NewYesterday, on climbing into a friend's car, the dashboard
showed the outdoor temperature at 39.5 degrees. Now,
if you don't live in Dubai and can't quite comprehend
this heat - it's really hot. However, it's nothing compared
to what lies ahead. It is in fact, the teasing wink
of summer's impending arrival; the semi-exposed thigh
before a model-clad catwalk frenzy; a mild summer day
in the savage desert, as gentle to us as a spring lamb.
I
remember my parents coming to stay last year, after
listening to me moan about a summer of misery - a traumatic
few months of my glasses steaming up every time I left
the office building and feeling like I needed a shower,
ten minutes after taking one. "It's not that bad"
said Dad, when he touched down at the end of October.
I felt like taking him into the sauna in his clothes,
with all his luggage (the equivalent of one of my handbags,
probably) and turning up the heat to 50-plus. Because
that's what we had to deal with, before he arrived.
Needless to say, the indoor season is almost upon us.
A few more weeks, I reckon, and it'll be out with the
jeans and in with the flowing skirts. Everything will
need more room to breathe. It'll be back to brunches
on Fridays, instead of lazing on the sandy shores (what
a chore, huh?). Everything will slow down. The roads
will be quieter as families migrate, leaving a thousand
husbands alone to sweat it out on their own… to
bring home the big bucks, and/or go to brunches with
their mates, come home late, stay up all night watching
sports, and all the other stuff they're not usually
allowed to do.
Summer in Dubai, for those reading from afar, is unlike
any other summer in a city. New York's concrete buildings
capture the heat in the hotter months, turning Manhattan
into a suffocating monster, but there ain't no sandy
shores to make you crave the ocean. London of course,
is plagued by impromptu rain showers, leaving most to
wonder whether summer ever really arrived at all. But
just as the western world rolls the deckchairs outside
and winds down the sunroofs they've dared to install,
Dubai's outdoor hotspots shut up shop. The outside world
is avoided at all costs. Even crossing the path from
your office to your car is a treacherous voyage of inevitable
humidity-related doom. No armpit is safe, no anti-perspirant
is strong enough, no exposed flesh is free from blistering
without lashings and lashings of sunscreen.
Of course, the British attitude remains, wherever the
Brits might set up home. Back in London, it's shirts
off in Hyde Park at the very first sight of a sunbeam.
There is no shame. And it's not unusual here to find
one brave British soldier lying on a Jumeirah beach
in August, roasting himself like a chicken on a spit,
thinking his milk-bottle skin will relish the chance
for some sunshine. Clearly he can't move the next day
and all his colleagues are whispering about "lobsters"
every time he swivels weakly across the office to the
printer. He won't do it again.
Ah yes, as summer waves its unwelcome hand from a distance,
us desert-dwellers shudder and thoughts of running away
circle our skulls as we sit before our computer screens,
browsing for holiday destinations. It might seem like
a holiday sometimes, living in Dubai. But when summer
creeps around us, we have nothing left to brag about.
After all, who's going to believe you live in "the
greatest city on earth" when you're soaked with
sweat and redder than a BBQ'd lobster?
Posted: 29 May 2008
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