A few of months ago I applied for a job back in the Middle East, evidently having failed to remember most of this list. But, though occasionally hyperbolic, it should be remembered - by me, by you, by everyone.
Things I won't miss about living in Dubai:
- Walking outside between May and September and feeling as though I’m being beaten to death by a furious oven.
- The cold tap running warm over the same months.
- Seeing rats in restaurants with alarming frequency.
- Genuinely worrying that I might not make it to my final destination every time I get in a taxi.
- The brown sky.
- Every man from the Indian subcontinent looking at Wee Mo as though she’s from another fucking planet.
- Worrying about us holding hands in public, never mind kissing.
- Worrying about walking around in the buff in my own fucking apartment.
- The utter carnage of Sheikh Zayed Road.
- Having to neuter everything I write professionally.
- The unique class of wanker that absolutely thrives in the city; the type who, beneath their shallow surface, trembles with terror at the prospect of having to do a decent job in a real country.
- Pint of beer: £6.40.
- JD and Coke: £8.20.
- Spinneys and its absolutely shameless mark-up of pedestrian goods like frozen fish. Four breaded fillets sell at a cool £13.60. Frozen, mind.
- Knowing that if I call a superior
a cuntincompetent, not only will I be sacked, but I’ll have my visa cancelled and have to leave the country. - An unending sense of guilt that, even without paying taxes, I am somehow contributing to slavery.
- The haunting, haunted glare of construction workers on their way to or from a shift.
- Looking at a woman in a full veil and not knowing whether or not she’s making a funny face.
- The merest bit of rain taking on biblical significance and incompetent drivers smash into one another.
- The way some Arab women harass and bully the endlessly cheery, decent Filipinos.
- Having to have air conditioning on year round just to make being alive bearable.
- Air conditioning bills.
- Knowing that if the slightest thing goes wrong with the flat, it’ll be a long, torturous road before it’s fixed e.g. Cracked lavvy pan. Resolution time: 19 days.
- Writing strictly positive reviews, even when faced with obviously laughable standards.
- Crowds in the cinema, be they screaming children neglected by disinterested mothers or overworked nannies; inexcusable pricks using their mobile phones like they’re in a fucking teleconference; or snide, spoiled local children belittling the (invariably Indian) cinema workers.
- Leaving a cinema and not fully understanding what has happened in the film because of the brutal, nonsensical censoring.
- Reading articles in the British media about Dubai and knowing that they’re total bullshit.
- The Dubai Way: a habitually dangerous way of driving, with manoeuvres like the Highway Reverse, the No-Signal Five Lane Change and the Bumper To Bumper Honky-Flash.
- Sandstorms.
- The tragicomic lack of theatre, live music and culture.
- Waking up on yet another weekend and thinking: “What is there to do today?” Answer: “Fuck all.”
- The getting-to-know-you-because-my-real-friends-are-far-away-and-it’s-you-or-nobody-you-dreadful-bastard conversation.
- Getting into work on a Sunday morning, just as people in the UK are heading home from a club and find themselves in the mood for a long-distance chat.
- Cockroaches.
- People – misogynist Indo-Paks mostly – who point-blank refuse to talk to Wee Mo and only address me.
- Looking at a pigeon as though it’s some kind of weird, exotic animal by virtue of it being alive and not human.
- Making a call to any government authority and knowing with a deep certainty that the problem(s) has no earthly hope of being resolved without a face to face shouting match.
- Worrying that when I open the toilet door outside my gym I’m going to find the little lobby urchin inside, dead from malnourishment.
- Not knowing three days beforehand whether or not the powers that be are going to grant a national or religious holiday.
- The expectancy and very quick acceptance of incompetence in every walk of life.
- Having not heard one for a number of weeks, wanting to cry a little when coming across another Scottish accent.
- Road signs coming two hundred yards after the turning they are supposed to advertise.
- “Can you take me to Chilis in Garhoud?” “You know?” “Man, you’re the taxi driver – don’t you know it?” "Sorry sir, I new.”
- Having to pay vast sums of money for painful, and somewhat shoddy dentistry.
- While at work, watching Filipino staff being ordered demean themselves with things like cleaning out my bin the middle of the day; or coming to my desk to take away a dirty mug; or cleaning the fucking banister for the second time that afternoon. Poor bastards.
- Every morning walking past a sign above the MD's parking space that says: “Bentley Parking Only”. What an enormous cunt.
- Having to check advertising sales for the month to see if I’m likely to still have a job the next week.
- Any website designed for any company based in the region. Honestly, they look like they’ve been designed by children. Talentless children.
- Having to spend time in supermarkets searching for fruit or veg that is not already rotten on the shelf.
- Walking out of Dubai Airport and being slapped in the face with the heat and humidity.
- Walking out of Dubai Airport and looking at the forlorn faces of the tired, huddled masses, there to ensnare more of their ain folk.
- Having to mind my language.
- Having to encourage distrusting, downtrodden individuals – again, usually Indo-Paks – to walk through doors that I’m holding open for them. I’m doing this because it’s the right fucking thing to do; I’m not going slam it in your face.
