2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

When I picked up the B&O Beolit 12 last month I also ended up picking up the Bang & Olufsen A9. I wasn’t planning to originally but it was so hard to resist. I first spotted the A9 when I was at the B&O store in Prague and it was love at first sight. It’s an AirPlay compatible speaker that will allow you to stream music onto it wirelessly and in case you don’t have Wifi you can connect your iPhone/iPod using a USB cable. The speaker has a very minimal design being just a circle with no buttons on the front and even in the back other than the power button there isn’t anything else. To increase and decrease the volume you just caress the speaker on the top from the left to right, to decrease the volume you swipe your hand right to left and to mute it you just hold the speaker on the top. The touch controls are very practical to use.

Sound wise the speaker is pretty loud and bassy for it’s size. That’s what actually sold me since I was not expecting the sound to be that big. I mostly listen to indie and electronic music on it and so far there isn’t anything really that it had difficultly playing. If we go back to the looks I should mention the speaker can be customized when it comes to colors. The front fabric cover by default comes in white but you can purchase different colors as well to match your environment like black, red, green etc.. Same with the wooden legs, you can get them in 3 different colors. In case you want to mount the speaker on the wall you can do that too.

Setting up the device was as easy as setting up the Beolit 12 and I didn’t have any trouble although a lot of people do get stuck and frustrated but that’s because they don’t follow instructions. I actually love the iPhone App since it allows me to control the settings on both my B&O devices with great ease.

My only gripe about the A9 and one many of you will remark on is the price, it’s KD890 (including the legs). At that price point it’s pretty much competing with full fledged sound systems that would deliver a lot more bang for the buck. But obviously none would look as good as the A9 or come in as simple a setup. The only other speaker system that I imagine could compete with the A9 is the Parrot Design Zikmu by Philippe Starck. But that isn’t affordable either costing around KD600 and the A9 is nearly 5 times more powerful (100w vs 480w RMS). It’s a luxury product that’s for sure but that’s the case with everything B&O produce. I love it and don’t regret getting it.

[YouTube]

Earlier in the week a group of volunteers got together and cleaned up the walkway between Kaifan Park and Ishbilyah School. They painted the walls on both sides since they were covered in graffiti as well as picked up whatever trash they could.

You can view the video on top of the process or check out more photos at @kaifanme

It’s been a while since my last post and since then I’ve gotten a lot of questions and rent was one of the most popular topics. That’s why I decided to put together a small FAQ on rent which you can take a look at below.

(All questions were answered according to rent law 35 for year 1978)

I have been living in my apartment for 3 years; can my landlord increase my rent?

No your landlord cannot increase rent. A landlord can only increase rent in the following situations:
1) If the tenant agrees to the proposed increase
2) Its been 5 years and the contract has ended (rule is once every 5 years)
3) The rent is 50% less than the market price

My landlord says he wants to increase the rent because he wants to do maintenance work? Does he have the right to do that?

No since the landlord is responsible for any maintenance and not the tenants.

I have a rental contract for 1 year but I’ve been living in the apartment for 18 months and the contract was never renewed. Now the landlord wants to kick me out. I know I have overstayed but do I have to leave immediately?

No in this situation he cannot kick you out but he can inform you to leave while giving you a grace period.
By law, if your rent contract ends and you continue living there then it renews by default for the same time of rent pay. Huh? What? Lawyers and there confusing terms… Simply put, if you pay rent on a monthly basis (which is how the majority of people pay rent in Kuwait) then your contract will renew automatically for a month at a time. If you paid rent every three months, then it will renew for 3 months, if you paid rent every 6 months your rent will renew every 6 months and so on.

What is the grace period?

Grace periods are only for when contracts renew by default (as explained above) and they depend on how often you pay your rent.

When can you really get kicked out? (with no grace period)

Reasons a landlord can kick you out are (for residencies and not commercial contracts)
1) If tenant hasn’t paid rent
2) If the tenant rents out the residency to a third person without permission
3) If the residence is being used for illegal activities
4) If the building is no longer structurally safe
5) If the landlord wants to rebuild the building or reconstruct it. There are a lot of variables for this one which I won’t get into.

My American friends can rent an apartment without a marriage certificate but I can’t seem to do the same? Do different citizens get treated differently in Kuwait by law?

Nationalities are not mentioned in the law so the law doesn’t talk about one nationality being treated differently than another (unless its Kuwaiti but that’s not in the rent laws), and therefore it is very disappointing to see that this kind of discrimination is being implemented in Kuwait.

Marriage certificates are also not mentioned in the law and my guess and only guess is that they ask for marriage certificates because unmarried couples might possibly engage in illegal sexual activities. The law restricts apartments from being used for illegal activities and sexual activity between two unmarried couples is considered illegal by law.

