Burqalicious

by Becky Wicks

  I went to visit him on the Palm the other day with my new friend, Svana. She’s a lovely girl who works in PR and has lived in Dubai her whole life. I met her at an event I was covering in a hotel and while our emails started out as one might email a work colleague, we seem to have developed a proper friendship and I’ve been integrating her into my circle. It’s really nice having another close girlfriend after Stacey, and she’s even planning to come to Nepal with us, which is cool.

  Anyway, we rocked up at The Irishman’s with some wine and an impromptu mini beach party ensued. His new flatmate — the British guy with the lease for the villa — proceeded to regale us with tales of his entrepreneurial success while lounging on a beach towel and sipping a beer. Interestingly, he has a variety of get-rich-quick schemes on the go.

  We were particularly intrigued to hear about the painting in the garage. Apparently, he keeps it there on an easel to show people at random on the off-chance that they might want to buy it, even though it’s shit. He reckons there are so many stupid people with money and no sense in Dubai, that it’s only a matter of time before he sweet-talks someone into buying what’s essentially a worthless canvas splattered in paint. The guy might well be a genius.

  It sort of reminds me of a friend of a friend here, a sweet young Australian girl called Rochelle, who’s just twenty-one and models to make a bit of money while she’s living with her boyfriend. About a year ago, the pretty Rochelle took on what she thought was a more permanent role as personal assistant to a rich businessman, the CEO of a national bank. She basically met him in a bar and he offered her a job. This guy was paying her 10,000 dirhams a month to be at his beck and call, only … he never called. On about three occasions, Rochelle was asked to deliver envelopes for him to various points around the city and once she had to collect his dry cleaning, but she never went to his office, never saw him face to face, and never really did anything in the way of work.

  The money kept hitting her account every month, though. She lounged about on Jumeirah beach, dined in fancy restaurants and hit the spa for hours on end during the day, waiting for an assignment that never came. She even bought a chihuahua. Eventually, after about three months, she started to feel bad. When she called him up at work to ask what was going on, a lady answered the phone. Rochelle asked for the man who’d ‘hired’ her, the CEO. But it emerged that the man behind the name wasn’t the CEO at all. He was actually — according to the shell-shocked receptionist — just a random employee at the bank. Granted, he was on an exceptional salary, but he had no need for a PA whatsoever. No one else had one.

  This arrogant man, who’d spied the gorgeous part-time model in a bar, had basically offered Rochelle 10,000 dirhams of his own salary every month to have her run around after him, whenever he might need a little boost.

  There are some amazing characters in Dubai, as we know. But The Irishman’s new flatmate hits the top on the scale of eccentric, now that the Iranian’s out of the picture. The new island-dwelling, kind-of-confusing Irishman with his vast, expansive, expensive villa, infinity pool and private beach is most definitely another.

  27/08

  The imaginary ability …

  The other day, EGO The Great asked me to write a musical. I was just swivelling away in my chair, repeatedly pressing the inbox button on Facebook, when up he swaggered and stood behind me as I frantically minimised my sins.

  I hesitated for a second, without turning around. What an amazing request. As he perched his little bum in non-committal fashion on the very corner of my desk, he explained he wanted a little score, or song, to place over a car commercial. Well, of course, I imagined Elton John’s first thoughts when approached to compose The Lion King — ‘This is my chance!’

  Just as my imagination was saying ‘OK, that sounds great, let me get right on it', what actually came out was a spluttering induced by a sudden reality check: ‘A musical? I … I … I’m not Andrew Lloyd Webber!’

  ‘Pretend you are,’ he said.

  If only to please and impress my wizardly mentor, I would have loved nothing more than to have stood up, skipped with gracious joy to the nearest grand piano and spontaneously produced not only a sudden ability to play, but a musical score of such significance and beauty that no car commercial would be deemed worthy of my talents. The truth is, however, I am not Andrew Lloyd Webber and no amount of pretending will ever bring me close to being the same flamboyant baldy who’s changed the face of Broadway — even though I love and respect his work (clearly). So I said: ‘How can I pretend to be Andrew?’

