2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003The Secret Garden on Al-Baghdad St. was in need of desperate TLC and a call of support was circulated by @MimiKuwait to galvanize the community to turn out for a day of service to prep and plant a community garden to serve as a positive community space in the area.
The community was back at work this past Saturday rebuilding The Secret Garden after being destroyed last week.
Surprisingly the answer is not food related. This map was on the front page of Reddit yesterday and although Kuwait is not on the map it is listed in the data. According to Information is Beautiful, Kuwait is good at tweeting with the most tweets per capita in the world.
Check out the full world map [Here]
I met Essa 10 years ago after posting about his small cookie business back then, Choowy Goowy. Ever since we’ve been really good friends and he’s always an interesting person to talk about food. A week ago he started uploading videos on YouTube with his opinion on various things related to the restaurant and food business in Kuwait, and I watched his latest one which I liked so I decided I’d share it on the blog.
The videos are in Arabic but what I found interesting in the one I’ve linked to is that he talks about targeting the right segment and basically explains why there is a lack of originality in the restaurant scene in Kuwait. His theory is that if you’re opening a restaurant and you decide you want to open something that doesn’t exist already in Kuwait, most likely the reason that something doesn’t exist already is because it doesn’t have a market for it to survive. So people who are opening restaurants look at the market to see what is doing well, what has a large customer base and open something to cater to that audience. Do you open a restaurant for the serious foodie who will drop by your restaurant once every now and then? Or, do you build a business around a customer who will come to your restaurant frequently? Based on the fact that Buffalo Shrimps has become a Kuwaiti staple, it’s pretty clear which direction restaurant owners are taking.
To check out his YouTube channel and subscribe to it, click [Here]
Richard’s Coffee new popup location officially opens today. Their new location is right next door to the new Elevation Burger branch on the Seef Strip and will be there for the next 90 days. Their opening hours is from 7AM to 9PM starting Tuesday, but 3PM to 9PM for today and tomorrow. Here is their location on [Google Maps]
A few hours ago Kuwait Airways launched a new identity that included a face lifted logo, updated crew uniforms, a brand new aircraft livery, updated website and new flight routes.
Kuwait Airways were at Boeing in Seattle to collect their first 777-300ER aircraft in which these changes are making their debut on. The event was broadcasted live on their twitter account and you could rewatch the event on Periscope by clicking [Here] The new plane is expected to have it’s first flight on November 7th, 2016.
I’m going to hold back my detailed opinion on the new identity until it is properly launched and I’ve seen all their material, but right now I’ll just say that the new identity feels dated already.
The weather is getting better so as expected a lot more events are going to start popping up. This weekend there is a ton of things to do, check out the full list below:
Thursday
Exhibition: Attraction
The IMPROVengers Comedy Night
Khaleejesque Music Nights
Movie & Dinner: Upstream Color
Friday
Tai Chi in the Park
Hatha Yoga with Rosie
Beyond Limits Energy Healing Workshop
Good Game: Magic – The Gathering
Kuwait Bibliophiles: Book Club Meeting
Salwa’ Walk and Socialize Meetup
Fit 4 Life Expo
Saturday
Al Khayamiya Exhibition at Sadu House
Fun Run
Yoga with the 3
Blend of Balance Gathering
Architectural Photowalk: Fahad Al-Salem St.
Hope on the Move
Fight Like A Girl… Round 2
Literary Nights: Fouz Al-Sabah
The 9th Korea-Arab Frienship Caravan
Cross Cultural Diwaniya: Censorship in the Age of Technology
Fit 4 Life Expo
Gardening at The Secret Garden
If you’d like to share an event on the blog [Email Me]
For a full list of upcoming events click [Here]
Sometimes events get canceled or have details changed so always double check with the organizers.
The movies below are now showing at Cinescape and Grand Cinemas:
New This Week:
Desierto (5.7)
Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (7.4) ★
Keeping Up with the Joneses (5.4)
Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life (5.8)
Precious Cargo (4.6)
Sacrifice (4.2)
The Duel (5.7)
The Mermaid Princess (N/A)
Other Movies Showing:
Deepwater Horizon (7.2)
Don’t Breathe (8.3) ♦
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (7.7) 4DX Release
Inferno (7.1) ♦
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (7.2)
Snowden (6.2) ♦
Sully (7.9)
USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage (5.1)
Numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at time of publishing.
