Product Description

Transported by his employer to work in the Middle East, Peter Wood became enmeshed in the bizarre and hilarious lifestyle of the desert state of Qatar. In this book he reveals how the most mundane operations of daily life can prove bafflingly complex as he describes the driving test that involves reversing round an obstacle course for 30 minutes, the elaborate weather forecasts in a country where the weather is the same for 364 days a year, and the country's first takeaway pizza restaurant, which is impossible to locate.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #187038 in Books
• Published on: 1994-09-29
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

Customer Reviews

Having a bad day? A chapter of this will make you laugh.
This was one of the funniest books I have read. Peter Wood writes with just the right measure of humour and wit while portraying a sensitive view of life as a Brit in Qatar. The reader is lead through the his experience of work secondment to a society that has a different attitude to time. The reader cannot fail to be involved in the frustations of this process and the way Peter Wood depicts this with dry humour made me laugh out loud. It has become a standard method in our office for dispelling gloom. A page read out loud to each other produces laughter. I recommend the account of Wood's Qatar driving test to balance up a fraught day. The daily trials of coping in an environment where the language barrier and alien customs complicate the smallest of domestic activities are delightfully but not critically depicted. Peter Wood leaves the reader with a feeling of having shared the experience and come out of it with a warmth and understanding of the differences. Respect for the people and their tenacity in a difficult climate shines through his problem encounters! My personal proof of the efficacy of this book came when reading it kept me smiling while standing in the queues in Disneyworld Florida. In fact it should be essential to any traveller's bag. This book will keep you amused from Supermarket checkout to Airport Check-in. Never leave home without it - read it and laugh.

BEST BOOK EVER!!
this is by far my favorite read ever!
a friend gave it too me after finding it abandoned in a charity shoip bin awaiting collection by the rubbish man! thankfully though, she saw the randsom title and thought of me!

i recommend it to anybody!

Funny and brilliant
This book first came to me nearly 10 years ago and having leant it out loads of times i eventually didn't get it back, purchased a new one and I had forgotten how funny this is.. Buy this book and you will laugh out loud wherever you are reading it.