Why the UK’s new AA1 credit rating doesn’t matter

UK Chancellor George Osborne

If you’ve looked at the English papers this week, you’ll have no doubt seen the trouble that UK Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne finds himself embroiled in.

Last week, Moody’s downgraded the UK’s credit rating from AAA to AA1, signalling a supposed failure of Osborne’s policies – when his Conservative party formed a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats in 2010, he pledged to maintain the country’s credit rating.

However, according to the Economist, markets haven’t reacted too badly to the news. Yes, the pound is at its lowest point in 32 months, and Britain’s credit rating is now lower than the Isle of Man’s, but the chancellor has been lucky in that the country hasn’t received too much of an economic battering compared to this time last month. And this in turn has ensured Osborne’s political safety for the moment.

This is partly down to the meagre assaults on Osborne by opposition party Labour’s Ed Balls. The shadow chancellor could have said much to criticise the coalition’s policies of austerity, but Osborne’s rebuttal that Labour created the economic mess in the first place saw no good response.

What’s more, France and the United States have also seen their credit ratings fall over the past year, and markets perceived that it was only a matter of time before the UK would follow suit. The former two countries have managed to weather the storm reasonably well, so there has been no serious cause for alarm with the UK’s downgrading.

To me, though, the biggest reason behind this apparent lack of consequence can be found in the tattered reputation of these ratings agencies. Moody’s is one of the three main ratings agencies in the world – the other two being Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Group – and all three have struggled to regain real trust since the economic crash of 2008.

This is because they routinely rated bad investments highly during the bubble years. Moody’s, for example, gave Lehman Brothers an AAA rating up until the minute it collapsed. The ratings firm also rated insurance group AIG AA until it collapsed.

And let’s not forget that Moody’s was not the only one. Reports have suggested that all of three of the big ratings agencies would take cash payments in return for high ratings during the bubble years. Sub-prime mortgages were being mixed in with actually lucrative investments, before being sold on.

When the bubble collapse was imminent, the likes of Goldman Sachs bet against the investments that it was advising its customers to go for, based on these credit ratings. The financial firms bought insurance from AIG for these investments, knowing they were junk, which caused the firm’s collapse. Yet none of the customers had any idea that anything was suspicious, because the ratings agencies said everything was sound.

When pulled up in US courts about their ridiculous insights, the ratings agencies simply stated that their ratings were based on opinion – it was up to customers to decide whether or not to trust that opinion.

If that was the case back then, why are things any different now? Why should markets react to any information that, it turns out, is simply the opinion of an agency that is demonstrably susceptible to the highest levels of corruption?

Perhaps that’s why the financial markets aren’t all that bothered about the UK’s downgrading. And perhaps that’s why Osborne can still feel safe for the moment. The UK’s papers might be after his blood, but they’ll hardly see any based on this piece of news.

The cinema-going public have no taste

Every week, I’m charged with typing up the cinema listings in a local magazine. It’s a thankless task, if I’m honest, taking about two hours out of my schedule whenever I embark on the mission. But because I get the listings straight from the cinemas themselves, I am at least given a pretty good insight into what the week’s movie line-up will be like.

Over the weeks, you start to notice patterns, telling you which kinds of movies are doing well and which ones need to be kicked. You also get an idea about which kinds of people go to the various cinemas around Dubai. Any given month’s big Bollywood movie, for example, will probably be showing for around four weeks before it’s pulled at Wafi’s Grand Cineplex, suggesting that the cinema hosts plenty of Indian visitors.

Likewise, a small cinema like Grand Cinecity at Al Ghurair, which only has eight screens, has to choose its films very carefully. So it will often show all of the week’s big Bollywood, Tamil or Malay films, and only a selection of the Hollywood ones. This is, presumably, because its punters are more interested in the films from their home countries.

The bigger cinemas like Dubai Mall’s make it more difficult to spot patterns, because so many people from all walks of life visit them. What’s more, if a cinema has enough screens, it can accommodate all tastes, giving everyone equal preference. Sometimes, however, I look at even these listings and think, “What is wrong with people?”

