Blessed be the firework makers

Some easy New Year's predictions: Dubai's fireworks suppliers will enjoy a bumper start to the year, those looking for a second-hand, barely-used Lexus will find a bargain, and February Fridays at Mall of the Emirates will be a living hell. Welcome to 2008. Welcome to Dubai Shopping Festival.

A DSF press release, helpfully reprinted by Gulf News, informs us weekend firework displays will last 20 minutes (2007's were a paltry three minutes), more than 90 Lexus and Nissan cars will be raffled (only to appear next day at 4x4 Motors), and visitors numbers will be up from 3.5million to nearly 4m.

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Business lessons from comic books

A regular plot line in the comic book stories of Kipp's youth was the use of the 'congratulations, you're our one thousandth customer' device. The trick could be applied to pie shops, toy stores and football clubs, and the figure would change to suit the tale. The lucky customer would then be gifted a large cash sum/year's supply of pies, and be rescued from some terrible fate.

I say all this apropos of Air Arabia recently announcing it had carried it five millionth customer, a tidy figure given the airline has been running for only four years. The news was tucked away in a financial report, and while it would have made good reading for market analysts it seems to be a wasted marketing opportunity.

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