Following on from our previous conversation. I never said the term sheikh could be applied to ANYONE, but could be applied to 100s of 1000s of people. Your own dictionary definition proves that as its says 'leader or head of Arab village'. There must be 100s of 100s of these across the Arab world. Do you agree or not? Also children and grandchildren of these people will carry the same name.

At least admit you are wrong, you may then retain a modicum of credibility. If not admit YOU are an asshat, whatever that is??

Anyway, I worked in Dubai for a short contract about 3 years ago - although I had initial thoughts of "Wow this frikkin place is amazing & I'm gonna stay here forever" ..... they quickly waned as I considered :-

1) The place is so god damn hot for most of the year ....
2) Back then (shortly after 911) I saw the area as a perfect target for CONTINUOUS Terrorism - unstable neighbours, massive divide between rich & poor, jekyl & hyde culture clash, burgeoning perception of becoming westerners playground, unscrupulous and biased legal system, LOTS of "smart money" pouring in looking to Profit then Piss Off, etc etc
3) The "real" economy was made of thin air - once Oil revenues have depleted they reckon that being a Tourist/Conference/Shopping mecca will keep them flouting ..... maybe it will ..... for a while ...... but not permanently ...... and if there is a global recession Dubai is a sitting duck ......
4) Lack of any real "indigenous" industrial infra-structure/research/development ..... all overly service related .....
5) This may be slightly racist, but from what I saw the Arab work ethic is virtually non-existent - possibly due to years of a lax tax regime and of course billions just pouring out of the ground .....

IMHO, Dubai is without question riding the present economic bubble to the most dangerous extreme ...... with possibly the loudest bang when things eventually burst

Could you answer a few questions about Dubai for me - I went out there in 2000 for a very short time and came away very disappointed - I went basically to see what the fuss was about, to see whether I could get work there.

I found the place unbearably hot, nothing to do, teeming with people from India and hardly any actual natives out during the day (apparently they sleep during the day and come out at night). The genuine Rolexs (which I was hoping to buy) were NO cheaper than the UK and the so often boasted/bragged about duty free was ABSOLUTE CACK.

Work seemed like a no-no (cheap indians/phillipeanos etc took care of that).

I came away thinking 'hype, hype, hype'.

Yup, the actual Arabs are few and far between - they own virtually everything, either officially or "unofficially" .... and use third world labour almost like slave drivers ......

I went with a small team on secondment to assess/advise on their banking/finance sector ..... in the highly qualified fields there is plenty of money to be made but to move up into the higher circles did seem to be more about Who you know rather than What you know, incidentally the gossip I heard was that the Airline was the best company to work for in the entire world (!) ???

Without qualifications - even very highly skilled jobs were going to the lowest bidder from a developing country although I did hear a lot of American accents from the Asian work force ......

However I did do a bit of shopping and have to say the prices did appear quite a lot lower than blight - maybe brand name jeweler and designer goods are forced to be sold at similar prices in every country ??

The impression that I was left with (which seems to be agreed with whenever I speak to "informed" people who have visited the place) is that its just full of flyboys looking to make a quick buck while the getting is good ......