As you can see I used a shot from my trip for my new profile picture. Firstly, Oman is amazing, it's probably the only Gulf state with an actual culture and that culture has a deep history in silver.

I wandered through the souks and markets speaking with a number of silver trading experts and their predictions for the forthcoming year based on demand, difficulty in acquiring the physical metal and the over-all economic outlook were supremely optimistic. Many of the traders have personal hordes of the metal in either bar form, or in the form of traditional silver works of Omani heritage... they're pretty happy to keep adding to their personal holdings at the moment. Apparently Muscat is becoming a real destination for Silver Bugs.

It was great to get a real sit down with some of these wonderfully hospitable people who showed me how to see the difference between 'new art' which is simply silver stamped with a machine to look like handwork, and 'old art' which is hand sewed and carved over a long period. There is a treasure trove of silver works in the various markets of the well informed, loads of the smaller traders don't know what they have in their antiques piles as there are silver pieces simply left to blacken and to gather dust. A little love and attention and you get a real bargain, especially as Omani hagglers are really chilled and easy going. If I win a job contract in the region I will return to this place over and over... it's one of the nicest countries I have ever had the pleasure to visit- a real contrast from Dubai.

Speaking of Dubai, I returned here yesterday by taxi (50 usd from Muscat to Dubai!) and saw that the Burj Dubai will open today. There is a very dampened excitement here, but at the same time the reality is setting in. There is more office space available for the 1.2 million people here (most of which are poor immigrant workers) than for Shanghai. That's a fact. How... how did banks ever back this? Next time one of your friends says you're nuts and/or disagrees with your views on the intelligence of the banking wizards, point to Dubai- where was the DD??

One sales friend here told me that one of Americas biggest developers came here and took a tour with their Dubai counterparts in an attempt to get them to buy in and get exposed. At the end of the trip, the CEO said, it all looks great, but where will the people come from? Perplexed the salespeople replied... "um... from everywhere'. Uh-huh. They have a serious possibility of becoming the worlds greatest tourist attraction in the form of the worlds biggest ghost town, complete with incredible empty towers and an empty metro shuffling no-one from empty half finished concrete to empty half finished concrete.

Soul in 10- Happy New Year to all & lets see ECU go to the moon in 2010... come on drill results.