Dubai
Do we really want to live in a world where we’re perpetually spied on?
We are now approaching the point where the Stasi dream is achieved globally. But the more surveillance expands, the more ineffective it becomes
The rise of the Orienfluencers
The term “Orientalism” has always implied some kind of caricature of the eastern world. It was originally coined as a…
Hong Kong is the new Dubai
I had forgotten, if I ever knew, that National Savings and Investments (NS&I) began life in 1861 as the Post…
The UAE and Oman could be the big winners from the Iran war
Sixty years ago, I first gazed out on the Strait of Hormuz from the Musandam peninsula of Oman. I was…
Letters: We interfere in the Middle East at our peril
The West’s track record Sir: I read with much sadness Matthew Parris’s reservations about western attempts at regime change in…
Blockchain fantasies: My Bags Are Big, by Tibor Fischer, reviewed
Everyone in Dubai’s confected utopia is reinventing themselves and failing miserably in this dark satire on greed, stupidity and regret
Won’t someone please think of Dubai’s influencers?
The human spirit is incredibly resilient really. Even in the depth of our concern over the Israeli-American war against Iran,…
I love Dubai. Get over it
I am in Dubai where we are doing our best to keep calm and carry on. Granted, the sudden instruction…
Should I wear a burka in the House of Lords?
On Advent Sunday, our grandson Christian became a Christian. He was baptised, sleeping, in the font of our parish church.…
Was Cat Stevens the inspiration for Carly Simon’s ‘You’re So Vain’?
The pop pin-up of the 1970s certainly suggests so – and, judging by his ‘official autobiography’, still finds himself endlessly fascinating
Stray shells and suicide bombers in Kabul’s finest hotel
Lyse Doucet describes how the Intercontinental, the journalists’ refuge for decades, is increasingly targeted by the Taliban as they gain control in Afghanistan
What a carve up! The British flair for disastrous partition
The ‘Great Partition’ of India in 1947 led to the wider division of Britain’s ‘empire within an empire’ – and to most of the problems plaguing southern Asia today
The creeping Dubai-ification of London
In December 2023, a TikTok influencer called Maria Vehera opened a packet of ‘Dubai chocolate’ in her car and filmed…
Where the young rich flee to
If Elon Musk gets his way, and Mars becomes our newest New World, I had always assumed that the people…
Gulf stream
Instagramming from Dubai isn’t ‘work’
Thomas Heatherwick
Thomas Heatherwick is the most famous designer in the United Kingdom today and has an unquestionable flair for attention-grabbing creations.…
X and his complexes
‘X’ is in ‘the Situation’: Joseph O’Neill, author of the clever and superb Netherland, hereby lets us know that his…
Barometer
Tough at the top The clocks on Big Ben were cleaned by abseiling window-cleaners. Some other big cleaning/painting jobs: —…
Why are we turning London into Dubai?
If you’ve ever wondered what it will look like when we colonise Mars, the answer is ‘Dubai’. I was there…
Neknominations – this is what the internet is for
Wouldn’t it be boring if everyone behaved much as you behave? If everyone expressed themselves similarly? Let a thousand flowers…