★ is for movies I’m interested in. ♦ implies movie might contain censorship.
The guys from MyFatoorah got in touch with me back in August, they were interested in advertising on the blog and they also wanted me to try out their product so I could review it. Like I tell all my advertisers, I can’t promise you I’ll write about your product, but if I try it and like it then I probably will. After trying their service not only do I like it, but its now become one of the primary ways my clients are paying me. Just to be clear, this isn’t a sponsored post. Not that I need to explain myself but it’s one of the rare occasions I’m writing about a product which is currently being advertised on my blog with a banner, so I just need to point this out for transparency reasons.
MyFatoorah is an online payment solution and I’ve been using them to collect payments from my blog advertisers and from my clients whom I do freelance branding work for. Previously, the methods of payments I had available were bank transfer, cash or cheque but now I also offer knet or credit card payments because of MyFatoorah.
To begin using their service, the first thing I had to do was download the MyFatoorah app, sign up and add my bank information and that was it. No need to wait for approval, no need to send a copy of my civil id or anything of the sort, you can start invoicing people and collecting payments right away. Within the first 3 days I had invoiced and collected payments from 5 different people and the amounts got deposited straight into my bank account in less than 24 hours.
To invoice people its a fairly simple process, you open the app, click on “Quick Invoice” then you enter the name of the person you’re invoicing and the amount. You then click “Send Invoice” and you could either whatsapp or SMS the person the payment link. That’s it. All that person needs to do then is click the link you sent them and settle the invoice either by Knet or a credit card.
The service isn’t free, MyFatoorah make their money by charging a transaction fee. Their standard charges are 2% for Knet payments and 3.5% for credit cards, this means if you bill a client KD100, MyFatoorah will take KD2 if the client pays using Knet. The charges are negotiable though, for example I’m getting a ridiculously good rate cuz wasta, but depending on how much business you’re expecting to perform, you could contact them and try to work out a better rate. The way I also have it set up is, if a client pays me with Knet, I accept the charges, but if the client wants to pay using a credit card, they’ll have to pay the 2.5% charge. I like being able to decide that from within the app.
Now another surprising way I’ve started using MyFatoorah is collecting money from friends or family. So for example I bought some event tickets a few weeks back and sent out knet links to my friends to pay me for their tickets. My brother needed to transfer me some money and instead of setting me up as a new beneficiary on his online banking account, I just sent him an invoice for the amount and I got the money that way. It kind of reminded me of the app Venmo. When I was in the States last summer, everyone was using Venmo to pay each other. If a person bought movie tickets for everyone, then the group would pay that person via Venmo and I’ve been using MyFatoorah like that as well.
One final way I’m going to start using MyFatoorah is with a donate button on the blog. I’ve always kinda wanted to do that ever since I started blogging since it was a fairly common thing in the early days of blogging. But since I lived in Kuwait, there wasn’t a way to do that previously. Now I finally can although I’m like a decade late. Basically MyFatoorah allows me to setup a generic payment link which anybody can click on and pay me whatever amount they’d like. So if you want to donate money for my lattes for life fund, here is the [Link]
There are a couple of features I’d like to see in MyFatoorah that are currently missing. One feature is the ability to copy paste the payment link from within the app to an email. Right now the only two options I have to send an invoice is SMS or Whatsapp. To send a link to a client by email, I need to choose Whatsapp as an option, then when the link opens up in Whatsapp, I copy paste it back into an email. There will supposedly be an option to copy paste the link in the next app update, but as of now this is what I am doing. Another feature I’d like to see is the ability to setup an automated reminder email or message. Right now if someone doesn’t pay me, I need to awkwardly message them and be like “hey, how are you? Hope everything is well. I just wanted to remind you regarding the pending payment…”. I hate doing that so I’d like the app to send an automated reminder on my behalf say once every week to remind the person they have a pending payment. Like an annoying accountant.
