Vigin Radio's Kris Fade  Jeffrey E Biteng / The National
Vigin Radio's Kris Fade Jeffrey E Biteng / The National

Virgin radio’s #SaveNeil Valentine’s gold-digger story grips commuters – and ends a relationship



A segment on Virgin Radio's The Kris Fade Show about Valentine's Day gifts turned into a nail-­biting session for commuters this week, prompting an outpouring of support, one broken relationship – and what has to be some of Dubai's best morning radio.

The drama began on Monday when a woman called in to boast about the extravagant gifts her boyfriend had given her.

“Last year my guy got me two pairs of Louboutins, the Swarovski ones, each costing Dh24,000, and I didn’t get him nothing.”

She went on to disclose he had also bought her a Porsche for Christmas.

Just as the conversation was about to close, Fade popped a serious question.

“Anonymous, be serious with me for a minute. If the money was gone tomorrow, would you still be with him?”

Anonymous only paused briefly before saying that she was a self-centred person and she didn’t know if she would be with him should the money disappear.

What unfolded next surely sent adrenalin surging through morning traffic jams all over the UAE.

It turns out the Louboutin-­gifter was listening to the call, recognised his lady’s voice and called in to the show.

The bewildered and hurtsounding fellow identified himself as Neil.

“Yes,” he replied, when asked whether he loved her. “Yes, I’m just shocked by her response to the question. My sister was over at Christmas and she told me she was like that ... I like to spoil people and be generous but when you hear something like that ...”

Neil said there would be a talk that night and the show could call him in the morning to find out what happened. Cue listeners taking to Twitter in a gush of support for polite Neil, adopting the hashtag #SaveNeil.

The next morning, Neil confirmed that after phoning his sister in England and a visit to his personal trainer, Jane Head, who is also his mentor and was similarly suspicious of Anonymous’s intentions, he had sent her packing. The first thing she asked was: “Can I keep the Porsche?”

When The National spoke to her yesterday, Head said of her client: "Neil is a lovely young man who treated his girlfriend in a lovely way and just got taken advantage of.

“I think it’s also the fact that she spoke in such a degrading way about the gifts he had given her that was so shocking.”

And while the station has received hundreds of messages and there have been repeated tweets from women interested in picking up where Anonymous left off, Head says Neil finds attention troubling.

“A lot of the girls tweeting to #SaveNeil have offered to take him out and cheer him up – they’ve said his ex-girlfriend was a horrible gold digger and yet they are tweeting someone they’ve never met and inviting them out, all because they know from the radio that he’s a wealthy young man.”

Head spoke to Neil on Wednesday morning and, while he was feeling shocked at the surreal situation, he appreciated all the support he has received.

“He is feeling embarrassed about being taken advantage of,” she said, “so he is going to keep his anonymity for now.”

Neil’s story has prompted the biggest response in the history of the show, says Fade.

“It took me completely off-guard and I was glad I asked the right questions, I guess,” he says.

“While what happened to Neil was horrible, I have been getting a lot of phone calls supporting what we did on the show because it changed his life, hopefully for the better.”

Although it would be easy to condemn Anonymous, Fade cautions against it.

“That’s why we never mentioned her real name on the radio, because we want to protect her as well,” he says. “What she did may have affected her with this guy, but we don’t want it to affect her whole life. Going forward, maybe she will change and learn from what ­happened.”

Staff at the Burj Al Arab – where Neil had been planning to propose to Anonymous this weekend – were among Neil’s new supporters, tweeting: “Neil, we have a comfort hamper waiting for you at #BurjAlArab. We are here for you.”

Along with an invite from the morning crew to hang out VIP-style this weekend at RedFestDXB – which didn’t sound much like Neil’s style – he will have family visiting: he invited his sister and her husband out to Dubai, so they could spend their Valentine’s Day in the suite he had rented.

