Category Archives: grrrr

ARGH DAMNIT. Bloody Weather.

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So, one of the recurring themes of our time in Australia is how god awful the weather is – especially combined with the crappy building quality.

We have spent so much of our time here in the pissing miserable wet, or cold to the bone that it really rankles. The thing is, of course, that we come from Scotland and are well used to a bit of cold and wet.

What causes the angst here is that we seem to be living amongst people who are in a constant state of bloody denial about the weather.

We had a new guy over from the UK for a few weeks – and when out walking for lunch, one of the Perth locals proceeded to tell him that it was sunny for 9 months of the year, and that you  could go for months without a cloud in the sky. When I called this as BS, they insisted that last year was unusually wet – when I pointed out that this year has been exactly the same… they tried to blame global warming (which, of course, doesn’t exist the rest of the time).

So, in classic style, here we are in Sydney for christmas/new year. And it’s raining. of course it’s bloody raining. When we get back to the UK, I will make it my life’s mission to find ever advert showing Australia as this sunny paradise, and add some bloody rainclouds to it.

At least we are in Sydney – a proper global city with stuff to do in the rain, rather than stuck in the arse end of nowhere. (where, ironically, it’s 30 and sunny today).

I could scream.

Water, water everywhere…

By | | Australia, General Mumblings, grrrr
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It’s been some time.. and as usual, our blogging has been somewhat erratic.

Almost everything in our lives seems to be about water right now – whether that’s keeping water out of where we don’t want it, or keeping it in where we do want it..

The last major disaster was when the rain got a bit harder than usual (for anyone who still believes that Australia is warm and sunny most of the time, remember that this is a lie, and australia is very, very wet.)

We heard odd sounds from downstairs – either we were being burgled by some man sized frogs, or there was a lot of slopping and splashing going on… that would be the water peeing through the ceiling, soaking the spare PC, and a bunch of stuff on the table. In typical blog style, we made a video:

That behind us (but not fixed of course – our letting agent is waaaaay to slow to let a little something like WATER COMING THROUGH THE CEILING get them all flustered, oh no…) we move onto the latest nightmare.

I came home to an odd noise (there’s a pattern here). this time, it was a sort of muffled rushing sound.. y’know in a movie when the good guy presses his ear to a wall, to more clearly hear a distant rumbling – only for the distant sound to burst through the wall?

that didn’t happen – which is a shame, as my life would be a darn sight easier if it had! Turns out the agent didn’t think that the rushing sound (and the fact that our hot water remains stubbornly lukewarm, despite consuming more gas than essex) was enough evidence of a leak.

They wanted to wait until we could actually see water damage.

After much (angry) conversation, I decided another video was in  order:

Of course, by this point, we have probably consumed around five THOUSAND litres of water – all of which has been dumped fairly directly into the foundations of the house here. I am sooo glad this isn’t my house – but my sympathies are with the owner. Can’t imagine he’ll be too happy to see that the agent wanted to actually see his property damaged before they would call a plumber..

Can you say ‘underpinning’ ?

the End of Summer…

By | | Australia, General Mumblings, grrrr
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And when they say ‘end’, they mean it.

It’s been noticeably colder in the days since the weekend when Alan and Penny flew back. last couple of days it’s been a wall of cloud again – which hasn’t happened for a few weeks… then the weather erupted on us yesterday.

Driving rain, howling winds and bitterly, bitterly cold.

Perth is confusing – it always has been for us. I look at a temperature gauge, and it’s reading 20 degrees, yet I am cold to my marrow, more bitterly cold than I have any recollection of ever being in Scotland.

I can remember back when Jen and I first moved into Windmillhill Street in motherwell – back in 1992!! – we didn’t have any working heating, and the windows were single glazed. At the time, i thought they were the worst windows you could ever have… the temperatures were down in the -5 range, and you could see your breath in the air when you woke up in the morning… and it *still* feels warmer than a 20 degree day here.

I just don’t get it. Perhaps your mind see the brilliant sun and sets some sort of internal expectation, I don’t know..

Just that it’s back to being cold. really cold.

Helen flies out on Friday, and we are seriously looking forward to seeing her – but I am thinking that she won’t get much (if any) use out of the swimming pool. I tried it a couple of days ago, and had to get out because I was shivering so badly.

