I was with a screenwriter friend the other night, and she was complaining about another person. After a long and vivid description of this person’s manifest faults, I had only one question.
“Do I know her?” I asked.
“No,” my friend said. “She’s a horrible person.”
“What does that have to do with it?” I asked. “I’ve been in show business for 25 years. I know a lot of horrible people.”
Which isn’t really true. Well, the 25 years part is true, unfortunately, but the horrible person part isn’t. I don’t really know a lot of horrible people. In fact, I’m not sure there really are all that many horrible people.
Yes, the usual suspects are always on the list – Hitler, Pol Pot, the people who design most computer printers – but actual horrible people? Evil characters roaming around? I’m not so sure.
Yes, there are temperamental types. And yes, there are plenty of insecure bullies around the world. Every office has at least a couple of terrified executives who make everyone else feel miserable.
But when those folks calm down, they often turn out to be decent people. I didn’t say “good people”, you’ll notice. I said “decent”.
Most of the horrible types we all encounter fit somewhere on the scale between the truly evil (that’s Pol Pot at one end) and the occasionally irritating (that’s the guy who parks too close to your car in the car park).
We all have our own personal standards, but I find that most of the people that others call “horrible” are in fact somewhere in between.
But maybe that’s just me. Maybe I’m just a hopeless optimist who always looks for the good in people.
What I’ve noticed over the years, though, is that what makes some people highly effective in business and in life is a willingness to engage in conflict.
They’re the ones who bristle and shout and disagree and get into protracted and doomed arguments, who often cross the line between being decisive and becoming unhinged rage machines.
They’re also the people who live in big houses and drive expensive cars and, in general, have a lot more money and success than those of us who are conflict averse.
In Hollywood, being successful and being “horrible” are frequently intersecting traits.
The rest of us run at the first sign of trouble. We don’t like a lot of shouting and temper displays. We seek to mute and muffle our disagreements, or, when faced with an emerging area of noisy and ugly conflict, we resort to a kind of stony-faced passive-aggressive shutdown. With a half-smile, half-grimace locked into place, our eyes go dead and our minds leave the location and we soar over the city, to a place where there’s a little treat waiting for us – a delicious piece of chocolate, perhaps, or a frothy cappuccino – and we sit quietly in our imaginations enjoying the solitude until an echoing voice calls us back to the present moment, where the conflict is winding down and the shouting has stopped.
I mean, that’s what I do. It’s not something I plan. It happens automatically. Once, when faced with a particularly temperamental movie star, I’m told I sat for almost an hour with a dreamy and absent look on my face as the star screamed about a few script revisions. I have zero memory of it.
I sometimes wonder if I’m handicapped by my reflexive avoidance of real discord. How much more money would I have, how many houses and cars and fat bank accounts might I possess, if I were a little more horrible?
This is a business, unfortunately, in which films get shot and television shows get produced despite an almost insurmountable institutional need to stop all forward progress.
Studios and networks are filled to the rim with people whose sole occupation is to say “no”. So the kind of person who charges into conflict, who yells a bit, who behaves irrationally and thoughtlessly, maybe that’s exactly the kind of person we need.
“You’re an idiot,” my friend said, when I explained this. “That’s just the kind of stupid stuff you always say and no one ever calls you on it.”
My friend went on to enumerate the ways in which my theory on conflict was idiotic. I mean, I think she did. I didn’t hear it all. I was soaring over the city towards a piece of chocolate.
Rob Long is a writer and producer based in Hollywood
On Twitter: @rcbl
The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
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
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
2025 Fifa Club World Cup groups
Group A: Palmeiras, Porto, Al Ahly, Inter Miami.
Group B: Paris Saint-Germain, Atletico Madrid, Botafogo, Seattle.
Group C: Bayern Munich, Auckland City, Boca Juniors, Benfica.
Group D: Flamengo, ES Tunis, Chelsea, (Leon banned).
Group E: River Plate, Urawa, Monterrey, Inter Milan.
Group F: Fluminense, Borussia Dortmund, Ulsan, Mamelodi Sundowns.
Group G: Manchester City, Wydad, Al Ain, Juventus.
Group H: Real Madrid, Al Hilal, Pachuca, Salzburg.
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
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.”
Kanguva
Director: Siva
Stars: Suriya, Bobby Deol, Disha Patani, Yogi Babu, Redin Kingsley
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
We Weren’t Supposed to Survive But We Did
We weren’t supposed to survive but we did.
We weren’t supposed to remember but we did.
We weren’t supposed to write but we did.
We weren’t supposed to fight but we did.
We weren’t supposed to organise but we did.
We weren’t supposed to rap but we did.
We weren’t supposed to find allies but we did.
We weren’t supposed to grow communities but we did.
We weren’t supposed to return but WE ARE.
Amira Sakalla
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
Specs
Engine: Dual-motor all-wheel-drive electric
Range: Up to 610km
Power: 905hp
Torque: 985Nm
Price: From Dh439,000
Available: Now