Weather Or Not It’s Winter

Today was the last working day in November. I know this because my boss was at pains to point out the lack of invoices I sent out to during the month. However, nothing else about my life leaves me with the impression of impending winter. I would describe the conditions as Mediterranean, but that would need to be qualified somewhat, as I doubt the south of France is anything like as nice at this present moment.

We did get one little reminder of the changing seasons the other morning though.

Mine's the blue car

I wandered to the lounge on Sunday last and was greeted by a sudden whiteness from the patio doors that I was reminded of the first snowfall of winters back home.

In this instance however, the white was not glare but a soupy yet bright fog cloud, cuddling the apartment block. I looked both ways down the street and could barely see the road two floors below. Unlike the fog I’m used to in London, this haze had a brightness to it which told the story of a hot sun somewhere above busily burning it away. Sure enough, in a couple of hours, it was back to 32C and sunny.

Driving in the fog was an experience I am in no hurry to repeat though. The retards of Dubai, and by this I don’t just mean the usual suspects of truck, bus and shitty Nissan drivers, feel that fog is an emergency and they are required to drive everywhere with hazard warning lights blinking vivid orange.

I actually saw a woman drive past me in a Lexus 4WD, fully equipped with lights, both dipped beams and specialist fog lamps, but with only her indicators pulsing in the haze.

There is a convention in Dubai that, when slowing down suddenly on a main road, drivers fearful of being rear-ended push the hazards in an attempt to warn those behind to be more aggressive with the middle pedal. This I can just about accept, but how these idiots in the fog expect anyone to know when they are turning left or right, or indeed breaking suddenly, is anyone’s guess.

There were some very nasty accidents in Dubai that morning.

So what else has been going on?

SpenglerFox Black and White Army

Today, in an effort to celebrate our impending National Day, the whole office (with the exception of several miseries) arrived in traditional UAE clothing. This meant a Kandura or Dishdasha (the flowing white robe shirt cross) for me, along with a head scarf (with black tie), sandals and even little shorts.

Orl 'wight?

I thought I looked pretty cool and was feeling pretty good about coming to work. It was then pointed out to me that my Dishdasha was about five inches from the floor and that no self respecting Arab would go out with such a short robe. As the laughter was aimed at my ankles, painful memories of quickly outgrown school trousers came flooding back.

It’s got a good 3 inches of hem. I’ll just let it down.

This week I was in Bahrain with work. A nice place that I might write a little travelogue about although most of the report will be taken up by the same sort of things as in the Kuwait trip write up, notably Air Arabia being the flight of choice for users of mobiles at 4,000 feet and taxi drivers ripping off white fellows in suits. Still, a nice place though.

This weekend sees the Dubai Rugby 7s and Lou and I have weekend passes. How much Rugby we'll actually see remains to be seen. I'll report back once the hangover lifts.

Finally, did I mention we had the Dubai Motorshow recently?

Brumm Brumm!

The calibre of vehicle on display were enough to turn even the most mature of us into giggling school boys. And I'm far from mature.