We are heading up to exmouth for a chunk of the stay though, so that should help a lot – it’s *much* warmer!

Welcome to Australia! Now F*$k off home.

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fowf

So we picked up Alan and Penny from the airport. It was great to see our friends again and we had a great time, which we shall blog about in due course….

The first bloggable thing happened less than an hour after they left the airport.

We loaded the suitcases into the back of the ute, and headed back to our place. We made a slight detour to pick up some rolls so we could start them off into the Aussie lifestyle and have a barbeque, with burgers.

As we wander from the carpark towards the bakery, a 4×4 swerves across the carpark towards us, the window rolls down, a head appears closely followed by the high class, typical Aussie welcome of

WHY DONT YOU FUCK OFF HOME!!!

Ian had made the cardinal error of wearing a Scotland Tshirt. That was it. So, roughly 45 minutes in the country, our friends get to experience the great Aussie welcome shouted at us.

Welcome tourists, leave your money in this bucket, then fuck off, we dont want you here.

I’m Special. Oh so Special.

By | | General Mumblings, grrrr
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At least Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs thinks so.

Back in 2005, shortly after the company folded, I had a fairly unpleasant letter from HMRC telling me that they had lost my details. This isn’t the same incident where they essentially lost the whole country’s tax records on a couple of CDs, but a more targeted one.

They lost details of Standard Life pension customers (which includes me). They told me that I shouldn’t worry, because they had put precautions in place to make sure that my records would remain safe.

It got weird, and eventually, I wrote a flaming complaint letter:

Dear Sirs,

I am shocked at the appalling level of incompetence and poor customer care that you have shown towards me.

I received a notice of outstanding payment from you (around £40) for tax year 05-06.

I contacted you to make payment, and enquire about whether this meant I needed to complete a self assessment (I had previously been told that this was not the case). The letter said that I should contact the Cumbernauld Office if I had any queries.

I called the Cumbernauld office, using the number on the letter.

The number held a recorded message indicating that this office no longer handled these enquiries and that I should phone a generic 0845 number.

I called the 0845 number.

Your assistant asked me if I was someone famous. Which was incredibly odd. It’s not the case – I work in an ordinary job for a PLC. They asked me if I worked in government service. Also not the case. They even lowered their voice and asked me if I worked in the military. Which would have been funny, if it wasn’t so creepy. Eventually, they said that I should phone Centre 1 in East Kilbride, as they could not access my records.

I called Centre 1.

They asked me if I was famous. “no, and I don’t work for the government either” I said. They said that they could not access my records, as they had been moved to Cardiff. They said I should call Cardiff.

I called Cardiff.

Guess what? They asked me if I was famous. Then they asked me if I worked for the Government. After much tapping of keys, they insisted that they could not access my records, which were held at Centre 1 and that I should call them. When I explained that I had just spoken to Centre 1, they said that there was nothing that they could do, and I should phone Centre 1 back anyway.

I called Centre 1 (again).

I explained, and the assistant went and found a supervisor. The supervisor came on the phone and asked me “Are you a celebrity?”. I swear I could almost scream at this farce. Instead, I politely explained what I had been through that morning. She then explained that my records must have been lost. Not the “lost down the back of the sofa on two CDs” lost that your organisation seems to be so good at, nor indeed the “lost en route to Standard Life” lost that you wrote to me about a few months ago.

Just the plain old fashioned incompetent sort of lost. She insisted that there was nothing she could do, as the all powerful “system” showed that my records belonged to Cardiff and she couldn’t access them. “Perhaps you should call Cardiff” was her suggestion.

I called Cardiff (again).

Explaining to the assistant, he sought a supervisor. Explaining the joke of an experience that I had had, she said that the records were somehow lost in transit between the two offices, however she would check into this and call me back. She carefully took all of my details – and I mean *ALL* of my details. Address, dob, NI number, bank account my wages are paid to, employer, employer’s payroll number and most importantly, my home and office phone numbers.

She said that she would look into this and call me back. Perhaps because I was so beaten down by the process, I didn’t get a note of her name – which I regretted by the end of that day when I had not been called back.

When I had not heard anything for a week, I called back to Centre 1 again. They once more launched into “are you a celebrity”, then explained that they could not access my records which were at Cardiff.

I called Cardiff.

