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i'm not into politics, but i've been screening the elections' press campaigns lately and i can't seem to make sense of anything - i am well aware that these ads are not targeting me, but as an observer, the campaigns look very messy and with no clear message, so here are some of my findings:

• most of the campaigns are about invitation to attend conventions, and many are targeting women
• a number of candidates have twitter and facebook accounts which are mentioned in the ads
• most messages figure in a single executions, no effort is made behind making big campaigns with different messages
• most messages are open-end phrases which leaves a lot to the imagination
• some candidates are using photos with aggressive body language, like pointing fingers or engaging in arguments, while others are simply smiling or standing still
• kuwait towers are used extensively in the ads along with the national flag
• really bad design

my understanding is that the cabinet has been sacked because of corruption, strange enough, rare are the candidates who have mentioned corruption in their campaigns, at least in press - though one candidate stood out and had mentioned his campaign's objectives including fighting corruption, his name is mubarak heif alhajraf, it's that green ad in the center of the above collage - but again, he listed all his objectives a single ad ad which by the way looks better than all the rest.

a fundamental understanding of communication has always been at the center of a politician's arsenal - for franklin d. roosevelt, it was radio, for john f. kennedy, it was television and for barack obama, it was social media - are today's candidates following the steps of obama, hence the poor press campaigns?

one thing is sure, the candidates didn't learn from obama's strong and single-minded campaign which focused on one single word "change" - the single-minded word that will move kuwait is "corruption", and no one seem to be focusing on it, at least from what i see in press.

this is my quick observations, if you have other views please do share them with us.

this week was so cold i had to put on my gloves, especially in the morning - but gloves and iphone do not make a good match as you can't use your phone unless you remove your gloves! so i did some online research and found these awesome itap gloves, so good they are all sold out!

i also found a wide range of iphone gloves on amazon and  they are very affordable.

i received this story from one of our readers who was going to dubai this weekend and i'd like to give it a shout out:

"i was pricing a trip to dubai this weekend and found a huge difference in pricing when exploring my options - firstly, i priced jazeera airways because it is a discount carrier and for a departure kwt-dxb on the 25th of january with a return flight on the 27th of january and the total price will be 142.570 kd economy.

i then proceeded to price emirates airlines round trip, which is not a discount carrier, and the price for round trip, same route, same time duration, economy is 88.550 kd - jazeera airways economy has no channels in the seats, single aisle plane, they give you a sandwich and flies into t1 (which i don't mind) - emirates airlines economy has 500 channels in the seats, a warm meal, large airbus planes and flies into t3 – flydubai’s website was down, so i couldn't price this carrier this morning and they should be in this comparison.

what is going on with jazeera airways? are they schizophrenic?  how can you market yourself as a discount carrier and charge double the price of a major airline like emirates airlines?  they are a chihuahua in a market full of labrador retriever's and should understand their place in a highly competitive market - it is pure and simple, once again, bad management decisions in kuwait - are they no longer a discount carrier? what is their management thinking with these types of prices? i suggest if they want to double the prices compared to emirates airlines, then they need to upgrade their airline because they are technically no longer a discount carrier and that involves purchasing new planes and major changes to their service level like televisions in the seats etc.

jazeera airways is going down the tubes with the rest of the kuwait carriers, COME BACK WATANIYA AIRWAYS!"

thank you fred jones.

we've made a small change on our blog, adding the page number theme at the bottom of the page - we had 2 cute "previous" and "next" arrows before, but we've received some complaints as people got lost as they went back and forth a few pages and couldn't find their way back - now i guess the problem is solved, though i still prefer the cute little arrows.