https://www.podbean.com/ep/pb-37vmk-13b671b

When is a dividend not a dividend? 

Perhaps when it is smashing your nose into a bloody pulp with a cast iron frying pan in an orgy of rhinoplastic destruction and then convincing yourself that you are more handsome because the prominent pustule sitting on your nostril, threatening to burst into a volcanic eruption of infectious ejaculate, is now gone? You have taken sovereignty over your nose and exercised control of your battered visage, and lo and behold, one less pustule stares back at you in the bathroom mirror. It no longer mocks your very existence or belittles the over self confident rating of your beauty. 

That has to be a good thing. 

I was reminded of dividends recently upon return from Spain. 

The shop assistant in the small ‘pueblo blanca’ that is Mijas in Andalusia, was keen to point out that leaving the EU customs union and single market was a blessing for us British shoppers in Spain. You might be scratching your head at this point and wondering in what way this could be true? 

Now for the boring bit, but stay awake…this might affect you the next time if and when you go across the channel. Many goods and services in Spain attract an extra charge which I think is called ‘IVA’ or ‘Impuesto sobre el Valor Añadido’ for short. It is an additional 20% of the price for some items, and the blow is softened by including it in the ticket price. So, you will see €100 on the ticket, but the IVA is the hidden €20 within it. I’m not fooled by this sleight of hand, except after a few lunchtime vinos in the afternoon when my defences are down due to the rosy hue the world has taken on. Please don’t leave me in charge of my wallet, especially in a shop selling whisky, watches, women or motorbikes. I have been known to waste cash on fripperies in distant and exotic places such as Dubai, Amsterdam and Bodmin.

So, you pay IVA for your tapas, Rioja and bullfight tickets. It might not escape your attention that these three items are not usually taken back with you on the flight home to the UK. It is customary to consume them at the point of sale unless you are some weirdo who takes pleasure in packing cold dishes of ‘boquerones al la plancha’ with your underwear. Therefore you will not be bothered with import duty or VAT.

In Mijas, the Brexit dividend showed itself, and as the assistant was only too pleased to tell us, it was that we could claim back the 20% IVA we were paying for our goods. This could be done at Malaga airport after filling out the necessary paperwork and getting it stamped and checked at the customs desk. We were glad to partake of this bonanza by applying the logic of knowing that 20% of bugger all is the same as bugger all, but 20% of ‘a lot’ is still ‘a lot’. Mind, it means a little bit of bureaucracy at the shop and then again at the airport, and a claim form posted to the Madrid office…but 20% is a very nice reduction. 

Flushed with the feeling of a bit of a bargain, Ann and I decided it was time for lunch and some reflection on the day over a ‘vino tinto’. At that point, an ugly thought intruded. 

“Hang on a minute, we are not paying Spanish VAT…but we are bringing stuff into the UK; surely the UK will not let us get away with paying 20% less?” 

We have been lulled into a sense of security over the last few decades when crossing borders in the EU. ‘Nothing to Declare’ has always been the option because the obvious was true even if we did not consider it. Because we were in a ‘customs union’, paying IVA in Spain meant VAT was also paid for the UK. Unless you were importing guns, children or cocaine, customs was a doddle. It was the green lane all the way to Maplethorpe from Malaga, cases bulging with any goodies bought from the Andalusian markets. 

A quick google search made it clear that there might be an issue with claiming the IVA in Spain and then expecting to walk straight into London’s customs paying nothing. We are not used to being bag searched and vinyl fingered at the UK border, and we did not intend to start now. There is an allowance of about £360 worth of goods you can import; below that, you can walk through with a calm mind. Mind, this is £350 in total, not for an individual item. 

What to do? The Mijas shop had already registered the sale to Spanish tax authorities…do they talk to UK tax authorities? Would we be on a ‘watch list’ at Gatwick? Would we hear “please follow me, sir” from a burly border guard armed with a truncheon, vaseline, a shiny badge and the attitude of a Rottweiler whose black leathery testicles have been set on fire with a kitchen blowtorch? I did not want to find out. 

