A Few Of The Outstanding Images From The 2015 Sony World Photography Awards...

As usual the Sony World Photography Awards give us an opportunity to view some outstanding images submitted already from around the globe.
Entries close in January 2015.
Andrew Suryono would be one happy man with his simply gorgeous and amazing image of this Orangutan in Bali using a banana leaf to shelter from the rain.
Jubair Bin Iqbal's image of a Hindu monk in a mango garden in Bangladesh. 
Arief Siswandhono's daughter overcomes her fear of the family cat.
An Ethiopian man collects wood.
And Gareth Lowndes was up early to get this image of a hot air balloon near Dubai.
There's more here.
The gorgeous little Orangutan does it for me...

Dubai Expects 180 Million Tourists A Year To Visit The First Temperature Controlled City With The Mall Of The World, Touted As The Planet's Largest Shopping Center...

Some people will want to throw up or at least throw up their arms in horror at the thought of this monstrosity with it's excess of everything. Can you imagine the mass of humanity crowded into it's forty eight million square feet of shopping space and the thousands of hotel rooms catering for them. No wonder they're also having a three million square foot 'wellness district' dedicated
to rejuvenation.
You'd need rejuvenation alright and more
after a day in that environment.
This project will evidently complement Dubai's plan to transform itself into a cultural, tourist and economic hub for the two billion people living in the region around them. Amazing.
I can't imagine anyone wanting to retain some sanity in their lives going anywhere near Dubai's latest dubious display of crassness.
But there's no accounting for taste...

Iran Air Flight 655. Malaysian Airlines Flight 17. History Keeps Repeating Itself. We Shouldn't Forget To Remember...

On July 3, 1988 Iran Air Flight 655 was an Iran Air Civilian Passenger flight from Tehran to Dubai that was somehow, shockingly, horrifically, mistakenly, shot down by the United States Navy guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes.
All two hundred and ninety innocent men and women including sixty six children on board died.
The incident took place in Iranian airspace over Iran's territorial waters in the Persian Gulf.
The airplane, an Airbus A300 B2-203 was destroyed by SM-2MR surface to air missiles fired from the Vincennes.
We should never forget to remember...

Nineteen Year Old Russian Daredevil Alexander Remnev And His Vertigo Inducing Photos. You Might Want To See Them With Your Eyes Shut...

The young Russian daredevil Alexander Romnev and his thrillseeking friends get their kicks by literally hanging out at the top of tall, the taller the better, buildings.
Nineteen year old Alexander has recently been in Dubai to climb some of that city's tallest buildings and on getting to the top, pausing to take a few selfies with his camera attached to a extension pole.
Here's Alex and his mates at the top of the world's tallest residential building, Dubai's 1,350ft high Princess Tower.
This was written with my eyes shut...

This Is One Of The World's Most Expensive And Ugliest Motorhomes...

I thought this monstrosity was the most badly designed piece of rubbish on the road when I featured it here in 2011 and the damned thing has reared it's ugly head again.
Now this, this abortion that's been described by some as a palace on wheels has gone on sale in Dubai for around two million pounds.
Or nearly four million dollars.
Some things get better looking with age but this forty foot long space age piece of ostentatious, tasteless kitsch on wheels by eleMMent
is not one of them.
Even with or perhaps because of its features here, its huge master bedroom, its pop-up cocktail bar and roof top terrace, the Palazzo remains one of the great road hazards to try and avoid. At all costs.
Give me a good old Beddy anytime...

This Is What The Next World's Tallest Building Will Look Like...

This is the next world's tallest building.
It's the Broad Sustainable Building in yes of course, China who is committed to leading the world in everything.
It's called Sky City because that's what the insane 838 metre high building will be.
A city complete with thirty thousand Chinese citizens, four thousand families who will no doubt be coerced into living there on its two hundred and twenty floors that will contain, apart from residences, offices, schools, shopping complexes, a hospital, gardens and recreational facilities. All in one grossly ugly and expensive building that boasts eleven million square feet and will cost one and a half billion dollars.
It's due to be completed in April next year and they've just started digging the foundations.
The newest tallest building in the world, being built in Chansha, the capital of Hunan Province will be ten metres taller than the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. Just imagine the Emirates' spending all those dollars to find they're ten metres short of a mammoth.
Whether the residents of this city in the sky can sleep soundly in their beds at night might depend if they care about a large earthquake or the fact that China's best firefighting equipment and technology can do nothing for anyone above the seventieth floor.
But it's just what China needs.
Evidently...