enjoying their "Last Lunch" before Ramadan. Getting a table was out of the question, so we went down the road to Le Notre which was just as crowded.

The balcony at Le Notre at this time of year, is one of the most pleasant places to spend a lazy afternoon in Kuwait.... With just one little ingredient missing ;-)

Digital Camera

I guess this blog will start to get boring if I don't put any pictures on it. I will just nick them from various websites, but a blog about Kuwait won't be complete without some real digital photography of scenes in and around the country. So, I'm succumbing to the digital bug and I plan to buy a digital camera before the weekend. I've been meaning to do it for ages, but was just too lazy. My friends who know me are still surprised that I haven't bought one yet, being the tech-geek that I am :-P

The last straw - and incentive - was seeing a picture of Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad, the Prime Minister in today's papers wielding a digital camera and pointing it at the press corps photographers. How cool was that?! If he's got a digital camera then I want one too. NOW!

I'm still not sure what make I should get: Sony, Canon, Nikon, Pentax, HP.. Please suggest something in the comments box below.

E-Government my @#$!!!

I stopped paying attention to the annual E-Government conferences since I had the rotten experience of attending the first one in 2001. I mean, who are we kidding here? To put it simply, all the good intentions in the world won't make e-government a reality in Kuwait as long as we have thousands of government slackers - sorry, I mean employees - sitting around wasting everyone's time and getting paid for it. The system is rotten to the core and no amount of technology spending will get rid of that.

Think about it.. streamlining procedures and processes will result in more efficiency. People will not have to endure the routine humiliations of government bureaucrats, and can get things done on their PCs at their own time. The result? No use for the thousands of voting government workers, and more importantly, no one to bribe! I imagine the MPs will fight tooth and nail against this initiative to protect their constituents and their own wallets.

Still, I guess we have to appreciate progress wherever it is achieved. Today's news announcing the issuing of online building permits from the municipality is encouraging.

Emergency Music Review

This isn't a Kuwaiti music review, but since I did hear this awful song on Kuwait's SuperStation I feel compelled to comment... I had the misfortune of hearing a new duet featuring Britney Spears and Madonna... Yes, folks it's every bit as terrible as you can imagine. How could it possibly work? Teaming up Spears - a no-talent bimbo and international laughingstock whose career is almost on the skids - with Madonna on a song so wretched it can cause ears to bleed.

Oh how the mighty have fallen! I don't care what happens to Britney Spears, but I have to squirm when I see Madonna (full disclosure: I love Madonna!) reduced to duets with singers half her age in a desperate bid to remain in the spotlight. Mrs. Ritchie has hitched her wagon onto the wrong kid, as if that lip-lock at the MTV Awards wasn't enough. Her last album was boring beyond belief, compounded by a poor choice of singles and some ill-advised videos, and if this lame attempt at relevance is the best she can muster... then we should be afraid. Very afraid! It's like watching a good friend slide into drug addiction or hang out with a bad crowd.

And what of the song itself? A noisy, tuneless mess called "Me Against the Music", and I'm sorry to report everybody lost that battle!

NBK's Musical Chairs

Did anyone read the list of NBK's Watani Gifts winners in today's papers? Is it me or is it the same people and their relatives every time? They just seem to shuffle them around whenever there's a prize draw.

I smell a conspiracy!!

Kuwaiti Christians Under Attack!!

Huh?! That was my reaction too when I read this story in today's Washington Post. A Kuwaiti native called Johny Fares, a resident of a Maryland suburb, had his house vandalised by redneck thugs who scrawled "Bin Laden Lives Here" on a trailer parked in front of his house. While the story isn't all that strange especially after September 11, here's the real kicker:

"As a Roman Catholic, Fares said, he suffered discrimination in his homeland, where crosses were burned in front of his family's house. "One of the main reasons we came to the U.S. was for equal rights and freedom of religion and speech," said Fares, a state auto safety inspector."

What the fuck?! I've lived here all my life and I've never heard of anything like this happening here! There are several Kuwaiti Christian families, though last I checked "Fares" wasn't one of them. And churches of several denominations have functioned with no incident for decades. Can anyone corroborate his statement?