We decided to declare our goods at the UK border and see what happens. 

As many of you have experienced, getting back into the UK has been relatively easy once you go through passport control and pick up your baggage. You will know of two routes through customs, the Red lane and the Green lane. Almost without exception, everyone goes through Green, especially from EU destinations. We have been used to ‘having nothing to declare’, so the habit has formed that we do so without giving a second thought to import duties. EU customs regulations have meant that many Customs officers have forgotten where the vinyl gloves are, and their tubs of lubricant are so old there is moss growing on them. I am sure some officers secretly wish to catch a miscreant in the green lane to break up the monotony of watching hordes of sun-burned tourists return red-faced from the Costa Del Sol carrying nothing more valuable than a sombrero and straw donkey. But, and you might have noticed, we are not in the EU. The rules have changed. 

And so it was that a stream of returnees headed towards the green lane like salmon returning to spawn up a Scottish river. But we broke ranks at the last moment and headed towards Red. We were then on our own. Nobody else joined us from the throng. A brightly lit corridor led to a lonely customs desk. The silence at this point was conspicuous and tangible. The happy chatter of passengers on their way home? Gone in a wispy moment like the steam from a stream of penguin piss in the antarctic air. The desk had no member of staff standing ready to process us through. There was a simple sign reading ‘please ring for attention’. To read it, I had to wipe away the cobwebs gathered there following months of underuse.

After what seemed like an epoch, a UK Customs and Border Officer ambled towards the desk, eyeing us with curiosity. I could see the quizzical look in her eye as if she was thinking, “who are these two lunatics”? 

“Can I help you?” she said. 

Well, after ringing a bell with a sign saying that was the way to get attention, then yes, attention was required. This was clearly an unusual turn of events for her, but something that would have been covered in basic training. Still, much like an engine failure after take-off is covered in pilot training, she had rarely had to deal with it in reality. 

“We have something to declare.”

I would have thought this was an unproblematic phrase to use standing, as we were, in the ‘Something to Declare’ lane. To me, this was the most obvious and possibly the best and most appropriate phrase I could have used. 

“Sorry?” This was spoken as a verbal ‘step back in amazement’. 

“We have something to declare”.

“Oh!”  

This bit of information was something of a surprise to her despite our location. 

“We have just returned from Spain and bought some goods, having claimed back the tax from the Spanish Authorities in Malaga”. 

“Oh, right!”

“I think we have to declare it?”

“Oh, yes, of course…well, you’re honest! Most people go through the green lane with their goods.” 

Clearly, we were an oddity and a rare occurrence.  

“I’ll get my colleague and work out what we should do”. She then ambled back into the office to discuss the best course of action with her colleague. After about 5 minutes, she returned to the desk with paperwork and the information that we had to pay VAT on the items. Her colleague followed to see for himself this rarity.

“You wish to declare goods from Spain? Well, you’re honest. Most people…”

“…go through the green lane, we know”. I did not actually say this as it is bad form to interrupt an Officer of the law in the middle of their duties. Border Force, Customs and Police officers are best left to think they are in charge because…they are in charge and have big head-banging sticks. They also have the power to keep you in detention for hours if they suspect you are taking the piss. You can be arrested for just making their day difficult. It is best not to put their backs up with jokes about drugs, bombs and asylum. 

The two officers then did a little calculation and finally informed us how much we would pay in VAT. 

Turns out, it was a few pounds more than the 20% return of IVA from Spain. 

We paid up, bid them farewell and returned to the teeming melee in the Arrivals hall.

I am tempted to tell the eager shop assistant in Mijas that we indeed could enjoy the benefits of not being in the EU, including claiming the IVA. I would also add that we would end up paying more in VAT back home. Therefore, as a selling point, it was a dead duck and about as attractive an offer as a colonic irrigation with a cold Vindaloo as a flushing agent. The process also meant paperwork on both sides of the EU border and involving increased time and  expense. 