  He frowned at me. ‘Use your imagination.’

  I nodded and smiled weakly. I’ve learned not to continue these futile conversations with ‘creatives'. I told him yes, of course I would use my imagination and yes, yes of course I would pull a musical score out of my arsehole (I didn’t say that bit) as soon as I’d finished with Facebook (I didn’t say that bit either).

  A few hours later, I still couldn’t imagine being a composer. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I did have the opportunity to become one, once. Having dismissed my instructor when I was fifteen on the premise of him obstructing my creativity, after about four lessons I composed a few absolute gems of originality; pure lyrical genius they were. To give you an example of how I stretched and challenged my teenage mind, one line went: You gave me a broken heart and you’re tearing me apart. I know. Amazing.

  When I was sixteen, however, I gave it all up after learning ‘Wonderwall'. It was all I ever needed to impress the boys. I wouldn’t even have to get to the chorus before my miniscule cleavage and caterpillar eyebrows were forgotten, so wrapped up were they all in a cloud of awe. A chick who plays guitar is always hot — something that has been confirmed by several people as I’ve grown up — although admittedly, it’s hotter if you’re younger. As it turns out, there’s only so far you can go with lyrics like You gave me a broken heart and you’re tearing me apart before it stops being an amazing talent from someone so young, and turns into a pathetic, attention-seeking attempt from someone who, quite frankly, needs to get a life.

  Understandably, I may have denied the world some sort of rights as far as halting the evolution of my talents is concerned, but getting back to the present, I doubt very much that this 100-year-old business with a global reputation at stake would lay it all down for a song called ‘The Nice Car’ in the key of G Major. I doubt they would do this, even if EGO The Great told them it was indeed composed by an emerging yet wasted talent who made it up while pretending to be Andrew Lloyd Webber.

  In the end, I produced some sentences that rhymed and hoped it would be enough.

  06/09

  England, Dubai and the theory of pie …

  Even though Ewan and I have been promised a shop in our building site of a neighbourhood ever since we moved in, there still isn’t anything for the residents in the vicinity except even more half-built apartment blocks and towers of unoccupied units. Surprisingly it seems rent is actually going down in Dubai now. People are moving into nicer areas for less money as the ‘recession’ takes hold.

  Obviously, no one wants to admit we’re in a recession. Dubai is flat-out denying it, even though some of its projects are being halted and rumours of employee culls are rife, especially in project development and real estate. There have been a few whispers around the agency, although I’m not too worried (probably because I don’t care enough), but judging by the way things are going at his work, poor Ewan’s right to be getting more and more freaked out. The media company sounds to me like it’s falling apart at the seams!

  The roving, randy Heathcliff is still choosing to ignore his emails about overdue pay cheques, and in person, when he’s cornered, he insists he’s sorting it all out. Then inevitably he swans off to another glitzy event, leaving everyone else, including Ewan, in chaos. The other week, Heathcliff decided it might be a good idea to get an attractive member of his staff, who fancies herself as a singer, to record a CD to give away with the magazine. As disaste
r unfolded in the office, he and the warbling object of his affection spent hours in a studio somewhere, having fun, making music that never actually saw the light of day.

  Also, after promising Ewan he could hire his own assistants (something Ewan was looking forward to doing immensely), Heathcliff has taken the liberty of doing it for him. Ewan’s new fashion assistant has no skills whatsoever in writing or styling and is seriously making life difficult. She does have killer tits, though, which probably explains Heathcliff’s decision. The whole office is pissed off now, quite rightly.

  In an attempt to chill him out, I suggested we head to a new pub called Nelson’s in the Media Rotana across the road. We’ve been watching them build this new hotel for months. It stands in a rather out-of-the-way location near the camel racetrack, which we can see from our living room window. This suggestion cheered Ewan up immensely — he’d heard rumours that the pies at Nelson’s were spectacular. I was also excited, because the idea of walking to the pub was one I thought I’d left at home in the UK. As we know, there aren’t many pavements near our building.

