Scaralex

I see two problems with eating "Organic" food here and would love your views: The first is that there is no clear worldwide accepted definition of "organic". As an example, vegetables which are not treated with pesticides and are fertilised with animal manure. The animal manure could have come from a cow that was fed non-organic, geneticaly modified feed. So are the vegetables still organic? The second is that vegetables are treated in order to prolong their lives so that they can be flown to Dubai and still look good after 2-3 days. Is that treatment organic?

Personally I find lateness extremely rude (except of course in an emergency). And why would it be offensive to be mistaken for a nanny - that implies that you think it is beneath you. My DH often gets mistaken for being a driver and we laugh it off.

My DH suffers terribly from it. He went to numerous ENT's who gave different opinions, prescriptions and even wanted to operate. Dr Bahgat was the only ENT who correctly said the problems he was suffering were not related to the ears and to check his jaw. The moment he said that we realised that a broken jaw at 21 and teeth grinding were the cause - not all the other rubbish we had been told. A correct diagnose has helped him live with it but he has not been able to get any further help. Anti-histamines sometimes help - not sure why. Coincidentally another friend was telling me about her tinnitus yesterday and I mentioned TMJ. She is also a teeth grinder so it fits for her too. She has also been to numerous doctors but none have mentioned TMJ. So sorry - No!

20% got Level 6's???? At most other schools had a handful of very bright children get Level 6. In the UK in 2014 there were only 14 schools that achieved more than 10%.

Please stop whinging! It has been the hottest summer ever and I have been here 20 years so I know. I have heard a lot of people say their gardens have died while they have been away and I think it because of the severe heat. Think for a moment about these poor guys working outside in 50 degree temperatures.

got it!

We used to leave it empty but decided it was a bit of a waste. Now we rent it out for holiday lets through an agent. It only gets rented out 4-6 weeks a year which is perfect as it pays for the council tax but does not give too much wear and tear. And yes - lots of maintenance over the summer when we come back and use it for 6 weeks. We actually enjoy it because it is a contrast to life here where we don't have to lift a finger.

No you are not reading too much into this. I am not sure what the answer is but follow your instincts to protect your child.

Great list except the tutors bit. Not necessary IMHO. Unless there are specific issues then parents can help with homework. Everything else is taught at school In the British curriculum anyway

I think it is more to do with the type of families who expect their maids to work 7 days a week and from early until late at night rather than the type of cleaning. If you look around you, you will see what maids see and understand why they have preferences.

Of course we can expect more. It would not have been difficult to have toilets in several locations. I do expect it to take less than forty five minutes to get a burger. The Diamond car park was allowed to empty first before anyone from gold could even move their cars. And it was so dangerous with cars pushing out amongst pPoole walking down the road.

I eat differently from my kids every evening! They may have lasagne with veg, chicken and rice (with veg) or something similar, I prefer a salad. My DH is Indian so cooks himself a vegetarian dish with homemade chapati. We also eat at different times. So nothing out of the ordinary in our house. I am going to get a load of backlash here from perfect moms who sit down to a healthy dinner with their husbands and kids every night. Impossible in our house! We do eat the same thing and together over weekends.

A bit of an exaggeration there ladymary. Children got in from our school on Level 5's. Not many on Level 6's yet. It seems if you are better at Maths than English you stand a better chance. They introduce verbal and non verbal reasoning tests this year so practice those. You are asked to do a one page A4 sheet of extra curricular activities / additional information. Some very bright kids got in with not a lot of extras. Some kids who do a lot of sports and music didn't get in although they must be level 5 ish also. There are just so many children applying! They tell you specifically not to tutor your child. If you need to - it is the wrong school for them. Some tutored kids got in from our school, some didn't.

I would love to find one too! My DH has suffered so badly for the last 5 years and we still haven't found anyone. The best relief he got was from an osteopath so maybe try that.

There are only 3 lanes for non-muslim products. All the others including the express counters are for those with no pork products. Hopefully they will adjust the numbers depending on the queues!

I saw some on Satwa this morning. On Plant Street right down the end where the Iranian Hospital is there is a shoe shop. About 500 Dhs /pair

JESS Night Market is on Friday 28th November from 3.30 to 7.30. (JESS Jumeirah)

My point exactly. The moms who do everything to avoid it, use excuses, say "$#!% off" or deliberately lose requests are the ones with the attitude who make the job so unpleasant. Do it once yourself and you will understand how hard it is and hopefully appreciate the moms who do it in future. It does seem to vary from school to school though and at my childrens school there is not much to do apart from pass on a few messages via e-mail, do collection at Christmas and end of year, and organise a couple of social events. BTW I can't believe any parent would think a class mum is responsible for complaining about the progress of their child.

Sometimes distance is not important. You can live close to somewhere in Dubai but still take ages to get there because of traffic. And some people may choose an extra ten minutes in the car for a nicer home. Which is why I suggested doing test drives to see what it is like in the mornings and school pick up time. Al Ghadeer is 15 minutes from the end of Al Khail Road and there are lots of schools in that area.