This week, for example, Grand Megaplex will show The Hobbit in 2D on just one screen. This equates to just five showings per day. Last week, it was more than double that. What amazing new film has The Hobbit been replaced with just one week after being released? Bloody Jack Reacher, a new crime flick in which Tom Cruise pretends that he can be a gritty action hero.

Going back a couple of weeks, the biggest film of the moment was the superb Anna Karenina, which, though slightly tedious, was at least a properly put together piece of cinema. Most of Dubai’s theatres were showing it on more than two screens, meaning more than 10 showings per day. But one week later, it had been taken off the rosta entirely at a couple of cinemas, and its showings had been greatly reduced at others.

What took its place? The Man With the Iron Fists, a film about as cerebral as an excrement-throwing monkey. The same could be said for the next week’s big film, Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning, Jean-Claude Van Damme’s latest hyper-violent action mash-up. Even Argo, Ben Affleck’s much-hyped imagining of the so-called Canadian Caper, suffered at the hands of tripe such as So Undercover and Vamps, the former of which was a straight-to-DVD release in America due its awfulness.

This utter rubbish only lasts a week or two, but then it’s replaced by more utter rubbish, and all the while these unpleasant logs laid by the salesman of Hollywood are chipping away at the slots that should be given to better films. However, a good film only gets the screen time it deserves if it’s a BIG good film. And those only come about a couple of times every year.

You can’t blame the cinemas. Their job is to sell as many movie tickets as they can, meaning that, if a film does badly, it’ll lose some of its screen time. In its place, there’ll be a new film that will hopefully do a bit better, or else there’ll be more showings of a film that completely sold out in the previous week. Whether the film is good or bad never comes into it.

This means that the blame lies with the cinema-going public. It is the punters who decide a movie’s fate at the box office, and it is the punters who influence what’s being shown. Unfortunately, judging by this week’s listings, the punters have no taste.

Sensationally bad

Photo – HTC

Back in May, I wrote that I reckoned my HTC Sensation XE would be able to stand up fairly well against the next generation of Android devices that were soon to hit store shelves. How very wrong I was.

To be fair to my past self, if the phone still worked as it was supposed to, I’d have been right. If the phone worked properly, I wouldn’t be able to justify splurging on a new device just because I wanted the hottest new gadget. When it works, the XE is a great phone. However, it has been, in recent weeks, bordering on unusable.

I don’t say that lightly – it really has been that bad. The main problem is that it will simply turn itself off whenever it damn well feels like it. I could be browsing the web, typing a message or in the middle of a reasonably important phone call – it doesn’t matter. The power will simply cut out, and I’ll look down to a blank screen, as if the phone has narcolepsy.

This would be fine if it only happened once in a while, but it’s happening about five times a day. And if the phone’s been in my pocket, I’ll only discover it’s off when I fish it out to do something. When I turn it on, I’m hit with a barrage of messages asking where the hell am I and why is my phone turned off.

A quick scan of the Phandroid forums reveals that this is a widespread issue with the XE. However, no one seems to have a definitive answer for why it’s happening. Personally, I think it’s shoddy build quality. Because the phone just cuts out, rather than shuts down properly, I’m tempted to think that it’s something to do with a loose connection between the battery and the rest of the phone. Perhaps, for whatever reason, the power connection is lost momentarily, causing the issue.

There’s more evidence for this shoddy build quality theory elsewhere on the phone. The volume adjustment buttons on the side, for example, simply fell out one day. And the free Beats by Dr Dre headphones that came with the phone lasted but a month before completely falling apart. Considering that I bought the XE in March – just nine months ago – I’d say that was pretty shocking.

Before I upgraded to the Sensation, I had the HTC Desire. It was a step up from my ageing iPhone 3G, and I’d been captivated by the Desire HD. I reasoned that the Desire must be pretty good, too, and it was well priced, so I went for it. However, that phone only lasted a year because it had the memory of a goldfish. As time went on, I’d have to delete contacts, messages, apps – pretty much everything – just to be able to use the damn thing. So, I thought, I’ll get the next generation HTC because I really liked the HTC Sense UI.

