Worcestershire Sauce, or simply referred as Wooster Sauce was originally produced here by the Lea and Perrins company in the 19th century. Now its produced by Heinz, though they still call it "Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce". Like all good things it was produced by accident and the rest is history.

Worcester is a small town in the area referred to as the midlands. Its populated by less than hundred thousand people, so you see what I mean. Despite being small, its a lovely place with courteous people who don't seem to suffer from the fears of big city residents. They are not cynical and less individualistic. I suppose that comes with the size of the city you have. The more people there are, the less you know them and the bigger the city the easier to do bad and get away. Every news is big news. Every event is heard of. Life is simpler. Families are stronger. People are generous. Cycles are common. People walk to this and that place. There are fewer traffic jams. Less pollution. Less noise. People live in houses rather than apartments and their houses have chimneys. People have faith. People have hope. There is less depression. People go to church. They believe that tomorrow will be a better day. No one is in a hurry. People care about the environment. May be I am seeing too much in this small place or is it just that I was born in a similar place and miss the joys and peace of living in a small town.

Let me take you to a tour of the town. Like all other places in UK this town too has High Street and the name gives the purpose away, its the shopping district, the Tariq Road of Worcester. Something about this street reminds me of the Istaklal street in Istanbul. I suppose they took the idea from Britain and modeled it the same way.

Two salient features of this town are the river Severn and the Worcester Cathedral. The river Severn is the longest river in the UK and passes through many counties and towns including Worcester. Its a nice river but like other rivers is also responsible for occasional flooding, though nothing of the Bangladesh kind.

In the back you can also see the famous Worcester Cathedral. Now Worcester Cathedral's full name is The Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary. According to Wikipedia, its been here for around 14 centuries but the current structure is from the 12th or 13th century. The Cathedral stands tall at the center of the town on one end of the High Street. 

Without further ado lets take you to it.

This probably is the front gate or may be this just where we went in from. On entering to you left is a residential block and some that look like offices. I presume they belong to those who either work here at the cathedral or take care of it.  

On the other side you are looking at the iconic Cathedral building. It has the tower that was most visible from the distance.

As we enter the Cathedral the I notice something about the architecture that would seem consistent throughout. The entrance door to the building was very small and in fact every door inside the building was small and a little cramped as well. This differs completely from the ceilings of the building, which are grand and high. I found that contrast a little odd but I suppose there is some history and philosophy behind it, about which I have no idea.

While walking along this path, on the right you see the Chapter House which to me just seems like a circular area but is supposed to be the place in the church where meetings are held. Monks gather here and the abbot reads the chapter, in which the matters of the monastry and its inhabitants are read aloud.

 As you enter the Cathedral, it seems to be divided into two wings, if you would. On the east side, there is the prayer area, called the Nave.

I would like to show you the window on the east end that you see right in front of you.

On the right you have the Choir area, very beautiful.

Between the East and West wings sits this grand organ, which is placed temporarily here and does not work right now. It is being rebuilt and would be moved to the choir area.

At different places in the church you see these tombs. I suppose a lot of people are buried here as well.

Somewhere here and below the Choir area is the Crypt where a number of people are buried and there is a special prayer area as well.

At the other end you have this special prayer area.

 When you leave the crypt through the following exit you come out somewhere around the organ and from there we actually traced our way back out.

 On our way out probably something to remember the places by with me there.

Last but not least lets look at another aspect of this town's history, the military one. This is said to be the place where the last battle of the English civil war was fought and people held there ground here. Because of this the motto of this town is: CIVITAS IN BELLO ET PACE FIDELIS, meaning, The faithful city in war and peace.

Qatar airport did not turn out to be the place I had imagined. From a rich country as Qatar, you would expect an airport of the same class as lets say Dubai. Especially considering the fact that they are competing in every field including having the best airline. I now can say that Qatar is matching Emirates in service, even though emirates still has better planes on their fleet.

