by Becky Wicks
I think I pulled it off quite well in the end. Dad did comment that he rather liked Dubai, and that it was a little bit like Disney World without all the fat Americans. He also commented that he really liked my friends, but then he wasn’t actually taken to a twelve-hour brunch and made to witness them in action round a buffet spread. He met a few of them in sober mode in an outdoor lounge called iKandy, sitting round a swimming pool in a glorious pink-lit shisha haze at the Shangri-la hotel. This was where they both had their first apple-flavoured puff, and Mum got a little giddy.
Mum liked my rooftop pool, the sunshine and the food, and bought a nice pashmina in the souk. But she didn’t really like the fact that it took so long to get a cab anywhere, or that most drivers seemed to smell of B.O.
I think they got a pretty good idea of the place.
29/10
The difficult detox …
In spite of outside influences, such as beers, brunches, late-night pies from the local 24/7 shop and inevitable mockery by those less understanding, this past week I have been determined to treat my body like a temple for once instead of a garbage disposal unit. Having spent far too many months boozing and eating badly I’ve long felt parts of me wobble that certainly never wobbled before. At first I thought it was the dreaded Dubai Stone that Stacey still spends evenings in the gym trying desperately to fight, but when I weighed myself it was only a few extra pounds. A few extra pounds around my thighs, I might add, which is never good. Sitting in the office I’m increasingly aware that my arse spills slightly further over the sides of my swivel seat than it used to, and I’ll be damned if it’s going to get any bigger.
M&M was madly opposed to my detox plan at first. He proclaims to like me just the way I am, although I choose to believe he heard this very line in Bridget Jones’s Diary and assumed it would work on all of us. Personally, I thought it was the perfect time to take up the offer of reviewing a made-to-measure detox program for the website. All I needed to do, according to one glossy-haired voice of wisdom who concocted the program from her villa somewhere in Al Barsha, was devote seven days to ditching alcohol, caffeine, bread, meat, chocolate biscuits, Lebanese cheese manakich, chicken udon … OK, everything, absolutely everything that tastes nice, and swap it for fruit, veg, water and herbal teas.
Armed with a list of ‘power foods', I hit Carrefour with a vengeance. Ewan told me which blueberries to buy. He’s very good with his fruits, and is always snacking on dried apricots and weird stuff like that when he dares to pass by my desk. He even brings tofu to work sometimes, mixed with lentils and the like, which I never understand as he’s a meat-eater, but apparently it has even more protein in it and less fat. He’s very lean and healthy so it must be doing some good. It’s just a shame it tastes like mouldy wet wallpaper.
Carrefour is the biggest supermarket in Dubai, just so you know. I tend to shop in the one in the Mall of the Emirates, although there are several dotted about the city. They’re all the same. They always smell of cat food, no matter what time of day or night you go, and they’re always full of Indian men, holding hands, eyeing-up the ladies. There are several other supermarket chains in Dubai. Spinneys is another. This one’s slightly nicer, but far more expensive because they tend to import absolutely everything, mainly from Waitrose back home. You can walk in and pick up some Waitrose own-brand cornflakes, for example, or coffee, and Spinneys always smells of fresh bread, in order to attract wholesome expat families.
Spinneys have a pork section, too, which usually stocks own-brand bacon, ham and pineapple pizzas and a variety of other products you never even knew had any pork in them — like prawn cocktail crisps. (Shocking! I never would have thought, would you?) These items sometimes have stickers on them that Brits might recognise from home. I see bacon boasting the supercheap price of 99p, quite often. Only in Dubai, it’s marked up by about 60 per cent. You can pay the same price for a proper beefsteak as you can for the worst cut of bacon here. I refuse to buy bacon out of principle. I figure I had my lifetime’s worth of it at uni, anyway. It’s all I ever ate. I almost craved it. Maybe my body knew that some day I’d have to go without.