  Now, I don’t mean to whinge. It’s very nice that we have a pub at all here in Dubai, let alone one in walking distance from our flat. But I’ll tell you now, Nelson’s is a very confusing place, housing some very confused people. Let me set the scene. When Ewan and I arrived, it was slap bang in the middle of happy hour and every male English expat over the age of thirty seemed to have taken on the obligatory propping up of the bar. The place was loud. The smoke was so thick you could barely smell the fresh paint and cheap perfume. The DJ was spinning ‘everything that us crazy Brits just love', which of course includes Westlife, Phil Collins and the Bee Gees. Grateful wives who hadn’t been for a bevvy in months gyrated in the corner as the DJ beamed in delight. Bemused hotel guests watched from the sidelines, wondering when Dubai started building places that should, by all rights, be sitting on wind-savaged streets next to train stations, littered with homeless people.

  The dark mahogany-panelled booths, reminiscent of train carriages from the forties, were simply calling out for a pub quiz huddle. A girl in a hat read a romance novel and sipped a Guinness between the gaps in her teeth. A frazzled waiter knocked my chair in his hurry to deliver what was probably a plate of very late, lukewarm food.

  When it came to service, I was ignored for about ten minutes at the bar. Finally, after questioning several other members of staff on my behalf, the barman still had no idea if they served white beer or not (FYI: they don’t). Ewan and I sat in a booth with a table for eating our food, although no one cared to offer us a drink, menus or cutlery until we asked. After ordering, our waiter forgot us. We asked again. Our drinks never appeared. A waitress approached. We ordered again. No drinks arrived. We ordered again. She brought my wine and asked, for the fourth time, what Ewan had ordered as … oh ferfuckssake, she’d forgotten. I thought he was going to explode.

  Thankfully, you’ll be pleased to hear the food is excellent. Being nestled at the bottom of a world-class five-star hotel, it bloody well should be. Shame that the concept of a pie has been so tragically misunderstood, though. When it finally arrived, I was presented with a mini casserole dish full of pie filling. Not a pastry flake in sight. No sides, no top, no nothing. It tasted good. Absolutely awesome, in fact, but still, that is not a frickin’ pie, is it? Calling it a pie is dangerous. There are people who would travel further for such a promise. People with issues.

  The funny thing is, I’m not entirely sure whether this strange new world of incompetence, ignorance and mayhem is offensive beyond all comprehension, or thrilling in its English authenticity. The service in English pubs is supposed to be terrible, isn’t it? The entertainment is supposed to make you cringe and the crowd are expected to kill all serenity usually associated with having a quiet drink away from home. When you’re not being ignored by a skinhead called Clive with a tattoo the size of Putney on his forearm, you’re getting your bum pinched by an eighteen-year-old wobbling about with a jelly-shot, or serenaded by an eager karaoke DJ, who’s set up the popular weekly ‘Songs with John’ because no reality TV talent show, record label or even cruise ship dared to trust him with a microphone anywhere else.

  Ewan was bubbling with the Rage as the incompetence unfolded. It did nothing to improve his mood, but he did enjoy his pie, which made the trip somewhat worthwhile. Nelson’s is one of those places that could definitely claim to be unique, at least in Dubai, but will probably never bother. I have a feeling that it might keep luring me in until I can actually figure out how I feel about it — at least until they grasp the real meaning of ‘pie'.

  11/09

  Tales of a Middle Eastern earthquake …

  It just happened! It’s the most exciting thing to occur in Dubai since the infamous sex scandal. A natural disaster just struck, right here, with its epicentre seemingly right around my very office. I shit you not. Everyone was evacuated. People were standing on the streets, wondering what it was they didn’t feel, looking at the trees that weren’t even damaged, observing all the cars that weren’t flipped over onto their roofs, engulfed in balls of flames.

