2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003
There is a guy in Kuwait called Sa’ad who seems to be a pizza fanatic. He recently submitted his pizza ingredients to Serious Eats and ended up getting featured there which is pretty cool. You can check out the post and pictures by clicking this [Link]
via Slider Station
Found the following message on a one Dinar note I was carrying.
Dear Ahmad, if u receive this message while u’re single, call me. I’m sorry – Rasha
I wonder if Ahmad ever ended up reading it…
Anyone know when this documentary on Al Jazeera will be showing or if they’ve already shown it. The subject seems very interesting since its about reuniting class mates years after the 1990 Iraqi invasion. In 1990 I graduated from Sunshine School which ceased to exist right after the Iraqi invasion (later it became BSK). I never ended up seeing anyone ever again but with the help of the Sunshine School Facebook group I was able to get in touch with some of them again. [YouTube]
Update: Taken from the Al Jazeera website
On August 2, 1990, the Iraqi army invaded the emirate of Kuwait, which Saddam Hussein, the then Iraqi president, had declared Iraq’s 19th province.
The occupation of Kuwait may have only lasted seven months, yet the memory of it remains strong, not least in the minds of the children of that conflict.
At the end of the school year of 1990, students in an international school in Kuwait said their final farewells as they headed off for the summer holidays. Many of them would never meet again.
Al Jazeera’s Nashwa Nasreldin was one of those whose family was forced to relocate following the invasion.
Twenty years on, she returns to Kuwait, the country of her birth, along with a group of her classmates as they organise a reunion to find out what happened to their friends – and their school – during the war that separated them.
Kuwait: The class of 1990 can be seen from Monday, August 2, 2010 at the following times GMT: Monday: 1900; Tuesday: 0600; Wednesday: 0300; Thursday: 1400; Friday: 0600; Saturday: 1900; Sunday: 0300.
Gallup World Poll surveyed thousands of people and then came out with a list of the happiest countries in the world. Kuwait came in at 23rd, the second Arab country on the list, the first being UAE which came 20th. Lebanon came in at 73 while Togo came in last and Denmark first. For the full list click [Here]
Thanks Nancy
I heard about this reality show this morning on BBC and thought it was extremely creative. Young Imam is a popular reality TV show in Malaysia where the winner of the show wins a car, a scholarship to study in Saudi Arabia, some cash, a pilgrimage to Mecca and gets to be an Imam of a mosque. It’s such a smart idea and it seems to be working really well in attracting younger people back into religion. I found a good article about the show on the Wall Street Journal which is where I got the video above from. You can check out the article by clicking [Here]
The list of the hottest emerging markets for retail just got released and for the first time ever Kuwait made it onto the list but not only that, Kuwait somehow managed to rank the second hottest market place in the world for retail! China is in first place as expected, India in third and Kuwait squeezed in between the two. This probably has to do with Alshaya being based in Kuwait and bringing in and opening all these foreign brands. I’m still waiting for some kind of news on Shake Shack..
“Kuwait is an attractive opportunity,” said Deepa Neary, a retail industry consultant at A.T. Kearney. She cited the country’s location in the Middle East, which is quickly becoming an exciting region for retailers, and its highly concentrated urban population, which helps make the market more accessible for retailers.
According to Neary, Kuwait can serve as an entry point into the Middle East.