There might be a lesson there for the wider economy?

Putting aside the legality of either paying IVA or VAT, we have an excellent example of a dividend that feels almost as good as smashing oneself in the face with a cast iron frying pan.

“Payment declined, please contact your card issuer”.

There are quite a few messages that bring you information you did not want to know, while also increasing your frustration point to ‘nose bleed, migraine inducing, kick a cat (any cat)’ level. This payment declined message is just one of the many. 

It’s right up there with ‘your rail replacement bus service will leave from platform f*cked’. It is also up there for frustration with finding that you have bought salt and vinegar crisps instead of cheese and onion, because you forgot the manufacturer switched the bag colour quite some time ago but, to you, green is always cheese and onion. My other favourite in this delightful sack of information shite is ‘Toilet Closed’ just as your ‘turtle’s head’ is popping out to ascertain whether it is safe to venture abroad. 

In this digital paradise of the 21st century, these messages increasingly arrive via the miracle of technology, as they were probably designed to do…by weirdos in California brought up on a diet of pulp TV, coca-cola, digital porn and absent parenting. 

So, I believe there is chap or two in a place called Silicon Valley who have decided that our lives were not complete, and so they invented Apps. Silicon Valley, contrary to some wishful thinking,  is not the place where you can find breast implants to suit all tastes and sizes. Rather it is a strange place far away somewhere beyond the Tamar. It is populated mostly by pony tailed, goatee bearded, pale faced men in T shirts and jeans who have only a passing relationship to personal hygiene rather than a fully engaged jojoba infused one. They spend their lives in the dark, in between wanks unblinking at computer screens, as their binary minds flit between a 0 and a 1. 

I’m not being deliberately sexist in excluded women from this technological cesspit, I’m sure there are a few of them working as App developers who are as obsessed by numbers, logic and certainty as the boys are, and whose empathetic understanding, emotional intelligence and raw human feeling have taken a bus to a permanent holiday elsewhere. But this obsession with humanity free technology does seem to be a male preserve. I’d not be surprised if the boys wouldn’t be happier with an ‘emotion free’ robot woman sex bot with pre set and programmable wanking skills than a real female human being. If they could design one with a prostate ticking function, even I might be interested. 

The tech boys of Silicon Valley’s preferred answer to any question about the universe, human relationships or haute couture is either ‘Yes or No’. Nuance, subtlety or even common, human experience of everyday matters such as car parking, passes them by unnoticed and ignored like a pork sausage at a bar-mitzvah. They’ve more chance of cracking the enigma code than understanding common human experiences such why a woman might like to wear make up or indeed why women choose to get their breasts pumped up with bouncy cleavage inducing plastic. Mind, I’m not sure I completely understand the latter but I do accept it might be fun. Women are to them a source of mystery inflamed tumescence matched only by a total lack of skill, knowledge and understanding which forces them into an incomprehensible retreat when confronted by a living example of femininity who might ask awkward questions about feelings, empathy and sex. 

‘Yes or No’ is a fine option to questions such  “would you like an enema?” But it falls short as the only option at a candle lit first date restaurant dinner. Your dinner date is likely to poke her fork in your eye if you continue to answer questions about your family, interests and previous girlfriends with only Yes or No. This binary response is also totally inadequate when confronting even the most basic of human tasks such as weasel tinkering, soap dodging and tiddlywinks. Each requires complex cognitive processing beyond the simple if/then or either/or binary alternatives of the Silicon Valley App designer mind. 

We of course now have an App for everything thanks to the dedication of this small army of post modern hippy techno-incels whose stage of emotional development is still in nappy stage allowing them to defecate their values and assumptions loosely upon the rest of us. 

