I wish I was more organised

al-Salamu ‘alaykum,

Pff! I’m having to write a very brief “I’m off” message here because my poor planning hasn’t left me enough time to write something longer.

I’m going to be offline for the summer (possibly longer) as I’m wanting to spend some quality time with my family back in the UK.

So I apologise for the brevity of this note (and lack of accompanying picture) but I won’t be updating this (or the other) blog for some time.

If anyone wants to, they could use one of the blog feed readers to let them know when I eventually (insha’ Allah) do resurface. That way it’d save people checking here for updates. I’ll let Editor explain how Google Reader works to save me typing it out.

If anyone posts a comment in my absence and hasn’t posted here before, it’ll be held in the moderation queue for some time until I check it off.

If anyone  emails me I probably won’t read it for a while.

Um, well I guess that’s all I wanted to say really.

wa-l-salamu ‘alaykum

Flame on

I think I secretly like to complain.

But then I guess that’s just the inevitable consequence of finding so many things that people do in life infuriating.

I fine-tuned my complaining skills in the days when I worked for the London Underground particularly because the travelling public are often [to understate it] displeased with many aspects of the “service” provided. Consequently I would spend large portions of my working days being shouted at and/or complained to.

I did get my own opportunities there to complain and gained a degree of notoriety for a number of complaints that I initiated. One of the more successful ones sprung from a train driver upsetting me one night by obstinately quoting a particular procedure out of context and without recourse to rationality or reason.

I then spent the subsequent months wading through a multiple volume operations manual the size of a small refrigerator in order to extract supporting quotes that I could use in my campaign to have the rule that he’d quoted re-written; which it eventually was, wa-l-hamdu lillāh.

In terms of my interaction with companies, official bodies and retailers then I have been known to voice objections to various things that have irked me in the past. This Postman rant that I wrote a couple of years back might give you an insight into just how much something can bug me.

Anyway today I’ve just fired off part four of my current email campaign against a particular UK retailer that has rattled my (very rattle-able) cage, with these closing remarks:

I don’t think I’m accurately able to articulate how wronged I feel by [edit] but hope you can appreciate the doubtless aversion I’ll have to shopping with your company for the duration of my remaining life.

I got to thinking afterwards about how “the complaint” seems to be deeply embedded in the British psyche. To express outrage and indignation at the trivial seems to be both an individual and collective duty.

It’s probably also why I’ve slipped so easily into blogging, it being the “natural” environment for complainers to vent within.

So, any other complainers out there?

Any successful complaints you want to share?

How has complaining served you?

Somebody moved my chair!

al-Hamdu lillāh I’m now able to stand and make rukū‘ in salāh. Sujūd is still a bit difficult though, I pray with a chair nearby so that I can approximate prostration from a seated position.

I’ve also abandoned my crutches, leg brace and have felt confident enough to venture back into salāh in the jama’ah.

One thing that never occurred to me prior to getting injured was the nervousness that a person who needs a chair feels whilst making their way to the masjid.

Why so?

Well, sometimes you arrive only to find that all the chairs are in use and you’re immediately thrown into a dilemma as to what to do next.

The first time it happened to me I thought to myself that as I can make qiyām and rukū‘ I just wouldn’t feel comfortable about sitting on the floor for the entire salāh and so I opted to “have a go” at sujūd to see how difficult it really was.

It probably looked more like someone searching for a lost contact lense than your regular sajdah. I survived but I decided afterwards that it was way too early to be reintroducing this motion onto my “things I can do” list.

So now I try to make sure that I leave early enough to be able secure a chair for myself.

Another chair related decision that people like me face when attending the jama’ah is where exactly do you position your chair?

I’m totally unaware of any scholastic insight into this issue but will happily read any “Chapter: How to align your chair with the row” that anyone can link me to.

To my mind I’d previously decided that it’s best to align the chair’s back-legs with the ankles of those on either side of me and I decided this for a number of reasons:

1) When we’re sitting for the tashāhud all of our backs will be neatly in a straight line.

2) I figured that my chair’s hind legs being directly underneath my back when I sit, were analogous to my own legs and hence should be aligned with the feet of those in my row.

3) If I chose to move my chair behind the row that I’m a part of it would encroach upon the guy in the row behind me’s prostration space.

Anyway, I’d always assumed that this was an individual’s prerogative to decide and felt that my particular chosen method would have the least impact upon others in the masjid.