Anyway, even with my beautiful, silky-smooth friends from the cheese triangle family calling my name, I blocked my ears to all naughtiness and made a beeline for the fresh produce aisle. Shut it, cheese, I told them, broccoli’s my buddy now, blueberries are my babies (it’s very hard to lie to your friends, but I blocked their cries and ignored their sneers; told them I’d miss them and I’d be back soon). I did get some funny looks when I loaded it all onto the conveyor belt with a blender, but maybe that’s because I also seized the opportunity to buy the new hot-pink wheelie case I’ve needed for ages. I zipped up my nutritious wares and wheeled off with it into the crowds. Well, you’ve got to improvise when you don’t have a car and your day includes heavy veggie transportation.
As I passed the food court I realised that it’s only when you can’t have a Whopper with the works that you really want one. I was ravenous, having only eaten an apple since 9 am. Once home and away from temptation, I tucked into a lunch of melon, peppers and celery sticks, and a blueberry and banana smoothie. I ate a few pumpkin seeds, thinking they were really very chewy and bad for my teeth, before Ewan called to see how I was doing and informed me that I was supposed to take them out of their shells first.
At dinnertime I experimented with my homemade steamer — basically a saucepan with boiling water inside, covered with some tinfoil, pierced with a fork. I resisted the urge to cover my broccoli, red cabbage and carrots in gravy and pop out for a pie, and instead I munched in tasteless misery in front of the food channel. It’s no fun at all eating veggies on their own, but Nigella baked a fantastic cake in front of me and I actually felt a bit better. It’s really quite possible to feast on imaginary flavours if you put your mind to it.
By day two I was starving. I woke up at 4 am and couldn’t sleep. I contemplated calling M&M for some conversation —something to take my mind off the munchy monster growling in my stomach — but of course that wouldn’t have been wise. I finally blended a banana, an orange, a carrot and a kiwi, which did the trick. At the advice of my detox guru, who’d previously told me to call her at any hour of the day or night if I needed her (only in Dubai, eh?), I popped to the health shop before work the next day and bought some vitamin B6 and B12 capsules to calm my caffeine cravings and increase my metabolism. I think they might work actually — surprisingly, I haven’t really missed my morning coffee(s) that much.
I had a few mood swings that day. I shouted at M&M. I scowled at the office cleaner as he smiled at me in far too friendly a fashion and threatened to sing again. I didn’t have the headaches I’d been warned about, although day three and four at work were pretty tough. Stanley waved his bagel with goat’s cheese and pesto in front of my face as I approached his desk. He told me to do something. I didn’t even hear what it was; I was too busy watching the pendulum of his perfect lunch pass before my eyes. It was making my mouth water. I sat making crunching sounds with a Tupperware box of green pepper chunks, hoping my childish noises would bring an element of fun to the situation. No one likes a loud eater — especially not in the morgue. Nothing was satisfying my insatiable hunger though, and before I was forced to take a bite out of my keyboard, I raced home early and furiously steamed up some more broccoli.
Day five, and I actually felt pretty good. I might be imagining it, but I’m sure I have less of a bingo wing going on under my arm than before. I even survived M&M ordering chicken wings from Chili’s to the flat, and ate my salad in skinny smugness while informing him of all the evils that were lurking in his calorific, fast food dinner.
So here I am, at the end of it all. I’m a survivor! I have managed a diet in Dubai — no mean feat indeed. I even got two cellulitebusting massages as part of the detox program, with a machine that feels a lot like having your arse and thighs sandpapered heavily by a lumberjack dressed as a Filipino. My cravings for red wine can never be s
ilenced by the power of a vitamin pill (unlike the caffeine), but for a quick fix, I’d definitely do it again for a few days. Stacey says she’s very proud of me, although I ‘could have just gone to the gym’ like her. M&M may have liked me for who I was, but I think he likes me even more than that, now I’ve lost a bit of the muffin-top that had started to bake above my jeans. I’m actually feeling pretty damn good about myself.
Nothing a good twelve-hour brunch won’t sort out, I’m sure.
03/11
Lions and champers and beers, oh my!
