Guide to New Dubaians

In the Olden Days - the 1980s and early 90s - it was very easy to geographically categorise most paleface expat Dubaians. The vast majority were Jumeira Janes in bougainvillea-strewn villas: the wives of British industry and banking execs. These stolid society matrons, who spent around six months of the year back home "escaping the heat", had their feathers uncomfortably ruffled by the influx of flashy Umm Seqeim Sandras late last decade.

Today, the situation is far more confused. But to shed some light on 21st century Euro-expats, here is a rough guide to New Dubaians:

1. Countryside couples
These expats live in improbably-verdantly-themed villa developments such as "The Lakes", "The Springs", "the Meadows" and "The Leafy Forest Glades": all bang slap in the middle of the desert. Many of the old guard have moved here from Jumeira 1, converting their extortionately high rent into slightly less painful mortgage repayments. Jumeira coffee mornings have effectively gone online, with country couples spending their lives fretting about soaring service charges, unfulfilled maintance promises, and neighbours from hell.

2. Gardens inmates
These lucky detainees managed to get into Dubai's cheapest, leafiest new development before the waiting-list grew to its current length of several thousand applicants. They tend to be Tecom singles larging it at Trilogy and Bar Zar of an evening, as Sheikh Zayed road traffic now makes travelling north impossible, or subcon families organising community days on the cricket pitch. Less energetic inmates prefer to slip through the barricades for "gourmet" night at Jebel Ali Cloob.

3. Greens gang
Too late to get a Gardens cell, too poor for a country estate, young, upwardly mobile Greenies like to imagine that their life is some sort of Arabic version of Melrose Place. It is not. It is life in a large concrete goldfish bowl around a tiny concrete pool. Heather Locklear would rather eat her own feet than spend five minutes among the desperately un-Hollywood bodies slumped around the communal areas.

4. "Bidouns" or nomads
These are a hotchpotch of homeless wanderers, who migrate between villa and flatshares, unable to settle anywhere for more than a few months, always on a sadly-deluded lookout for a Gardens cell of their own. Some are Kisharoos - illegal workers hopping in and out of Iran every couple of months on tourist visas. Others drift about, regularly falling out with their ersatz landlords or being kicked out when the landlord moves back home.

Of all groups, the lifestyles of the semi-legal bidouns are closest to the traditional ways of the Bedouin. As such they should be rewarded with free Government tents and given shady camping grounds and subsidised camels.