British Expats - The crunch has come , even to hookers!!

This is a rough time for the cute Russian whores in the fetid nightclub of the Dubai Metropolitan hotel, plying their wares for 50 quid a go.

Even during the boom days they outnumbered the punters by about five to one; now, all the money has run out and the European expats will soon be leaving.

What will they do, these viciously bleached blonde Katyas and Natashas from Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan?

They won’t sell themselves to the berobed local Emiratis, whom they loathe. I suppose they will have to go home and the whore-traffickers will be out of work too.

Perhaps one day soon there will be only Emiratis left in Dubai — its population dropped by 17% at the start of last year’s credit crunch and now there’s much, much, worse to come because there is no money to pay for anything. The desert will reclaim the expensive hotels with their bling-encrusted lobbies and opulent suites for the likes of Paris Hilton, who once turned up here to open a mall and was indistinguishable from her surroundings.

And the sea will wash away those hideous palm-shaped islands where our cheaper celebs spend spring weekends, the expat apartment blocks will crumble into dust, the scorpions will return and Dubai will be what it was in the 1960s, a frowsy fishing port in a scorched and very backward Third World country, with a moral code for the indigenous population drawn from AD 1335. And the rest of us will look on and wonder: what powerful but unrecorded race / Once dwelt in this annihilated place? Well, hell, you can hope this might happen. Better that than what it has been these past 15 years.

Dubai is wrecked but, like an old tart with a kiss-and-tell contract from the red-tops, threatens to drag the rest of us down with it. In a sense it is merely Britain writ much larger: a despised, criminally underpaid and perpetually ill-treated underclass of imported foreign labourers on top of which squats a fat, indigenous population which cannot believe its luck, doing absolutely nothing other than spending money.

A property boom so absurd in its assumptions and aspirations that its imminent implosion was evident to everyone — except, of course, the bankers who mindlessly bought into the deal and funded it.

And then there’s the over-remunerated elite of western European expats who are now trying to get the hell out, binning their Porsches at the airport, kissing goodbye to their obliging Filipino slaves. What’s Dubai, without its money? Some rocks, some sand, some Islam, some flies.

We are dragged down because our bankers — the ones who dropped us in it last year — bought into this bizarre fiction too. Dubai has a £48 billion debt default and this has a knock-on effect for our own RBS, which was Dubai’s biggest loan arranger to the tune of some £1.4 billion, and HSBC, which has some £10 billion tied up in the state, and Barclays, which has an estimated £3 billion investment there.

The stock market fell by 3% when it became clear to the money men that Dubai was a busted flush — late last week (well spotted, boys).

It was evident to most of us a year ago that Dubai was well and truly rogered, when the plush apartments were not selling anywhere near as quickly as they should have been and the city had to go cap in hand to its more cautious partner, Abu Dhabi, for a bailout.

But you might have guessed even before 2008 that Dubai was heading for a fall, that its economy did not actually seem to be founded on anything tangible, aside from the exploitation of Bangladeshi labour.

Our banks were grabbed by the moment, by the Dubai hype, and they swallowed it whole. It should be a bigger lesson to them than the collapse of last year, but you would not bet that it will be a lesson learnt.

+ The first prize in the raffle held recently at Kirkham prison in Lancashire was, er, release from prison for the day. I suppose it saved money on buying those huge tins of Quality Street. Second prize was probably two days out, seeing that Preston is a bit grim at this time of year, not a huge amount to do, and HMP Kirkham, by contrast, is renowned for its comfort and leniency. But I think they could develop this scheme, maybe in conjunction with the national lottery. Every week they should hold a draw on television to see which British prisoner goes free for 24 hours — “And this week it’s Dave ‘Psycho’ McVie who is serving a 10 stretch in Pentonville, and who will be spending his free time in the Bermondsey area, especially near the cash machines on Rotherhithe New Road.”

Meanwhile, Paul Brown, who stabbed someone to death outside a pub and is now doing life, is complaining that his human rights have been infracted because he will be not be allowed to take his pet budgie with him when he’s transferred to a different prison. “I’ve had that budgie for five years,” he whined. Aw. Someone give Paul a pet mamba instead — at night, when he’s not looking.

Huntin', shootin' and despotism

Lord Mandelson, suitably tweeded up, joined a country shooting party with his mate Saif Al-Islam Gadaffi, son of the rational and democratic Libyan leader, Muammar Gadaffi. Mandelson did not do any shooting, because he objects to the massacre of defenceless creatures. It is not known if, during this agreeable excursion, Saif took time out to take aim at any passing airliners or use his shotgun on opponents of his dad’s regime. Mandelson has a quandary for his next summer holiday: should it be a cosy cottage in the Dordogne with Kim Jong-il, or white-water rafting with Osama Bin Laden? His winter break is already set — skiing at Courchevel. With Robert Mugabe. He’s a demon down those blue runs, Big Bob.

Marcus speaks, Auntie melts

Order your stocks of sun cream — next year’s going to be a scorcher. We know this because Marcus Brigstocke told us on the BBC’s Question Time. The world’s getting hotter and next year is going to be the hottest yet, he said. Marcus is better known as being one of those soft-left, public-school-educated comedians beloved by the BBC who has never, ever, said anything remotely funny in his life. But he has also been flown to the North Pole to comfort the poor Inuit and check the blood temperature of polar bears before rushing back to present another breathtakingly brilliant series of I’ve Never Seen Star Wars, so he must know what he’s talking about.

Several Inuit welfare organisations and polar bear representatives have pleaded that Marcus be allowed to live permanently at the North Pole, where he could entertain the local seals with his comedy routines and estimate how quickly the ice is melting. As a public service broadcaster, should not the BBC agree to this request?

* * * * *

An extra irritation for the poor people of Cockermouth, as if they needed such a thing, is the determination of television reporters to mispronounce the name of the flood-stricken town. They seem unwilling to articulate the first syllable, so that it comes out as “Currmouth” or, in the case of very posh reporters from the BBC, “C’mouth”. It must annoy the locals because it enrages me: I scream the first syllable at the TV every time it is mispronounced. Let’s hope the Sheffield suburb of Penistone stays dry this winter.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fairydust (Post 8141682)

That was quite a rant!!