Secret Dubai diary Intrigue and adventure in the United Arab Emirates From denial to the Nile A new year dawns, and with it some big changes for Lola LebCan. After many happy years in Sheikh Zayed Road's prestigious Orifice Towers building, Dubai's PR queen is being forced to pack her bags. Either that, or have thousands of labourers gaze at her naked splendour in the shower every morning as the new Dubai Metro whizzes right past her window.
But like many long-term expats, Dubai has palled for Lola. The once-glittering heights of SZR's skyscrapers are but dusty glass. The glamourous sandlands social whirl is a shallow chore. There is no joy, no inspiration and the city, Lola says, is "soulless". She has even swapped karaoke at Harry Ghatto's for this festive lament:
Deck the malls with discount bannersFallah-lalala-lala-lala
‘tis the season to sell your hummersFallah-lalala-lala-lala
Donning now your old pyjamasFallah-lalala-lala-lala
Join the bankrupt Jumeira mamasFallah-lalala-lala-lalaaaa*
Two years ago, Lola fled to Egypt for sanctuary. She now plans to seek the healing waters of the Nile once more and work on her Masri twang. Plus there are around 40 million men in Egypt, compared to just 2.5 million in the UAE.
*(c) Lola LebCan 2008
CommentsLabels: lola lebcan, poetry
posted by secretdubai at 7:26 PM 15 comments del.icio.us
29 December, 2008Time to jail another "adulteress" With property prices plummeting and the boom finally bursting, it's nice that Dubai can shift headlines away from its economic meltdown by jailing another expat for "adultery":
A British mother faces jail in Dubai after being convicted of adultery.
Marnie Pearce fears she may never see her two sons again. She insists she is innocent and that it is her ex-husband who cheated on her.
Miss Pearce, 40, claims she was framed by Egyptian Ihab El-Labban so he could win custody of their children, Laith, seven and Ziad, three.
This has to be the best bit:
She was found guilty of adultery in a Dubai court last month after being denied the opportunity to represent herself.
Any woman living in the Middle East should know by now that if you marry a Muslim man, except in exceedingly rare circumstances, you lose the children in the event of divorce. It doesn't matter why your marriage failed or whether you are Muslim yourself. Hopefully of course a marriage wouldn't break down in the first place, or a couple would at least be mature and decent enough to work out a shared custody arrangement.
But if not and it goes to the courts, it's the man who gets custody nearly every time. This is because the UAE applies Sharia law, generally from the Hanbali school, which it has every right to do. You do, however, as an expat, have the right not to visit there, live there, or invest there.
CommentsLabels: crime, sex
posted by secretdubai at 1:09 PM 32 comments del.icio.us
05 December, 2008Twitter time Three tasty Twitter options for Dubai news alerts:
#secretdubaiThis tweets links to new posts on Secret Dubai diary. It will also be used to tweet links to select interesting articles about Dubai and the UAE.
#uaecommunityThis tweets links to new posts on UAE Community blog.
#dubaifeedThis retweets any Twitter entries containing the terms "Dubai" "Abu Dhabi" or "UAE".Labels: dubai coverage
posted by secretdubai at 12:23 PM 4 comments del.icio.us
01 December, 2008Etihad to take over Emirates? According to The Times, Abu Dhabi is demanding control of Emirates in return for a multi billion dollar bailout:
"The emirate, which is ruled by the Al Maktoum family, has been hit hard by the credit crunch. Its property market, in which many of the big players are state-owned or backed, has enjoyed explosive growth over the last decade but prices are now tumbling, leaving heavily indebted developers badly exposed.
"Government sources in Dubai confirmed last week that talks had begun with Abu Dhabi, which has huge oil and gas reserves, about funding. Rather than ploughing cash into the Dubai state, Abu Dhabi has offered to invest in its neighbour’s strategic assets.
"The airline alone is estimated to be worth about £10 billion and selling a stake in it could generate enough cash to prop up much of Dubai’s economy."
Etihad already bills itself as "the national airline of the UAE". A national airline that doesn't, admittedly, actually fly to the biggest, busiest, most famous city in the UAE if not the entire Gulf. But it soon will if Sheikh Ahmed and his aircraft end up as the sacrificial virgins for Dubai's Big Bubble Burst.