Having turned down the mysterious invite for a rare, quiet night in, my newest friend Sash was without me as she tottered out of the cab outside the hotel and found a school bus waiting. ‘Meet at the Hilton at 8.30 pm sharp,’ the text had read. Sash had been intrigued. She’d glammed herself up to the max and cabbed it down there, not really knowing what to expect, other than that some other friends of hers would also be following the same instructions.
Sash is one of Dubai’s most beautiful people — from Canada. I met her through a friend of a friend one day a few weeks ago, in a noodle bar. She does a spot of modelling on the side of her day job and has the kind of look and poise that turns heads in the mall when I’m next to her, making me feel a bit like one of Cinderella’s ugly, fat sisters, in spite of my recent detox. She also has an excellent personality, is lots of fun, and doesn’t really know exactly how gorgeous she is, which is even more annoying. But I like her a lot.
The others were waving at her from the bus steps, so she climbed on board to find roughly fifty other beautiful, dolled-up girls on board, and one guy. ‘We’re going to a party,’ the guy informed them, grinning. And shrugging their shoulders they took a seat and chatted away merrily as the bus chugged away up the road.
They knew it would be safe — a friend of a friend had sent the text, although after an hour the girls discovered they were miles from their starting point, somewhere in Ajman (one of the seven emirates that make up the UAE). Not really knowing where they were going, they pressed their powdered noses to the glass in wonder as the darkness enveloped their party bus, and eventually pulled up at a grand, gated entrance, complete with security guards outside.
It was revealed they’d arrived at a sheikh’s mansion. The driveway to this mansion was a mile long and as they giggled into their handbags the guy who’d shuttled them onto the bus informed them that the sheikh in question owned the entire eight-acre plot of land. He never revealed who he was, standing there looking important, with some very expensive jewellery glinting from his person in the night. He just said that they should all proceed to have a nice time.
Like a troop of eager school children, the group were ushered into the building, expecting hundreds more people to be waiting inside. There was no one. The place was relatively small, as far as mansions go, and all on one level. It had a fully equipped gym, two very large bedrooms and a lovely, modern fitted kitchen. However, perhaps the most striking feature, as Sash recalls, was the fully grown stuffed giraffe looming over the living room and other taxidermy treats such as hawks, falcons and rabbits. Hunting treasures, you might assume. Except, perhaps, the giraffe.
Surprisingly, when the group were led outside to the backyard, there was no one there either, aside from a few dudes in dishdasha, the local dress. They were all standing in wait around an entire buffet of gourmet foods, which looked deliciously tempting in the neon lights. The DJ was already spinning tunes in the corner and as they were thrust into the spotlights, it became painfully obvious that the busload of beautiful people brought specially from Dubai … were the party.
Still, determined to have a good time, Sash and the others tucked straight into the food and took full advantage of the unlimited champagne flowing freely from shimmering bottles. And as the strobe lights helped to blur their senses, a few of them even took a turn on the catwalk, which had been installed conveniently for the occasion. A few pondered a dip in the infinity pool, but they hadn’t actually been informed to bring their swimwear, so they chose to admire it from afar and drink some more champagne instead, chatting to the guys about their lives, jobs and thoughts on Dubai. The guys were allegedly all very nice, says Sash, and very interested in the girls’ opinions.
Taking a shine to Sash (who wouldn’t?) one of the sheikhs later drove her and a couple of others through some more of his property, and then proceeded to showcase his personal zoo. Adjusting their boob-tubes and treading carefully in their killer heels, the girls admired an adult male lion and two cubs, watching them with equal interest in the light of the moon. A little further on they were delighted to be shown a hippo in its own special pond area, a pen housing a rather sad-looking rhino, and two deer in their own little manmade forest. Swigging her champers, Sash asked if any of the animals could come and join the party, to which the sheikh smiled and said not today, but he usually let the lions out to roam the eight acres and occasionally the adult male could be found chilling out with them in the living room while they watched TV.
Overall, Sash informs me, it was an unbelievably awesome experience, which I would have loved, had I not been too hung-over and lazy to leave my new flat. As they piled back onto the bus at around 4 am, the girls reflected on everything they’d seen. And while some were a little miffed that they had been purposefully gathered as ten girls to every guy, they all agreed that they’d been very privileged indeed to have witnessed the kind of private party that clearly happens all the time in these parts, behind closed doors. Minus a giraffe and lion or two.
