littlejimmy

Interesting review of my Dubai book on US Amazon. Not very complimentary about Brits in general, though. I guess it's some cultural misunderstanding...

"It's hard to be sympathetic with a writer who claims to be "liberal", yet litters his diary - for it is not better that an erratic and occasional ramble, with racist and sexist language, who spends much of the book detailing his chronic, mostly self induced, health issues and much of the rest of it covering the amount of time he spent in bars, liquor stores and all-you-can-eat buffets. I'm living in Dubai currently and, while it's far from perfect, it's the itinerant (mainly British, I'm afraid) community and their families who, to me, seem to be the ones who berate and abuse the immigrant worker (read Fillipino/Indian/Pakistani here) population in the malls and in the streets, at the restaurants and on the beach - just as our writer does with his constant references to "Indian chappies in their Sunnys on the SZH " or "dish-dashes". I think he sums it up best at the end of the book, which (thankfully I managed to get through in one day), "we came here to make lots of money, but found we were spending it all, so we went home". Good, is all I can say."

OleJanx

Perhaps the reviewer on U.S. Amazon is blind and hasn't bothered to take stock of reality yet.
Probably at the U.S consulate...

littlejimmy

What gets me is that I actually agree with much of what he says about how expats behave to the Asians in Dubai, and say so in the book. Weird!

OleJanx

Perhaps the reviewer needs stronger reading specs. If nothing else, Dubai is an astonishing place for having your eyes opened, if only your mind is equally open...

kittycat1

lol I was once interviewed for the Metro for a rather tongue in cheek article about how to wear corsetry and was then accused of taking womens lib back 50 years in the readers letters section lol my friends were most impressed so I wouldn't worry about it love xxx

Desert Shaikh

Yup I agree. I think it's just the in built Neo Colonialism kicking in when abroad.

littlejimmy

I guess I need to develop thicker skin now my work is in the public domain!

Tockalosh

You make it sound like being racist and sexist is wrong

Norm_uk

This is completely unacceptable...I'm the only racist on these boreds

You can keep the sexism charge though - being racist takes up enough of my time as it is...

N.

flares

No such thing as bad publicity (or a saying along those lines)

Bit of controversy helps sell books...just look a Jeremy Clarkson

littlejimmy

I wrote a polite and positive response but pulled it. Apparently the worst thing you can do is respond to people like that, even if they are completely misinterpreting things.

Spugsy

It is mate, there's a link somewhere where some daft bint wrote and published her own book, totally full of bad grammar and spelling mistakes and when it got a bad review she was online arguing with everyone about it - she made a right tit of herself.

Meow

This person sounds like a bitter, friendless fool to me. Heaven knows us Brits aren't perfect, but we are far from the worst culprits when to comes to treating less privileged people poorly. He'll see things differently when he stops being an apologist for this place.

I bet he is just jealous that he isn't British too!

scrubbedexpat141

Debatable.

littlejimmy

I'm still struggling to see how referring to "dish-dashes" is in any way offensive or abusive...

Hey ho!