Advertisement

Dubai is so wildly contradictory that I’m not shocked to hear of yet another arrested Westerner

Sophia Money-Coutts: Sophia Money-Coutts
Sophia Money-Coutts: Sophia Money-Coutts

The row over the dentist arrested in Dubai for drinking a glass of wine on an Emirates flight didn’t shock me. Not one bit. But before I get on to why, a precis for those who might have missed it: Ellie Holman, 44, and her four-year-old daughter Bibi went to Dubai for a holiday last month but on landing she was interrogated about her visa, questioned about whether she’d drunk anything on board, then held in an airport detention centre for three days with Bibi. I know some of you might have had rough journeys to and from the Algarve this summer but that takes some beating.

Holman faced being detained for a year while awaiting trial but after the intervention of Dubai’s ruler, Sheikh Mohammed , and the work of the alarmingly named pressure group Detained in Dubai, the charges were dropped. On Sunday she arrived home again in Kent. Hurrah. Sort of.

Headlines like this about Dubai crop up every now and then and I always roll my eyes, feeling sorry for whoever is involved but entirely unsurprised. I moved to the city in 2008, leaving a job on this paper for a job on one out there. I was young, the credit crunch had hit London, I wanted an adventure. The sex-on-the-beach furore had just happened in Dubai but as I wasn’t planning on romping naked on the sand myself I thought I’d be fine.

It didn’t take me long to work out that I was living in something of a police state, where expats and tourists were allowed to do what they wanted but could quickly find themselves in trouble should it be arbitrarily decided they had offended someone.

Take Dubai’s famous brunches, for example, which most big hotels host at weekends. Generally they’re four-hour drink-and-eat-as-much as you like sessions. Boozy, sure, but that’s encouraged in hotels. A female friend, after one of these brunches, flagged a taxi to go home but was instead taken to the police station by the driver. He’d decided she was drunk and, I later learned, taxi drivers were supposedly tipped by the police if they brought in inebriated Westerners.

My pal spent the night in a cell being jeered at by the police before being released the next morning. Shame, and the knowledge that she couldn’t do anything about it, prevented her from telling anybody other than a close circle of mates.

I lived with two male friends for a time but wasn’t allowed to be on any of the apartment’s paperwork for fear that the authorities would find out that they were living with a single woman. Another male friend started dating an Emirati woman but called it off when he learned that she was the daughter of a police chief. Mention situations such as these to anyone who’s lived out there and they will nod knowingly.

"More than 30 years after Sheikh Mohammed started developing his city, Dubai still wants it both ways"

I appreciate Dubai is governed by Islamic law. London it ain’t. But more than 30 years after Sheikh Mohammed started developing his city, Dubai still wants to have it both ways — keen for tourists and Western attention but ready to slap you down should you drink a warm glass of chardonnay on the way there.

It’s wildly contradictory. Just remember that when you’re booking your next holiday.

Let’s press pause on reality TV

I’m thrilled that Katie Piper is dancing in Strictly. Honestly I am. But can’t we have a moment’s peace from reality TV shows?

Katie Piper (SplashNews.com)
Katie Piper (SplashNews.com)

I’m no TV snob. In fact, I loathe people who look down on certain sorts of television (read some Dostoevsky instead of watching EastEnders last night, did you? Here’s a medal for being a smug git). But Love Island finished mere seconds ago and I’d only just learned all their names.

Now comes the Strictly line-up as well as Celebrity Big Brother’s — I’m feeling under pressure to mug up on them too. Bake Off is about to start again too, so we’ll also be expected to discuss pastry week with genuine enthusiasm.

The conveyor belt of reality TV shows is relentless — they are becoming cultural reference points we are supposed to understand. I didn’t want to get sucked into Love Island but I started watching purely so I could join in with friends’ conversations. Can we have a breather of, ooh, a decade or so and then start again?

I’ll take someone else’s party any day

I held a launch party for my new book, The Plus One, at Claridge’s last week. It was the swankiest party I will ever throw and has confirmed my belief that I can never get married.

I love other people’s parties but found my own pathetically stressful. Divorced family members under one roof, fears about running out of drink, I sweated through my dress with anxiety and hardly talked to anyone for more than a few minutes.

Plus, and perhaps worst of all, I didn’t eat a single canapé because I was darting around so much. It’s hardly the greatest sob story in the world, I admit, but it’s put me right off a wedding.