Both airlines deny any merger plans. But given the rapid consolidation taking place in the rest of the aviation industry, having two of the world's fastest growing airlines based in the same tiny country makes increasingly less sense. Certainly plenty of pilots think a closer relationship is on the cards.Labels: abu dhabi, business
posted by secretdubai at 1:33 AM 56 comments del.icio.us
22 November, 2008Xanadu Atlantis In Jumeirah did Big Sheikh MoA massive great hotel decreeWhere streams of sacred sewage ranThrough beaches uninhabitable by manDown to a polluted sea
So twice five dozen top celebsDid mingle with the local plebsAnd there were fireworks bright with flashing starsApparently they could be seen from MarsThe only ones that didn't party or raveWere some newly captured Pacific dolphin slaves
A sheikh with a kandooraIn a vision once he sawIt was an Abyssinian maidOverworked and poorly paid
And with fireworks loud and grandHe did build that DubailandThat massive mall! Those slopes of ice!And we all thought them very niceBut all should cry, Beware! Beware!This sandy land is not so fairAnd now financial storm clouds growIt might be time to pack and goFor we on honey-dew hath fedIt's time for some real life instead
CommentsLabels: hotels, poetry
posted by secretdubai at 2:49 AM 21 comments del.icio.us
10 November, 2008Tragic Tale of the Tomato Plant One of the rarest books in Dubai is not Robin Moore's notorious bonkbuster but a tome known best among Jumeirah Janes of the Golden Era, when British expat wives could actually afford to live in spacious seaside villas, do nothing but shop and beautify all day, and employ half the subcontinent to wait upon them.
Gardening in the Gulf was published in 1990 but has been inexplicably out of print for years, despite Dubai's population boom. Now the local weather is cooling but the wider world is global warming, ones thoughts naturally turn to green stuff and gardening and becoming self-sufficient before the sea levels rise and the final volcanic tsunami apocalypse swallows us all. Unless we're camping in the Hajjars that day.
A few years ago one of the local newspapers had an inspirational feature on an Indian couple living in Sharjah who grew vegetables on their city-centre balcony. They used grow-bags, and had huge great harvests of tomatoes and peppers and so on, all thanks to the 365 days of heat and sunshine enjoyed in the sandlands.
By a marvellous coincidence, on a trip to the Dubai Garden Centre not long after, there was one tiny tomato plant left for sale by the till. At that time the garden centre was new,and the only one in Dubai, except for that CITES black hole of Al Hudaiba Street in Satwa. "Plant Street" with pink bougainvillea outside every shop and caged, half-dead endangered wildlife on sale within. If they ever find a living Tasmanian Tiger again, it won't be deep in the Antipodean rainforest. It will be in Satwa.
Anyway with great pride, the new leafy acquisition was set on a sunny corner of the verandah outside Cell Block G. It promised to be the start of a whole new revolution of vegetable growing - a mini market garden that would make Spinneys defunct and bring The Good Life to 21st century Jebel Ali.
But in just a couple of days the tomato plant had developed a score of rots, blights, cankers, diseases and pests. This in itself was something of a miracle, given there were no other plants within about ten metres, save for three palms with their leaves still trussed up. The small solanum struggled, and withered, and died. And with it died all further dreams of self-sufficiency in the Southern Gulf.
CommentsLabels: gardens, satwa, weather
posted by secretdubai at 2:42 PM 4 comments del.icio.us
04 November, 2008Paris Hilton Towers Just when we all thought the property bubble was bursting, here comes Paris Hilton to save the day:
Dubai: Paris Hilton could be the latest in a constellation of stars to light up Dubai's property sector, in a possible $2 million (Dh7.3 million) deal with Abu Dhabi-based developer, Hydra Properties.
Hilton, who was famous before she was even born, will add a dash of desert glam to Dubai's celebrity skyline.
What with Pamela Anderson, Paris Hilton, Jim Davidson and half the English football team, no one can deny that Dubai is a classy place. For the Z-list.