So yeah I like the app as you can see. It’s great for freelancers and small businesses like me. The software has other features like the ability to integrate into your ecommerce store like Shopify or Magento, but I’ve personally been using it just to collect money from people. So if you’re interested in signing up, you can do so from their website or just download the app on your iPhone or Android device.
Let’s talk money. Well, that got awkward quick. But, in all honesty, while we’ve spent the last few weeks focusing on how we can support not only our favorite local musicians, but the Kuwait music scene at large, to help build it and be part of its growth, the one thing we have yet to touch on is how musicians in Kuwait make their money.
So, let’s jump right into it. There are a few ways musicians can make money; merchandise sales, album sales, and finally, royalties. That brings us to Radio. Royalties work like this; whenever a song is played on the radio, or used in a commercial, a percentage is paid out to the artist every single time it’s played. The more the song is played, the more the artist gets paid. There are many top grossing musicians out there, living quite comfortably on just royalties as their music gets played over and over again on different radio shows. But, it’s a little different when we’re talking about the Middle East, and of course, Kuwait. This will help explain why you oftentimes get “This video is not available in your region” on YouTube, or why we don’t get Spotify or Pandora. The reason is quite simple, there are no Collecting Agencies for music in the Middle East. Collecting Agencies quantify how much a song is being played and calculate the total payout to the artist based on the royalty percentage. Take a moment. Let that sink in. So, let’s say an artist makes a song, and that song becomes a hit, and gets played on all kinds of radio stations all over the Middle East, they don’t get paid for it. Not once.
So, how do we listen to all this music on the radio right now? This is how. Radio stations, like 99.7rkfm, through a special license, have access to a “preapproved” music library from which they can select music to be played for a fixed subscription-type fee. But, here comes the interesting part (I use the term “interesting” loosely here); local musicians like Fabrice, Omar Afuni, Coco or anybody else doing the ‘Pop’ music thing on 99.7rkfm does not get paid. No matter how many times their music is played, no matter how many requests are made by you, our fans. This begs the question; well, why aren’t local musicians on these music libraries? Because, in order for that to happen, they would have to Copyright their work in whatever country/region those music libraries originate, for example the U.S. or Europe, and register themselves as a U.S. or European entity, with a U.S. or European bank account where payment would be made, and then finally transferred to Kuwait. In essence, they would no longer be considered Kuwait musicians, which somewhat defies the whole purpose. So, we’re back where we started.
Well, then how do musicians in Kuwait survive? They survive through funding. Musicians are like service traders; the service they provide is the “experience”. That experience is what they sell. That experience is what is exchangeable for money. You might be asking, why do find ourselves in this predicament, Amin? According to some online sources, it’s because we don’t have advanced intellectual property rights in the region. And all you have to do is take a drive down one of Kuwait’s commercial streets to see the effects of that at play. One of Kuwait’s staple toy store, with branches all over the country is a blatant rip off of Disney intellectual property; 101 Dalmatians. You’ll find the same with restaurants, companies, products – ripping off logos, chopping them up, tweaking the font a little, adding a letter here, removing a letter there, and there you have it, their very own “brand new”, “totally authentic” business.
But, music existed in Kuwait before we came along. What happened with Arabic musicians back in the day? How did they make their money? Back then, they put their music out there for free, hoping that with enough air time, it would translate into sales. So they were really banking on listeners enjoying their music enough to eventually make their way to AlNazaer or Cleopatra Record Shop and buy their album. With issues of piracy on the rise, however, even that has become an obstacle, because more likely than not, when you go out to buy those albums, you’re buying pirated CD’s. Are you starting to see the picture? Artists are cornered. Not being able to collect money off of royalties, nor legitimate album sales at record shops, the only option they’re left with is; getting famous. The strategy then becomes; make your music heard everywhere, for free, so much so that you become famous, and then leverage that fame to charge a lot to play at events. Instead of Collecting Agencies they rely on YouTube views to quantify how many times their songs are being played, and use that information when negotiating with Event Organizers or Producers, basically telling them; “my music got this many views on YouTube, which translates into this many people attending your event, and therefore I will charge this much.”
