LOL ^. Now I know the jist of it all. Lacag bad guranysa. Fariidad.

Labadino ba wa mahadsan tihin. Alliyah may I call you ayeeyo also?

Alpha Blondy;912807 wrote: ^ can we infer from the above, you also like me? you don't have to answer Reeyo..... Does that even need an answer Alpha?

Alpha: I can choose to dislike a city, it's the way of the free will

Haha ^. You're as weird as Alpha but I like you. Yes that is exactly it.

In that case 'Mr Brit' take care and don't let the sharks sell you sand and then punish you for not paying for it fast enough.

oba hiloowlow;912781 wrote: LOOL reeyo eedo last time you refused to be called a fish n chips teen im dissapointed at you. Oh damnit! Haha. Oba; I only defense is that I've never heard of it. Lakin blese don't call me 'fish and chips'

Where else have you lived?

QansaxMeygaag;912536 wrote: You guys are fun! I was given an earful on another thread that clan or clever ways of referring to them are banned. Isn't that so PC? I think we Somalis are hypocrites, we all belong to clans and ain't nothing wrong with that. As long as I or my clan are not encroaching on other peoples right who gives a rat's a$$ if we dance ourselves into delirium with an overdose of dhaanto? Some folks are so "civilized" the mere mention of clan sends them into paroxysms of anger and embarrassment. Sophia Loren would be proud of their performance in "polite company". Bah! Clans exist, deal with it, just don't tramp on my (our) rights as you celebrate the glory of your clan. You are young and already you have been infected with the infamous need for one to be Somali they must acknowledge 'clan' as important. The reality is very different. Clan is a name of an old geezer that died many years ago that trying his best to not send avenging angels upon all the fools that mention his name in-order to glorify their pathetic existence. Time to claim your own name and stamp on the earth before you depart.

Got it! Lol. Thanks mate.

I am concur with Oba. Trust is too precious to give away. My friends have been the same since primary school. Everyone else just comes and goes.

^ Haha. I like that, trying to even the playing field. Here is the thing I don't care what London looks like, what matters is that it is a reality that I can face not a mirage in the desert that deceives me everytime I think I've reach the place to satisfy my thirst. (Metaphorically)

LOL. I'd be lying if I said I understood but I'll pass on further explanations. Thanks.

N.O.R.F;912754 wrote: They work for british/european/indian/chinese construction companies who set their wages. Some are treated better than others but its the companies who are dodging the labour laws where some are mistreated. Not the locals or the ruler. The author could perhaps talk of the brits who have bought cars and homes on credit only to do a runner. Or maybe the highest number of expat arrests being Brits. This alone speaks volume for me. 1. The country's laws and authority matters little as international corporations call the shoots. 2. The many ex-pats that are drawn to the tax-free and high status jobs find themselves broke and arrested because they were told to believe something that didn't exist?

^ That needs further explanation. :? Khaatumite? Punlanders? Why would you be refer to as 'granma?'

^ I am curious, prey tell why you refer to each other as 'ayeeyo'?- Aaliyyah is it a respect thing he bestows on you?

If I don't have to pay off taxes and student finance and family billing I'd be very rich and happy with my own pay-annual.

I would highly recommend you all read the actual article before you raise your superficial defence shields for a 'fellow Muslim city' and spout nonsense about what the elusive 'West' does as comparison. Blessed I understand, I used the same heading the writer did for dramatic reasons I presume. And I don't follow your reasoning that you must live and experience a city before you know anything about it. To be honest I've never liked the city and it's ideals simply because it is very materialistic (as many other cities are) and seems to only appease certain types of ideals. But I honestly do believe that there is something inherently morally wrong in that city and it's not just the lazy Arabs that are living off the hard work of others or the labour laws and it's fake glittering buildings that symbolise a wealth without substance...there is more there.

Alpha Blondy;912313 wrote: the different dubais, the aesthetics of its buildings, social underbelly within etc etc....... what about the depraved nature of cities in the west.....with their decadence, their gated communities, their ethnic enclave ghettos that ''revanchist'' white-pop-collar-nouveau riche-neo-intelligentsia gentrifiers seek to destroy, the subterranean evils that lurk within.... please isku xishood and see things for what they are! ma fahantahay? Did you read the article? Johann Hari is a great writer. So dry yet humorous.

Blessed..?

Alpha: Believe it or not believe it. All I know is that city is unnatural. III. Hidden in plain view There are three different Dubais, all swirling around each other. There are the expats, like Karen; there are the Emiratis, headed by Sheikh Mohammed; and then there is the foreign underclass who built the city, and are trapped here. They are hidden in plain view. You see them everywhere, in dirt-caked blue uniforms, being shouted at by their superiors, like a chain gang – but you are trained not to look. It is like a mantra: the Sheikh built the city. The Sheikh built the city. Workers? What workers? Every evening, the hundreds of thousands of young men who build Dubai are bussed from their sites to a vast concrete wasteland an hour out of town, where they are quarantined away. Until a few years ago they were shuttled back and forth on cattle trucks, but the expats complained this was unsightly, so now they are shunted on small metal buses that function like greenhouses in the desert heat. They sweat like sponges being slowly wrung out. Sonapur is a rubble-strewn patchwork of miles and miles of identical concrete buildings. Some 300,000 men live piled up here, in a place whose name in Hindi means "City of Gold". In the first camp I stop at – riven with the smell of sewage and sweat – the men huddle around, eager to tell someone, anyone, what is happening to them.

The wide, smiling face of Sheikh Mohammed – the absolute ruler of Dubai – beams down on his creation. His image is displayed on every other building, sandwiched between the more familiar corporate rictuses of Ronald McDonald and Colonel Sanders. This man has sold Dubai to the world as the city of One Thousand and One Arabian Lights, a Shangri-La in the Middle East insulated from the dust-storms blasting across the region. He dominates the Manhattan-manqué skyline, beaming out from row after row of glass pyramids and hotels smelted into the shape of piles of golden coins. And there he stands on the tallest building in the world – a skinny spike, jabbing farther into the sky than any other human construction in history. But something has flickered in Sheikh Mohammed's smile. The ubiquitous cranes have paused on the skyline, as if stuck in time. There are countless buildings half-finished, seemingly abandoned. In the swankiest new constructions – like the vast Atlantis hotel, a giant pink castle built in 1,000 days for $1.5bn on its own artificial island – where rainwater is leaking from the ceilings and the tiles are falling off the roof. This Neverland was built on the Never-Never – and now the cracks are beginning to show. Suddenly it looks less like Manhattan in the sun than Iceland in the desert. Once the manic burst of building has stopped and the whirlwind has slowed, the secrets of Dubai are slowly seeping out. This is a city built from nothing in just a few wild decades on credit and ecocide, suppression and slavery. Dubai is a living metal metaphor for the neo-liberal globalised world that may be crashing – at last – into history. Continue ..: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/johann-hari/the-dark-side-of-dubai-1664368.html

nuune;912292 wrote: ^^ So as Oba , and many others, kaligaa ma tihid waryee, welcome to the club and don't worry about the first one aad kala tagteen, waxaanu mareynaa tii sadexaad oo la kala tagey and life is iswiit fooqal shiidh LOL. That's the spirit.

^ It's the best thing every discovered. And its not only women that appreciate it. Now less talk on chocolate now.

I have never been SO glad its Friday. SubhanAllah. Blessed; I just I just don't go into a shop. lol so that way I avoid it all together.