Having recently witnessed a quite amazing race to raise money for charity, voluntarily run community centres and countless clean ups to save the environment, I am humbly impressed with the selfless way so many Sharmers give of their time and money to better their chosen city for the common good. The amount of artistic talent burning in Sharm is also quite phenomenal for such a relatively small population. We have authors, actors, musicians, composers and film makers writing, starring, directing and producing books, films - and the occasional magazine article - all about Sharm, by Sharmers, starring Sharmers. It is truly a testament to our multi-national cosmopolitan community that such a mix of cultures, languages and attitudes can weld themselves into such a positive and creative force.

So why is it that I’m less impressed by so many others – and they’re not necessarily all accountants. Maybe it’s the wrong time of month, or perhaps Jupiter’s in ascendance with Mars, but some people really amaze me - although it’s those in power that excel. Have you noticed that as soon as some perfectly delightful chap gets promoted to a position of authority he turns into a complete nincompoop ? Be it from instructor to dive centre manager or from tank boy to chairman, their previous sound judgment goes out of the window. Who, for example, is in charge of traffic ? On my way home from work today I drove through three road blocks in all of 5 km. Having watched an enormous amount of time and money being spent on widening roads, I now find myself changing from 3 lanes down to a one lane crawl, speeding up into 5 lanes then immediately slowing again to a snails pace. Stop. Start. Stop again. It’s not even as if I’m being searched for anything, but then again I avoid undue suspicion by not having a big, black, fizzing ball inscribed with BOMB sat next to me. I feel as if I’m taking part in some bizarre traffic flow management study and yes, I do need to have my lights on at night to avoid driving into the dark blue pickup parked sideways across the unlit road surrounded by men in black. ‘High Visibility’ can be overdone of course, like the Dahab road. Maybe someone’s got a cousin in the road sign department, but the amount of reflection from the road side signs’ is so bright it’s blinding. I almost preferred dodging the potholes, camels and pick ups of the old ‘single track’ days. At least I could see where I was going then – even with my lights off.