I’m about to blow my own trumpet here, so if you’re averse to brazen boasting I suggest you click off now.
You see I’d like to think that I’ve made something of a substantial contribution to automotive media and car culture in Dubai and the UAE over the last decade.
From 2006-2011 I ran ‘CAR Middle East’ magazine (the local edition of CAR UK), which I believe to have been the best print motoring publication ever seen here up to that point. We raised the bar when it came to car journalism, we pushed car photography to standards previously not even thought possible here, and we created unique story-telling concepts.
Outside of the magazine we essentially established the Car Meet culture here culminating in unprecedented numbers attending our events in Festival City.
And now at Motoring Middle East, we continue to push forward with new concepts in automotive media across multiple platforms, and explore every and all opportunities to create exciting, innovative and engaging content.
Of course in the meantime others have followed our lead and replicated our concepts and efforts; in many cases improved and developed things further.
And I’m fine with that. Proud even. My philosophy has always been ‘create, innovate, evolve; and repeat’.
What does make me sad is that because of the transient and young nature of society here, everyone easily forgets what has gone before. If I was to get run over by a bus tomorrow, there would be no recognition, acknowledgement or even any semblance of a credible record of my contribution and achievements here. I imagine a number of long-standing figures in the car community here must feel similarly.
This all became painfully apparent recently as comments on my Facebook posts on my own page and Motoring Middle East, went along the lines of attempting to advise me on how to do MY job, and even making suggestions as to what I should be doing.
Hey, I’m always open to ideas and learning new stuff. But what was being proffered, with a tone at best sarcastic at its worst accusatory, was essentially what for me could all fall under the category of: ‘been there, done that, long ago got rid of the T-Shirt’.
Perhaps if my own memory lasts intact, and I can continue to dodge that bus, I will one day document and write some sort of biographical account – but on the other hand why would anyone care to read that?
Sigh, never mind.
Instead here are the first few lines of a Byron poem that seems particularly apt:
Thou art not false, but thou art fickle,
To those thyself so fondly sought;
The tears that thou hast forced to trickle
Are doubly bitter from that thought
