The road to erudition?

After only managing to create a village for Knowledge, Dubai is creating an entire City for Academia.

But so far it appears to be nothing but a large road system, containing an impressive eleven roundabouts, two interchanges, and "several service roads". Perhaps prayers have been answered and the entire City is intended to teach Dubai residents how not to drive so appallingly? An entire Campus to instruct the black-window brigade to leave more than two inches between the car in front when tailgating. Physiotherapy classes to help Nissan Sunnymen extend their foot on the accelerator to exceed 60kmph. Sociology lectures on the alien concept of driving courtesy.

Required course reading: Dubai's new Traffic Calming Manual, surely set to rival Harry Potter 5 for advance pre-orders.

Illicit visit to Manama

"Remember: you're not journalists, you're here on holiday," the PR supremo hisses to us as we reach passport control.

Unfortunately the official is suspicious of my "high resolution" camera. "Why are you here in Bahrain?"

Smile gaily in a falsely bright fashion. "Oh just for a visit, for some sightseeing!"

Yeah right. Because so many tourists fly from Dubai on a working day armed with nothing but a PD150 and tripod to take pretty pictures of Manama. Anyway they let me through. Next time I'll bring an AK47 and a can of that "nuclear material" they display on the Customs Forbidden posters. (What is that stuff? Radioactive hairspray?)

As it was, we saw nothing of the city, just the HQ of a recently resuscitated regional airline. The infamous causeway, littered with beercans and Saudi sheikhmobiles, remains a future treat.

A Right Royal Knockabout

If the aeroplane is going to crash, one may as well expire in style by being in First Class. Fortunately it arrived safely, so fellow hack Hoffle-Jones and I enjoyed the full benefits of our premium-class seats, menu and service.

Entry to Qatar was in full royal style, whisked off in shiny limos straight from the plane to a special VIP lounge. No clambering on to a crowded cattlebus to stand in line awaiting luggage, and passport control, and immigration in a dingy terminal. Just a quick, cool, easy reception and cups of sweet Arabic tea in a large and beautiful room while invisible elves dealt with passports and baggage claim.

The Ritz Carlton Doha is a god of a hotel. Vast, labyrinthine, splendid beyond imagining. Tucked away indoors in its spacious depths are two full sized tennis courts, a 25-metre swimming pool, huge men's and women's spas, racquetball courts and squash courts, and doubtless a fully turfed cricket pitch, had we looked hard enough. Outside is another sprawling, palm-tree-scattered oasis pool, with a wealth of empty sunloungers. No germans wielding towels at dawn here.

Everyone in Dubai describes Qatar/Doha as "small", "boring", "dull", or roll their eyes with a look of pity. They are either lying or stupid. Doha is beautiful by day, glittering by night. It is an endlessly spacious, growing city, spread along a vast stretch of turquoise water, with palm trees, walkways, and very little traffic. Qataris are outstandingly hospitable and speak excellent English. Desire to ever leave Qatar is currently about nil.

Arabic hospitality

Exasperating to hear Tanmia whingeing about the lack of nationals employed in the hospitality sector. Apparently there are only fifteen Emiratis employed in hotels in the entire Emirates. Human resource managers attribute this scarcity to long hours, shift work, low pay, and hospitality seen as "low grade" by locals.

Quite why anyone could imagine the average Emirati graduate getting up in the morning to a breakfast cooked by their Sri Lankan cook, dishdash nicely ironed by the Filipino maid, 4WD freshly washed by the Bangla houseboy and driven by the Keralite driver, to arrive at a hotel, put on overalls, and start cooking and cleaning for less money and longer hours than they pay their own servants, is anyone's guess.

The answer according to senior bureaucrats in goverment employment offices is for hotels to change working conditions and raise salaries.

This will of course result in the average hotel having a room rate ten times that of the Burj, and an occupancy ten times lower. (Which probably makes negative guests, perhaps there will be a form of dark-matter vacuum in every bed?) The one blessing will be the Torremolinos Trash never again returning to these shores, and an end to the road-blocking construction stretching from the Jumeirah Beach Hotel to the Sheraton as Dubai's tourism sector implodes.

Madness in the Marketplace

Through the bustling crowds of dishdashes making their way through narrow alleyways, merchants and shopkeepers pushing their wares, past flocks of black abayas wafting strong, musky attars, here and there a bright splash of sari, children pushing past a thicket of legs and skirts, gaudy coloured toys and knock off electronics from Asia, fake watches and pirated DVDs, spices and dried fruit from the Levant, dates from Oman, cheap textiles from India and the subcontinent.

An old woman veiled head to foot clasps a large sack of pistachios, Bangladeshi maids jostle to buy strange Asian vegetables, a small sticky brat screams for sweets on a nearby stand, several Omanis or east Afrabs in embroidered hats browse discount CDs, and a tall bored sheikh twirls scented worrybeads as his several wives pick over cosmetics and perfumes. This is the souq of today, of a hundred years ago, of a thousand years ago: this is Arabia.

It's Carrefour in City Centre shopping mall: the true heart of the Emirates. This is Middle East culture - shopping, homewares, vast families, western junk food and disposable consumer goods. The only camels are stuffed or plastic, the only carpet are pure machine-woven nylon, and the shisha pipes and Arabic souvenirs are made in Taiwan.

The Iron Curtain of Guantanamo

A hilarious joke email spoof has landed in my inbox. It's the announcement of a UN sponsored meeting for Arab minsters to discuss boosting "Public Administration Efficiency." Amusing as it is, it occurs to me that the joke may have lost something more in translation - perhaps the Arab for "efficiency" is also a synonym for "scented worry-bead twiddling"?

Guantanamo is making a valiant new attempt at racial segregation. Having failed to ghetto each race as other suburbs have managed so admirably: dishdash to Jumeirah beachfront palaces, Grade I palefaces to more modest villas in Umm Seqeim (Grade II to Golden Sands), and subcontinentals to Deira, Sharjah, Karama, and the Old Pakistani consulate - it's now using education as a means to filter the masses.

The two new schools at The Gardens are called "Westminster School" (British) and "Delhi School" (Indian). One wonders what their respective curricula will be. A for Avail, B for Mumbai, C for Kolkota? And what happens to the children of mixed race parents? Will they create a sort of Venn diagram overlap between the two campuses, or will they cut them in half?