Its a good thing I did not have to wait long at the Qatar airport. It was for some reason filled with Indians and those Indians who, after finding out that you are from Pakistan not India are not that generous any more. Two such bloody chaps I found standing in front of the counter for my connecting flight. After looking at my passport they asked me for a copy of the information page. It just so happened that I had one at that moment. I had absolutely no time for my connecting flight, the next one was scheduled 40 mins after the arrival. When I cleared arrival and checking I had only fifteen minutes to board next one and the information board was saying "Last Call" for my flight. I asked them what they needed the copy for since I was not asked for one when I boarded from Karachi. They gave me a smart ass reply, "We'll do a lot with it, you don't worry!". The time and place was not right and I had to board the next one quickly. It was entirely possible that they were right to ask me for the copy since only now I was leaving for UK, not on my last leg. It was a perfectly good chance to mess with them but they had the upper hand right now. May be next time.

Arriving at the Heathrow airport few interesting things did happen and I sometimes wonder, how much more would we have to pay for beings Pakistanis. It wasn't enough torture that I had to wait so long for the visa to arrive that I had to explain myself again and again to people. Standing at the immigration counter I was asked by the immigration officer why my visa had been rejected, I explained her the reason. She asked me to sit while she confirms my story. She comes back and starts working on my visa while asking all the usual questions like what is the purpose of your visit, who are you visiting and how long would you be staying. She went on further, what do you do in Pakistan, which company do you work for, what do you mean you are a Software Consultant? Huh? I think it's not related but coincidently she was also and Indian. May be we mistrust each other subconsciously.

Being a little cautious I slowly moved out of the airport. Then a bunch of ladies were looking after customs, I moved cautiously as before, reading that one of them asked me to open up the bag. The questions continued while she checked the bag. Done, we move ahead. The person who may have come to pick me up was not coming and I had to get to the destination, which happened to be a different city, on my own. I called him and he gave me train directions and the address of the place where I had to stay. For a while I roamed around little confused trying to find the train station, yes the trains run directly from the airport, but when I could not I checked with information. Express trains run non-stop from the Heathrow airport directly to the London Paddington station. A £15.50 trip. The Paddington station gave me absolutely the same feeling as the Lahore train station. Only the people moving around here were different. Look at it and you'll see what I mean.

Its a good thing I suppose that I had to travel through the train because it is the main form of transportation here and a powerful tool when it comes to planning travel. From Paddington it was still a two and a half hour journey. Everyone on the train was reading something except the woman who boarded with her husband and baby. She spent most of the time talking to her baby until she changed places with her husband, who was again reading a book. Like a new person on the train, I spent the first half hour just watching people and looking out the window. Then I, like others, took out a book and tried reading. An old British woman sitting beside me took interest in the Urdu book that I was reading and looking at the written script called it beautiful. She was either observing or just knew about the script, as she asked me if I was reading it from right to left and top to bottom. According to her right to left is the more natural way of reading and writing as opposed to English.

Worcester has two train stations, Shrub hill and Forgate. Even though I was directed to get off at later one which lies at the city center, I left the train at the former which came first. I had heard that most of the taxi drivers here are Pakistanis, the very Pakistanis who inhabit other areas of UK, those who come from north of Punjab and near Kashmir. When I exited the station, coincidently the taxi driver I got was a "brother", as they refer to you when you meet them. My destination was a B&B nearby. It was 6.30pm already and my body was on a clock five hours ahead. I went to sleep not long after I settled in. By the way, its litter here not trash.

"The white man is here", says the protocol officer to the guy standing at the immigration counter. This guy looks more like a police officer from one of Karachi's police station, looking with contempt at the documents of this hungry herd of people trying to enter his oil-rich country. He has corruption written all over him and the people standing in the irregular lines seem as if they are waiting for aid at one of UN's humanitarian relief depos. The Lagos airport's arrival lounge and relevant areas are pretty modern and well maintained, though I have read stories of regular power outages at the airport!!! But as you leave this area and descend towards the immigration counter things suddenly become very depressing. The protocol officer cleanly bypassed the waiting lines with me and took me across the immigration counter, got the visa stamped and escorted me outside the airport building. His presence there was extremely important.