- The enormous hypocrisy of the place, best evidenced in the acceptance of prostitution in the streets and marketing of booze-sodden brunches on Friday, the supposed Islamic day of rest and prayer.
- Having to fend off a strong desire to spend every single holiday in the UK.
- Being locked between embarrassment and cowardice when some white motherfucker starts giving one of the (Indian or Filipino) coffee-makers shit in work.
- Going from sickeningly hot to shivering cold because cinemas/offices/malls don’t know how to control their AC units.
- Having to explain jokes to the myriad nationalities who don’t really understand irony or sarcasm i.e. everyone outside Britain and Ireland.
- Taxi drivers falling asleep at the wheel.
- Going to the beach and having to follow so many bloody rules.
- Having to be polite in a conversation that begins with someone from home saying: “So you’re in Dubai – that must be amazing!”
- Looking at a flower and thinking: that’s beautiful, but it really, really shouldn’t be there.
- The malls: colossal, sterile tombs of decency.
- Westerners trying to speak Arabic – it sounds fucking pathetic, it really does.
- This.
- The general lack of passion for anything other than money and one-upmanship.
- Conversations degenerating into drunken shouting matches and boasts.
- Ramadan. Not simply because it exists, but because its rules – no drinking water during daylight hours no matter how hot it is, for example – are imposed on everyone. If that’s anti-Islamic, why is it OK for half the city to be fucking wrecked on a Friday?
- Walking into a toilet cubicle and having to deal with the devastation left behind by some clatty bastard washing their arse with a hose.
- The call to prayer. Don’t hate it, but certainly won’t miss it.
- Reading blatant propaganda in the paper.
- Books having limited availability, with one glorious exception.
- Books costing double the RRP.
- Buying a booze being at least 50% more difficult than it would be to buy class A drugs in the developed world.
- The laughable disdain with which recycling is treated.
- The bread.
- Looking at items for sale that have been imported from (and price-tagged in) the UK, looking at their amount in dirhams, reaching for my phone and calculating the enormous mark-up.
- Knowing that if wanted a dog, I could only keep it for about seven months before having to do the humane thing and toss it in the creek sometime in May.
- The happy Emirati family picture: mum and dad walking ahead of nanny and horrendous, hectoring kids. If you’re not willing to be a parent, don’t bother fucking breeding.
- Basically anyone who has a maid.
- People taking pictures of the aquarium in the Dubai Mall. Turn the fucking flash off, moron.
- The Dubai WorldCup, essentially a gathering of the most dreadful brand of preening, tittering shitbags known to man. It’s possibly the worst sporting event I’ve ever been to – and I used to go watch the Jaggy Bunnets.
- Johnny Foreigner, the English mostly, arriving and talking to Arabs with the same blaring staccato they use with Spanish waiters. (There are no guarantees I’ll ever escape this.)
- Lazily playing up to a Scottish stereotype to give deeply, deeply unfunny people something to talk about other than themselves.
- The drive between Dubai and Abu Dhabi, surely one of the most soul destroying trips in the world.
- The total lack of visibly insane citizens. In real cities, nutters are all over the place and I miss them. There's the odd crazy taxi driver in Dubai, but they're hardly the Electric Scarecrow.
- Etisalat and its pitiful attempts to provide a decent internet service.
- Daylight-savings being ignored – it makes communicating with the rest of the world a bloody nuisance.
- Muslims who don’t give a fuck about religion for 11 months of the year, then become super devout just in time for Ramadan (and some greatly reduced working hours).
- People highlighting the beach as one of the city’s redeeming features. Ayr has a beach.
- Knowing that the unnatural grass/trees/flowers are all watered with pish.
- Endless road works meaning that maps are effectively out of date before they’ve even hit the shelf.
- The most casual, disinterested doctor’s examination costing almost £20.
- Dreadful press releases that proclaim utterly pedestrian events to of monumental importance e.g. Sheikh Suchnsuch’s 19th cousin opens a puppy vivisection lair.
- Simultaneously not being able to use the iPlayer and having to endure ads on the BBC website.
- Leaving a bar and smelling like one of Cancer Man’s farts.
- The slightly lecherous way taxi-drivers kerb crawl The White Man looking for business.
- Emirati teenagers.
- The fact I’m supposed to be grateful for only spending a grand a month on a one-bedroom flat that has no natural daylight.
- The shit painkillers and the fact that anything stronger then coproxamol is treated as a narcotic.
- Folk – anyone really – who doesn’t recognise points 1-100. Or worse: does, but quickly reconciles it with their fucking bank balance.
...And 10 things I will miss.
- Shish taouk.
- The constant reassurance that there are many, many people who are bigger bastards than I.
- Knowing with 95% certainty what the weather will be like at the weekend.
- Camping regularly.
- The Filipinos – whether or not their cheeriness is brought on by fear or necessity, it’s nice to have so many people be, well, nice.
- Tax deductions equalling fuck all.
- Having a gym and pool in my building.
- Constantly meeting people from different parts of the world, even if they quickly turn out to be dullards.
- Being able to order absolutely anything via home delivery.
- Waking up to sound of the kids singing at the local school opposite our flat.