10/11
Age and the-party-that-never-was …
It’s my twenty-eighth birthday in a matter of days. I know I’m getting old because HSBC sent me a birthday gift this morning. When your bank sends you hotel and dinner vouchers instead of a court summons, you’re definitely an adult, aren’t you? Mind you, this was from my bank in Dubai, with whom I do not yet have a credit card, overdraft or thousands of pounds of debt. It’s another prime example of this city’s current lack of communication skills. I know for a fact that if HSBC Dubai were in any form of contact with HSBC UK, they most certainly would not be sending me gifts.
I digress. I really should be happy about my birthday, because technically I’m sort of on track, right? I have a decent job, which kind of lets me have free rein over what I write — even if it’s mostly about Brad and Angelina. I have a nice flat and no longer have to sleep on a concrete slab. I have beaches, brunches and the best karaoke bar in the world on my doorstep. I have blagging rights to pretty much every party in town, a lovely family and a host of nice friends. I’m not married, though. Nowhere near. Not that I want to be, of course (I’ll leave that privilege to my boyfriend), but lots of my friends are getting married now. I knew it would happen as soon as I moved abroad, now that the flights are too expensive and I don’t have enough holiday time to cover them all. Ah . enough thinking. I’m having an awesome time here so far, and I have planned the party to end all parties.
It’s a Dynasty theme night and it’s set to take place on my fabulous rooftop around the swimming pool and bubbling Jacuzzi. I knew it would happen as soon as I saw it. Oh, there was a problem with the Jacuzzi that I may not have mentioned, but it’s fixed now. Some rotten kids who were clearly taking advantage of their nanny sleeping on the job, decided it would be hilarious to fill the thing with bubble bath. I admit, actually, I did find it rather amusing watching giant bubbles floating over the balcony and drifting like mini rainbows over the Irish Village. If only there were little pots of gold at the end when they burst . that’s an idea to sell to Nakheel, one of Dubai’s biggest developers. They’d love it! Anyway, the security guards had palpitations as a spoilt woman threatened to get them fired unless it was sorted out, so they ran around for a while in a flap before scraping them all out by hand and refilling it with more water.
Everyone’s invited to the party. Ewan has helped me organise it and we’re even having a DJ up there, courtesy of a friend of a friend. I feel the need to
make this event the biggest and best I’ve ever had, which of course goes along with Dubai’s theme in general. But the more I think about it, it probably also goes back to my need to make up for the-party-that-never-was, which I think might have left me emotionally scarred.
To cut a long story short, when I was seventeen my mum arranged a surprise party for me, to take place upon my return from an exchange trip to the USA. I kind of cottoned on to it, though. The bowls of salted peanuts, streamers, and Mum in her finest attire and lipstick sort of gave the game away. As did my Jehovah’s Witness friend Fran when she called to say she couldn’t make it. (She always had some excuse.)
As the clock ticked past and no one showed up, it emerged that Mum had thought to tell my kindly boyfriend-of-the-time about her little surprise, in the hope that he would spread the word among my friends. Unbeknownst to her, my kindly boyfriend-of-the-time didn’t actually know any of my friends. And the ones who did know him hated his guts because he was a cock. He never told anyone about my party. He probably forgot himself as soon as Mum walked away, checking out her arse as she went.
Of course, it’s what every girl needs when she turns seventeen, isn’t it — the slap-in-the-face realisation that her boyfriend really is a cock, all topped off with a feeling of total and utter unpopularity. Ever since then, I’ve really hated organising birthday things. And yes, I do want a fucking violin — this is a sensitive issue. Get playing.
To get in the birthday mood, I went for the all-you-can-eat-and-drink wine and cheese night at the Shangri-la last night with a few very nice people, including Stacey, Heidi, The Trader, Private Banker and Haaris, Stacey’s kickboxing instructor, who came even though he doesn’t drink. That, I thought, was really very nice of him.