In the olden days when life was a simple choice between staying alive or being convicted of being a witch, old money served as a primary means of transaction. A few copper or gold coins could purchase anything from donkey’s milk, a bag of turnips or the Throne of England (if you threw in the odd murder). This pertained right up until recently. Sure, donkey’s milk is rarely on offer, turnips are still in fashion and the throne of England is still secured by a vast fortune starting with an expensive education, but cash got you through the day, even if there was no ‘phone signal’. 

Take parking your horse. 

Simple, just ride up to the pub, tie up and go. Maybe you needed to grease the palms of the local scallies to keep an eye on your horse rather than leading it away to the dog meat factory. What you did not need to do was ensure your phone connects to the internet through something called ‘mobile roaming’ ensuring of course one’s ‘data bundle’ was large enough. Life was simpler.

Parking Apps are supposed to take away the stress of calamities such as not having enough spare change. Yet they don’t cater for those possessing the wit of an overcooked ring of fried calamari so that App instructions appear as dense and as impenetrable to interpretation as the technical manual of the Large Hadron Collider. The yes/no, 0 and 1 approach to the complex algorithms running these Apps have to be carefully designed to take in every eventuality of human fuckwittery using it. And yet fuckwittery often trumps technical analysis, largely because no amount of technical analysis can predict just how deep is the well of fuckwittery human beings can draw from. One snag completely overlooked by the Tech bros is that their Apps have to work in places like Redruth Town centre, where a mobile phone signal vacuum rivals a black hole for sucking all light into it, preventing its escape.

Back to parking. 

The theory is straight forward…open the App (assuming you have already downloaded it), enter the location code, decide how long you want to park for, enter your car registration number, ensure you have a valid payment method and press ok. Then through the miracle of electricity and radio waves (?) you can continue the day safe in the knowledge you car will not be towed away.

I am 100% confident of the process as I walk away from the parking meter to catch a train to Plymouth with about 20 minutes to spare. Nothing could really be easier especially if one has tried it before. I walk across the car park not quite with the confident swagger of the man who absolutely knows the God owes him a living, but I am pretty sure paying for parking will not cause a psychotic episode or a personal emotional crisis resulting in finding oneself curled into a ball in the police cell covered in blood, kebab and truncheon bruises. 

However. 

Put together a lack of mobile signal strong enough in that part of Redruth from car park to station, then blocked access to the Wifi at the station until I rejoin with a new password/username combination, intermittent connections on the train, a fraud signal to my bank regarding the card payment, waiting until I could speak to a human being and clear the credit card for use whilst also trying to ensure the VPN is connected, tunnels, an increasing feeling of hypertension strong enough to burst an aortic aneurysm (should I have one`), and it takes until the train is pulling into St Austell before I get confirmation that I have paid for parking. This took about 35 minutes from the moment I walked confidently away from the parking meter. 

I only hope that the App, and the technology supporting it, that sets off Putin’s Nuclear missiles is just as bad, forcing him to give up pressing the button and instead go looking for donkey’s milk,   Turnips and a witch to burn. I also hope Putin has more options than Yes/No when deciding whether to turn most of the world into molten rock and ash. If he does decide to press, I hope  his first targets are Silicon Valley Twats. 

Mind, if he finds himself in Redruth he’ll be out of signal.

We all have to get around the place. In our early years that means using our legs as the primary means of transport before being promoted to a bicycle. When that happens, we are introduced to a largely pain free, and exciting, medium of getting from A to B via all points wherever.

The bicycle.

For some of us that meant getting to school, for others it included wild carefree excursions to the coast with a packet of crisps and a bottle of pop.

All too soon there comes a time when even a bicycle is not enough and a bus is just not cool. Testosterone flushes through one’s very core, rinsing out any lasting vestige of sensible and replacing it with insanity, speed, tumescence and often the spilling of a little blood and snapping of bone. If you managed to skip the motorcycling stage and went straight instead to four wheels, then the blood letting may have been evaded.

