Highest of high teas

With few oil sheikhs to be found in Dubai's many malls, Margery decides to have a last shot in a more refined environment: afternoon tea at the Burj. After roasting herself for the past week by various pools and beaches, and buying every flounced peasant skirt the sales have to offer, the formerly lilywhite prim schoolmarm is now a nut-brown gipsy temptress.

"Traditional tea" at the Burj Al Arab is an interesting concept: largely because it is a tradition found nowhere else throughout the known world. Except perhaps - on a reduced scale and renamed "Devonshire" - at Ye Olde Tea Shoppe, Stratford upon Avon, served expressly to baseball-capped, camera-strapped American tourists named Hank and Velma.

Alas for Margery while Hank and Velma haven't yet quit quaint Britain for ay-rab-land, their British counterparts have. Far from sheikhs or sultans, the nearest thing to royalty is an apparent pearly king and his queen on an adjacent table, telling the waiter what a super holiday they have had:

"We've bin avin' a luvverly time, treated like royal'ee everywhere we've bin."

Fortunately fresh scones, dainty sandwiches and petit-fours numb the disappointment, and Margery decides on a bit of culture rather than clubbing for her final evening. Abra-riding across Dubai Creek in her elegant tea-gown, her dainty ankles attract plenty of attention, but for now she has given up on a Middle Eastern paramour. Instead, Margery is off to Guernsey, where hopefully plenty of burly, woolly-sweatered fishermen await.