Then today I’d just risen from the second sajdah of the first rak’ah of maghrib and I sensed movement behind me as I stood up. Suddenly the brother to my right started pulling at my arm, dragging me backwards.

“What’s he doing?!” I exclaimed internally. Has he..? I can’t believe this - he’s moved my chair and is now insisting that I move backwards to align my chest with the rest of the row.

(Which is admittedly the downside of having your chair aligned with the feet of others; you’re chest is consequently out of line in qiyām.)

Now as much as I’d have loved to turn to him and ask “What on earth do you think you’re doing mate?!” I realised that talking would break my salāh and so I decided to soldier on in my newly enforced position.

Not being able to turn around and check (as I was in salāh), I was now petrified that the guy may have moved my chair back so far that I’ll fall when I try to sit on it later; and even if it’s not that far back then surely anybody who joins the row immediately behind mine will innocently decide that there’s a chair in his way and move it to one side before he begins.

I mean jazāhu Allāhu khayran to the brother for his dedication and zeal in ensuring that the chests of the musallīn are aligned but seriously, could he not have waited until after the salāh to try and convince me that his fiqh al-Kursī is the most accurate one out there?

I was left with my concentration totally gone out of the window due to a combination of worrying about falling on my backside whilst attempting to sit on a chair that’s not there (*sigh, reminisces about school day pranks*) and trying to suppress my outrage at his intervention.

al-Hamdu lillāh, I managed to finish my prayer without any further event but now it’s putting me off going back to that particular masjid lest it happen again.

I went back for ‘ishā’ but it was still playing on my mind and any kind of movement from those around me had me thinking “They’re going to take my chair again, I just know it!”

The brother even left before I made taslīm (we both missed the first rukū‘) and so I was deprived of being able to turn to him afterwards and soulfully ask “Laysh (why)?!” and thereby get some kind of closure to the whole incident.

So I’m basically looking for any suggestions that you have as to how to deal with the possibility of a reoccurrence (until I’ve made a 100% recovery, inshā’ Allāh) that doesn’t involve handcuffing my chair legs to my ankles.

First jumu’ah

It’s been some weeks since my knee injury and al-hamdu lillāh my leg is getting a lot stronger. So today I decided to crutch my way along to my very first jumu’ah in ages.

I had an M.R.I. scan earlier this week and the results came back much better than I’d expected.

I’ve apparently only got a mild synovitis, which basically means that my knee is swollen.

Which is kind of amazing when you think about it!

I mean, it took a machine the size of small petroleum tanker to tell me that my knee is swollen when I could have probably come to the same conclusion by merely lifting up my trouser leg.

But I suppose it did help rule out the ligament tear that I’d previously been diagnosed with and so I’ll not totally abandon modern medicine just yet.

Has anyone else ever had an M.R.I. scan before?

It wasn’t anything like having an x-ray done and hence not at all what I was expecting.

You’re locked into this trolley (well, I was at least) and told not to move for the duration. Then you’re gently inserted into this huge machine and subjected to 15 minutes of, what I can only describe as, being forced to listen to a rave version of chopsticks.

If you don’t know what chopsticks is then just say al-hamdu lillāh. But if you really need to know, it’s the tune that Tom Hanks plays on the giant keyboard in the toy store scene of the film Big.

So I’m lying there listening to this huge metallic donut clunking, whirring and generally going EuGh! EuGh! Eaw! GnAa! GnAa! thinking is it making this noise because no-one has managed to build a machine capable of scanning a body part without the side effect of this aural bombardment, or does this noise actually serve a purpose? I asked the doctor afterwards and it’s apparently the latter.

But I got off lightly I suppose, as I was only inserted into the machine feet first.

Depending on what’s being scanned you’re often meant to go in head first; which is probably analogous to being placed into a closed steel coffin whilst the funeral director bangs on the side repeatedly with a big spoon.

I found this insightful cartoon when I was searching for information about M.R.I.’s so I guess I’m not alone in feeling that there are better ways to spend 15 minutes of your life.

Which brings me to another point. Can I just quite categorically state that CartoonStock.com is nauseatingly unfunny?

It doesn’t seem to matter what keyword I search for in google images but some duff cartoon from their site seems to pop up in the results.

Now whilst a caricature or exaggerated drawing of something is technically a cartoon, I’ve always been lead to believe that a cartoon was supposed to have some undertone of comedy in it. Rather than the junk that they regularly spew out and seem to be expecting someone to pay for.