As a young man in the 1970s, one was short of money and so the choice of car was extremely limited to old Dagenham dustbins kept together with rust, string and hope. It was the time when filler was a must to keep the rusty panels together in some form of harmony. Flash German made cars were verboten, Italian style was the abode of scooters and the French were comedy vehicles fit only for the transport of eggs across a ploughed field in Brittany rather than a serious option for the ambitious young man with an urge to impress the ladies. And so good old British design was the back stop.

We must bear in mind that Britain had designed Dreadnought Battleships, the record breaking steam engine Mallard, the Spitfire and the mini skirt. There has been a wealth of talent in this country to design things of beauty, of form and function that the world could only envy. Even the French.

Then at some point we took our eye off the ball when it came to cars. Yes, Alec Issigonis had designed the mini. But, Alec was an Englishman born in Turkey, of Greek origin and through his mother’s kinships, was a first cousin once removed to BMW and Volkswagen director Bernd Pischetsrieder. Perhaps that explains the mini exception in car design in the 1970s. For the ‘hoi polloi’, apart from this masterpiece, we were offered cars designed by some blokes down the pub after several rounds of mild and porter whose only association with any form of style was of the type of field entrance covered in cow shit.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you a car, which if you have not owned, seriously challenges your credentials to be a member of the beige cardigan wearing community.

I need not tell you the make or model, nor the year in which it made its first appearance. Those of you who have had the ‘joy’ of owning, repairing, riding, or dare I suggest ‘canoodling in the back seat of’ this or similar motors, will still bear the memories and the scars of that mental trauma.

Mine was white. 

It was about as thrilling to drive as filling out a tax return, except less challenging. It must have been designed by burned out engineers at the end of their careers who otherwise dreamed of turning their allotments into mini Edens (but without the nudity and snakes). They were given the project on a Friday afternoon by the CEO with the remit: “Nothing fancy, mind, and don’t work late, just make it go”. They would have gnawed at the end of their HB pencils, then scribbled furiously for 10 minutes before remembering that their local pub had a happy hour which, for 2s and 6d, would provide the opportunity for a three pints of mild and a packet of salt and  vinegar crisps to discuss serious matters such as the correct methods for cheese-paring. 

The name of the car is a farce. And a lie. 

As you know it means “at brisk speed”.

You will only find bigger fibs, and misdirection, in the Old Testament, Estate Agents’ blurb and in the vocal prelude to the performance of fellatio by over enthusiastic and inebriated youths to their gullible girlfriends. 

I had the ‘joy’ of driving to work one day, and just as the car turned into the hospital’s main entrance the nearside wheel fell off causing a sudden lurch to the left and a grinding halt mid turn. Upon inspection the wheel was at 90 degrees to the body of the car. Something had completely snapped. Needless to say the car was now immovable stuck in the gateway. With the assistance of a few onlookers, who must have seen my pain, the car was pushed, scraping and grinding to one side leaving a slick of oil that a Gulf bound Tanker grounded off the rocks of the Manacles would have been proud of.  

I must have paid £300 quid for what was now just a useless pile of rust infested metal, good only perhaps to be a modern art installation or a warning to the unwary car buyer. The most valuable thing about it now was the full tank of petrol and the packet of fags in the glove compartment. Thus it was necessary, before calling the scrap dealer to lift it away on a flatbed truck, to empty the tank, and to clear the interior of detritus such as crisp packets, chewing gum and a year old packet of rusty condoms kept in the glove box for ‘just in case’. This was the 1980’s when hope was still alive for such matters.

When the scrap dealer turned up to tow it away, it was with mixed emotions. On the one hand, a little sorrow as I was now without transport. On the other hand, I was as relieved to see the back of it as a man on death row seeing his sentence commuted to a life organised around wine, cherries and an endless supply of willing female entertainers bent on using an ostrich feather in an amusing fashion. 

A car is a car. It is merely an means to an end. Some have a frisson of excitement about them, some are reliable, some are cheap to run. Many are destined to be assigned to the sluice of history removing all traces of their existence in one’s consciousness lest wellbeing, dignity and sanity is flushed down Satan’s u bend. 