I won’t be making the same mistake again. When you have to upgrade twice in two years – once after just nine months – you know that you’re dealing with some shoddy products. I know a guy who is still rocking his old iPhone 3G, and another who’s using a Blackberry from 2009. There’s no way my current phone would last that long. The question is, if I’m not going for a new HTC, which brand should I flock to?

I’m tempted by the iPhone 4S, simply because a friend who recently upgraded to the 5 will sell me his old handset on the cheap. I know it will be a great phone, and I know it will last – Apple products always do. But I’m not sure if I want to go back to the dreary world that is iOS. Meanwhile, I’m also intrigued by Nokia’s new Windows 8-powered Lumia 920, which recently got a great review from prolific blogger, writer and tech guy Alexander McNabb.

That said, I’ve already made up my mind, and it’s the Samsung Galaxy S3. I know for a fact that it’s a great phone because I had it on test a few months ago. I was genuinely sad to have to give it back to Samsung when my loan period was up. What’s more, you can get the 16GB version for a steal on JadoPado.com. Good thing my birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks.

Chill guys; I got this

Not everyone admits that they smoke, particularly to work friends or parents. And this can make life difficult when you’re tagged in a photo from last weekend’s birthday party, clutching a cigarette in plain view of the entire online community. Soon, the work friends are cracking jokes, highlighting your hypocrisy when, just last week, you gave a passionate and sanctimonious speech about the dangers, and the repulsiveness, of smoking.

But that’s nothing compared to the verbal battering you’ll soon receive from the parents. You find yourself stumbling over words, attempting to make excuses over the tortured cries of, “WHERE DID I GO WRONG?” screaming through the telephone receiver.

However, all is not lost. All you need is a good story and to be able to tell it in a cool and collected manner. In an attempt to vindicate the girl shown above, I came up with just such a story, and recommend it be used by anyone who needs a quick lie to tell. Change names and settings accordingly.

Chill guys; I got this. 

What happened is a racoon just shot into the club, climbed up onto the bar and found the ashtray in which the devil guy’s cigarette was resting. Overcome with the need to fuel his nicotine addiction, and with a manic look in his eyes, the racoon picked up the cigarette with his teeth and proceeded to line up for a jump across the room, toward the door and out to safety. However, just as he took off from the bar, Nicole’s arm reached around Vee’s shoulder for a photo, with her hand landing right in the middle of the racoon’s trajectory.

Quite by mistake, and in mid-air, Nicole’s hand knocked the racoon off-course, sending him flying toward the speaker, while the cigarette was hastily exchanged from the his mouth to the hand during the impact. The photo was taken before Nicole even had a chance to drop the cigarette but just long enough after the collision for the racoon to be out of shot. Of course, Nicole quickly threw away the cigarette once she had realised what had happened.

The racoon, meanwhile, was presumed dead, having hurtled into the centre cone of the speaker and exploding due to the intense pressure of the sound beating down all around him. But some still say his ghost haunts that bar, lonelily wandering the table tops for a cigarette which he could claim for himself, and smoke without fear for his life.

The Mysterious U

I moved to Tecom from Jumeirah a little over a month ago. The two environments couldn’t be more different if they tried. While Jumeirah is a quiet, suburban area with little construction and impeccable roads, all lined with lush, green grass and growing palm trees, Tecom is a dusty, harsh metropolis, with tall buildings blocking out the sun and barely finished roads. Of course, Tecom has been built up extremely quickly over the past few years, but much of it is still a construction site, meaning that, to walk anywhere, you’ll no doubt be forced to navigate cones, sand tracks and quarries, all the while dodging diggers and pick-up trucks.

There’s another big difference between Jumeirah and Tecom, and it’s found in the graffiti that’s plastered across the two areas. In Jumeirah, you’re lucky to see anything more cerebral than profanities scribbled hastily across back-alley walls, probably by bored, middle-class kids. But in Tecom, the graffiti artists have taken on an entirely different mentality.

