A World Apart

Apologies to those avid blog readers who have been without for two days.  I’ve been to Dubai where the downside to getting a fantastic deal on Lastminute.com is that when challenged with the cost of buying time on the internet and it’s only marginally less than the cost of the room, you tend to stay off the internet !

I can access things at cafes etc. but as the battery is shagged on my laptop I have to be near a plug as well – which is definitely a step too far as far as I’m concerned.

My primary reason for going to Dubai, as some of you may remember, was to go to my friends party, which was a roaring success…..with quite a lot of sangria…..I did beat the sun to bed, but it was a photo finish and it’s been many years since I have been up that late and able to focus !  In fact, tomorrow I will have to get up earlier to get to work than I went to bed yesterday.

We won’t dwell on this sordid state of affairs any longer and turn to more interesting things – like shopping.  I went to the Dubai Mall yesterday for something to do as much as anything else, and discovered a number of new shops that I hadn’t spotted before.  This has to be the worlds largest sweet shop;

Jelly bean anyone ?  and this one has to have the largest model airplanes that I have ever seen, and helicopters the size of kids bikes !

The reason for the title of today’s (or rather this weekends) blog – A World Apart, was that I went to one of the nicest hotels in Dubai today, to meet the world famous fantasy author, James Barclay (http://www.jamesbarclay.com/) :

He also happened to be my Best Man (and that’s not his car – but he did buy me lunch and beer so he’s the best !  Buy his books, they’re cool and he said I could be in one so he must be great !)

He’s staying at a hotel called the One and Only Royal Mirage, and it’s so utterly different from anything else I have ever seen in Dubai, in fact it’s more Spanish.  This is the foyer:

and this is the view back up from the end of the lawn/ swimming pool area which is next to one of the 9 restaurants it has……

and finally, because I’m shattered and it’s a random picture, here’s my favourite bar in Dubai.  It happens to be two hotels down from the One and Only so I walked back along the beach to get a quick beer before heading back to Abu Dhabi and then back out into the desert tomorrow.

Night night all !