Drum ’n’ bass pioneer, BBC Radio 1 DJ and clubland legend Grooverider, real name Raymond Bingham, has been sentenced to four years imprisonment after being found guilty of possession and illegally bringing marijuana into the United Arab Emirates. This is terrible news, but ’Rider only has himself to blame. Story from AFP:

A court in Dubai has sentenced British dance DJ Grooverider to four years in prison for drug possession, Gulf News reports.

The English language daily says on its website that [Grooverider] will be deported after serving his sentence.

He was detained at Dubai International Airport in November, as he arrived to perform a gig in the emirate - known as one of the Middle East’s party capitals.

The newspaper says 2.16 grams of marijuana was found in his luggage.

[T]he UAE imposes tough penalties for all drug-related offences.

Four years is the usual sentence for possession, while trafficking carries the death penalty.

Grooverider told judges, “The drugs were in my possession and I forgot I had them in my trousers.”

Hold up your lighters for Grooverider next time you’re at a rave.

Yes, it’s not really a date, but I will be hanging out with someone who is, apparently, very famous. I didn’t know much about Sonia Couling until recently (well, I’m doing my research tonight), but I think it’ll be an interesting interview. I’m still waiting for my chance to interview Four Mod. Hopefully that will come soon.

Thanks to Roger for pointing me in the direction of this one. Even more interesting than The Lost Boy Vs The Token White Boy, this week saw Max Gogarty Vs The World. Who is Max Gogarty, you might ask? He’s a 19-year-old chap from London who occasionally writes for the UK TV show Skins (I’ve never watched it). Max landed a gig blogging for the Guardian about his gap-year trip to India and Thailand.

Max is a typical middle-class kid who aced his A-levels and has taken a gap year to do the Asian thing. It took just a few hours for his first blog post to descend into farce. Writing about preparing for his trip, Max attracted the scorn of hundreds of Guardian readers. Comments were closed as they reached 475.

So what was it about Max’s blog post that angered people so much. Firstly, there was some controversy about Max’s father, Paul Gogarty, who has in the past been a freelance writer for the Guardian. Commenters were quick to accuse the Guardian of nepotism. Then there was Max’s post itself. Here are a few excerpts:

I’m kinda shitting myself about travelling. Well not so much the travelling part. It’s India that scares me. The heat, the roads, the snakes, Australian travellers. Don’t get me wrong, I’m excited. But shitting myself. And I just know that when I step off that plane and into the maelstrom of Mumbai - well, actually, I don’t know how I’ll react.

I’m not entirely sure what appeals to me about travelling. Maybe the lack of work or study? The mayhem? The imagined company of beautiful girls … all very good reasons to travel. And whether I’m right or not, I’m pretty sure it’ll be a world away from cowering under an umbrella at the 134 bus stop.

To be fair to Max, he didn’t do anything wrong and didn’t deserve the torrent of abuse that was hurled at him. However, I think the Guardian made a mistake in commissioning the blog in the first place. It’s hard to judge the blog now that it’s received so much negative coverage, but the blog was mundane from the offset.

As for Max’s father getting Max the gig: that was dismissed by the travel editor of the Guardian, who said:

No one snuck Max through the backdoor. I called him purely on the strength of his track record. On the back of his writing at his comprehensive school, he was invited on to a young writers’ group at the Royal Court theatre, and since then he has worked as an occasional writer on the TV series Skins. I think that’s pretty impressive for a 19-year-old.

Max will be in Thailand soon so maybe some of us will get to meet him. I’m usually not a fan of “gappers”, but might make an exception in this case.

Thoughts, anyone?

Nothing disrupts a night out like being made to pee in a cup. Luckily for me, I arrived about 20 minutes after what looked like some sort of army maneuver had taken place.

Saturday night, about 11 pm and six of us drove to a small club in Phuket Town. The club is nothing special and attracts only a few foreigners. Imagine my surprise, then, to have pulled up and seen about 30 army officers outside the front of the club, with countless flashing lights signaling that something strange was going on.

Calmly, I pulled up outside the front of the club, realizing that my friends had probably driven off at the sight of the officers. A couple of guys were sat wearing rubber gloves, no doubt testing the pee off the bemused partygoers inside the club.

What an utter waste of resources. The officers did a good job of standing around chatting before they drove off in their pickups. I understand that the local government wants to rid the island of drugs, but really, the problems related to drugs are out there on the street, not in tiny nightclubs where local bands and DJs play for students.

This type of drug testing still goes on in Bangkok, although not to the extent that it once did. I heard that one major nightclub was shut down and raided on New Year’s Eve. This disjointed, haphazard approach to drugs in the club scene is, however, sometimes seen in the UK, although it is rare and I don’t recall there even being urine samples taken.

The amount of attention the police (or the army) pay to a nightclub should depend on the type of club it is and the type of people who go there. Recalling my time in the UK, the clubs that were the known gang hangouts were raided often, while the clubs where everyone took drugs caused minimal problems and were, for the most part, left to set their own rules.

That isn’t to say that people were openly taking drugs (well, in some places they were), but clubs had their own rules and the people there understood that. There was, and is, no need for raids, except every now and then to remind clubbers that drugs are still illegal.

What are people’s thought on this matter? Are these drug raids necessary?

I received this in an email today:

Our editors recently reviewed your blog and have given it a 9.0 score out of (10). Your blog is currently in the top 20 in the Entertainment & Recreation/Travel of Blogged.com This is quite an achievement!

After all the negativity of the past few days, I’m pleased that the week has now ended on a positive note. And look, I even get a little badge to show off. I’d never heard of blogged.com before, but it’s a cool website with links to many decent blogs.