Oh and I didn’t get the above one from there though, I just felt like venting.

And lastly, apologies to anyone who was expecting this post to lead somewhere or for there to be a punch line at the end but “I write ‘em like I see ‘em.”

The Uh Game!

I actually wanted to post this up on here but WordPress is a bit fussy about code in a post so I stuck it up on my other blog.

In case anyone only comes here, please have a try at:

The Uh Game

Re-laid Hāts

Well, I guess no-one cried, but I assume that someone, somewhere, wondered why (Smāll) Hāts Ōn Vōwēls suddenly disappeared and was replaced with the rather annoying message “Notice: This domain name expired on 05/12/07 and is pending renewal or deletion”?

My brother D. even emailed me to ask “You not been paying your bills????”

But I thought blogging was free *sigh*

____

The saying goes:

“Wherever I lay my hat, that’s my home.”

Having had nowhere to lay my Hāts these past few weeks I rapidly came to the conclusion that I was in fact homeless, an e-refugee if you like.

Anyway, after much frantic emailing, and Hāt tipping goes in Sas’s direction for his hard work here, I’m pleased to announce that Hāts is now back up but at a new address (here).

NaseehaMan (rahimahu Allah)’s blog was similarly affected by the felling of the Puglu domain and so it has also been reposted (here).

I’m going to call them …

Sitting there, as I often do, holding a greasy shāwarmā in my hand and trying to click the mouse button with the least dirty of all my fingers, I got to thinking: “Surely, non-Muslims don’t find eating whilst surfing the net as challenging as I do?”

Obviously it’d be easy to dismiss all that follows by suggesting that I eat and then surf but some of us like to read whilst we eat - hence the invention of cereal boxes.

The crux of the problem for me is the multiple demands upon my right hand. This is further compounded by a hopeless impatience for doing one task after the other.

You see I have two conflicting needs, or rules, to obey here:

1) I’m Muslim therefore I always eat with my right hand.

The Messenger of Allāh (salla Allāhu ‘alayhi wa sallam) said:
“When any one of you eats, let him eat with his right hand, and when he drinks, let him drink with his right hand, because the Shaytān eats with his left hand and drinks with his left hand.” (Reported by Muslim, 3764)

2) I’m right-handed and so I’ve set up my PC so that my mouse is ergonomically located in a position that facilitates ease of use for my right hand.

Now, this dual demand over what my right hand should be doing at any one time often results in grease, ketchup and/or curry (of varying strengths) getting smeared onto my mouse along with its various buttons.

I can just about overpower the urge to write whilst I eat (so my keyboard buttons are relatively safe) but have been less than successful suppressing the desire to eat-n-read.

If I finish reading a particular webpage, post or article before I’ve fully consumed my burger, I feel compelled to search for something else to accompany me for the remaining bites, fries and Coke; invariably reaching for my mouse with less than clean fingers.

Now, the reason I don’t think that non-Muslims are as frequently left wiping their mice with tissues after they’ve finished eating is because there’s no compulsion for a non-Muslim to eat with any particular hand.

Your average non-Muslim munching on a chicken leg simply uses one hand for the poultry and the other for the mouse.

So being the reflective genius that I am, I decided that what the world’s Muslim online community really needs are… Mousedoms.

Mousedoms are plastic disposable mouse-gloves that you slip over your cursor-mover whenever dinner has been served. Giving you the complete freedom to navig-eat (this’ll be one of my marketing buzzwords to help sell the product) the web.

See the picture at the top of this post for a vague idea as to how they’ll look.

When you’ve finished your meal you simply remove the Mousedom, throw it in the bin and then can carry on surfing (I assume that you’ll wash your hands first).

Simple, effective and addressing a real community need!

But, I hear you ask, why post your idea for this fantastic new product on your blog when you haven’t even applied for the patent yet?

Well, I’m hoping that whoever comes here and sees this idea for the little goldmine that it potentially is, will agree to my conditions for permitting them to do all the work to produce, market and sell it.

Firstly, I want 50% of all future profits made after this product hits the streets (don’t bother me for any of the production costs, etc).

Secondly, I want a life long personal supply for my own use (made in a variety of different colours, patterns and textures).

Oh yeah, and you have to put a link to my blog on the packaging somewhere giving me full credit for the idea.

So if you’re a budding entrepreneur and you’re reading this feel free to contact me when you’re ready to make the first payment for my Mousedom idea (don’t hassle me with any of the preamble up to the first sales, I’m just an ideas man you can do all the donkey work).

