One life

In the car park near Emirates Towers shopping boulevard is an Indian man in security uniform with four parking cones, a driveway, and no shade. It appears that his job is to endlessly place two cones in each half of the driveway - entrance and exit - and remove them when a car appears.

Presumably, he is counting the number of cars so the car park does not overfill and people double park, etc. Presumably, he blocks the exit so people don't try and sneak past him that way.

Of all the mindless, pointless, total utter wastes of a human being's life there cannot be much worse than this. To pay someone (doubtless a pittance) to move four cones backwards and forwards for ten hours a day, six days a week is an abomination to humanity.

Morning of Muffins

During a pre-press conference discussion of the perils of sheikhmobiles hurtling down Sheikh Zayed at 300kmph+, am reliably informed by a cameraman colleague from Islamabad that "you know who the best drivers are? Indians and Pakistanis. Because they have Japanese cars, which aren't so strong, so they drive more carefully."

Which unfortunately doesn't allow for the infuriation factor of taking Zayed at a steady 120 only to screech to a grinding near-halt behind a Nissan Sunny trundling merrily along at 40kmph in the third lane. Creating the difficult choice of either overtaking on the inside lane, dodging lorries and "Fancy" minibuses, or using the fast lane and running the risk of a sheikhmobile scraping sparks as it squeezes past by the hard shoulder.

Emirates Towers morning press conferences appear to have two forms of catering. One is delicious little sandwiches in varieties of mozarella and pesto, smoked salmon, and tomato and basil. Generally accompanied by nice little biscuits of the florentine variety, or choclatey things. The other is tasteless muffinesque stodgy confections, accompanied by cold and unyielding "mini croissants" in a range of unappetising flavours. This morning the latter, sadly. Disappointment was such that I didn't even stay for lunch.

According to the press release, Jebel Ali port is getting a one billion dollar expansion. The entire presentation was in Arabic however, with the slides in English. One can only hope they matched. Perhaps the speeches were actually about a new muffin factory, which judging from this morning's stodge, they are in dire need of.

The pain of rain

Aboriginal Australians believe rain is the Sky God making love to Mother Earth but to my mind it is the Almighty pissing on us. Even after eighteen months of near-total dessication the chilly drops are still very unwelcome, loathesomely reminiscent of the expat Homeland, wherever it may be.

Drove through the splattering drops to Dubai's nicest hotel, Emirates Towers, to meet Abu Dhabi's second highest British expat (after the Ambassador, as he modestly points out). 2HBE is on excellent form, and I head back to Little Bombay fully fed and fully briefed on the latest gossip from Abu Dhabi village.

Tomorrow is a special day taken off work to make the annual pilgrimage to Dubai's most sacred place: the Shopping Festival. Or more precisely the Global Village, where I am keen to visit the Iraqi pavilion for posters of Saddam which I intend to flog on ebay.

The One and Only

Failing to find a cheap chair in The One is frustrating but not exactly surprising. It's not quite Ikea. As usual the shop was crammed to the gills with Jumeira Janes carrying out Seasonal shopping, filling their vacuous undertasked lives with overpriced cushions and floating candles. Is is a visa requirement for all White Expat Wives to have dyed blonde hair, designer clothes and dreadful children?

Karaoke at Emirates Towers: the usual medley of Elvis, Spice, and a seasonal touch with "White Christmas". Why don't Muslims sing carols? It might be fetching to have a small band of sheiklets singing hadiths every Ramadan, cheeks rosy from the desert heat and dishdashes shining angel-white in the villa floodlights.

One of the buyers from The One was at the karaoke, sharing the horrid tale of two Jumeira Janes' relentless hunt for "bathroom accessories." We left with the image of a dust-gathering dish of falsely-dyed seashells sending shivers down our spines.