I use the word “artists” loosely, because in neither place will you find the amazing and impressive word-art that adorns the railway lines of London. Nor will you find anything resembling the likes of Banksy. But in Tecom, you will find evocative quotes written across walls and building site boards, most of them in the same handwriting, signed only with the letter “U”.

There are others, of course, which I suspect are done by copycat graffitists (is that the word?), but U’s works are unmistakable. Quite what his (or her) motives are is anyone’s guess, but I reckon he or she is facing that same love/hate relationship with Dubai as many expats do. They despise living here and yet they couldn’t bare to live anywhere else. Perhaps they’re just trying to get people to slow down and think about things.

I’m sure I’ve seen an overzealous report in one of the newspapers over here about Dubai residents being furious over this graffiti, and maybe people are getting ticked off about it. For my part, I quite enjoy walking through the half-constructed landscape and being given these little idioms to read along the way. Here’s a selection of the ones I could find on a short walk back from the bank, though I’m sure there are more. Thanks for the material, U.

 

 

All images copyright Tom Paye. These photos are my own work and as such are not to be printed, reproduced or re-used without prior approval.

In praise of Pan Emirates

Having just moved into a new, unfurnished apartment, I’ve recently had the pleasure of being able to build up my living areas from scratch. My flatmate and I have spent the last few weeks coming up with and then realising grand interior designs. Our place is hardly TV-worthy, but it’s certainly been very fun being able to design a living space to look exactly how you want it.

Luckily, as it turns out, we both have pretty similar tastes when it comes to interior design. We like clean, modern looks, repeating colour schemes and just a smattering of silliness to garnish it all off. Think guitars on the walls, skateboards above doorways and framed LPs from the ‘Sixties and ‘Seventies. We’ve been living in the new pad for little over a week, and it’s all coming together rather nicely.

This is thanks, in no small part, to the great furniture that we found at Pan Emirates. We were recommended the store by a friend who said that it stocked nice, modern-looking products that wouldn’t break the bank. Upon our first visit, we’d pretty much picked everything out, and left with a full-length mirror and an order form for a coffee table, a couple of rugs and two small arm chairs. You can see the results in the photo above.

Obviously, we wanted the stuff to be delivered as quickly as possible, but we were told we had to wait three or four days. Given the fact that all we had in our shiny new apartment was a futon and a TV, it was pretty annoying, but we slummed it for the few days and the Pan Emirates delivery truck turned up first thing on Wednesday morning, exactly when it was supposed to.

Now, Ikea is a big favourite among furniture buyers, and is far better known than Pan Emirates. The stuff it sells is crisp, modern and, above all, reasonably priced. The only real annoyance of Ikea is that you have to take it home and assemble it yourself. It’s fine in general, and the ease with which we put up our Ikea TV unit will pay testament to that. But in the face of the service you get from Pan Emirates, Ikea looks like a distant, cheap and nasty operation.

From the moment that your products are punched into the register at the store, and you’ve filled out the delivery form, you’re sent a confirmation text with a reference number and delivery date. Then, on the day that your furniture is due to turn up, you’re sent another text, confirming that it’s still happening. Soon after, a driver calls you up, asking when the best time to turn up would be. We asked if it could be in the next 20 minutes, and he said it wasn’t a problem.

Quite literally 20 minutes later, the driver and his team of mover men were ringing the buzzer, asking to be let into the building.  They came in, assembled everything beautifully, and asked where we’d like it to be placed. Then – disaster! The guys had been supplied with the wrong type of runners for the drawer on the coffee table. He demonstrated that the ones he had sort of worked, but were in no way perfect. We thought, “Oh here we go.” But the driver said, “Let me make a couple of calls and try to get this sorted, and maybe I can come back later on.”

Dreading that this would be a hideously long process that could take weeks, we simply agreed to let him get on with it. But within 10 minutes, he said that he could pick up new runners and be back within half an hour to fix the issue. In a flash, he was out of the door and on his way, and he returned in about 20 minutes with the proper runner. In the next few minutes, our gleaming coffee table was finished and polished, and then the guys packed up their stuff, cleaned up properly after themselves and bade us goodbye with a smile.