In reality, though, we live in a society that doesn’t exactly promote many events or festivals, or provide very many opportunities for musicians to perform. Bottom line; the odds are stacked against us – No royalties, no authentic album sales, and no real events or festivals in which we can showcase our work – and it makes it very difficult for us to succeed. Until a change is made in one, or all of those three major aspects, this is our reality, and we need to find a way to work with it.
I know this has been pretty grim so far, and I wish I could tell you it gets better, and maybe one day it will, but it hasn’t just yet. What I’m trying to get you to understand here is this, when you (‘you’ being event organizers or producers) come up to a musician and ask him/her to do a free show, an unpaid show, what you’re really saying is that you don’t believe in their work. Because by not paying them, you’re not really helping them. So, when you’re presented with an opportunity to pay a musician, and pay them well, I ask that you take a second to think about it differently. Instead of trying to cut your costs, and negotiating to get more for less, think of it as trying to save an endangered bird species, (I just can’t seem to get away from this metaphor). With so much already stacked against us, it is you who has the means to incentivize us to keep going, it is also you who has the opportunity to support and be part of the writing of Kuwait’s music culture. Just think about it, and the next time you try to convince a musician that ‘exposure’ is your preferred currency, remember that in essence what you’re saying is; we don’t believe in music, we’re just trying to exploit music.
Peace, Love and Music
Post by Amin FARI
Are you a musician looking to perform? On the flipside, are you a host looking for musicians to book? Or maybe you’ve just got an awesome idea you’d like to share? Get in touch [email protected] / Instagram: @xxmrfarixx
Nuqat is one of the largest creative conference events in the MENA region and registration is now open for their seventh annual conference titled “The Seventh Sense”. The week long program will take place at the Amricani Cultural Centre from the 10th to the 17th of November and include interactive talks, discussion panels, roundtable sessions, workshops, cultural tours, galleries, live performances and more.
All lectures and discussion panels are free to attend but you still need to register for a ticket [Here] or using the Nuqat app.
The workshops on the other hand aren’t free (Except the kids ones). Below is a list of all the workshops that will be taking place:
Designing and Producing Arabic fonts using Glyph app ($365)
Wall Tagging: Wajh Al Hurouf: Face of Calligraphy ($265)
Creative Pivoting: Your Business From New Perspectives ($365)
Food in Motion Videography ($365)
The Daily Future: Improve Everyday Objects or Problems Using Technology ($365)
Boosting Your Employability in the Creative Industry ($165)
Sadu Inspired Product Design ($280)
Creative Leadership Group A: Shifting Perspectives for Societal Impact ($220)
Creative Leadership Group B: Shifting Perspectives for Societal Impact ($220)
Kids Workshop: Gardening Activity (Free)
Kids Workshop: Center of the Arts Painting (Free)
Kids Reading Corner by My Book My Friend (Free)
Kids Workshop: That Al Salasil Arts & Crafts (Free)
Kids Workshop: Engineering For Kids (Free)
If you’re interested to find out more about a specific workshop or want to register for one then click [Here]
I’ve been meaning to give this 3D printer away every since I published the review back in July but because I had it boxed up and packed away, I completely forgot about it until now. The printer was provided to me by Clarotek for review purposes and is currently priced at KD169. I’ll be providing 6 filament rolls of various colors including blue, white, red and orange with the printer. If you’re tech savvy and think you would make good use of this printer, then participate in this draw for a chance to win it. All you need to do is leave a comment below mentioning what you could use this printer for.
I will stop accepting entries in the comments section by tomorrow morning at 9AM and then randomly choose one winner and notify them via email. Good luck!
Rules: Only one entry per person and please make sure you use a working email since the winner will be contacted by email. If winner doesn’t respond, another winner will be randomly chosen.
Update: At 9:02AM I closed the post for comments and using random.org I chose the winner which is comment #219 by Fahad.
