I’m on top of the world but circumstances change fast

JOURNALISTS can moan with the best of them, but sometimes you get a gig. I’m writing this from the 42nd floor of the Jumeirah Hotel in the Etihad Towers in Abu Dhabi, where, through a windfall of sponsorship, I am doing my radio show this week.

The United Arab Emirates is a small country, made smaller because the vast majority of it consists of boiling desert where the temperature frequently reaches the mid-40s during summer. It’s a dry heat at the moment, but when the humidity comes, you can be drenched in sweat walking from your front door to your car.

Not that this has put off anyone coming to live here: more immigrants than Emiratis live in the UAE: a large chunk of them here from Asia to work on the unceasing construction around Abu Dhabi, while the rest are professional Europeans.