As Fade told him on-air on Tuesday: “Continue what you are doing, know the country is behind you. Everyone in their cars, everyone in their office space is thinking of you. You found the wrong woman but I’m sure there’s a good one waiting for you.”

fcampbell@thenational.ae

* With files from Saeed Saeed

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In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe

Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010

Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille

Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm

Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year

Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”

Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners

TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013 

Our legal consultant

Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais

Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants

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The five pillars of Islam

1. Fasting

2. Prayer

3. Hajj

4. Shahada

5. Zakat 

Match info

Bournemouth 0
Liverpool 4
(Salah 25', 48', 76', Cook 68' OG)

Man of the match: Andrew Robertson (Liverpool)

Key findings
  • Over a period of seven years, a team of scientists analysed dietary data from 50,000 North American adults.
  • Eating one or two meals a day was associated with a relative decrease in BMI, compared with three meals. Snacks count as a meal. Likewise, participants who ate more than three meals a day experienced an increase in BMI: the more meals a day, the greater the increase. 
  • People who ate breakfast experienced a relative decrease in their BMI compared with “breakfast-skippers”. 
  • Those who turned the eating day on its head to make breakfast the biggest meal of the day, did even better. 
  • But scrapping dinner altogether gave the best results. The study found that the BMI of subjects who had a long overnight fast (of 18 hours or more) decreased when compared even with those who had a medium overnight fast, of between 12 and 17 hours.

Employment lawyer Meriel Schindler of Withers Worldwide shares her tips on achieving equal pay
 
Do your homework
Make sure that you are being offered a fair salary. There is lots of industry data available, and you can always talk to people who have come out of the organisation. Where I see people coming a cropper is where they haven’t done their homework.
 
Don’t be afraid to negotiate

It’s quite standard to negotiate if you think an offer is on the low side. The job is unlikely to be withdrawn if you ask for money, and if that did happen I’d question whether you want to work for an employer who is so hypersensitive.
 
Know your worth
Women tend to be a bit more reticent to talk about their achievements. In my experience they need to have more confidence in their own abilities – men will big up what they’ve done to get a pay rise, and to compete women need to turn up the volume.
 
Work together
If you suspect men in your organisation are being paid more, look your boss in the eye and say, “I want you to assure me that I’m paid equivalent to my peers”. If you’re not getting a straight answer, talk to your peer group and consider taking direct action to fix inequality.

Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.

Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.

Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.

“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.

Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.

From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.

Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.

BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.

Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.

Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.

“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.

“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.

“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”

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The rules on fostering in the UAE

A foster couple or family must:

  • be Muslim, Emirati and be residing in the UAE
  • not be younger than 25 years old
  • not have been convicted of offences or crimes involving moral turpitude
  • be free of infectious diseases or psychological and mental disorders
  • have the ability to support its members and the foster child financially
  • undertake to treat and raise the child in a proper manner and take care of his or her health and well-being
  • A single, divorced or widowed Muslim Emirati female, residing in the UAE may apply to foster a child if she is at least 30 years old and able to support the child financially
Jawan
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RACE SCHEDULE

All times UAE ( 4 GMT)

Friday, September 29
First practice: 7am - 8.30am
Second practice: 11am - 12.30pm

Saturday, September 30
Qualifying: 1pm - 2pm

Sunday, October 1
Race: 11am - 1pm

From Zero

Artist: Linkin Park

Label: Warner Records

Number of tracks: 11

Rating: 4/5

The biog

Family: Parents and four sisters

Education: Bachelor’s degree in business management and marketing at American University of Sharjah

A self-confessed foodie, she enjoys trying out new cuisines, her current favourite is the poke superfood bowls

Likes reading: autobiographies and fiction

Favourite holiday destination: Italy

Posts information about challenges, events, runs in other emirates on the group's Instagram account @Anagowrunning

Has created a database of Emirati and GCC sportspeople on Instagram @abeermk, highlight: Athletes

Apart from training, also talks to women about nutrition, healthy lifestyle, diabetes, cholesterol, blood pressure

The specs
Engine: 3.6 V6

Transmission: 8-speed auto

Power: 295bhp

Torque: 353Nm

Price: Dh155,000

On sale: now 

The specs

Engine: Dual 180kW and 300kW front and rear motors

Power: 480kW

Torque: 850Nm

Transmission: Single-speed automatic

Price: From Dh359,900 ($98,000)

On sale: Now

UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
A timeline of the Historical Dictionary of the Arabic Language
  • 2018: Formal work begins
  • November 2021: First 17 volumes launched 
  • November 2022: Additional 19 volumes released
  • October 2023: Another 31 volumes released
  • November 2024: All 127 volumes completed
Ms Yang's top tips for parents new to the UAE
  1. Join parent networks
  2. Look beyond school fees
  3. Keep an open mind