This is a rough time for the cute Russian whores in the fetid nightclub of the
Dubai Metropolitan hotel, plying their wares for 50 quid a go.
Even during the boom days they outnumbered the punters by about five to one;
now, all the money has run out and the European expats will soon be leaving.
What will they do, these viciously bleached blonde Katyas and Natashas from
Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan?
They won’t sell themselves to the berobed local Emiratis, whom they loathe. I
suppose they will have to go home and the whore-traffickers will be out of
work too.
Perhaps one day soon there will be only Emiratis left in Dubai — its
population dropped by 17% at the start of last year’s credit crunch and now
there’s much, much, worse to come because there is no money to pay for
anything. The desert will reclaim the expensive hotels with their
bling-encrusted lobbies and opulent suites for the likes of Paris Hilton,
who once turned up here to open a mall and was indistinguishable from her
surroundings.
And the sea will wash away those hideous palm-shaped islands where our cheaper
celebs spend spring weekends, the expat apartment blocks will crumble into
dust, the scorpions will return and Dubai will be what it was in the 1960s,
a frowsy fishing port in a scorched and very backward Third World country,
with a moral code for the indigenous population drawn from AD 1335. And the
rest of us will look on and wonder: what powerful but unrecorded race / Once
dwelt in this annihilated place? Well, hell, you can hope this might happen.
Better that than what it has been these past 15 years.
Dubai is wrecked but, like an old tart with a kiss-and-tell contract from the
red-tops, threatens to drag the rest of us down with it. In a sense it is
merely Britain writ much larger: a despised, criminally underpaid and
perpetually ill-treated underclass of imported foreign labourers on top of
which squats a fat, indigenous population which cannot believe its luck,
doing absolutely nothing other than spending money.
A property boom so absurd in its assumptions and aspirations that its imminent
implosion was evident to everyone — except, of course, the bankers who
mindlessly bought into the deal and funded it.
And then there’s the over-remunerated elite of western European expats who are
now trying to get the hell out, binning their Porsches at the airport,
kissing goodbye to their obliging Filipino slaves. What’s Dubai, without its
money? Some rocks, some sand, some Islam, some flies.
We are dragged down because our bankers — the ones who dropped us in it last
year — bought into this bizarre fiction too. Dubai has a £48 billion debt
default and this has a knock-on effect for our own RBS, which was Dubai’s
biggest loan arranger to the tune of some £1.4 billion, and HSBC, which has
some £10 billion tied up in the state, and Barclays, which has an estimated
£3 billion investment there.
The stock market fell by 3% when it became clear to the money men that Dubai
was a busted flush — late last week (well spotted, boys).
It was evident to most of us a year ago that Dubai was well and truly rogered,
when the plush apartments were not selling anywhere near as quickly as they
should have been and the city had to go cap in hand to its more cautious
partner, Abu Dhabi, for a bailout.
But you might have guessed even before 2008 that Dubai was heading for a fall,
that its economy did not actually seem to be founded on anything tangible,
aside from the exploitation of Bangladeshi labour.
Our banks were grabbed by the moment, by the Dubai hype, and they swallowed it
whole. It should be a bigger lesson to them than the collapse of last year,
but you would not bet that it will be a lesson learnt.
+ The first prize in the raffle held recently at Kirkham prison in Lancashire
was, er, release from prison for the day. I suppose it saved money on buying
those huge tins of Quality Street. Second prize was probably two days out,
seeing that Preston is a bit grim at this time of year, not a huge amount to
do, and HMP Kirkham, by contrast, is renowned for its comfort and leniency.
But I think they could develop this scheme, maybe in conjunction with the
national lottery. Every week they should hold a draw on television to see
which British prisoner goes free for 24 hours — “And this week it’s Dave
‘Psycho’ McVie who is serving a 10 stretch in Pentonville, and who will be
spending his free time in the Bermondsey area, especially near the cash
machines on Rotherhithe New Road.”
Meanwhile, Paul Brown, who stabbed someone to death outside a pub and is now
doing life, is complaining that his human rights have been infracted because
he will be not be allowed to take his pet budgie with him when he’s
transferred to a different prison. “I’ve had that budgie for five years,” he
whined. Aw. Someone give Paul a pet mamba instead — at night, when he’s not
looking.
Huntin', shootin' and despotism
Lord Mandelson, suitably tweeded up, joined a country shooting party with his
mate Saif Al-Islam Gadaffi, son of the rational and democratic Libyan
leader, Muammar Gadaffi. Mandelson did not do any shooting, because he
objects to the massacre of defenceless creatures. It is not known if, during
this agreeable excursion, Saif took time out to take aim at any passing
airliners or use his shotgun on opponents of his dad’s regime. Mandelson has
a quandary for his next summer holiday: should it be a cosy cottage in the
Dordogne with Kim Jong-il, or white-water rafting with Osama Bin Laden? His
winter break is already set — skiing at Courchevel. With Robert Mugabe. He’s
a demon down those blue runs, Big Bob.
Marcus speaks, Auntie melts
Order your stocks of sun cream — next year’s going to be a scorcher. We know
this because Marcus Brigstocke told us on the BBC’s Question Time. The
world’s getting hotter and next year is going to be the hottest yet, he
said. Marcus is better known as being one of those soft-left,
public-school-educated comedians beloved by the BBC who has never, ever,
said anything remotely funny in his life. But he has also been flown to the
North Pole to comfort the poor Inuit and check the blood temperature of
polar bears before rushing back to present another breathtakingly brilliant
series of I’ve Never Seen Star Wars, so he must know what he’s talking
about.
Several Inuit welfare organisations and polar bear representatives have
pleaded that Marcus be allowed to live permanently at the North Pole, where
he could entertain the local seals with his comedy routines and estimate how
quickly the ice is melting. As a public service broadcaster, should not the
BBC agree to this request?
* * * * *
An extra irritation for the poor people of Cockermouth, as if they needed such
a thing, is the determination of television reporters to mispronounce the
name of the flood-stricken town. They seem unwilling to articulate the first
syllable, so that it comes out as “Currmouth” or, in the case of very posh
reporters from the BBC, “C’mouth”. It must annoy the locals because it
enrages me: I scream the first syllable at the TV every time it is
mispronounced. Let’s hope the Sheffield suburb of Penistone stays dry this
winter.
Your Comments
Order By: