Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
WELL, so much for the crackdown on piracy in Bahrain? The Whisperer was sent this photograph of an officer of the law apparently planning his evening's entertainment from a choice of pirated DVDs.
To save the officer's embarrassment and for fear he may get into trouble, the reader declined to email me a photograph with a clear image of his face.
That's unfortunate because The Whisperer and the Editor of this newspaper come from the same 'name and shame' school of journalism.
'I was very shocked to see a cop in uniform buying CDs from the guy,' my correspondent said. 'I just had to click the picture.'
The incident happened near Bab Al Bahrain on January 31.
Always the optimist, perhaps the officer was simply investigating the possible offence of selling illegal goods and our reader missed the part of the rogue being arrested?
That would certainly be more in keeping with the government's recent high-profile standing on the issue.
Only last month the kingdom was set to 'step up' its war against piracy. The move aimed to create public awareness of intellectual property rights issues and 'help fortify' Bahrain's anti-piracy strategy for this year.
A Press conference at the Sheraton Hotel heard that Bahrain was committed to protecting the interest of the IT sector and that 'Bahraini law enforcement authorities have been conducting raids in various key areas in the past few months' and had also 'supported awareness campaigns to educate both the private and public sectors of the detrimental socio-economic effects of software piracy'.
Perhaps the crime-busters could target an area around the souq next time!
Oh dear, it was worse than imaginable. Who has time to listen to their horoscopes being read as they are trying to get the kids ready for school? What child has got time to 'email' their record request on the way to school? If you ever wanted to find a fish out of water then Radio Bahrain was the place on Sunday morning. I'm looking forward to seeing the morning show listening figures for February compared to January ... and if I was an advertiser I'd demand to see them.