Outside the airport building its more like the cantt railway station than an international airport. The driver was five minutes late due to the traffic jam in one of the worst areas that connect the business district, Victoria Island, to the airport. This area oozes poverty. The people, the vehicles, the roads, the neighborhood and the police tell you the depressing story of Africa. Microsoft, my host in Nigeria, had sent a sealed letter with the driver with information on who he was, who were my contact people here and some other basic information. The driver Marcilinus turned out to be a jolly young guy who worked for Hertz. As we set out for our destination, we passed through this dreaded area. Something bad had to happen.

On the road there were two different kind of policemen trying to regulate the wild traffic. In dark brown were street police and their name printed on their shirts and batons in their hand. The other ones, wearing yellow shirts, were supposed to be the traffic policemen but looked more like hoodlums. They turned out to be exactly that. Two of them stood in front of our car and asked us to pull over. I in my normal practice had not put on the seat belt and there was the fatal mistake. It gave them a reason to stop us, now we were in their territory.

They were beating on the window, motioning us to come out. The driver lowered the window and asked for the reason. He told us our road safety violation, yeah, ROAD SAFETY VIOLATION, look around and tell me that again!!! They were clearly looking for money and seeing the WHITE MAN, they knew it was good day for them. They asked me to come out but the driver told me to stay in and keep the door locked and windows sealed. He went out and tried to negotiate, but I realized that wasn't the tough guy for such situations. They were asking 20'000 Nairas!!! Or else, go to their office, where the driver said, they could rob you clean and no one would object. Finally, we had to settled for $40, which is over N4000. Sad way to begin work.

The driver, Marcilinus, being a church going gospel listening devout Christian took it on his conscience and told me that he would return me the money from his own pocket, otherwise he wouldn't be able to sleep peacefully. I didn't want the money and wanted to let this guy go, but I let him do it for now. I have decided that before I leave, I will return him this money. He dropped me off at the rest house and in an hour or so came back to clear his conscience.

Sad start or not, I settled in my room for now and decided to sleep off the weariness that has accumulated as result of the ten hours of sleepless flying.

 Not to offend those who live in Dubai city and may love it, I just see this place as one big shopping mall where everything is placed in a show case, glittering and shining, like advertisement portraying life as one never ending euphoric moment an nothing more. You should have lunch here and dinner there and every place there serve you more than you can eat for a lot more money than it should be, or, they serve you too little with their grand brand name that alone costs you the world. Ordinary clothes placed in extra-ordinary shops who give you an identity with their own name. Though everything looks the same and everything tastes the same but yet I am looking to taste and experience something different that would change me somehow, probably I wont find it here.  

Big buildings, small buildings, round buildings, square buildings, under construction buildings, more under construction buildings, luxury flats, super luxury flats, ultra luxury flats. Artificial lakes, artificial beaches, artificial land, artificial islands, artificial life that lives in artificial houses and flats looking for reality mostly in their own than the life in this city. You should have money, more money, lots of money and then some more. We will give you experiences at home. Order food, go to movies, do shopping, go skiing in the desert, splashing in water at the Wadi and then go to the desert for an adventure drive. What more do you want?

Do your work, live your life. In the five days, go out there and work for apparently only money that you will spend and spend a lot on things that have no meaning themselves and give you no meaning. Fake smiles, fake enthusiasm, fake purpose, eat fake food having fake variety in a city that has no culture or life of itself. Air conditioning in homes, air conditioning in cars, air conditioning at offices, air conditioning at malls, air conditioning at mosques. Don't experience the natural weather, don't step on the sand, don't eat the local food, don't look for the local culture, because there is none left. This I would say is worlds most man made place on earth. Some might say there are more fake places around the world but I think I am staying at one of the best.