The urban community garden know as The Secret Garden was completely destroyed a few days ago (before picture above, after pictures below). I heard about the news yesterday and was pretty upset by it. The Secret Garden was a perfect example of how an abandoned unknown park could be turned into something so beautiful with the help of a dedicated and passionate community. During the cooler months of the year people were encouraged to come by the Secret Garden every Saturday to either plant, paint, build or just socialize. Lots of parents brought their children who planted seeds and then watched them grow over the winter months. Every now and then you also had the Saturday brunches which brought even more people to the garden. It was such a great project and I was really looking forward to it again this year, but now I am not sure if it will be ready for this season.
You’re probably thinking the garden was vandalized by a bunch of hooligans which is what I had thought at first, but thats not that case. According to Mimi the mastermind behind the Secret Garden project, the garden was destroyed by the Public Authority for Agriculture Affairs & Fish Resources (PAAFR). They’re the same organization who a few years ago were laying out poison all over the parks and free trade zone to poison stray dogs (while at the same time accidentally poisoning peoples pets).
PAAFR reasoning behind the destruction was that the garden was dirty. Even though the Secret Garden wasn’t being used because it was the summer and there are municipality workers that are meant to clean the garden (the Secret Garden community clean the garden themselves during the cooler months), PAAFR decided it would be better to destroy the garden then try and reason with the community. The result? A catastrophic mess leaving the garden in shambles and disarray. They even had the garbage bins Secret Garden had placed removed and now the garden doesn’t even have trash bins for people to put their trash in. PAAFR also destroyed all the planting stations and just left them lying in the park with nails dangerously sticking out.
The Secret Garden community have been back at the park the past few days cleaning up the mess so they can start rebuilding the garden. I hope they’ll get it done in time for this winter season because it was one of the few activities I always looked forward to. If you want to stay posted on the progress then I would recommend you follow @mimikuwait
As most of you know by now, my obsession du jour is currently coffee, specifically lattes. I just started having them for the first time around 2 months back and I’ve been hooked ever since. Like everything I obsess over, I start really getting into, reading as much as I can and watching endless hours of videos until I know the subject inside out, and thats what I have been doing with coffee machines. Arabica had already passed me a small coffee machine to play around with, the Delonghi Magnifica S but I quickly grew out of it and wanted more. So I started doing a lot of research and had finally decided on the Breville Dual Boiler unit with the Smart Grinder Pro. Just to clear something up quickly, Breville is called Sage in the UK so the machine is listed on Amazon UK as the Sage Dual Boiler not Breville.
The reason I decided on the Breville Dual Boiler is because it would allow me to pull my espresso shot while at the same time I can steam the milk. That option was important for me since it would save me a lot of time and was a closer experience to the professional coffee machines. You would think pulling shots and steaming at the same time would be a common feature with these machines but they actually aren’t except in the higher end models. Coffee and steam both require different temperatures, so with single boiler units, you either pull your espresso shot first, then wait for the boiler to heat up to a higher temp so you can steam your milk or the other way around, you steam your milk and then wait for the water to cool down before pulling your espresso shot. With dual boiler units, one boiler is set at the correct temp for coffee, the other for steam and you can perform both tasks at the same time.
After finally deciding on my machine, I placed the order on Amazon UK and then posted the article on the blog on how you could order expensive appliances from Amazon UK and end up paying less than the listed UK price and get it shipped to your doorstep here in Kuwait. That night, like every night for the past few weeks I was watching random videos on youtube on coffee machines and I came across a video review of the Breville Oracle. I was a bit surprised because I thought the unit I was getting was there top of the line model but the Oracle was even a step above mine. The Dual Boiler didn’t have a built in coffee grinder so I was ordering the Smart Grinder Pro along with the unit but the Oracle had one built in. There was another Breville model that had a built in grinder called the Breville Express, but that unit had a single boiler and I didn’t know there was a dual boiler also with a built in grinder.
But the Oracle not only had a grinder and a dual boiler, but it also had a feature I hadn’t seen on any other machine during my research, it not only ground the beans, but it also filled up the portafilter with the correct amount of coffee and then tamped it (check the video I shot above). But that wasn’t the only trick up its sleeve, the Oracle also automatically steamed the milk for you but unlike most automatic steamers, the Oracle allowed you to set the temperature of the milk and generated micro-foams so you could create latte art. So I quickly headed to Amazon to check the price and it was around KD500 shipped to Kuwait, around KD100 more than the cost of the Dual Boiler and Smart Grinder Pro units I had ordered. The KD400 I was paying for my items was already more than I wanted to spend on an obsession I’ll probably be bored of in a months time, so I wasn’t going to pay even more for the Oracle.