They said that my records were still not accessible, and that I should call Centre 1. I asked to speak to a supervisor. The supervisor apologised that I had not been called back, told me that they would look into this… and call me back!

The next day, when I had not been called back, I called Cardiff. Yet again.

This time, the very helpful man on the phone said that the records could take a couple of weeks to sort themselves out if I had just changed job (that happened about 9 months previously).

He then suggested that I simply make a payment and post it in. I asked where I would post it, given that my records were “somewhere in the system”. I also explained that I needed to confirm whether or not I needed to do a self assessment for the coming year, as I had two letters – one saying that I should, and one saying that I didn’t need to. He said “I’ll look into this, and call you back” – he then took my details.

So, would you like to take a guess? Was it third time lucky in the HMRC call back lottery for me? Was it stuff. I’m still waiting for my call back, as far as I know my records are still lost somewhere in god-knows-where, and you just sent me a blooming LATE PAYMENT NOTICE?????

I am a tax payer. I have paid every penny that I am due in tax. I would happily pay you what I am required to. I’ll complete whatever forms I have to. What I am not going to do is pay a blooming penalty notice for the sake of your muck up.

You wouldn’t take my money when I tried to pay – in what world does that make me to blame?

My daytime phone number is: 0xxxxxxxxx

My evening home number is: 0xxxxxxxx

Now, can you please, PLEASE, find where my records are, have someone call me and explain what it is I owe, or what it is you want from me, and settle this matter? I am waiting for your call – just as I have been for the last three months.

They got back to me. It seems that after my records were lost, they moved me to PD1 – which is the super secret tax office for celebrities, the politicians and ninjas. probably.

They sorted it out – basically, I have a ‘phantom’ tax record in the normal system, where I am still a Self Assessment person, and my ‘real’ record in the secret system, where I am not. easy, huh.

The hassle is – PD1’s not listed on the HMRC website (because they don’t really want to go shouting about the fact that footballer’s wives and the good and great get special treatment from the tax man).

And I just got a demand for my (overdue) self assessment. again. Complicated by the fact that this year… I actually should be doing a self assessment, because I am an NRL1 (non resident landlord)…

so, after finally doing the right handshake to get put through to PD1 (and another half hour of “I’m Sorry Sir, but I can’t access your records”), they inform me that the forms for self assessment are only sent out in April (when I was a PAYE employee in the UK, and didn’t qualify for self assessment), but I should somehow have just known that I would have do one now…

It’s great being special… sigh

The Stupid – it Burnses us!!

By | | Australia, grrrr
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It’s been a great day.

We set out to weed the garden, clean up the pool and put down the first dose of ‘death in a can’ to deal with the roaches and spiders. y’know, for those people that don’t like the things, that might be coming to visit us soon… 😉

well, we got finished faster than we expected – so what else could we do?

ian asleep

yep, one of the hazards of joondalup is the roving papparazzi, who will catch you unawares and post you on the interwebs..

After a strenuous (ahem) morning, we grabbed some lunch and headed off to the skip in our ute – the recycling here puts anything in the UK to shame.

Here’ s a novel idea – rather than throwing stuff in the skip, they look at it and decide if someone else could use it… so if you want plant pots, or old wooden chairs, or any other sort of tat, you can go along to the municipal tip and help yourself – it goes to landfill eventually if nobody wants it.. cool huh?

Anyway, we then headed to IKEA for some boxes and odds and ends, and settled down to another strenuous afternoon in the pool. This time it actually was strenuous, due to my swimming practice.

subbie

Meet ‘Subbie’. He’s a sub bug, and we have two of them – a blue and a purple. Basically, you pop a battery in them, and they have a little prop on the back – they go like stink, and are pretty erratic.

Subbie here is helping me to learn to swim – basically I drop them in the water, then chase them. simple, but very effective – today I was diving to the bottom and clearing out my snorkel like a pro.

Dinner was steak from the Barbie, and a nice ice cold drink.

That’s where things went horribly, horribly wrong.

We forgot one little thing, you see.

Sunscreen.

Half a tub of nivea after sun later, and it still hurts like being dragged along behind a truck, across some salty gravel. probably.

Jen’s in a worse state than me – I guess the only consolation here is that it’s the first serious sunburn incident since we got here.

pack a hat, folks!!

Whats Black and Blue and Red all over

By | | Australia, events, General Mumblings, grrrr
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My legs!

