Dubai (2)

I've seen camels (real ones) and strayed off-road in the desert. I've seen the underwater world of Atlantis and travelled on a monorail to the edge of the Palm resort enjoying the station-stop at "Trump Tower" (notable in that the "Trump Tower" has yet to be built). I've seen the 7-star Burj Arab hotel and swam in the Gulf itself.

At the Bab Al Shams Desert Resort I sipped lemonade while reading the regional newspaper. Best article on the front page concerned a Sharia Court case in Jeddah where a family has brought an action against a genie. Apparently the evil genie threw the family's possessions around the house in a poltergeist manner and also sent the family (who have had to be rehoused) abusive text messages by mobile phone.

Back on the subject of camels, I was driven around the huge camel pen complex by Nad Al Sheeba racecourse but we are off season and most of the 14,000-odd racing camels were elsewhere. Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum holds the record price so far paid for a camel (2.7 million dollars), and the big change in recent years has been to stop the trade in 'slave' boy jockeys who used to weigh in at about 20 kilos. You now have to be 15 years old, licenced and weigh at least 45 kilos before you can be a camel jockey.

Home now. I'll have to see if I can find a camel to carry my 20 kilo suitcase to the airport.

Dubai

It may well be regarded as an international pleasure ground boasting some of the world's finest hotels, shopping malls and sporting facilities but Dubai is (charmingly) essentially an arab capital city, honouring arab traditions and the Muslim religion. I've only been here for a day and a half, but I've seen the museum, more shopping malls than I've ever encountered in my life, and a few hundred cranes. I've visited the "pork room" in the local supermarket, and been amazed by the range and inventiveness of alcohol-free mocktails on offer in restaurants and cafes. And by the same token I've seen the locals driving their Hummers and quietly wondered what it would be like to have that sort of wealth, to wear a dishdasha robe and to have five burkha-clad wives to myself.

Look more closely at the picture above. It shows the base of the world's tallest building, the Burj Dubai which opens later in the year. It will boast 160 habitable floors and has already been topped out at 818 metres high. The man-made lake in the foreground boasts the world's tallest fountains, and to the right is a tiny part of the 1,200-store Dubai Mall - the world's largest shopping mall.

I laughed when told that local airlines allowed passengers in first class to take their falcons with them in the cabin, but I checked and it is true. Indeed Etihad Airways allows two falcons per passenger in first and business Class, whilst economy passengers are limited to one bird each.

The Muslim "call to prayer" resonates through the loudspeaker system of the shopping complexes, and the Rumbling Nappa very nearly disgraced himself when apparent signs for the gentleman's loo in the Dubai Mall very nearly landed him in the men only prayer room.

It will be interesting to see what adventures "day three" will produce.

Village Fete

There's an article in today's paper about the demise of the village fete. Organisers now have to complete up to 15 different licence applications, legal agreements, forms and certificates, and insurance companies require 20 pages of detailed risk assessment. Police and fire authorities, first aid centres, and local authority restrictions have turned the administrative side into an absolute minefield - resulting in the loss of many famous annual fairs and fetes.

Thank goodness that there are still some people around who are prepared to tolerate all this stuff and who succeed in putting on a decent event every year. Yesterday's Rowlands Castle Fair (outside our front door) was a terrific success. By midday the Rumbling Nappa was on his second jug of Pimms, had failed to win on the bottle stall, had declined the two enormous bouncy castles, had greeted "Eric the Orphan Sheep" with a "How Do You Do", and had agreed on the purchase of a cake. Steel bands and Irish Country Dancing enlivened the occasion along with maybe fifty or more side stalls.

The grand daughter in attendance tried out the roundabouts, Mrs Rumbling Nappa paid great attention to the horticultural exhibits, and during the afternoon the Rumbling Nappa was able to slip back indoors to watch the British and Irish Lions play how they should always have played.

By nightfall the event had transformed itself into a noisy Mamma Mia party. All good stuff.

"Boo!" to the local authority questioned by my newspaper about the forms to be completed - "To give you all the information you need would take absolutely ages. Unless you issue a formal Freedom of Information request, we won't be able to give all of it, because it really is that much information".

Air Rage

The wise and sensible daughter will have none of my moaning. If another passenger on our charter flight to Cyprus suffers from a severe nut allergy then it is fine by her for the eating of peanuts to be banned for all 250 passengers.

The Rumbling Nappa thinks otherwise. Monarch Airlines he reckons should have placed the unfortunate passenger inside a sealed plastic bubble until the plane landed at Paphos. The eating of peanuts on airplanes is a basic human right – specially on charter flights.

What if I suffered from leprosy? Would Monarch have given me a couple of rows to myself and forbidden passengers to go to the loo in case they touched me? Bah, I’m getting old and curmudgeonly, and just a bit unchristian. The daughter is right, I should loosen up.

Needless to add that as soon as we had boarded the return flight to Gatwick a week later than the inevitable announcement came from the cabin crew, “As we have a passenger on board who suffers from a severe nut allergy...”.