Camels are Brilliant

So, I'm back to England and - after a diversion to Vienna and a frantic scramble to Somerset -back to normality.

I won't lie to you, it's an absolute treat to be somewhere where things, on the whole, make sense. Somewhere where people are treated equally and where their earnings are broadly commensurate with the work they put in. Somewhere where religion isn't so intrusive (and it is an intrusive religion and not just for heretics like me that don't really want to deviate from their debauched British lifestyle. Getting up before dawn, washing your feet five times a day, not eating during daylight for a month, having to journey to one of the least hospitable places in the world, that's proper hardcore dedication. Not like these namby-pamby, maybe-go-to-church-on-a-Sunday religious types that we have here). Somewhere where suggesting getting a taxi to something 100m away is treated as the joke it should be. Somewhere where you can see even a tiny point to the administrative paperwork that you have to do. Somewhere with sausages that aren't made out of turkey, competitively-priced beer and day-time temperatures that aren't on oven dials. Somewhere with a soul.

That's not to say I didn't enjoy any of it. Deserts are incredible to look at. I saw my first mirage and my first sand storm. Hanging out in plush hotels and eating two buffets a day isn't entirely unpleasant. Muscat was ace, the Grand Mosque was massive and shiny and there were even bits of Dubai that I didn't hate. I don't think I've ever had such consistently good food as I did in the Sunlight Restaurant in Abu Dhabi (two blocks behind the Crowne Plaza on Hamden Street - ask for The Special - massive thumbs up).

And obviously there's camels. Gorgeous, sexy, beautiful camels; wandering round the place with a look of amused befuddlement that summed everything up far more eloquently than I ever could.

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Rachel and Nick - Congratulations

The Weight in Grease of a Large Polar Bear

I'm in Dubai International Airport. It's about as unpleasant as it's possible to make a public space. It's full of piped noise, opulent bobbins (remote controlled Ferrari, yes please) and idiots dragging tiny suitcases around (If I owned an airport I'd definitely be a fascist about this - if you can't carry it, it's not hand luggage - check it in). And it's all slightly too close together to accommodate it all, especially the trailing cases. Everywhere there's people knocking things over and treading on each others' suitcases like some kind of vaudeville hell.

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I'd like to dedicate the title of this entry to Don Gorske, who has recently eaten his 25,000th Big Mac. The eating feat alone is fairly impressive but the fact that he kept count makes him a stone cold hero.

Deserted

Isn't it odd when you go somewhere and realise that you'll almost certainly never be there again? The only time I've really noticed it before was on Easter Island, where I tried to cram everything into a couple of days as I just couldn't see a reason why i would go back.

But this hasn't been a four day smash and grab, I've spent longer in Madinat Zayed than I have any place outside of England. Surely there'd be some reason to come back, right?

Right?

Where's my Ferrero Rocher?

I met the British Ambassador today. Everything I know about ambassadors comes from Lethal Weapon 2. Namely that you can do anything you want, then shout "Diplomatic Immunity" and it's okay. Part of me was expecting a chain-drinking dilettante in a bacon suit accompanied by a harem of strippers.

Needless to say, that part of me was thoroughly disappointed.

Hmmmmm, bacon suit.

Is this Jam Hot?

Before I came out here everyone told me that the weather was going to be ridiculous - that I'd melt into a small puddle of pasty-freckled-gingerness in precisely no time.

I'm two months in now and it is hot, there's no denying it, 47 degrees is hot by anyone's standards (not strictly true, if your standards are in Fahrenheit then 47 degrees is pretty cold and if your standards are Kelvin then you're dead. As a rambling aside; why do we even say "degrees"? How does that add to our understanding? Saying 47 Celsius gives you useful information: saying 47 degrees tells you that it's an acute angle, which is not useful at all when you're talking about the weather - there's not even a degree symbol on the keyboard, which is odd because I'd've definitely used it more than "|". Why is that? And what does "|" even mean? If anyone can enlighten me on any of those points I would be grateful, thanks - right, back to what I was saying before, in case you've forgotten I was saying that 47C was hot) but it's not prohibitively hot. It's not oven-baked, skin-shrivelling, human-sultana, never-leave-the-shade, aircon-to-14-or-crumble-like-the-guy-from-Last-Crusade hot.

So in your face sun, if that is your real name - I reckon I can do another ten degrees. Bring it on, you big, gassy chump.

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Here's a curiosity for you; Blogger now tells me my web-traffic, not just for this blog but other previous blogs. Now there seems to have been a big rush on the old traveller cliche site in the last week or so. This would be weird enough seeing as I've not updated it in eighteen months, but most of the traffic seems to be coming from The Number One Weight Loss Site - why would this be? Answers on a postcard marked "Reading what you ate is good for anorexics".

Arabian Nights

Turns out living in a hotel starts to irk you at about the six week mark.

"Oh how yawn?" You're already thinking, "Poor him, in his boutique room with desert view. Poor him with his two buffets a day and his infinity pool -

I bet he's gonna whinge about something poncey that he hadn't even heard of three months ago, like 'evening service'. He's gonna moan that they draw his curtains whilst there's still two hours of sunlight, or balance a glass precariously on the corner of the table between the bed and the lightswitch, or that they always tuck his duvet under his mattress or that housekeeping call at 8am on the weekend. What a loser. He's changed since he's been out there."

But you're wrong, I'm not going to mention any of that. So there.

Although if anyone does know why they insist or replacing the plug in the bath so that by the end of my shower I'm standing in ankle deep water I'd be pleased to find out. The plug's currently hidden... shhhh.

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Currently listening to Angel Haze - Altered Ego Mixtape

A thousand mutilated flipflops

The main reason I went to the Snoop Dogg show was curiosity as to how a potty-mouthed gangsta with a penchant for controlled substances and scantily-clad ladies would mix with a culture that frowns upon potty-mouthed-ness, scantilly-clad-ness and controlled substances. I assumed that they'd just chat about their shared love of bling. But no, Mr Dogg was whole-heartedly embraced, to the extent that when he asked "Where the sexy ladies at?" the three girls in front of me nearly screamed their hijabs off. I'm sure there's something a little scaffyhaffy about that.

Not much else to report, I've had a weekend in Abu Dhabi and managed to find myself an art gallery - some actual culture, who would have thought? The exhibition (Hassan Sharif, if you care) was modern art at its most artless, it seemed to showcase the deterioration of a formally competent artist into obsessive-compulsive insanity, as he started sticking more and more things together. Utterly pointless, although a pile of a thousand mutilated flipflops is quite a sight.

Downward Spizzle

Expats, now there's a funny thing. It turns out that most people come out to the UAE for the money rather than because they think it would be a bit odd. Weirdos.

But the skaffyhaffy is that they start missing home, so they do things that remind them of home - like drinking (a beer is £6 or more) - or doing things just to pass the time - like going to see stadium hip-hop just because it's on (£50). So unless they sweat discipline, chances are they're going to break even.

Moral to the story is, do things because they're weird.