I am going around like an eighty year old woman at the moment.

We were taken 4×4 off roading, which was fun and enjoyable, we went along the beach at Preston Beach, and then around a reservoir further inland. Up rocky roads that the 207 would get swallowed up in. We also rescued another 4×4 that was up to its wheel arches in mud, it was surprisingly easy to do.

See that white 4×4 in the picture (if you click on the picture it will show you it bigger), thats not us, but thats what we were doing.

It is fun, but its damn difficult on the spine. My back is killing me now!

We also did some kayaking on the reservoir.

The kayaks are pretty stable in the water, and it was also fun. Me and my clumsiness however meant that when I was trying to get out, I fell over, skinning my knees on the gravelly ground, and bruising my leg on the edge of the kayak.

The reservoir was also pretty bad with flies

This is apparently “no flies”. There are “no flies” this year. Given that we spent the entire time doing the aussie wave to keep the flies out of our faces I have to say I am mighty glad there are “no flies” this year. I did get mozzie bites on the leg that wasn’t kayaked. This time though, they are looking worse than before, with the red itchy bit spreading and being damn itchy. The flies seemed to like it too. Blearg.

There were also (I think) march flies. When mosquitoes bite, you don’t feel it till usually the next day, certainly it takes a while to appear. A march fly bite you feel. It hurts. And I got a march fly bite on the back of the bruised leg. It stung like buggery. It took a few hours to surface and now half of the back of my right calf is red and sore to the touch.

On the same leg, one of the dogs, Minnie (who looks very like Misty), launched herself at me to try and bite one of the march flies, leaving me with another bruise!

So, in the space of two hours, I ended up with a sore back, mozzie bites, a march fly bite, two separate lots of bruises and a skint knee.

*sigh*

This was a couple of days ago now, so I am starting to heal. In time for the new year 🙂

I’m Spinning Around … Move Out of My Way

By | | Australia, grrrr
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Spin. Gotta love it.

The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM, the Aussie MET Office) released its summer weather forecast today. Summer starts in 4 days, on the 1st Dec. Tonight it is once again chucking it down. It was at least beautiful and blue skies for long periods and the rain whilst heavy was at least in showers rather than constant.

So, the summer forecast is not very good, or great, depending on the spin you put on it.

Weather bureau predicts wet, cool summer
WEST Australia’s unseasonal weather is set to continue with forecasters predicting a wet, cool summer.

Perth has recorded the wettest and coldest November in 17 years – the seventh-wettest on record – and the trend is set to continue.

WA Bureau of Meteorology senior meteorologist Glenn Cook said a warm Indian Ocean and several high-level troughs — or low-atmospheric pressure systems — had produced the wintry weather Perth has experienced during the past few weeks.
…
According to WA Bureau of Meteorology forecasts, central WA has a 70 per cent chance of exceeding average summer rainfall between December and February while maximum temperatures are predicted to remain average or cooler than normal during the same period.
…
This time last year, Perth was on its was to recording the warmest November on record. But so far this month the mercury hasn’t reached 30C.

Cloudy skies are also robbing Perth of one hour of sunlight a day as the average 10.7 hours of sunshine is cut to just 9.8.

“It is the first time we have not had a 30C in November since 1964 ,” bureau forecaster John Relf said. …

Hot summer on the way, bureau forecasts
26th November 2008, 14:21 WST

It’s going to be a long, hot summer.

The Bureau of Meteorology has released its summer weather forecast, and it’s tipping hot days in the southern states, and hot nights in the north and west.

But there’s some good news too – there’s wet weather ahead for some lucky areas.
…
When it comes to overnight temperatures, most of the country is in for a warm summer.

Western Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory are the areas most likely to have unusually hot nights.

The mercury may rise this summer but there’s some relief on the way when it comes to rainfall.

Western Australia is in for a wet summer, as is north-east NSW and south-east Queensland….

So, its either a great hot summer thats going to be fab because of the rain, or a cold wet summer. Both from the same forecast. Gotta love that spin.

What they havent clicked yet is that its down to us. No matter where and when we go somewhere, the rain soon follows. The rainclouds worship us. They followed us to Jamaica, Lanzarote, Majorca, all over. And now they are here. The reason the UK had such a bad summer this year is that the clouds were sulking because we werent there.