We were in shock. Never before have I seen a Dubai company put that much effort into ensuring that the customer gets exactly what he or she orders at the agreed time. But it was more than that; the mover men themselves seemed genuinely concerned that we get our flat furnished as we’d wanted it, and would do anything in their power to ensure it.

You’d expect this kind of service from a high-end brand, sure, but Pan Emirates is comparable to Ikea in price, and yet it provides a much, much better service. With Ikea, you’d better hope that those childhood years of playing with Lego and Meccano have paid off. With Pan Emirates, you just need to make sure you stick to the time you’ve agreed on, because the delivery men sure will. At this price point, that kind of service deserves serious recognition.

Our furniture

Pan Emirates Coffee table, black w/ glass panel and drawer – Dh495
Pan Emirates Small leather armchair – Dh295
Pan Emirates Rug, red, large – Dh545
Pan Emirates Rug, red, small – Dh179
Pan Emirates Mirror, black, oval-shaped – Dh195
IKEA shelf/TV unit, brown/black – Dh249
IKEA stand-up lamp, black – Dh39

2011 Audi A7

When you’re expected to attend an event at the Jumeirah Zabeel Saray on the Palm, it’s no good turning up in a Toyota Camry taxi. After all, this is a venue at which scenes from the latest Mission: Impossible movie were filmed, and where, at the entrance, gleaming Rolls-Royces, Bentleys and Ferraris wait patiently for the valets to return them to their masters.

I even saw someone turn up in a classic 1950s Jaguar, meaning that I was dreading clambering out of a normal cab. Thankfully, though, I managed to hitch a ride with a colleague, who was testing the Audi A7. It might not be as showy as the previous brands mentioned, but it’ll certainly hold its own when it comes to looking good at a high-end event.

Underneath, it’s essentially an A6, though it’s been styled in order to compete in the new coupé-saloon segment created by Mercedes when it released the extremely pretty CLS-Class back in 2004. It was certainly a saloon, based on a spin-off of the E-Class platform, though it looked tauter, sportier and sleeker, thanks to its sweeping roof line and pillarless windows. Audi has since pulled the same trick with its A5 Sportback and its A7.

When it first came out, I didn’t much care for the looks of the A7. I figured that it was trying too hard to be a CLS, and it hadn’t captured the fun, sporty side of the design that well. But seeing it in the metal changed my opinion completely. There’s no doubting it’s an Audi, with that familiar face that’s plastered over pretty much the entire range, though further back it looks like it’s taken nods from the lovely R8. And from the back, it looks almost like a muscle car, aggressive and purposeful. I like it a lot.

There’s more to like on the inside. I’ve been inside the CLS-Class, and, save for the very latest iteration of it, it had nothing on the interior of the Audi. The seats are supple and comfortable, though you can tell they’ll provide plenty of support when the going gets fast. There’s plenty of lovely leather to touch, plus real wood and metal, providing a feeling of genuine luxury – nothing you touch feels fake or plasticky.

Despite sitting in the front passenger seat for the journey, it was quite obvious there was plenty of room in the back for adults, at least for a short journey. Longer journeys may require the leg room of the A8 for extended periods of comfort, but it’s still surprising how much space Audi has managed to pack into the back, particularly with that sloping roof line. Talking of the roof, there are miles of room for the head, but that’s because you sit low down in the bowels of the car, as if you’re in the cockpit of a fighter aircraft.

I’m sure that feeling is magnified from the driver’s seat, where the centre console and instruments are all facing and geared towards. The design makes clear that this is a car to drive, not to be driven in, and that’s immediately obvious from my driver’s face as he revs up the three-litre TFSI engine, which is good for 295bhp. It’s quite a big car, so it’s surprising just how well it pulls, and you’re flung into the back of your seat whenever the driver sees a gap in the road and decides to stomp his foot down a little. It’s enormous fun to be in.

The kit on board is standard across the range of high-end Audis, and it’s all marvellous. It’s easy to use and intuitive, and the large screen at the top of the centre console is particularly beautiful, though if I was driving, I might have found it a little distracting. Either way, my colleague offered no complaints.