Post by Fajer Ahmed – Legal Counsel
Have a Kuwait law related question? Email me at [email protected]

The legal opinions expressed in this post are those of the author Fajer. Opinions expressed by Mark or any other writer on mark248am1.wpenginepowered.com are those of the individual’s and in no way reflect Fajer’s opinion.

I’m not a fan of Dubai but it’s really getting difficult not to appreciate what they’re doing there. This weekend I ended up going to the Jumeirah public beach and was left extremely impressed. The beach was huge, super clean and the water was crystal clear. There were a ton of sailboats, kite surfers and everyone was just minding their own business. I loved it.

Just to balance things out with yesterdays post, here is a cat being cute hiding in the fridge at a local Coop. [YouTube]

via Frankom

The long term parking at the airport is so small that on weekends it’s usually closed with a sign saying that it’s full and you’re basically forced to park in the short term parking and pay an exuberant price or park outside the cargo terminal for free but have to take the long walk back to the airport. Since I’ve been traveling a lot I kinda developed a routine which was working pretty well for me until this past weekend.

What I do now is get to the airport early like I usually do but I park in the short term parking. I then checkin to my flight and once I get the boarding pass I get back to my car and just park it outside the long term parking entrance and I sit and wait for someone to leave so that security will let me in. Usually it takes 15 to 30 minutes and it’s became a routine that works for me.

So this past Thursday, 30 minutes had passed and no one had left but since I had already checked in and still had around an hour for boarding I was doing ok. Then a car pulled up behind me and a Kuwaiti guy got out and came up to my window. I rolled it down and told him parking was full and I was waiting. The guy then goes to the security office and a few minutes later comes back with a Kuwaiti security guy who comes up to me and is like I am going to let the guy in because he wants to try his luck and look for a spot. I told the security guy I had been waiting here for 30 minutes now why can’t I go in to “try my luck”? Then the Kuwaiti guy came and told me to move my car so he could go in. I was like no, I was here first and I have been here for 30 minutes and I am not moving. The security told the guy in Arabic that I was a westerner and you know how stubborn they can be. The Kuwaiti guy kept trying to get me to move and telling the security he had his whole family in the car and his flight would be taking off soon etc.. etc..

Finally around 10 minutes later a passenger comes into the long term parking and was leaving. I tell the security guard I should be let in first to park and then you can let the other guy go in and try his luck. Of course he didn’t listen and let both of us in. I ended up driving the wrong way to get to the parking spot first to park.

So much drama just for parking. We definitely need more long term parking spots. My temporary fix would be to combine both the short and long term parking spots into one and then develop a pricing plan that would work for both. Until then it’s going to be like this every weekend.

There’s an idiot in Kuwait filming himself shooting and killing cats with his pellet gun and he then uploads the videos onto YouTube. Pretty messed up shit. [Link]

Thanks Patrick

Early in the month I was sent to Basel World, the largest watch expo in the world by Trafalgar so that I could cover the event for my blog. I was there for 3 days and I think by the last day I had managed to check out the whole expo since it was just so ridiculously huge. I managed to get access to a few brands I wanted to see except for two which were Rolex and Breitling. Rolex had the new anniversary edition Daytona I wanted to check out while Breitling had the new Emergency. If you don’t have access to a brand you basically only get to check out their displays outside their booth. With access you get taken inside the booth where you get to see the watches in person. Below are my favorite watches from the expo.

Last weekend I went to Milan and stayed at a trendy little hotel called Nu. It was actually my second choice since I had originally set my eyes on Hotel Straf, but Nu Hotel ended up coming in at half the price which made it the obvious choice.

The hotel is not located in the city center and is not walking distance to Duomo which is actually a good thing. Duomo is in the city center where all the cathedrals, department stores, franchises, luxury brands and ALL the tourist are. Many people actually want to be in Duomo which is fine by me but I would rather shop and stay in places with more locals than tourists. The hotel is located 5 minutes away from the Metro anyway which means a ride to any part of Milan will mostly take just under 20 minutes.

My room was pretty spacious for European standards but what probably helped the room look even more spacious was the super large window that occupied most of one wall. It brought in a lot of soft natural light into the room even on an overcast day. The room had all the regular amenities like free interent, mini bar, a safe and breakfast in bed should you choose. The customer service was fantastic, I was having minor issues with my AC since in typical person from Kuwait style I wanted it on all the time and at the coldest possible temperature and they were extremely helpful with sorting that issue out for me.

There wasn’t much going on around the hotel other than a happening bar across the street. Other than that everything on the street was usually closed by nightfall. If I ever go back to Milan I wouldn’t hesitate staying at Nu Hotel. Here is the link to their [Website]

The post below was written by a friend of mine, a Kuwaiti doctor currently living and working/training in Montreal.

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Recently, posts on twitter and many blogs including this one have featured a text message appearing on peoples phones as a random statement that Mental health facilities are available in Kuwait (pictured above). I’m sure that the idea was a good one, unfortunately there was no information on how to get in contact with people who can help (no email, website or hotline to call).