*sigh*

The adventure continues.

By | | Australia, General Mumblings, grrrr
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Yup, time to pick ourselves out of the doldrums and get on with it. Australia is a pretty big dissappointment but that’s not going to change – we have resolevd to make the best of it for the time we are here.

We are seeing a bunch of adverts about Australia the movie with the first actress I ever had a serious crush on, Nicole Kidman. quite surreal to see what is portrayed (sunny, blue skies, wide “red dirt” country) comapred to what it’s actually like – very cold (there was snow in New South Wales this week – and remember, this is supposed to be summer!!), unbelievably wet (according to the government website, Perth actually gets more rain in a year than Edinburgh) and quite lush and green (from all the rain!).

It’s odd that weather plays so big a part in this for us, but really, that’s the one thing we were looking for. we reckoned being far away from home would be sufferable, and missing everyone would be tough… but hey – at least the weather will be better, right? anyways. positive. upbeat.

We have a plan!

We basically have about twenty to thirty hours a week with absolutely nothing to do (basically, every week day night, and at least one day of the weekend). Perth is essentially a waiting room for a mortuary, so there’s plenty of free time (seriously. there’s more night life under a plant pot.)

Plan A hasn’t worked out too well. That involved easing the boredom with alcohol (we have got through a frankly terrifying amount of the stuff since we got here – I am sure everyone remembers that I am an incredible lightweight: 2 pints and I am anybody’s. In one month, I put away 2 CRATES of strongbow.)
So, Plan B involves using the free time to get in lots of exercise, get the diet back under check and cut back on the sauce. It’s going rather well – Jen’s Wii Mii is looking decidedly more active now, and she has lost a good 12 pounds: I’m down a good 6 pounds (I started later).

actually, we have two plans – the other plan is for coming home. It won’t be until 2010 at the earliest, so don’t get the party hats bought in just yet, but we have started the plans – sorting out stuff to ship back to the UK now (so we don’t have to lug it around when we move house here!) and the stuff that needs to stay with us.

We have mentioned the plan(tm) to a couple of you, but here goes: we are coming back to scotland.  As I say, this won’t be happening right away, but we will be coming back when our Visa runs out (if not before). The reason this has now become something we are looking forward to is…

RTW tickets.

A few of the big airline groups (like the Star Alliance with BMI etc) offer round the world tickets – you have a maximum distance, and number of stops, and they work out at only a grand or so more than the cost of actually flying directly home!!

The plan includes Singapore, Tokyo, Beijing, Los Angeles, Florida, Washington and New York so far, with a few days in each. Should be fun. let’s face it – after Perth, anything will be fun!!!

if you don’t have anything good to say…

By | | Australia, General Mumblings, grrrr
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Don’t say anything. That’s how it goes right? it explains our lack of posts for a while unfortunately.

This is apparently all normal, and what happens when people emigrate – a sort of culture shock.it’s biting pretty hard at the moment, which is probably down to living through the longest winter of our lives.

in the big scheme of things, we have very little to complain about, and we need to keep reminding ourselves of that.. but sheesh. every time I wake up and the weather is cold, wet and miserable (and it got down to 3 degrees above – with no double glazing, no central heating and no insulation, remember) I just slump.

So, here’s the latest video – not my cheeriest..

After that, we needed to cheer up… so we went to the range… and the the day improved 😀

Apocalyptic Weather!

By | | Australia, General Mumblings, grrrr
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So, one of the reasons we came here was the weather.

Dont believe it….

There is currently a severe weather warning for Perth. Thunder, gales, HAILSTONES!
Thats right …. HAILSTONES! Balls of ice falling from the sky. Not an unusual occurence for Airdrie, but we were led to believe that Australia was warm and sunny.
Arse!

The houses have no insulation (so much so they sell a tool that helps with laying wires by shining a laser inside the wall so you can see it from the roof space down the inside of the wall coz they havent anything in the way) The bathroom windows have an open bit about 2 inches thats only got a fly screen on it, so just now when its cold wet and windy, its helluva drafty, so we have taped up the one in the en suite.

We got a load of stuff for the garden at the weekend, a lemon, orange and keffir lime tree. Peppers, tomatos, strawbs and so on. Hoping it all survives …..

Anyways. Enough of my stream of conciousness ranting.

