The Truman Show

Got back from Sophy’s wedding on Sunday having been in Dubai since the 3rd. We had a wonderful time: Adam’s parents had arranged various events including a barbecue at their house on the Wednesday before the wedding, a desert safari on the Thursday and lunch at their house the day after the wedding. They also took Pat and me to lunch at the Desert Mirage on the day of the signing of the marriage documents.

On the 4th we got up early so that Pat could go riding with Sophy at the Desert Palm. I went with them and read The Reader, which Chris had lent me when he was over with Kate, while they rode. In the evening Adam and Sophy treated us to an Indian meal at Bab Al Sharm - it was Duvali. The following day Pat and I walked to Um Suqquiem Park and in the evening we went with Sophy to the Desert Palm: she rode, we sat on the terrace. On the Saturday, Pat and I went on the metro to Union station, then back across the Creek by abra, went round the Heritage House and lunched at the VVA café. In the evening we went to a barbecue given by a couple of Adam and Sophy’s friends, Stuart and Kate. The following day Pat went riding with Sophy again. I stayed in bed! Candy, Quinn and Debbie arrived the Monday before the wedding. On the Tuesday I went to the Atlantis aquarium with them. James and Gabrielle and Richard and Jane arrived on the Wednesday. I went up the Burj Khalifa with them (minus Jane) and James and Gabrielle came back to Sophy’s for a while. While I went to the Burj, Pat, Sophy, Candy and Quinn went camel cuddling.

Got to spend a lot of time with Candy and Quinn who were staying at Sophy’s, and saw a lot of James and Gabrielle at the events arranged by Adam’s parents and at the wedding itself. They also came back to Sophy’s after the lunch on Saturday. Click here to see my pictures of all these events plus the wedding. Together with photos taken by other people, they should also be appearing on Sophy and Adam’s Mobile Me Gallery.

This was our third visit to Dubai. It is certainly different. Somebody I met there summed it up as being like The Truman Show. I think she was spot on. The place is unnaturally clean. Everybody speaks English, even Asians who were born in Dubai and whose ancestors have never lived in the UK or the States use it as their first language. As James remarked, the buildings look as though they belong in Sim City. Each one is plonked down as an autonomous item in the way a child might place his lego constructions on a play-mat. It defies reality in the same way that an economy based on sub-prime mortgages does. On Sunday we flew into Fiumicino. There are certainly some parallels between Ancient Rome and Dubai. Both were the stupor mundi of their day. But Rome was sustainable because it was built in a fertile region not a desert, and its wealth came from running a huge empire, not from bubble economics. I hope for Adam and Sophy’s sake the bubble lasts a few more years before it bursts and the skyscrapers collapse back into the lone and level sands.