International team -- wackily accented English

What is exciting about my consulting project in Dubai is the international team of expats and locals grooving together. (In fact, some 20-25% of the UAE's population is made up of non-locals: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UAE - 3.23 / 4.04 million = 80% non-locals)

However, with Arabs, Europeans, Americans, Filipinos, Indians and Singaporeans all speaking the new lingua franca (English), what is fascinating sometimes is the pronunciation. Examples:

An Indian: "Ve must cabture the revenues." = "We must capture the revenues."

A Singaporean: "It is guite goot." = "It is quite good."

A Spaniard: "Zhees committee is especial." = "This committee is special."

Arf! Arf! Lots o' fun!

Air quality in Dubai

After spending such a long time in heavily polluted China, it is a real joy to be in a part of the world with clean air. The air in Dubai is a bit sandy, but it does not suffer from China's industrial smog.

I analyze China's poor air quality quite a bit here:

http://spaces.msn.com/chinamusings/

Thank Allah It's Thursday!

In Dubai, the work week is from Sunday to Thursday. As such, today, Thursday, is not "TGIF", but is TAIT!