Such is the Austin Allegro.

Dubai

Photo by Christoph Schulz on Unsplash

Early morning arrives and sends an ever lightening blue grey sheen over the Dubai skyline. The parade of towers are clearly visible across the lagoon’s waters, between my hotel room and the city opposite, as it imperceptibly slides towards the sea. The water is of glass, as if polished to the approval of narcissus.  The reflections of the moored boats are crystal sharp in perfect reflection. The glittering glass and steel of downtown Dubai shimmer, with alternating blinking tiny white and red lights indicating their height as a warning to passing aircraft. The Burj Kalifa, stands in the distance. Its spike into the sky looks like it could pierce any cloud that cared to form near it. But of course, there are no clouds at all. 

The hotel, which thus sits overlooking ‘Dubai creek’, is a collection of four blocks only four floors in height, connected to each other with covered walkways in the warmth of the colour of natural wood. The inspiration for the buildings seems to be the white walls and blue domes of the Greek churches on Santorini. In between each of them are cool palm tree shaded courtyards and swimming pools designed with the heat of the day in mind. The complex has a Thai restaurant, a French style brasserie, and a sunset bar among its five or six restaurants. This is as far removed from a tatty B and B in Blackpool on the Victorian sea front overlooking a cold grey sea as it is possible to be.

Unable to sleep for long, I awake before the sun rose and was able to catch the changing light well before breakfast. The room has a balcony with two chairs and a coffee table overlooking the marina. At 0530, all I can hear is the birds. Sparrows, Bulbul, Mynah and Ring Necked Doves are very common and compete with each for their songs to be heard. 

At 0630 the breakfast brasserie opened. The full range of breakfast foods is on display in a plush environment that looked like it has been plucked from a chic Parisian arrondissement such as to be found in the Boulevard St Germain. 

The eggs Benedict was a gift from the heavens. A twist here was that instead of English ham, a slice of what looks and tasted like Jamón Iberico provided a wonderful tang to the creaminess of the hollandaise sauce. The yolk was perfectly runny as it should be. The chef sprinkled the top with paprika to provide a red dusting to offset the yellow of the hollandaise.

I made an error in ordering ‘French toast’ to go with the coffee and eggs. French toast to me is that curiosity of our youth in which a slice of bread is toasted only on one side. That’s it, just one slice of bread. I thought this would be fine to finish my coffee.

It arrived in its syrup melting sumptuousness. An inch thick slice of brioche, generously topped with creamy sweet sliced banana, plump red strawberries and a generous string of red berries. Over the top of all of that, chocolate chips and sugar had been sprinkled and dusted. It was as if a chocolate chip cookie had cried tears of tiny chocolate drops all over the plate. It was served with a small bowl of maple syrup on the side. This must amount to about 200 calories per mouthful. There was no way I was going to eat all of it after the eggs. Wisely I left half of it. 

On the aircraft yesterday, the totally impressive A380, I enjoyed a rather pleasant dinner courtesy of Emirates. One detail struck me, and spoke to the sheer bloody insanity of it all. Notwithstanding the fact that we were five miles up, and that a nice filet of tenderloin steak and asparagus was in front me, there sat on the tray was a small box containing one date. It was wrapped in cellophane and the box stated it had been hygienically sanitised and washed, even the stone had been removed. We can take such seeming trifles for granted but a little thought about how it got there brings to mind the complexity of the supply chain and the labour involved to present me with an edible date at 40,000 feet. 

Dates are individually picked from each tree by old men with dark weather beaten faces from being out in the sun all day for most of their lives. They wear a red and white wrap around loose ‘turban’ for protection while disregarding the need for any sun factor. They climb hand made wooden ladders held together with palm leaf twine in bare feet and as they pick each date they throw them down into a wicker basket at the base of the trunk. They start just as the sun rises before the heat of the day and work until midday stopping only once for a mid morning coffee and five times for daily prayers. They carry prayer mats out into the palm plantation as it is too far to keep walking back to a mosque. For them it is a labour of love, they willingly give up their time in return for a bowl of rice, a leg of lamb and God’s blessing. So the next time you open a packet of dates at Christmas remember some poor old sod up a palm tree in the hot sun tossing each one into a basket while he silently recites the Qu’ran for comfort. 

