The greater proportion of cars here in Qatar are large or very large. The Toyota Landcruiser is the preferred mode of transport for many Qataris, that is if they’re not driving the large Lexus, Porsche Cayenne or the Nissan Patrol. There are also large numbers of Hummers.

The slightly more compact SUVs and large saloons make up the bulk of the rest of the non commercial traffic. My 2 litre sized engine is fairly modest by local standards. Even the smaller hatchbacks in Qatar have 1.8 litre engines.

A person in the west driving a V8 with a 5.7 litre engine would be considered on par with a child killer, but here it’s normal. I have seen no evidence of hybrid cars on the roads in Doha… I guess that with petrol at 17p per litre, even driving a Hummer which gets only 10 miles per gallon is still going to cheaper to run than driving a Prius most anywhere in the west.

On the shelves at the Food Palace are Miki’s Crispy Greaseless SlipMouth, a popular snack imported from the Philippines. It comes in plain or hot and spicy at about 85p a pack.

It is, as the packet says, greaseless and contains no transfat with no MSG or food colouring.

Sounds good to me until you find out that Slipmouth is a fish. It is also known as Sapsap which are ‘small slimy-bodied percoid fishes (genus Leiognathus)’.

If, however, you feel your Slipmouth, or indeed any of your food is short of flavouring and added chemicals, you can also add your own MSG.

During January the odometer on my car passed the 1,000km which meant it required its first service.

I took it to the large Nissan workshops in the ‘Industrial area’ of the city. This is a huge industrial estate where most of the car dealerships have their service centres plus a load of other buildings for light industrial activities.

I got there at 7.30am on a Saturday morning and joined a queue of other Nissan owners. When I got the the front of the line, I was told I was in the Nissan Patrol queue and that Qashqais were services next door.

They operate a deli style ticket system, so you get a ticket as you enter the building and wait for your number to come up. The car was eventually booked in for the ‘while you wait’ oil change and I sat in the large reception area.

After about 15 minutes a man with a tray came round offering tea.

Forty minutes later my car emerged from the huge workshop, cleaned with fresh oil. The next service is due at 5,000km, and every 5,000km thereafter, as the high dust content in the air means that oil and filters need to be changed more frequently than in the UK.

When walking along the Corniche in the winter sun, it’s impossible not to look at the water and across the bay.

On our Saturday morning walk last weekend we watched the hundreds of small fish threshing around bread that had been thrown in the water. A little further on we came across this ray gliding beneath the shallow water no more than metre from the shore.

I have no idea what sort of ray it is… if you recognise it please let me know via the comments box.

It was February 2012 when we first came out to Qatar to decide whether Doha was somewhere we could live… clearly the answer was yes.

Last February our visit coincided with the Souq Waqif Spring Festival… the 2013 festival started yesterday. During evenings and weekends there are performers out on the street for a seemingly endless stream of entertainment.

There are several stages around the Souq and on almost every corner some activity. When we arrived in the late afternoon, the smaller stage had what appeared to be enormous Smurfs singing and dancing… we didn’t stop for long.

We stopped awhile to watch the snake charmer.

The we sat down at the Belgian Café for a cold Lemon with mint and watched as the parade went by.

On Thursday we went to a football match. It is the first time I have attended a game for around 15 years. That experience, seated with the Crystal Palace supporters at ‘the Dell’ in Southampton was amongst the least rewarding 90 minutes of my life.

The smell of cheap pasties, the uncomfortable seats and the incessant expletive rich  invective made it altogether unpleasant… but then it was a birthday treat for a son, so it was grin and bear it.

The experience at the Khalifa Stadium in Doha watching Spain against Uraguay in an international friendly was quite different.

It was pleasant 20C and not numbing cold. The ticket was 100QR or £17. The family crowd was well behaved. Nobody shouted abuse at the referee.

There were 4 goals which I think is the minimum number of times the teams need to score to keep my interest.

The 80 minutes passed quickly and enjoyably as we left 10 minutes before the end of the match to avoid the inevitable traffic jams.

If I am still here in 2022 then maybe I will go to the World Cup matches.

In a previous post I told you about our visit to a camel farm. The camels were being bred for racing.

There is a camel racing track on the edge of the city. I haven’t seen camel racing live, however Al Rayyan, one of the local TV channels broadcasts races.

Alongside the racetrack, owners speed along in their SUVs controlling robot jockeys via remote controls.

In the past small boys were used as jockeys. Injuries were very common and serious injuries very frequent. This practice has now been banned in Qatar and instead they use robots which have small hinged arms that control the whip and the reins. This short film explains more.

At some point we will have a day at the races… I will report back.