The drive was just about long enough to get to grips with what this car is all about. It’s meant to look great, offer a decent amount of driving pleasure and also the refinement of the – slightly more boring – A6. And I have to say that it does tremendously well on all counts. Stepping out as the Zabeel Saray representative opened the door at the hotel entrance, I smiled and nodded towards the car, which had provided me with as classy an entrance as could be found anywhere.

The gods of technology smile upon me

I’ve had a pretty sensational week on the technology front. In fact, I’d wager that it’s probably been the best technological week since I first unwrapped the original PlayStation that my parents bought me for Christmas back in 1996. There’s the same sense of content, provided by an unwavering certainty that no matter what comes out, I own the best of the best, and I’ll never need anything else.

Obviously, that’s rubbish, and a couple of years down the line, I’ll be pining for the next big gadget that’s come along. But for now, at least, I’m pretty damn happy.

First up, my HTC Sensation XE informed me that I could now download and install the latest version of Android, Ice Cream Sandwich. I clicked “OK” without hesitation. Next, upon pay-day, I impulse-bought a brand-new MacBook Pro. And to top it all off, that very same evening, I received an email from the Instagram camera app, informing me that it was finally available on the Android operating system. Deep joy.

Here are the first impressions of my new acquisitions.

 

Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich

Of course, having a phone made by HTC, a big part of any new software update is how well the newest version of HTC Sense has been integrated into the updates Google has provided. I’ve always been a huge fan of HTC Sense – the regular Android OS doesn’t seem to be as clean, pretty or even as easy to use – and the latest version doesn’t disappoint.

Nothing major has been done; it’s all small improvements that make the user experience a little more enjoyable. Sliding between the various home screens seems faster and crisper, and scrolling up and down within apps isn’t as jerky. There are new fonts for messaging, which look more classy, and there are now four customisable buttons along the bottom, where you put your most-used apps like the phone function, Whatsapp or text messaging. I didn’t like this at first, but it’s damn useful when the phone’s locked and you want to go straight to an app – you simply drag one of the four buttons towards the circle at the bottom and it takes you straight there.

Gmail has also been revamped, with a new look that seems confusing at first. But it’s just a case of Google having moved a couple of things around. I’m not sure if it’s better this way, or if, like so many of the Facebook updates, I’ve just become so used to it that the old one doesn’t really matter anymore. HTC Peep – the HTC Twitter app – has also been slightly improved, giving you more abilities using just the home screen widget, so you don’t have to go into the app to do things.

The gallery system is been changed so that the folder icons are smaller, making it easier to choose which one you want without having to scroll down. Though, for some reason, the names and numbers on the phone function are now bigger. I’d rather keep them small so I can see more of them on-screen, but that’s only a minor complaint. The only other complaint I have is the new look for the alarm clock. It’s exactly the same, except for one crucial detail – the “OK” and “Cancel” buttons have been switched around, which can have disastrous consequences, as I found out when my alarm failed to go off for an early-morning meeting this week because I’d hit “Cancel” instead of “OK” when setting it.

All in all, though, this is a fine update, and it makes me feel a little better about having bought the Sensation XE just months before the One X came out. I reckon my phone will still be able to stand up quite well against the latest generation of Android devices coming out this year.

MacBook Pro

I’ll keep this one short and sweet, as there are hundreds of blogs out there about PC users converting to Mac and seeing the light, and I’m no different. I love it. I love it, I love it, I love it. It’s beautiful, fast, easy to use and just, well, cool. I used to hate Mac users going on about how much better their computers are than PCs, in much the same way as Charlie Brooker did in this scathing article. But even he converted, and so have I.

This isn’t to say there aren’t problems, though. For one thing, it was painfully expensive, which is fine because it’s a quality product. But then added expenses start to pop up like, for example, a mini-display adaptor to plug my second computer screen into. That’ll be Dh150 ($41), please. And if I want to plug the Mac into my big TV, I’ll need another HDMI adaptor. That’ll be another Dh180 ($50), thanks very much. Then I had to buy a case for it, because I daren’t just stick it into my laptop bag to be scratched by whatever else I’ve got in there. Another Dh150 ($41), please. I’ve also had compatibility issues with my external hard drive that I’ve yet to resolve, despite frantically scouring the internet for solutions.