Part 2 "As a Scot living in the midst of a very emotive, albeit admittedly enlivening debate about the future of our nation, here is my two pence on the issues surrounding independence, trying to be as rational and unemotional as I can be. Too many commentators I think deride the other side as "a nonsense" which only helps to entrench views on both sides without any advance in logical discussion. Clearly there are sound arguments on both sides of the debate, so I've attempted to put an exhaustive list of them together, and ranked them for how strong the argument is in each case. So here goes, with conclusions at the bottom: Arguments in favour of independence as I see them: 1. The political spectrum will align to Scotland's will, i.e slightly to the left of the average UK, meaning the system is more democratic. Strength of argument: 9/10 2. We can codify a new constitution from scratch, which will be both therapeutic and lead to a much cleaner political system (without the vagaries of hundreds of years of layered legislation). Strength of argument: 7/10 3. We will get new passports, a new country dialling code, and a new internet URL suffix which could be a nice novelty. Strength of argument: 2/10 4. If crude oil prices stay high and stable for the long term we could be fiscally better off, and even run a sufficient fiscal surplus elsewhere to siphon some revenue into a sovereign wealth fund. Probability-adjusted-strength of argument: 5/10 5. There may be some kind of unquantifiable national boost of confidence from being unleashed as a new country standing on our own two feet. Strength of argument: 6/10 6. In certain devolved functions since 1999, the Scottish Parliament has done a decent job in running things. Certain aspects of NHS Scotland for example are superior to the system in England and Wales, so it's hard to criticise the track record of devolved government. Strength of argument: 6/10 7. The act of independence itself will lead to job creation as new bodies will need to be set up and staffed. Whether this gross addition of jobs is enough to lead to a net job gain from the offsetting loss of jobs in Scotland from leaving the UK is hard to say (see below). Strength of argument: 5/10 8. The proposed cut in corporation tax, if combined with a business-friendly political environment, could attract international companies to HQ in Scotland over the longer term. Strength of Argument: 7/10 Reasons to vote Yes: 8 Average strength of argument: 5.875 out of 10 Arguments against independence as I see them: 1. Large and very important elements of the new state will need to be negotiated with a country that we've just turned our backs on. The likelihood of that being a friendly dialogue is pretty low. Strength of argument: 8/10 2. All options for currency policy are sub-optimal. Currency union is a fiscal straightjacket and very unlikely to happen soon (UK politicians would lose a lot of face); Sterlingisation is plain bonkers; the Euro is a mess (ask Ireland) ; and a new currency would be a very shaky road for a good few years. Strength of argument: 10/10 3. We would be likely to find Spain and other countries with noisy separatist movements being very hostile to easy EU entry. NATO would also have an issue with SNP anti-Trident agenda. Strength of argument: 8/10 4. We would need to spend a lot of money setting up mirror institutions like tax authorities, security services, the DVLA, and overseas embassies that already function fine. Strength of argument: 6/10 5. Uncertainty from multiple areas (currency, legal, political, the regulatory environment) would create a terrible business environment. Companies will withhold or limit investment and expansions plans in Scotland for a number of years (3-5 years minimum). Strength of argument: 9/10 6. We wouldn't spend enough money on defense or benefit from the scale of the UK military and security services at a time when the world is looking pretty shaky on a 5-10 year view. Strength of argument: 8/10 7. We would send a message to our neighbours in Wales, England and Northern Ireland that we don't value their opinion sufficiently to want to compromise our own views within the UK anymore . We would be acting in an inward-looking and parochial way instead of being open-minded and conciliatory. Strength of argument: 9/10 8. Daft threats to renege on national debt + uncertain revenue stream from oil + uncertain currency policy would mean the entire country would likely face higher interest rates. That will act as an economic dampener and ramp up the debt servicing costs of the housing stock (ie mortgages would cost a lot more). Strength of argument: 9/10 9. Crude oil is freely traded in global markets and is prone to periods of extreme volatility. It is unwise to rely on high and stable prices to fund a large chunk of national spending. It is likely an oil-sponsored sovereign wealth fund would only be viable if taxes were increased and/or spending were cut (i.e austerity). Strength of argument: 8/10 10. Voting against independence will lead to increase devolution on areas such as welfare and fiscal policy. We will have a left-leaning devolved government in charge of all the "soft" social stuff like health, education and welfare, and a right-leaning UK government in charge of the "hard" national security stuff like the military, security services and embassy networks. This seems like the perfect way to ensure good public services but higher levels of security, without the need to go through the costly and uncertain process of independence. Strength of argument: 7/10 11. Certain key jobs done in Scotland would inevitably move to the other parts of the UK as we would now be a foreign country . It's hard to see important UK functions like HMRC offices, military hardware production, or bank and asset managers with the majority of their customers elsewhere in the UK surviving in their present form. As above, whether this is a net job loss compared to the addition of new post-independence jobs is not clear. Strength of argument: 5/10 Reasons to vote No: 11 Average strength of argument: 7.9 out of 10 To me it's a simple case of cost/benefit analysis. I've thought long and hard about it and tried to absorb as much of the debate as possible when it comes to the REAL issues, taking out all the scaremongering and spin from both sides (for example the discussions of the NHS and Trident I find totally baseless and/or emotional rather than rational). Trying to strip it down to the genuine reasons for and against, it does seem to me that in both the quantity of factors, and importantly the strength of those factors, the arguments against independence are significantly more persuasive. This vote is not about Alex Salmond or Alistair Darling or how many posters you see on lampposts. This is not a protest vote against David Cameron or George Osbourne anyone else, and anyone that convinces of that fact is being reckless and incredibly short-sighted. This is a decision of the utmost importance for several generations of Scots. I will be voting No. "

Al Ghadeer is really not that far out and is easily accessible from SMBZ Road. The developer which built it, A...R, has a much better build quality than Na....l of Dubai. Why don't you try the drive times and see which works better for you at drop off and pick up times.