I am fighting off a flu, but still went into work today – you only get 2 weeks of sick pay here, so I figured I would prefer to save the sickpay in case I get really sick. Blearg.

So, our big news was *supposed* to be that the ship with all our stuff had arrived in the port of Freemantle, just a couple of miles south of Perth. We had been tracking it across the world, and it was scheduled to arrive yesterday. Yesterday morning we checked the tracking and it was past Perth. Way past Perth. Past Perth enough that there was *no way* it had been in, and back out again that fast. One phone call to the shipping company later, we find out that the ship it was supposed to be on from Kelang in Malaysia had left without our stuff. And without the stuff of a load of other people, in fact, it had decided to leave everything for Perth in Kelang, so they didnt have to stop there.

So, our stuff is stuck in Malaysia. Hey, at least it isnt getting tossed around in the extreme weather…

But most importantly, MY WII IS STUCK IN MALAYSIA!

I WANT MY WII!

Day Ten and counting.

By | | Australia, General Mumblings, grrrr
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We drove up to a place called Lancelin yesterday – our first attempt to see a bit of rural Australia. huge roads – sections of it variously like driving through England, Eaglesham Moor and Spain.. but strangely fused together into one. We had to stop at the side of the road every now and then to grin like maniacs, and take pictures of the car:

One thing we have noticed pretty regularly since getting here – despite the aussie reputation for being laid back, they are even further down the old “Police state” path than the UK – everything is illegal… and has a sign telling you that it’s illegal. The road signs are insane – they have completely arbitrary signs for no right turn, no left turn, no u turn, no parking, no stopping, no looking, no smiling (okay, I made the last two up).

Seriously though, check this thing out:

Worlds Most Cryptic parking sign.

That means no parking to the left of the pole (outside of the bays). no parking to the right of the pole at all (even in the bays). On the left of the pole, in the bays, you can park for 2 Hours (that’s what we think 2P means – you also see 1/4P and so on), during these times. Outside of these times, you can park anywhere you want.. including to the left of the pole. *except* If you have a resident’s permit, when you can park to the left of the pole any time you like, for as long as you like. But not on the right of the pole… can you guess I got a ticket?  😐

In Lancelin, as well as the delightful signs on pretty much every lampost (and this is a town smaller than Plockton’s Pub Car Park) they also have a huge sign that says “no camping – campers will be prosecuted”. There is a sign at the entrance to the town saying “Local Police are targetting…” and  a set of hooks where the topic that most irritates the local plod can be hung up, so that you can consider yourself warned. Yesterday, they has mostly been irritated by Speeding it seems.

We stayed in Lancelin for just long enough to write in the sand:

the beach at Lancelin

We then decided that we had better scarper – in case smiling, laughing or standing on the sand turned out to carry a jail sentence!

Back to Perth, where the locals are thankfully not all cousins and the signs are slightly more welcoming (we think) and picked up some meat for the barbie – we are mostly eating BBQ at the moment, but this is less to do with becoming true aussies, and more to do with the flat not having an indoors cooker… we are so looking forward to moving into our house!

Posted another cool video too – the 207 doing it’s convertible roof thing:

ARGH! Weather!

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it had to happen, didn’t it? when we visited Jamaica, we had guys out on the beach performing dark voodoo magic and sacrificing chickens, convinced that the world was going to end… they had never seen such freakish weather in their lives…

now, the “Jenni and Ian effect” comes to Australia – yes, that’s right, we are single handedly responsible for the end of the great Aussie Drought!

Weather Image

Guess where we are!!!

‘My daughter deserved to die for falling in love’ | World news | The Observer

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‘My daughter deserved to die for falling in love’ | World news | The Observer

This is utterly sickening. He stamped on her, suffocated her and stabbed her. Her brothers joined in. Her uncles spat on her corpse. Because she had been seen in public speaking to a British soldier. His only regret is that he didnt kill her at birth.

What a sickening piece of shit.

The police congratulated him, and, apparently “as usual” he will be given money by a local politician to go to Jordan for a few weeks until the story is forgotten.

And he will kill his sons if either of them are “contaminated with any gay relationship”.

This is all apparently common practice in Basra and the rest of Iraq now.

Tell me why we went into Afghanistan if it wasnt to stop the Taliban doing this sort of thing. So, why did we set this up in Iraq.