The Park Hyatt Dubai is a world apart from all of that. It sits within a golf and country club. Let that sink in, a golf club, in what was desert. Strolling around this morning after breakfast I was struck with the sudden realisation of just how green this little oasis is. The grass on the course looked immaculate. The flower beds are vibrant with the flowers you would recognise at home in a damper climate. Where are they getting the water and how are they getting it out onto the course? Just how dry this place is could easily be seen as one comes into land. For miles and miles below is sandy desert and rock and then suddenly the city. A vast city built out of oil and now also sustained by tourism. The United Arab Emirates is the third richest country in the world behind Luxembourg, and Qatar at number one. It is built with ingenuity, petrodollars and the sweat of date pickers. 

Last night as the sun set, I sat in a chilled out bar overlooking the creek. Ideal for a Gin and Tonic. The ambience was ibiza chill while overhead half a dozen rotating fans languidly pushed the air around while candles danced their light in jars upon tables. I lounged in a comfortably padded chair just taking in the scene. At one point, at the next table twenty something girls turned up and proceeded to indulge in an orgy of selfie taking. They posed and pouted until I lost count of just how many photographs they took. This was not the first time I had seen pouting in a bar in Dubai. There must be something in the water? 

After the second Gin I fancied a small nibble. On the menu I spotted oysters that had come all the way from Brittany. Perfect. So, a glass of Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand  was necessary. The origin of all of these foods – dates, oysters, wine – are all of course lost in the complexity of globalised trade and internationalised labour. I had also noted that the Gin offer included that from Plymouth. On each bottle of Plymouth Gin in small letters is the disclaimer that ’No Janners were hurt in the making of this Liquor’.  

As I sat and wondered all about this, the news of Ukraine was fresh in my mind. Right now in many parts of the world billions of people are living in dirt, without dignity and an early death just a heartbeat or a missile away. Back home folk are deciding whether to face the indignity of a food bank or how they are to pay their energy bills. I had just travelled from a City that has crumbling public spaces and a second rate health system despite being in another very wealthy country. 

Inequality has been with us since for ever. It has always been the case. Jesus once said “Blessed are the poor but bugger me, don’t they make a mess of the place?” Today, it is as stark as ever. Dubai is at one end of the wealth spectrum but even here, one cannot but notice the ethnicity based class divide between the servant class, that do all of the serving: the construction, cleaning, catering and caring, and the rest of us. White faces like mine are for the most part absent at work except for the better paid, supervisory occupations. We are the ‘concierge class’ oiling the wheels of capital accumulation that built this city, but not of rock and roll.

It is noticeable that the white clientele come with American or a British Home Counties accent. I have heard some French but you can spot them before they open their mouths – their clothes and accessories are immediately a bit more stylish. The local Emiratis are harder to spot as unlike in Saudi Arabia they don’t wear the white thobe and red and white head scarf. Not in the Park Hyatt at least. We are a tiny tiny slice of the world living like royalty of old, our lives acting out in an invisible gilded cage, for the most part unaware of the toiling masses who make it all possible. 

The women are shocking. I have been used to seeing the totally covered black Abiya and Niqab with only their eyes showing through. Event the modernised Saudi women in the office who don’t cover their heads still wear very colourful Abiyas with their make up. I am shocked because I’ve not seen quite so much naughty nakedness on display. Shoulders are bare, as are arms. Sun hats and sunglasses of course, but long legs and ankles! We get used to things very quickly and when the turn around comes, it tends to bring us up short. One of the girls even had some cleavage on full display! I wondered if her mum knew she was out like that. 

She’d not last 5 minutes picking dates.