Like many of you I met these efforts made by the ministry with heckling and criticism. In my eyes this was an imported idea that we just couldn’t get right. Granted, it’s not a major disaster but still it’s just one more thing to complain about (the national sport) and it’s not like people here in Montreal don’t have problems with their hospitals. On the contrary, if you read the papers you’d see that some of these places are nearing bankruptcy, and others are being sold off all together with staged layoffs commencing soon.

People complain in Montreal too, they complain a lot, the difference is that despite all the problems and near disasters they face here, there’s always progress being made.

We can now boast that at the Montreal General Hospital (a level 1 trauma centre) we go from the trauma bay to a whole body CT scan and to the ICU or the operating room in less than 30 minutes. You might assume that this is as a results of care considerate government planning. It isn’t, the Montreal General Hospital relies on non government foundations to provide donations on a regular basis to fund research and buy equipment that the government can’t afford. These include MRI machines, CT scanners and surgical equipment that has made the place a true monument to trauma and emergency surgery.

They don’t just wait for people to donate, they set up funds and activities to provide long term assured income annually. This year their campaign included a “dancing with the docs” event where you could sponsor doctors in a dance off and an annual raffle.

Another hospital has come up with similar events such as annual tennis tournaments and fashion and style events as well as an annual gala that honours their doctors as well as many many others (about three per season). They also have franchises open within the hospital which are obligated to donate annually (the frozen yogurt place beats anything I can find at a hospital cafeteria).

That hospital has become the first robotic cancer surgery (surgical oncology) center in the province and one of the most active in Canada. Some of it is because of the money they donate and make for the hospital but a lot of it is because we can rely on these fantastic volunteers to help moving patients, inspect rooms to make sure they’re clean and take care of elderly patients who can’t take care of them selves.

These foundations are practically built on volunteers led by the CEO of the hospital (every hospital has a CEO to handle the business side of things over here). Some of them provide administrative work, others organize activities and others actually involve themselves with patient care activities such as feeding, pet and animal therapy and patient transport as well as acting as translators throughout the hospital I don’t think these hospitals would be the centres of excellence in their fields if it wasn’t for these community led initiatives.

The generic response would be مالت علينا these people are organized and efficient and our guys can’t even run a small emergency room but the fact of the matter is that progress in hospitals in Montreal isn’t just reliant on doctors, nurses or administrators alone, it comes from the community we service.

Think of how much you and I can do to help our hospitals, maybe we can educate diabetics, help inspect rooms or just set up donation pools and funds to build initiatives and not just giant buildings or buy equipment with no further planning involved.

Trying to do this in Kuwait will take an effort on both parts, hospitals have to be willing to accept donations, volunteers and also train them while on the other hand people have to be committed to making their hospital the best they can. Success in this field is never due to one individual and I’m probably as guilty as you are for neglecting my local hospital when it is clearly in need.

Post written by Saud, a Kuwaiti doctor living and working/training in Montreal. Twitter: @saudnz

A friend spotted the Fisker Karma hybrid electric vehicle in Kuwait. Not sure why anyone would want one here since gas is so cheap but my guess is it’s because it would be a very unique car to have in Kuwait.

There was one being sold on Q8showroom for around KD43,000 but not sure if its the same one.

Back in 2011 I posted about how a team of students from Kuwait came second place in the GCC Microsoft Imagine Cup. The idea that got them there was the creation of an App that would use crowd sourcing to inform the authorities of various problems around Kuwait. Using your phone you could snap a picture of overflowing garbage, large pot holes, accidents etc.. and then send the photos to the proper authorities with a GeoTag of the location.

Fast forward a couple of years and the Riyadh municipality just launched an iPhone App that does all of that. The screenshots above are in Arabic but the App also has English. Another example of a great local idea that gets implemented by another GCC country. [Link]

via @ahmed

I think the rain actually adds realism to the old market.

via @mweeeen

After being in operation for around a decade now, Q8books, the small used bookstore in Kuwait City is sadly closing down. They started with just 50 books but now have over 10,000. They’ll be closing by the end of June so if you’ve never been to the store before or you’re interested in getting some used books at bargain prices then you should pass by before it’s too late.

The store is located on the mezzanine floor of the shopping center behind Johnny Rockets Salhiya. For store opening hours and to check out their collection of books you can visit their website www.q8books.com

BBC have an article on how the lack of sleep affects children’s performance at school and they also included the chart above which shows Kuwait in 4th place when it comes to sleep deprivation for children aged 9-10. The blame is mostly on kids being on mobile phones and computers in bedrooms late at night. I can’t really relate since when I was in school we didn’t have smartphones. But, I can imagine if I did have one I’d probably be up late as well browsing the internet from under the sheets. Not sure though why Kuwait is that high on the list, I’m sure this must be the same with kids all over the world. [Link]

Thanks BuYousef and Matt