Call to Prayer

My driver, Jaffar, for indeed it is he, and not your silly Disney Grand Vizier, has a mobile telephone. He uses it constantly: it is, of course, part of our driving test that you are able to communicate via phone while negotiating our thronged highways. Other skills you are expected to master are the ability to drive at ludicrous speeds whenever there is an empty patch of road, the art of rear-ending the next vehicle at lights whilst complaining that the light is only on 'red' and surely that meant 'go', and how to cause pedestrian coronary by parking anywhere you like effecting 30 miles-per-hour to rest in under a millisecond. Even the taxi drivers are amused by the Bahraini confusion in the yellow boxes they have painted at the busiest junctions.


Yesterday the clouds opened, and miraculously rain fell. Well, the ground was wet for a couple of minutes. The local news reported that there were something like 900 accidents across the island and numerous injuries and blamed it on the weather!

Anyway, Juffar's phone has a great ringtone: the Adhan bellows out every time his wife needs to talk to him. Even you irreligious westerners will have observed that our mosques have an equivalent to your Sunday morning church bells, although five times a day, every day, is a bit much. And we have plenty of mosques here in the Kingdom, all with state-of-the-art electronic amplification to reach those stragglers. Indeed, our amplification systems also translate well to the motor-car, where our citizens, and their Saudi cousins, can highlight to the casual pedestrian what is on their current playlist with some verve.

The Adhan is the call to prayer, and an upstanding citizen should face Mecca five times during the day. The call is really just a repeated message, but unlike the gentle chime of clapper against bell in the rolling shires, the nasal drone can get a bit too much when you are trying to get directions to an office behind a mosque via mobile telephone at dusk. The call basically tells the faithful to get out their mats and pray to the west, to paraphrase Mr Weller. The first one of the day tells them not to be so lazy: you should be praying not sleeping, get up and get on with it! It's great discipline, and I am thinking of asking the ruling family if we could export it to Britain as a sort of version of National Service, to kick-start our once-glorious victorious country. They are great fans of Maggie here, because at least she brought some discipline!

Government here is largely by the ruling family, although there is an elected assembly. Last week the assembly walked out because none of the ministers they wished to question bothered to turn up. You do not question the Al Khalifas. Anyway, these poor ministers were probably out at the airport receiving an inbound cousin.

The traffic system is dramatically improved when one of our ministers removes to the airport: we halt all movement for many minutes by placing armed guards at each junction. This has the marvellous effect of freeing up road space, thus allowing our citizens the chance to practice their accelerating, lane-weaving and braking skills. Our ambulances too, find considerable employment once the armed guards have returned to the Palace.

It is my final day, and I have a few bits of paperwork to collect around the city. I will then present myself at the airport. I fancy I might go a little early to glad-hand any inbound dignitaries, have a cold beer, and put myself in the welcoming wings of British Airways. I will definitely get Juffar to organise a few road-blocks so that our passage is smoothed.

I wish you all long and prosperous lives, and thousands of offspring - if you want them. See you back in the real world!