We like the story today in the National today that Abu Dhabi police have built the world’s fastest police car.

Not wanting to be left out of the Grand Prix fever gripping the capital, the cops built their very own F1 car, aptly named F999.

It can travel at 400kph and has been kitted out with flashing lights, sirens and a police radio and will be unveiled to the public on October 28 at Abu Dhabi Corniche.

It’s a shame it’s just for show and will never make it on to the city’s streets. The police could do with it to keep up with speeding drivers.

AB driving-related stories

80% of people support driving age limit increase

Gucci seatbelt plan to get young drivers to buckle up

324 motorists stripped of licence in six months

Majority think UAE motorists ‘drive like maniacs’ - poll

Action call as UAE roads rank among deadliest

The Gulf Times leads with a story on Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Minister of Foreign Affairs, speaking at the UN General Assembly about nuclear power.

“The UAE’s commitment not to enrich uranium and reprocess fuels locally is among the most salient features of this model. This is a model supported by enhanced international transparency and cooperation mechanisms,” he said.

The National also led with this, adding that the GCC may have a major role to play in “attempting to settle mounting concerns over Iran’s atomic programme.”

Arabian Business has a cracking story (even if we do say so ourselves) about some UAE construction firms charging workers recruitment costs. Bound to be a hot topic.

Khaleej Times reports that swine flu fears are falling as more pupils return to school for the start of term. Most schools recorded a 95 percent attendance rate on Sunday, the paper said, but then you would hope that seeing as they started on Wednesday the previous week.

Meanwhile, 7days has spoken to Rita Dutt, the sister of Ruma Ghose-Puri, who was killed by stalker Rashid Daabaz.

“She was my sister and my best friend. I am begging the people of Dubai to help. We need new laws and new police procedures for dealing with stalker cases. It could happen to anyone and you feel so powerless,” she told the paper.

Have you got a story? Let us know, email elsa_baxter@itp.com

The Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) of Dubai must be delighted. According to a poll on its own web site, 61 percent of commuters will use the Metro to get to work once it is launched.

A mere 21 percent of the population will not use it to get to work, and 16 percent are undecided.

This is not a small poll where only RTA employees cast their votes. The web site counter says that 18,901 people have voted.

On the same web site a few months ago, an almost identical poll asked whether people will use the new public buses in Dubai. 59 percent said they will.

The results of these surveys are not necessarily contradictory. After all, it is possible for six out of every ten people to commute to work on the Metro, and to use new public buses. Indeed, this is exactly what the RTA would like: catch a bus from home to the Metro stations, and continue your journey to work on the train.

So it seems that what the RTA wants, it gets, even when it comes to results of spot polls on its web site.

At what point do you earn the right to link yourself with a particular profession or job title? I have been considering this quandary because, as you may have noticed, I have been doing a bit of writing of late, but not once, when someone has asked what I do, have I told them that I am a writer.

Perhaps it’s a time thing, and I just haven’t been doing it for long enough. But then I have been driving a car for 15 years and cooking for even longer than that and yet I don’t think of myself as ‘a driver’, and, as scores of people will testify, I’m certainly no chef.

Maybe you have to be seen to be good at what you do before you are honoured with a title. No, estate agents the world over disprove that theory.

Being paid for what you do is, no doubt, a key element to how people perceive themselves but that is not a hard and fast rule either. Take philosophers for example, they don’t necessarily get paid. They just sit there, thinking. But how much thinking do you have to do before you can legitimately call yourself a bona fide philosopher I wonder?

When I was a little boy I wanted to grow up to become either a tycoon or an explorer, but it seems that they are tough worlds to crack. I still don’t know what being a tycoon really entails, apart from being rich, tanned and being able to wear floppy linen shirts. ‘Explorer’ is even more vague – just go and get lost, seems to be the remit.

As with writing I figured that the best way to become an explorer was just to have a go one day. So, to test my trainee exploring skills I decided to start small and local – with a visit to the monorail on The Palm Jumeirah. What do you mean that’s not proper exploring – have you been on it? No. Exactly.

The Palm, for the uninitiated, is a man-made, palm-shaped island, the self-proclaimed eighth wonder of the world, and is both absolutely amazing and yet completely bonkers at the same time. A few weeks ago a monorail service opened up which takes paying guests the length of The Palm but which few people have yet tried out. I think I know why.

