bitesize islam

A friend of mine (Faraz) is currently pursuing Arabic and Islamic Studies in Cairo, Egypt. He has created a fantastic site to share his knowledge of Islam.

I would strongly recommend this site.

It can be found at bitesize islam.

"Bitesize Islam aims to present the Shari’ah...using a simple and easy to follow approach. Commonly used terms will be defined and topics broken down logically in the hope that as the site develops it will go some way in helping both Muslims and non-Muslims understand more about Islam, its aims and objectives and how it goes about achieving them."

Terminal 5, BA and BAA

I am truly amazed at the national and corporate embarrassment that is Terminal 5 and further still to the reactions of those who were involved.

To me it doesn't matter whether the fault lies with BA, BAA, CAA, the builders/suppliers or the Government (or any other group with a vested interest). Each of these groups has a vested interest in ensuring that everything wend smoothly - so by my reckoning everyone all these groups should have been active in making sure that everything ran smoothly.

The fact that things have been messed up in such an enormous scale shows that each and everyone has taken their eye of the ball and failed to ensure that passengers using Terminal 5 are not affected.

Clearly planning, preparation, testing and controls have been more than lacking. In this day and age, of outsourcing multi-million/billion projects to the lowest bidder planning, preparation and testing need to to be spot on to ensure that the failure of the 1p widget (bought instead of the 2p widget) is caught early.

There is also the obsession of those leading huge projects to get them out on time - regardless of the fact that a) it isn't finished or b) it is finished but its a mess. Hitting the deadline is more important than making sure its done properly. Nothing is allowed to get in the way of hitting the deadline - even the risk of humiliation.

This project has been been planned for "20 years" allegedly - I for one would like to know how the word planning is defined by the people involved.

Basic things seem to have been omitted in a bid to save a couple of pennies here and there. Added to the above:

• why weren't staff called in the week before opening and run their paces to ensure that they were "familiar with the computers/systems/locations"?;
• why weren't extra BA/BAA staff in place in the run up to and on the first few days of operations?;
• why did everything have to be all go from day one? why could they not start with a small number of flights and slowly ramp up over time?
• now that things have clearly imploded quite spectacularly - why haven't the disaster recovery procedures swung into operation (flood the place with staff to get things moving, fall back to the "old way")? (or am I being a bit optimistic in thinking that they had actually thought and planned for these eventualities?).

Very little appears to be happening to help the average traveller - a delay of a few hours/days on a short term business trip, a weekend away or a holiday will completely wreck things. If you do get away not having your baggage will likely be the end of the trip.

The reactions of those in charge seems to be incredible - especially the lack of comment/action from the Government. Its all very well investigating and fining the companies involved after the event but what about those people who have had things completely wrecked in the here and now?

There seems to be no will to resolve this quickly. No one seems to care about the loss and suffering of travellers or the national humiliation and the damage that corporate UK will suffer (who will want to come and do business with/in a country that can't get people from A to B). People won't even want to use the airport for transit!!!!

I'm just glad that I'm not flying at the moment - and when I do I will do my utmost to avoid BA/BAA. My heart goes out to those stuck in this misery!

(And we're meant to be organising a major sporting event in a few years - more moving parts, more infrastructure being built, more people involved - I think I'll definitely plan to be out of the country when things hit fever pitch).

I'm going to have another rant later about getting things done in the UK and the infrastructure!!!!!!!

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/27/t5_opening_day/

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/28/t5_reconstruction/

Quotes I like

Because I can't think of anything to blog about.... I've decided to use the age old technique of stealing someone else's lines........

Anyway here is a quote I found the other day that I liked:

Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.

Will Rogers (1879 - 1935)

Results of the vote

I am currently maintaining two blogs - one that I started first (www.bravefish.spaces.live.com) and this one. I had started that one first and then this one on msn spaces. In my opinion the blogspot one can be more flexible - but this one is much easier to use (especially as I don't have much time - as can be seen from my posting history of 1 blog per decade!!!!)

A while back I e-mailed everyone in my address book and asked them to let me know which one they preferred - the intention being that I would continue with the victor and abandon the other like a old flame - never to revisit again.

And now its time for the results......................

Which were pretty damned inconclusive - the indecisive collective that I call friends have proved absolutely useless as always. The vote was split pretty much down the middle with no clear winner.

So I have decide to keep both blogs - after all its just a case of cutting and pasting from one to the other (or in the event that I rip of some other poor souls blog - cutting and pasting twice :)

ps for all of those who were offended that their personal opinion didn't sway me - tough, deal with it - this is my blog, this is a dictatorship and not a democracy!

pps don't be lazy and leave a comment - unless no one is actually reading this thing!

The great tomb robbery

A while back I went to go see the i Tutankhamun exhibition at the O2 arena in London with a friend. This is my view on it.

The show was quite impressive but by the time it had finished I was greatly dissappointed!!!!!!!!!!! While the exhibition itself was impressive - there was one major flaw in the exhibition of "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs" was the fact that.................................

The main man, the dude, the Pharoah, King Tut wasn't there himself, in person!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now it may have been my fault for not reading up on it before I went... but for a show titled "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs" I was expecting him to be there in person! Not even the casing for him was present. The nearest we came to the was a couple of inches tall statue that may have held some of his vital organs and drawing on he floor representing the size of the sarcophagus!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

To add insult to injury - the some of the treasures mentioned were from other pharoahs tombs WHO MAY OR MAY NOT HAVE BEEN RELATED TO HIM.

So in summary the main man wasn't there and a lot of the stuff that was there may have nothing to do with him at all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Apart from these glaringly obvious issues the show was okay - there were some decent artefacts on display, with an interesting history element and the audio tour was well done (oh yeah - from the pics and that staues Queen Nefertiti looked like quite a hottie).

Generally, I would recommend it IF YOU ARE INTERESTED, but be aware the dude is not in the building (or even the country).

Here is a link to the show:

http://www.kingtut.org/home

and one to the O2 arena

http://www.theo2.co.uk/

(on a side note I must admit that the O2 arena is quite an impressive venue).