It’s the weekend and Muscat is engulfed in a dust storm and high winds. Fortunately living in a valley means our building is spared the stronger winds. Though it was remarkable that the pyrotechnic display for Lexus went ahead, I suspect the gas was turned down a bit for the flame throwing from the roof.

What has impacted more is the damage to a couple of internet cables off Alexandria in Egypt which carry the main traffic between Europe and Oman. The assumption being made is that a ship dragged its anchor over the cable and made the cut (in two cables) Remarkably the 3G network operated by Nawras though it was very slow yesterday has recovered and at least on a slow Friday seems to work reasonably well. By a stroke of fate a cable between Oman and the U.A.E. was also cut – again the blame is on a ships anchor, so I assume that inter country traffic is badly affected.

I enjoyed watching a spectacular opening ceremony to the new Lexus car showroom in Muscat. Though the pyrotechnics were dramatic it was the circus performers and video wall which grabbed my attention.The extraordinary windows which also function as a vast video wall cover much of the showrooms frontage.

The grandson of Toyotas founder (Lexus is a Toyota premium brand) Akio Toyoda attended as did His Highness Sayyid Haitham bin Tariq al Said .

http://blog.omanholiday.co.uk/blog/Photos/_archives/2008/2/1/3500171.html

The showroom forms part of the same complex as the Toyota showroom and as work is already being done to demolish the Kia showroom which will be replaced by a new section - I suspect that when finished it will be possibly the largest car showroom complex in the Middle east.