Randomly, the next day, I get an email from my classified section. Every time someone posts an item for sale, I get an email informing me what the item is so I can make sure people aren’t selling anything inappropriate. The email I got that afternoon was informing me that someone was selling the Oracle in my classified section, it was in like new condition and he was asking KD250 for it. Right away I got in touch with the guy and asked him if he’d let it go for KD200, he agreed and I headed over 30 minutes later and picked up the machine. The guy turned out to be a reader of my blog and after reading about how you could order appliances from Amazon UK, had ordered his 6th coffee machine. Since he wasn’t using the Oracle, he decided to sell it which is how I ended up with the unit. Such a strange coincidence.
I’ve now had the Oracle for close to a week and I’m just so in love with it. Setting up the machine was fairly easy to do, the most important aspect you need to get right is dialing in how fine you want your beans to be ground. There are 65 levels to choose from but selecting the correct level is fairly easy with a bit of trial and error. With every espresso pull you should get around 20-25ml of espresso, if you get more than that you need to grind your beans finer, if you get less than that you need to grind your beans coarser. Once you set that the first time, as long as you continue to use the same beans you’ll get a consistent espresso pull every single time. I’m using the Arabica Blend of beans from Arabica and the coffee I’ve been producing is as good as the coffee I would get at their shop. I even stole a few empty cups from them so I could compare the volume I was making to theirs and I’ve basically nailed it now. I also experimented with 6 different kinds of milk before settling on the full fat Lactofree milk from Almarai. The steamer in the Oracle is so ridiculously good, I have the temperature set at 60 degrees which is when the milk is at its sweetest point and combined with the Lactofree milk I end up with such a deliciously sweet tasting milk. I’ve even been steaming milk for my hot chocolate and god damn the hot chocolates I am making are coming out so good.
Over the past week I’ve made a whole variety of coffees for friends from Americanos, Cappucinos, Lattes to straight up espresso shots, and everyone just thought it was the best shit ever. And it’s all because of the machine and the beans. Although I am physically at the machine making the coffee, I’m really not doing much, it’s the machine that is really doing all the work for me while making it look like I’m the amazing barista. I also don’t really have anything negative thing to say about the machine. I kinda wish I had more space on top of the machine for all my cups but thats a minor quibble. The machine also does go through a lot of coffee beans. 500 grams of beans make around 22 cups of coffee give or take. The Arabica Blend of beans I get is KD10 for 500 grams which means every espresso pull costs me around 450 fils. A liter of milk is 450 fils so add around 150 fils and each latte I make costs me roughly 600 fils. At Arabica it costs KD1.850 for a similar sized latte so I’m saving KD1.250 per cup when I make it at home. Since I paid only KD200 for my machine and I have 3 lattes a day, that means I’ll recoup the cost of the machine in less than 2 months time. Not a bad deal at all. Cleaning the machine is fairly easy, I’ve developed a routine I perform at the end of the night and it just takes around 5 minutes which is a small price to pay for great consistent coffee.
As you can tell from this post I love this machine and I can’t recommend it enough. I really wanted to dig into even more details about what makes this machine special but it would be too long of a post and I’d bore 90% of you talking about little things nobody really cares about. Instead if you want to find out even more about the machine then I’d recommend you watch [This Video] on Youtube, they give a great rundown of the machines features. I then suggest you head to Amazon UK and order one since this really is the only coffee machine you ever need [Link]
Brought to you by ismajlisdissolved.com
Cereal Killer Cafe is a British franchise that serves over a 100 different kinds of cereals. It’s one of those places people tell you to visit after posting a picture on instagram showing that you’re in London and now they’re opening up in Kuwait. The cafe is going to be located in the same building as Arabica coffee in Kuwait City, just at the other end of the building. According to their instagram account @cerealkillercafekw, they will be opening before the end of this year so pretty soon.
