television weirdnesses

So here in the hotel we have at our fingertips an interesting assortment of English language tv channels. For instance, right now I'm watching the current episode of 'The Daily Show.' Love it. Similarly I have caught 'Good Morning America' live (airing at 2pm here) several times and consider it a mid-afternoon treat. Another channel I've found with fairly good programming is called Dubai One. At any given time you could catch an episode of 'Lost' or 'Grey's Anatomy,' among other shows. It's easy to forget you are watching a channel run by a Muslim country. I have been jolted back to reality several times, however, when there's a sudden interruption to announce that it's the evening prayer time in the U.A.E. (hint hint, get out your rugs, couch potatoes, and face East). Yesterday a brief message appeared on the screen to remind us that Ramadan is a time for quiet devotion to god and increased piety. I think I can do without the channel that pipes 'Dr Phil' into my home also acting as a moral compass. A similarly bizarre item is a cartoon that stars 4 middle-aged housewives and I think they might be superheroes; unfortunately the teaser for that one's in Arabic. Even though it's a cartoon, the wives, while not wearing burkhas, have these weird golden contraptions drawn over their noses and mouths. It's a little creepy, like 'Desperate Housewives' meets 'Halloween.'

The major entertainment channels here have also been showing lots of promos for the lineup of holiday programming that's on during Ramadan, traditionally a time when families stay home in the evening and eat together. A lot of the 'special' shows are variety acts that seem to hail from the 1970s and spotlight drag queens. The other main holy month tv delicacy appears to be soap operas involving camels and villagers with torches.

Just one more quirk for you: here they bleep the word 'ass' from being said (and I would be very curious to know how the subtitles bowdlerize the nightly episodes of 'Family Guy'), yet you can change the channel and see full frontal nudity posing or strutting the runway on the fashion channel!

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On a completely unrelated note, here in Egypt we went back an hour in time zones last week so folks could start their evening feast a bit earlier. It happens the day before Ramadan every year, apparently. The thing is, it's not widely publicized, none of the other Arab countries do it, and much of the world is unaware that we've already done our 'falling back.' Cairo time is still listed as two hours ahead of the UK on many web sites. Go fig.