Needless to say, I fired off an angry email to the Washington Post accusing them of sloppy reporting. You can do the same by sending an email to Letters@washpost.com

More Shopping!

Yet another shopping centre has opened in Kuwait; this time in lovely, picturesque Sharq. On first glance of its exterior, the new Al-Rayah (or Arraya) Complex could be in downtown Houston. It's large and overbearing like most Texans. The question is do we need more shopping centres in Kuwait? And if so, why isn't Kuwait itself being marketed as the best shopping destination in the region? Answers on a postcard (kidding!) or click on the Comments below to add your 2 fils worth.

Among the designer shops set to open there is Burberry and I sincerely hope this will be a decent shop like the ones in London and New York that carry all the cool stuff, and not another copy of the pathetic store in Salmiya which resembles a duty free stand in some Southeast Asian airport.

The complex will be attached to the new Marriott Courtyard Hotel (groan!). Wow! More hotel rooms for non-existent tourists, and the chosen few who are "granted" entry visas by divine intervention. They claim to have the largest ballroom/convention center in Kuwait which I suppose is great news for conference organizers and wedding planners. And tons of parking space for a change..

Of course we'll all go check it out and satisfy our curiosity. Then promptly forget it ever existed, just like Al-Muhallab...

Security concerns

Well it seems that the play "An Evening with Gary Lineker" was cancelled for security reasons after the suicide bomb attacks in Baghdad yesterday. Nobody has come out and stated as much yet, but I'd like to think that was the reason. The Hilton resort, where the play was scheduled, is packed with Americans... so maybe they got a bit jittery.

Oh well....

An Evening with Gary Lineker..... or so we thought!!

There we were all excited about going to see a real British comedy on stage.. in Kuwait!! "An Evening with Gary Lineker", a comedy about "sex and football" was scheduled for a 2-night run at the Hilton ballroom (dinner theatre is so provincial, but why quibble?) on 14-15 October. Suddenly without any warning, the play got cancelled. Why? Because the organizers failed to get the necessary "approvals" from the Ministry of Dis-Information, heretofore known as the Ministry of Doom & Gloom, or the Ministry of Making Life Miserable!!

I knew it was too good to be true. But then stranger things have happened here.. Sometime in the early 90's, none other than Dame Edna Everage gave a performance right here in Kuwait. I went to see the show and it was the funniest thing I had ever seen. Totally raunchy and completely ruthless.. I remember wondering how on earth the show got past the "censors", but then the material must have gone right over their heads. Certainly, the Kuwaiti "embassy groupies*" - you know who you are! - missed half the jokes; they were just happy to be seen there.


*Embassy Groupies: The same crowd of Kuwaitis you see at every boring embassy function, who are really only there for the free booze. Note how they only go to the European events :-P

The SuperStar Fiasco

I couldn't let this one pass without comment... I came back from my holidays last week to find Kuwait's Islamist nutjobs up in arms over a stupid concert featuring the 12 finalists from the the "SuperStar" talent contest, who were touring the region to capitalize on their popularity.

My first reaction: WHY THE FUCK DID I COME BACK TO THIS NONSENSE ?! I was so happy to be away from this sort of thing; holidays abroad are not just a break from work, you know. They're a chance to escape from life's annoying people and things - most notably the backward thinking that has gripped our country - and go see how the civilized world is living, but I digress... I love how these fundamentalist fools get worked up over the most trivial of things, and then when a serious national issue is up for debate or requires their input, they just twiddle their thumbs - and God knows what else!

But anyway, they were summarily ignored by everyone and the show went on for 2 nights. The government - in a break from tradition! - also chose to ignore them. Sheikh Sabah and the Minister of Information are in New York now, where I'm sure they don't want to be bothered with this crap. And it worked! Now they're falling over themselves trying to backtrack and appear moderate... Too little, too late!

WILKOMMEN, BIENVENUE, WELCOME, ?????? !!

Welcome to Kuwait Rewind...

This is a brand new blog dedicated to... anything and everything to do with Kuwait! It's called "Rewind" because it will basically rehash some events that may be a few days old, but as seen through my twisted lens.