Yay! For National Pride.

This is following on from the discussion that took place after this post.

Speaking as someone who very intentionally left the UK and way up in the list of reasons why I did so was… well, a strong dislike for just too many things about the place to list, it feels a little strange to be championing one of the good points about my “home”land.

However, having been exposed to the insurance based medical “care” system and the inevitable harm it has upon your physical well being, all I can say is “Yay!” for the simplicity of the UK (Sorry Saudi, I still like your cheap mineral water though [about the equivalent of 14p for a 600ml bottle]).

Yes, granted the NHS is understaffed, run down (even dirty in places), waiting lists are huge, etc.

But you have to give a little credit to an organisation whose basic premise seems to be “You’re sick - we’ll treat you” without first having recourse to inspect the size of your wallet and/or insurance policy.

Here’s an excerpt from Michael Moore’s new film SiCKO which has just premiered at the Cannes Film festival this past weekend.

I understand that it’s due for release on June 29th 2007 in the US and Canada. The rest of the world (which I hope includes Saudi Arabia this time, as they banned Fahrenheit 9/11) will get to watch it in the autumn (unless of course you’re one of those people who buy DVDs from shifty looking strangers in car parks, which I don’t recommend).

Backseat bloggers

One recreational hazard of being a blogger is the existence of a group people that I like to refer to as the backseat bloggers.

These are generally friends, colleagues or family members that you know in “real” life and who, being fully aware that you write a blog, insist on pointing at every mundane thing that passes their eyes whilst in your presence with the words “Hey! You should put that on your blog!”

I seem particularly prone to this phenomenon as I’m additionally known as someone who takes photographs of various scenes or objects that amuse me.

So, for example, I could be in a restaurant and as the waiter brings over my meal my companion will suddenly interject with “Hey, you should take a photo of your food and put it on your blog!”

Now whilst it’d be very easy to answer all such prompts with the reflective counter “Why?!” politeness often leads me instead to say things like “Yeah, heh! Maybe.”

I remember Billy Connolly commenting on what it was like for him being a stand-up comedian. He’d be in a pub somewhere and a total stranger would walk up to him, insist on telling him a really awful joke and finish with the words “You can put that one in your act if you like.”

I assume that I’m not alone in this and that there are other bloggers out there nodding their heads as they read this, also being prone to bombardment with inane observations and demands to publicise the banal from the non-blogging public.

Perhaps this behaviour is actually a precursor to a person starting their own blog. Motivated out of a feeling of rejection when bloggers don’t see the need to take them up on their suggestions to broadcast the eccentricities that they spot in life, such a disenchanted individual eventually takes their own tentative steps into the blogging community.

Maybe in my own non-blogging days I too was guilty of highlighting the unnecessary to anyone I thought could carry my observations on to a wider audience.

I’ve recently decided that the best way to deal with the desire of others to blog through me is to try and coax them into the blogosphere themselves.

Such that the next person who wishes to point at a slightly battered can of Coke in a newsagents and chuckle to himself whilst telling me to “put it on” my blog, I’ll resolve to tell them “No, lets put it on your blog. I’ll even help you make one!”

So if you have any backseat blogger friends out there why not help them take such a step and invite them into the[ir own] front-seat? Turn a bug-a-boo into a blogger too!

Actually, at this point I should probably make the disclaimer to anyone that I know and who reads this that I was not referring to you or your particular observations whilst writing this. They were in fact very astute and had not forgetfulness impaired my progress I would surely have put them up for you. I am in fact referring to other people that I know who, like you, also request I “put it on my blog” however their observations are decidedly less interesting and insightful than yours.

Hopefully now I’ve managed to salvage a few friends with these final words.

Akismet eats comments!

Ok I’ve just noticed that in addition to “protecting” me from spam, Akismet also kindly eats people’s comments for me.

I just found a genuine comment in there and then questioned the authenticity of the statement it proudly makes in the Dashboard “Akismet has protected your site from 6 spam comments.”

This is still a relatively new blog and so I doubt that the spammers have caught up with me yet. So on the basis of having spotted a real comment in there today I’m inclined to believe that Akismet has “kindly” axed six comments from (which I’m unable to retrieve) “real” people.

So if anyone is upset with me for having “moderated” a comment that they made, then the chances are that I didn’t actually see it because I was being “protected” by Mr [overzealous] Akismet.

Anyway, apologies to you if you were affected by this.