Eureka!

The last two pieces of the bureaucratic jigsaw have now fallen into place. The booze licence arrived on Saturday and yesterday I finally got my driving licence. Not without one last pass through the wringer though.

I collected the paper from the Abu Dhabi Medical Board, duly ratified by three doctors, that I'm fit to drive, and went to the driving licence department. 'System crash' he said, 'come back tomorrrow or maybe this evening Inshallah'. I didn't want to go back tomorrow - it is nearly 100 miles away - so went back later after my meeting. They were open again but there was a bit of an undignified scrum to get a ticket (sod the British sense of queuing, you have to push) and then a 2 hour wait. When it was my turn she told me to go and take the eye test again and then get another ticket for another 2 hour wait. It was a bit of a struggle to stay calm. What was the point of taking 3 months to get an eye test when they weren't going to believe what it said anyway? No point arguing, so I went to do the test but told her I wasn't queuing again and would be back directly.

The optometerist was very friendly and I had no problem with the vision test. Then the colour test. 'What number this?'. '12'. No problem, I've memorised these after all. Then, disaster, they've shuffled the pack and I can't see them! That's it, I thought, I'm going to have to hire a Sri Lankan house boy/driver like lots of our neighbours after all (Janet is quite keen on this anyway!). Unlike last time, however, that wasn't the end. She showed me four coloured cards which I easily identified and she signed the form as 'fit to drive'. Once my papers had been taken away and scrutinised twice more by senior officials I was finally given a licence. And that, I promise, is the last word on the subject.

Now that I can buy a car the question is what. Whilst I fancy a Chevy Lumina or Dodge Charger, I've promised Janet that I'll get a 4x4 for safety reasons. Tonight I'm off to look at Ben's favourite, a Hummer.

The booze licence is important, and not just for buying it, since this is a Muslim country. It's OK for tourists to drink but if you're a resident then strictly you need a licence. This was in today's paper:

A couple began their appeal yesterday against a one-month jail sentence for kissing in public in Ramadan. The Australian man and the Filipino woman were kissing in a coffee shop at night when a man asked them to stop. When they refused the man called the police. The couple were also fined dhs1,000 for each for drinking alcohol.

In another recent case a British man was taken to court, not for being drunk but for "drinking beer at a Bur Dubai pub". Quite amazing