Royal recognition for DIFC Courts registrar who had to keep it all quiet

Congratulations are in order for Mark Beer, the registrar of the Dubai International Financial Centre Courts, who was named as a member of the Order of the British Empire last week.
Mr Beer, previously the chairman of the British Business Group in the emirate, got the gong along with Joseph Tabet, the chairman of construction and design company Frayland, which has been in the Middle East for 30 years.
At a recent dinner gathering, before the award was announced, Mr Beer gave no hint of the honour to come.
"I was asked if I'd accept the award a month ago, and was of course delighted to do so. But it was difficult to keep it secret in those weeks, as the protocol requires," he told me later.
He has been a leading force in the development of the DIFC's much-applauded legal system, which is increasingly regarded as a model for independent legal arbitration in the region.
Mr Beer is also an active participant in the charitable scene in the UAE, helping to raise money for worthy causes over many selfless hours of fund-raising dinners and events at some of Dubai's top venues.
I aim to congratulate him personally over a coffee, or something, in the very near future.
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My telecoms travails continue. As I wrote last week, I had some serious problems with a new BlackBerry Q10 device that left me frustrated and exasperated and wondering how we ever lived in the pre-mobile age.
I have to give BlackBerry some credit for customer care, however.
Within hours of the article appearing, I had a call from their representatives in the UAE offering to lead me through the "getting started" process with the device, which was very welcome indeed.
It contrasted starkly with the reaction from Etisalat. I bought the device from one of their retail outlets and expected some concern that the product wasn't working properly.
A chap at Etisalat's Al Wasl business centre - surely the most depressing experience in customer interface in Dubai - laid his palm on the Q1 in the manner of an experienced doctor and pronounced: "internal problem".
The new mobile is still with Etisalat, no doubt undergoing extensive surgery.
I await a call to tell me the patient has pulled through and is ready for discharge. I shall report back.
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The occasional Frank Kane Award for the most ridiculous bit of PR hype to come through my email this time goes to Avis UAE, the car hire firm, and Keep It Clean, the "Dubai-based company committed to create [sic] a better environment by involving citizens."
Even though I'm not a citizen, I was grateful to be included in an email shot that heralded a "unique solution" to the age-old problem of in-car rubbish.
This technological breakthrough is called "CarBag" and is . wait for it . a plastic bag that you keep in the car until full, when you can . wait for it again . throw it in a "regular trash bin".
The release explains it is a "simple and practical bag" and that "no extra fittings are needed".
What a relief not to have to lash out on extensive internal re-engineering to be part of the new-wave in-car rubbish experience. Now I can simply throw away the old Spinneys bag I usually keep in the car for crisp packets, tissues, Coke cans and such, and have a state-of-the-art CarBag instead.
Let's give Keep It Clean full marks for their PR efforts, but a global giant such as Avis should know better than to put its name to this rubbish.
 
fkane@thenational.ae