Some might say that owning a Mac doesn’t justify having to fork out so much, and that a decent PC running Windows would do the job just fine at half the price, particularly when they get to bang on about compatibility. But I disagree. I don’t think Windows, 7 in particular, is that bad; it’s just that OSX is better. In terms of compatibility, I’ll bet that my Mac will pair up with almost anything more quickly than a PC would, meaning that one thing every once in a while isn’t going to be such a big deal.

Instagram for Android

For months I’ve been waiting for this, if only to flood the Twitter feeds of those smug iPhone bastards who think it’s okay to spam my feeds with retro-looking pointlessness. But once I’d gotten my mits on it, I failed to see what all the fuss was about.

Early reviews suggest that the iPhone version is actually more user-friendly than the Android one, which may be true. From what I can see, though, the filters on offer aren’t that good, and it duplicates every photo you take, or put a filter on, clogging up your gallery. Also, it’s so caught up with the idea of sharing that, if you just want to take a photo, it’s unclear what’s happened to it when you click cancel on the sharing screen.

I know that the main selling point of Instagram is the sharing aspect, but I’m not interested in that. I can just as easily tweet a photo using the “Share” button on my phone, and I’ve got no desire to join yet another social network. You can keep your Instagram, iPhone fanboys, because I’m not interested.

In praise of… Jadopado.com

About a month and a half ago, I bought the HTC Sensation XE from a local web site that my boss had recommended to me. The advantage of shopping on it, he said, was that it offers noticeably smaller prices on a number of products than in regular stores. I checked it out, found the phone I wanted, and he was right – I could buy it for a good Dh200 to Dh300 cheaper than I could in a  conventional store.

The site is Jadopado.com and I can’t recommend it enough. It’s extremely easy to order what you want; you simply fill in your details and it asks what kind of delivery and payment options you’d like. I opted for cash on delivery, meaning that a guy would come to drop the phone off and I’d pay him. I’d shortly after receive an electronic receipt. Easy peasy.

What’s more impressive than any of that, though, is the quality of the after-sales customer service.

Thing is, I had a problem with the phone package about a month later. You see, it comes with Beats by Dr Dre earphones, which, as any review will tell you, are awesome. The only problem is that, apparently, the build quality isn’t quite up to scratch – something I’m surprised at, given how expensive they are. Anyway, my set disintegrated after barely four weeks of moderate use. I was pretty peeved.

I emailed Jadopado to explain as much, though I knew that it was unlikely they could do something. The brilliant earphones came as a part of the phone package, in the same way that rubbish earphones come as part of an iPhone package. And even if it had some of these earphones in stock, the site wouldn’t exactly be able to justify giving me a whole new set. I figured I’d been screwed over by HTC, really, but also figured there’s nothing wrong with contacting the retailer to see if anything could be done.

And I’m extremely glad that I did. After I lodged my complaint, I was contacted shortly after with a very understanding email, acknowledging that I was facing a build quality issue. However, I had hit the nail on the head in assuming that there wasn’t much that the site could do, and the issue was explained to me further. Despite this, they still promised to try to work something out for me, and said they’d be in touch.

Today, I got a call that resolved the issue perfectly satisfactorily. I won’t go into the ins and outs of it, because the bottom line is that they made me feel like a valued customer, going out of their way to ensure that I’d be happy to come back. I even had a pretty good chat with the customer service person that called me. This is a rare thing in Dubai, and it’s a cause for celebration whenever you find it. All to often here, there’s a feeling that, because everyone else offers rubbish customer service, it’s okay for you to do it, too.

Clearly, Jadopado doesn’t subscribe to that view, and it’s all the better for it. I don’t mean to plug companies on here, but I’m so delightfully surprised that all’s not lost when it comes to trying to resolve issues in Dubai that I can’t let this one go without offering some praise. Customer service – you’re doing it right, Jadopado.

