Expat wives

The intro says it all:

"Jennifer plays a wife whose husband moved the family to Africa, who was used to a relaxed, laid-back lifestyle, whilst Dawn plays a woman who lives in the United Arab Emirates, and is used to a nouveau-riche lifestyle just treating the locals with a racist stereotype."

Scroll forward about three minutes in for the real gems in this French & Saunders video. A sample:

"Pete... went off to a goat grab at Abdul's. And do you know what a goat grab is, Margaret? Have you heard of that at all? They all sit around all the men with big plates of rice and they just grab for bits of goat to eat. With their rights hands obviously because they wipe their bums with their left hands.

"What else can I tell you about the culture out there? Well, don't try to go into a church or a temple or whatever they call them in a bikini. So I did try and they wouldn't let me in. This bloke stopped me and I said: "I don't know what's wrong with you Abdullahwallah or whatever your name is, if it's because I've got my shoes on I will take them off." But he wouldn't let me in."


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Murder at the Marina

What a tragic life and what a very sad end to it:

Dubai: A Lebanese singing star was found stabbed to death in her Dubai Marina apartment.

Suzan Abdul Sattar Tamim was also disfigured by her attacker. Dubai Police said the 31-year-old singer was stabbed several hours before her body was discovered.

The singer had apparently disappeared for many months before her death. Another strange mystery for Dubai police to solve.


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The Yorkie Bars are on me!

So much for the big clean up at Bur Dubai's notorious York Hotel a couple of years ago - it's clearly back to its full, swinging glory:

"Nowhere is more sickeningly emblematic of the country's seedy new underbelly than the bar at the downtown York International Hotel - a squalid cauldron that should shame any civilised society, let alone one so devoutly Islamic. As the overhead TVs show bloody, noholds barred fighting contests, and music throbs deafeningly, a veritable United Nations of prostitutes - Chinese, Ethiopian, Russian, Nigerian - barter their services."

Well, at least it's more evidence of Dubai's wonderful multiculturalism. Sex in every ethnic flavour.


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Heartbroken Hotels

Dubai hotel occupancy has reportedly plummeted this summer. Which is sad, because as any long-term sandlander knows, the best time in the Gulf is summer. It's a daily wrestling match with the searing white tiger of the Gulf sun amid blanket-thick humidity, while one enjoys the sight of newcomers and tourists wilting and collapsing all around. But the disappointing absence of the latter this year has led Kipp Report to wonder if the emirate has finally been "rumbled"?

"General opinion suggests the situation could be a combination of factors, some external - like the globally depressed economic scenario and higher cost of flights thanks to spiralling oil prices - but there is a nagging suspicion the city has been rumbled: strained infrastructure, choked roads, few transport options, ugly cranes and little to do beyond malls."

And as Kipp notes, Thomson Holidays - the top ranked UK travel agency website - only recommends one destination in the Middle East...

...Israel.


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