December 18th - for the last 4 years Qatar has celebrated its national day. Apparently, it has a recorded history of civilisation dating back to the 6th century BC, although suprisingly there is very little to show for it as they were largely a beduoin people. They are certainly proud of their little corner of rubble. This year with the recent celebrations of the 2022 World Cup win they are especially pleased. There are flags - everywhere, some covering entire buildings. Qatari men love their cars and it must be cool here to have images of the Emir and the Emir apparent on their cars and painted or stuck flags covering their entire cars. Quite an effort and expense for one day. And a little strange for us where in Australia we debate every year whether people should be displaying flags at all and they have even been banned from some community events. As Melbourne's Age journalist recently described much of Qatar is "featureless, gradient-less, people-less, civilisation-less....There are no rivers, wetlands, ravines or gorges, mountains, wadis or oases and little beyond its cities and settlements that isn't the colour of rock. Doha's cityscape of residential high-rises will often have their windows cleaned twice a day: once in the morning for the morning sandstorm and again in the afternoon for the afternoon sandstorm." Strangely, noone here seems to mind.
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