How Twitter ruined TweetDeck

I can’t believe how much of my love for a social network could depend on the client I use to access it. But as with any web site, be it a social network or not, it all comes down to user experience. And since the old version of TweetDeck stopped working on my PC, I’ve been suffering a terrible user experience with Twitter.

This is because the new version of TweetDeck, which is now officially owned by Twitter, is an utterly shameful excuse for a release, and has left in tatters the credibility of a piece of software that was once adored by millions.

Like many others, when I first joined Twitter, I wasn’t entirely sure what it was for, and wondered how it could really benefit me. But then I caught the Twitterbug. Gradually, the number of people I interacted with increased and I found myself looking for a better way to keep up with what was happening.

And then I found TweetDeck, the wonderful, beauty of a programme that allowed me to see everything that was happening, organised into separate columns on one screen. It was so much easier than having to click on a button to view, say, my direct messages or my mentions. It was all there and all so accessible. It was perfect.

But in May last year, TweetDeck was bought by Twitter. Iain Dodworth, the founder of TweetDeck, announced the deal on the TweetDeck blog, explaining how it was a step forward and a very good thing. He spoke of how “extremely proud and happy” he was, and that it was “a huge win for us all”.

“The reason for [our] growth is simple,” he said. “Our unwavering focus on providing high-quality tools and services for the Twitter-centric power-user. This has always been our core audience – the most active, influential and valuable users of Twitter and social media in general. Quality over quantity.

“It is precisely for this reason that Twitter has acquired TweetDeck. The mainstream Twitter user-base is well catered for by twitter.com and the official mobile clients. And by becoming part of the official platform, TweetDeck will now fill that role for brands, influencers, the highly active and anyone that just needs ‘more power’.”

I wonder if he’s regretting writing those words now. He should be, because his brilliant creation has been thrown to the dogs like a filthy, unwanted soft toy. By writing those words, he’s proven that he knows exactly what kind of people use TweetDeck, so by the same token, he must know that the new one would grossly offend any fans of the old one.

Where before you had so much control over what appeared in your columns, you’re now offered about the same amount of choice as if you were using the web site. There are three columns that come as standard; the timeline, mentions and direct messages. Full-screen it on a PC, and you’re left with a big, empty space on the right that another column could fit into.

Fine, then, you might think. I’ll fill it up with a column showing what’s trending in my area. Oh, I can’t – there’s no option for that. All I can do is search for a specific trending topic, filling the column up with useless tweets about said trend. There’s not even an option to make it country-specific; you can look at global trends and that’s your lot.

Alright, you’ll say, I’ll just fill the blank space up with a column showing my newest followers, as it was pretty useful having that before. But I’m afraid that’s out of the question, too. Indeed, the columns you can actually add are so useless that they might as well not have bothered letting you have them.

There are other problems as well. As far as I can see, there’s no way to start new direct message conversations with people – you can only add to existing ones – and, even though I think there’s meant to be, there are no pop-up boxes that notify you of new tweets, mentions or messages. In short, it’s all awful.

It also seems pretty sinister on Twitter’s part. Having bought and ruined TweetDeck, it seems as if the company is trying to force people into using the web site. I imagine the heads of the company sitting around a board room table, rubbing their hands together with evil smirks on their faces, plotting how to make any user experience outside of the web site’s so terrible that you’re forced to use the site.

And Twitter knows, just as Dodworth does, exactly who uses TweetDeck. Head over to the official TweetDeck web site, and you’ll see a description of the software that says, “TweetDeck is an app that brings more flexibility and insight to power users”. But the thing is that the new version does quite the opposite. Who are they trying to fool?

What’s more, the web site doesn’t cut it, and there are no alternative clients out there that even come close to offering the kind of seamless Twitter experience that TweetDeck once did. This is a massive fail on Twitter’s part. It could have turned TweetDeck into a brilliantly integrated piece of software that really gave users more control over how they digest their information.

Instead, Twitter has not only pushed me away from a piece of its own software, but also from using the social network itself. And if TweetDeck users are the so-called most valuable users of Twitter, then why has the network seen fit to trample on everything that made us like the software in the first place? Someone has some explaining to do.