  Only I wasn’t here. As the earthquake, measuring 6.2 on the Richter scale caused tremors around Media City (and at least one pen to fall off someone’s desk), I was in a recording studio about two miles away, making a radio commercial. As the world was shaken, I was listening to an American talk about credit cards.

  I have never been so annoyed. I didn’t feel a thing. The pesky quake didn’t even think to include me. Me! A survivor of many natural disasters. I would have known what to do. I was in New York on 9/11. Granted, that wasn’t a very natural disaster but I was still a part of it. I helped find a place that still delivered pizza, and I called up to book tickets for RENT when no one else really felt like it. I have always been there to offer support. Always. Until today.

  Imagine my disappointment. I feel so very useless. People in my office are traumatised. I don’t think they’ll ever get over it. A guy who sits opposite me even said, ‘I didn’t bother going outside.’

  ‘What? WHY?!?’ I screamed, thinking he was so shocked, so mortified, so terrified of imminent doom and destruction that the poor thing had just crawled under his desk and started praying. Apparently, though, he saw it as an ideal time to use the Internet, seeing as it’s so goddamn slow when everyone else is on it.

  There wasn’t even any looting. I was informed of the tragedy while still at the studio and fully expected to come back and find my apple, box of Nature Valley Crunchy Granola Bars, and condom-on-a-lollypop-stick gone, stolen, pilfered. But nope. Nothing. Even my computer’s still here, flashing up all the work I have to do before the end of the week/world.

  Seriously, this has to have been the most boring natural disaster ever. It started in Iran — in the southwest of the Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas, to be precise. I think three people were killed there, which is terrible of course. For us, though … nothing. Most of Dubai already looks like its been involved in an earthquake, anyway. I very much doubt most people would have blinked if another pile of rubble were to appear on the side of the road.

  13/09

  It’s a decency thing …

  I’ve booked a spontaneous trip to New York to celebrate my birthday in November, which appears to be springing up on me rather quickly — it feels like I only just had the last one. New York is a whopping fourteen-hour flight from here — direct — but I feel the need to go because it’s kind of a second home to me. I lived there for a couple of years after uni and then Lucy moved over too. It was so much fun, such an overwhelming experience that I think it might have left my feet with this permanent itch to see and experience even more. It definitely made us want to move in together when we both got back to London … New York changes you, in a way. We clung to our past life in Manhattan together, feeling like it made us kind of special.

  Anyway, you can’t book a trip to New York without planning what you’re going to wear when you get th
ere. I thought it was time to check out what was up in the fashion stakes … or Dubai’s version, at least. I went to the Mall of the Emirates.

  This should have been a normal kind of day trip, you might think: a pleasant stroll through one’s thoughts, perhaps accompanied by an iPod, perhaps with a view to staying for coffee while pondering the purchase of a new bag. However, when I got there and let the shopping commence, I suddenly realised I might be breaking the law. I started to sweat. I fidgeted. I developed an overwhelming sense of paranoia that everyone was looking at me and I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

  Now, before you say it … no, I wasn’t shoplifting. No, I wasn’t dancing in the aisles high on Red Bull and I wasn’t carrying out my make-up and beauty regime courtesy of The Body Shop (highly recommended — they really don’t mind). I was, however, wearing a rather short skirt.

  I know. Stupid.

  According to new ‘decency’ rules set in place by the city last week, my little skirt was no longer welcome in such a public place. It hasn’t really been welcome for a while, actually. All these lunches and brunches mean that in spite of the odd detox, my legs perhaps aren’t as lithe and twig-like as they used to be. But here in Dubai, I’m likely to come across a lot worse than the fashion police if someone picks up on a personal wardrobe malfunction.

  So what are the new Things We Must Not Do? Well, playing loud music, dancing, nudity, kissing and holding hands in public are all now considered inappropriate behaviour. I even heard a rumour about whistling being unacceptable. If you’re lucky enough to still have a job round here, God forbid you hum a happy tune or a high-ho as it’s off to work you go .