If you don't come from or live in Kuwait, this site may not be of any interest to you. If, on the other hand, you want to get a completely biased and merciless take on local current events... you've come to the right place. It will be random and ruthless take-no-prisoners forum to discuss local politics, business, arts, society... you name it!

For a taste of things to come, read my test post below about the pathetic state of Kuwaiti theatre.

No one will escape my wrath!!!

TEST: The sad decline of Kuwaiti theatre

Last week I had the misfortune of attending "Qannas Khaitan", a so-called satirical play which got rave reviews from almost everyone who went to see it. Maybe it's just me but I found myself fighting the urge to scream at the actors to just SHUT THE FUCK UP! It was so beyond awful, and such a collosal letdown. It wouldn't have been so bad if I had gone with low expectations, but as everybody kept saying it was a return to the glory days of Kuwaiti theatre in the 70s, I went expecting a solid piece with an actual narrative. Instead, the once mighty Hussein Abdul-Reda and Hayat Al-Fahad were reduced to crass, vulgar jokes that were slapped onto the script for no apparent reason. It was just gratuitous vulgarity that added nothing to the story... well, what little story there was in the first place.

I squirmed in my seat during the first act, but still kept my hopes up for a better second act. Alas, it was even worse. I sat there, paralyzed, staring at the stage and unable to get up and leave, in total shock at the level to which two of Kuwait's leading actors had sunk. Most people seemed to like the tough "jokes" criticizing one current political scenario after the other, but they were done in such a crude and primitive way, where the actors would just lecture about the issues. How pathetic that the so-called playwright couldn't even create any scenes to embody and address any particular issue.

Is it just me? Are my standards too high? Am I being a snob? I don't think so... one viewing of any of the great plays of the 70s and 80s will confirm my opinions. Of course, I went as a guest of a friend who was kind enough to invite me. Had I known ahead of time that the play had been written and produced by the God-awful Fajer Al-Sa3eed I would have declined the invitation and stayed home. That woman has produced some of the worst trash to make its way onto Kuwait's TV and stage.

The Al-Watan columnist Fouad Al-Hashem was also in attendance that night, and I had hoped that someone like him with a sharp eye for satire and quality arts would rip the play to shreds in his column. Boy was I was wrong!! The man raved about it - I was tempted to send him a letter asking him if we were indeed at the same play or if he was on some controlled substance (and where I could get some!). This just confirms the long standing rumours that Al-Watan's editorial staff are under strict instructions not to write anything negative about Ms. Al-Saeed, no matter how blatantly awful her output..... Kind of like Rolling Stone magazine's relationship with Yoko Ono :-P

And so it begins...... the war that was ostensibly fought to make the world a safer place has, instead, aggravated the already deranged lunatics of Al-Qaeda.



A Saudi dissident, exiled in the UK, says that even US troop withdrawal from Saudi Arabia is too little too late, and will not save the Saudi regime.

I see Salam Pax is back on the air, or on the "blogsphere" as it were... Glad to see he is safe!

This is hysterical. On David Letterman's nightly Top Ten List, here are the Top Ten President Bush Excuses For Not Finding Weapons of Mass Destruction

10. "We've only looked through 99% of the country"

9. "We spent entire budget making those playing cards"

8. "Containers are labeled in some crazy language"

7. "They must have been stolen by some of them evil X-Men mutants"

6. "Did I say Iraq has weapons of mass destruction? I meant they have goats"

5. "How are we supposed to find weapons of mass destruction when we can't even find Cheney?"

4. "Still screwed up because of Daylight Savings Time"

3. "When you're trying to find something, it's always in the last place you look, am I right, people?"

2. "Let's face it -- I ain't exactly a genius"

1. "Geraldo took them"

I can't decide if I should smile at this story or roll my eyes at the thought of a French pastry chef being flown from Kuwait to Baghdad to prepare meals for 350 Iraqi and American delegates convening in Baghdad to map out Iraq's future. I'm not familiar with the Crowne Plaza hotel's cuisine, save for the excellent sushi, so I can't really comment much.

As for "suffering through fine dinners with nothing more than bootleg homemade wine"... Zut alors! Il faut aller a l'ambassade Francaise, ou il y a plein de bon vin!!