And it’s not the price. At AED 25 it is expensive but not prohibitively so, at least for a one off exploratory trip. It’s finding the damn thing that’s the problem. I knew that the main monorail station was housed inside a huge great car park. I could see it, but boy was it tricky to get to. There were no signposts. I now know how Edmund Hilary must have felt as he traipsed up that hill.

I read a report stating that 600 people a day are using the monorail. I doubt that – it’s harder to find than the Holy Grail which means that you need the tenacity of Indiana Jones to stand any chance at all.

But find it I did. And it was well worth it but not because it was an efficient mode of transport that took me from A to B. I had struggled to find A and I didn’t want to get to B. But that’s not the point. I wanted to have an opinion so that when people speak to me about the monorail I can speak from experience. And now I can, and, for what it’s worth, this is my opinion:

We can grumble – as we will – about the signage, the price, the unopened stations and the need to connect to a wider Metro network in order to become a useful daily transport link for residents. So it is not perfect, but we need to have a little faith that these issues will be addressed over time.

It’s still early days but it is clearly a modern and slick form of public transport that provides unique overhead views of The Palm Jumeirah and, best of all, it makes you feel like Neil Armstrong, stepping foot where no man has been before.

It’s new territory. Go. Explore.

I always pay cash. You know where you are with cold hard cash. You know instantly whether you can afford something or not – if you haven’t got the readies you can’t pay for the goods – put the merchandise down, step away from the shop.

Parting with the folding stuff is psychologically more traumatic than handing over a piece of plastic and putting a squiggle on a receipt, so you think twice about spending so freely. Using cash, therefore, actually saves you money.

If you start paying with a debit card it becomes a full time job keeping track of what you’ve spent; if, that is, you keep track at all. One day you decide to check your balance and you have a heart attack because all your money has disappeared.

Surviving the heart attack is a mixed blessing – you’re alive, but you have no money left on which to live. It is worse still if you don’t realize that all your money has been drained from your account and you go out on a date, have a romantic meal for two, try and pay the bill and your card is rejected. Then, inevitably, so are you.

Credit cards are even worse. They can make Stig of the dump feel like King of the castle, but it’s an illusion. I know this well but then those pesky marketing gurus at Emirates get involved. And they’re good. They’re very good…and so it came to pass that last year my defences were breached and, with the promise of 40,000 free air miles, I signed up for a credit card.

My shiny new card felt a bit like having a Rottweiler as a guard dog – it was comforting to know that it was there but I just hoped that it was never called into action, being well aware, as I was, that it could do far more harm than good.

After a year of straining at the leash I decided to have the Rottweiler put down and cut up the card. The reason, as is the way with such things, is that a younger, fitter version has come along. It is a different company, offering more goodies.

This is a difficult concept to grasp in the age of the credit crunch but the banks are literally shoving air miles down my throat and showering me with credit. I am assuming that in their attempts to stimulate consumer activity the bank see me as a negligent fool who will rack up huge debt, forget to pay it off and then they can charge me billions of dirhams worth of interest which will, in one fell swoop, rectify their balance sheets.

Naïve, I think is the word. Still, banks didn’t get where they are today without being more than a little naïve.

Frankly the banks are the least of my worries. For the last 20 years I have berated friends and family for using cards instead of cash and when I am spotted with my new flexible friend I suspect that I will end up with credit-card-egg all over my face.

Indeed, it has started already and I’ve had my new card for less than a week. I was enthusing to a friend about a meal the other day where I was told by the waiter that if I paid by Visa I would receive a 30% discount. So obviously I paid by Visa.

My friend just looked at me, and, with disbelief in her eyes, 20 years of abuse ringing in her ears and a slight shake of the head, muttered with incredulity, “You paid by card?!”. It was the same tone that I imagine she would use if I had told her that I had just boiled her family and eaten them for breakfast.

In my defence, not only did I get a 30% discount but I also earned a few air miles to boot. In these troubled times you’ve got to take what you can get. I remember the days when cash was King – you paid cash, you got a discount. Now, despite reports to the contrary, it seems that credit is the new force in town. The King is dead; long live the King.