Doha: the Kings, the Roundabout, the Lambs & the Chickens

By -
The King of Fashion was pretty central in Doha, about a hundred yards from Sofitel on the road towards the Royal Palace. It's not there any more of course, having been cleared to make way for Dohaland Phase One, the city centre reconstruction project. King of Shoes has gone as well. We do still have a King of Toys (such names!) in a part of Musheirib that has so far escaped demolition. This makeshift roundabout...
is right in front of where King of Fashion used to stand. It now marks the end of the road, except for Dohaland construction traffic. Everything beyond, excluding the Palace itself, has been flattened. It's hard to mourn the passing of the irremediable slum areas, but we have also lost a richness of small businesses from the city: hardware stores, haberdashers, tailors, juice stalls, barbers. The word community springs to mind. Still standing, but earmarked for demolition in Phase Two, is the locally named Chicken Street:
not named after this particular chicken, but the many thousands of its friends and relatives that have been sold live (or at least, neck drawn at point of sale) from the many chicken shops along the way. And before anyone says cruel, please note that these chickens are on wood shavings, with space to move, and have beaks and feathers, unlike many of their battery brothers. Of course, Chicken Street doesn't only sell chickens:
It's also the place for small local butchers. This is the immaculately clean Kashmiri Butchery where your meat is cut straight from the hung carcasses, in the traditional manner. When such places go, they never return and the city is the poorer for their disappearance.

Comments

  1. EyeOnDubai28 July 2010 at 12:42

    Sad indeed to see the passing of so much genuine skill and character, but time marches on relentless. Such sweet irony to mourn such change in a blog.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Para Glider28 July 2010 at 14:24

    Ah, but it's a quirky blog, so that's OK! It will be a shame if we end up having to rely on supermarkets for everything we eat. But having said that, Doha's supermarkets still haven't gone too far down the pre-packaged route, at least compared with UK.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Dangerous Species

By -
 Beware of the Financial Advisor. It hangs around in ex-pat haunts such as Doha's Champion's Bar, listens in to conversations for hints of affluence, and ingratiates itself with unsuspecting individuals who might be looking to invest some hard-earned money. It is likely to use a pseudonym, like Decent Bloke, Helpful Guy or John Hunt. But what it is really trying to do is scam you with some  dubious investment scheme   Having received its commission, it won't want to know you any more.
Read more

How to weigh a car using a tape measure and a tyre pressure gauge

By -
There are two pretty good ways to weigh a car: Drive it to the nearest public weighbridge and wait your turn. Look up the manual under General Specifications, ‘kerb weight’ But let's suppose the nearest public weighbridge is fifty miles away and you've lost the manual (and temporarily forgotten how to use public libraries and the Internet) and the burning urge to weigh your car just won't go away- what can you do about it? The good news is, you need hardly any equipment. All you need, for a reasonably accurate result is: a hand-held tyre pressure gauge which can be analogue or digital a retractable steel measuring tape a calculator, pencil and paper, or a good head for mental arithmetic The method Park the car on some clean, level concrete Observe that the car is held up by its four tyres (!) Measure the width of the tread of one tyre: e.g. 6 inches Measure the length of tread in contact with the ground: e.g. 7 inches Work out the area of tread touching the ground: e.g. 6 x...
Read more