I've spent the week on urgent satiric duty in Dubai, so I feel particularly unqualified to offer any meaningful insight into the latest developments in the Lib Dem leadership race, the progress of Ruth Kelly's education bill or the contribution to western civilisation of Geoff Hoon. No change there, then. However, a comment from Peter Mandelson (Peace Be Upon Him), quoted in Gulf News, did cause me to sit up from my sunlounger and rub my eyes in disbelief. Arriving at a summit at a game lodge outside Pretoria, the former Labour spin-doctor and cabinet minister informed the world's press that "we represent the masses, the progressive toiling masses". Even by the standards we have come to expect from the EU's trade commissioner, that's a belter.
I'm reminded of the story the late-lamented Quentin Crisp used to tell about Eva Peron. Addressing a crowd in Argentina, La Peron spread her arms wide to acknowledge their applause; as she did so, the rows of expensive bracelets and bangles on her wrists rode up to her elbows with a noise like railway trucks being shunted into a siding. When they'd completed the journey, she began her speech. "We, the shirtless . . ."
Last year, the columnist Thomas Friedman said that "the issue for Palestinians is no longer about how they resist the Israeli occupation in Gaza, but whether they build a decent mini-state there - a Dubai on the Mediterranean" (sic!). As it is, they needn't bother. At the current rate of construction, Dubai should reach the West Bank somewhere in the middle of the next decade. The scale of the country's (or rather the ruler's) ambition has to be seen to be believed. Without moving from the beach, I counted more than 60 cranes engaged in building high-rise hotels and villas on the giant man-made peninsula that stretches out into the Gulf in the shape of a palm tree. Another development is taking place offshore, this one in the shape of the world. Buyers will be able to acquire a property on any of the islands created to replicate the earth's continents. I can't help wondering who'll have the chutzpah to choose Israel. Come to think of it, maybe the UN should use the development as a giant chessboard, to test its solutions to the world's problems in miniature before rolling them out on a giant scale. The Americans could indulge in war games in Iraq, Iran and Syria, the Israelis and Palestinians could each buy a timeshare, and the Brits could set up home in the south of Spain. Whenever I hear the British upbraid the Muslim community for failing to assimilate properly into the culture of their chosen homeland, I immediately think of Torremolinos.
"Only in Dubai" has become the local catchphrase to reflect (often ironically) on the unique characteristics of the emirate. With each new scheme - an underwater hotel, a snowdome with hotels and apartments (where guests will presumably go to chill out), or a ski slope with "real" snow, a cinema and a 350-store shopping mall - the sense of ambition gone mad grows stronger. Certainly your cultural preconceptions get a good shaking: Arabs in national dress chatting in Starbucks; women in burqas on mobile phones; Middle Eastern men being measured for skis. Whether the Indian construction workers in their crowded dormitories or the 30 restaurant employees voicing concern about their three-bedroom accommodation feel good about it all, we can only guess. For tourists, on the other hand, Dubai's a theme park, but a bloody big one.
Outside, the world looks a worrying place. The repercussions of the blasphemous Danish cartoons rumble round the globe. If the intention of the infamous drawing depicting the Prophet's headgear in the shape of a bomb was to caricature the (ab)use of Islam for violent ends, the point was only amplified by the equally crude caricature of a London protester dressed as a suicide bomber.
In the circumstances, I must admit to feeling relieved that an idea I had of doing a version of the song "My Cherie Amour" using the words "my sharia law" remained just that - an idea. Doing a new series without the reliably funny characters of Charles Kennedy, Michael Howard, David Blunkett and Robin Cook is going to be testing enough without exposing myself unnecessarily to the undying hatred of the world's Muslims.