Here is the top 10 list:
1- China
2- Kuwait
3- India
4- Saudi Arabia
5- Brazil
6- Chile
7- United Arab Emirates
8- Uruguay
9- Peru
10- Russia
You can read the article by following this [Link]
Thanks Zoogi
Although the project sounds cool there is no way I think I could switch my phone off or ignore it while I am out having a meal. During lunch and dinner I actually enjoy catching up on emails on my iPhone and the messages and pictures from our diwaniya BBM group on my Blackberry. [Link]
That’s a lot of trains… with all the security measures that were enforced after 9/11 I am surprised train locations are made public. [Link]
I found this local website by mistake and I’m actually impressed. Not at the design or anything like that but on the items that are listed… luxury watches! There seems to be a good range but I am struggling to find out whats used, whats new, whats from the local dealers and what’s gray market. I am guessing the Rolex Deep Sea for example is used since it’s listed for KD2,250 while it retails for KD3,250 locally before discount. They have the Audemars Piguet Offshore Diver listed for KD4,250 but it retails for KD4,500 at the dealer although they’re out of stock. The Panerai section is beautiful, they’ve got my favorite which is the very limited PAM 26. The Hublot section… lets not even go there. Basically I would have to agree with their tag line, it has to be Kuwait’s premier luxury site since I am not aware of any other one. [Link]
Deep within the Kuwait Ministry of Information’s sprawling, high-security complex, seven government films censors gather for a screening of “The Last Song,” a drama starring Miley Cyrus. Seated in plush velvet seats in front of a large, cinema-style screen, the censors graze on soft drinks and snacks while attendants circle the theater, refilling drinks and serving sandwiches.
It feels like a typical, lazy, weekday matinee — until Cyrus leaps into the arms of her co-star and leans in for a long and passionate kiss. Watching the screen, the censors drop their sandwiches and reach for the white buttons attached to their armrest, activating a bell and flashing light. The bell alerts John Prasard, working upstairs in the cinema’s projection room, to cut the scene. He stores the offending frames on a crowded cabinet shelf; stocked with illicit scenes, the cabinet is a trove of steamy embraces and blasphemous talk.
Good article about film censorship in Kuwait and what happens behind the scenes. [Article]
via Nibaq
Negative Effect whom I’ve posted about a number of times before has started a cool new interesting project called The Hot Foot. It’s a blog that reviews “anything driven by fuel” which basically means cars, motorbikes, boats and more that are all available here in Kuwait. He’s already got a few posts up my favorite being his latest one about SeaBob which is pictured above. SeaBob is a cool new marine vehicle that can fit in the trunk of my FJ but that will never happen since I can’t afford the KD4,000 price tag. Looks really cool though and from what I read a lot of fun. Anyway check out his website and if you have any feedback leave it below. [Link]
Yesterday a reader emailed me telling me that the Electrozan branch in Salmiya got shut down by the ministry. So I emailed my Electrozan contact to find out what happened and it turned out to be a license issue. Now the cool thing is that today they put up stickers on the door which you can see above.
The first message apologizes to the customers for being closed and explains why. The second message tells customers that if they take a picture of the door with the message on it and show it to any employee at another one of their branches they get a 5% discount.
I thought that was pretty cool since usually when shops get closed by the ministry no one knows why and rumors get spread. In this case they actually tell everyone why and offer a nice little discount in return.
OK be prepared for the best post yet on this blog…
I was talking to a friend of mine about Salmiya in the 80s and one thing led to another and I was telling him how strong a brand Tikka was back then. I was telling him about the “I like it spicy” guy (pictured above) and the Tikka commercials and how if you asked anyone who grew up in Kuwait back in the 80s they would remember the commercial and even sing you the jingle. It became a classic like the Pizza Italia and Hungry Bunny commercials.
Anyway I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be cool to find out who the “I like it spicy” guy was, what happened to him and how he looked like today? Well guess what… After a bit of research and digging around I found out who he was.
The actor who played the “I like it spicy” character was Galal Zaki. He wasn’t an actor, he worked in the ad agency that came up with the idea. Like Alfred Hitchcock, Galal liked to star in his own work and that’s how he ended up becoming the Tikka guy. the picture below is of Galal Zaki which I found on Google and is dated 2007. Although a lot older now you can still see some resemblance.
Today Galal Zaki is the CEO of Perception Communication in Egypt. He was also recently awarded the Rameh IAA Lifetime Achievement Award.
Update: Here is an old Tikka commercial. It’s not the famous one but its better than nothing…
[YouTube]
Update2: And here is the more popular one…
[YouTube]
