Wish you were her(e) - haha, timeless‏

My dad's bigger than your dad...

I imagine it all started with an aggressive (possibly drunken) game of dares or oneupmanship between two Arabian Sheiks;

'Do you know what Terry, i'm going to build the worlds largest shopping mall'

'Yeah so what, I'm going to build the worlds tallest building'

'Yeah well that's nothing I'm going to build the worlds largest aquarium and do you know what, fcuk it I'm going to throw a few actual penguins in for good measure'

'Yeah well...um...I'm going to build an indoor skiing slope'

'What's so impressive about that'

'It's going to have real snow...'

'Ok Terry I think that's quite enough Shesha and Moonshine for you young man'.

I have heard people describe it as Disney land for adults, or even Miami on speed. I am here referring to Dubai, a country I recently visited on holiday.

An incredibly ambitious country, I have been told their aim was to essentially make the Guinness book of records some kind of tour guide for the country. This in itself may have caused some issues, as I can't see a muslim state happy to be sponsored by an Irish stout. In the same way that a man of diminutive genital growth may acquire a Ferrari, maybe Dubai is the biggest worldwide example of compensating. For them it's not enough just to have shops in a shopping mall, they need to have Egyptian style pyramids, the worlds largest aquarium, or a ski slope avec actual snow. By way of comparison all Bluewater offers is a Burton's and knob sockets from Essex.

A country of contradictions, where you can't hold your wife's hand in public (unhappily married men take note, if you want a country where it is actually illegal to show her indoors public affection outdoors then book those tickets now), and yet prostitutes and even worse Emirates air stewardesses commonly frequent public house establishments.

God knows how Brits abroad romance ladies in Dubai. As a common frequenter of public house drinking refineries, I know first hand and through observation that no one in England would be married/pregnant if it was not for the drunken confidence to make that post 11pm 'winning time' drunken lunge in a Yates wine bar.

What do you do in Dubai? What replaces the drunken lunge? What goes in place of the tried and true dance floor grapple and grind (tm)? Don't tell me people are just sharing their feelings, that would never work.

Now don't get me wrong, making lady romance on a public beach is silly and easily avoidable, but when an inebriated pass in a club towards a member of the lady folk lands you in jail, how is it that every expat is not in prison?

I only had one 'big' night out in which I let my drunken auto pilot take the wheel, but I still managed to find time to lose the people I was with, spend 40 Euros (not an accepted currency in Dubai) and if receipts are correct somehow frequented the VIP area of the club we were in (those of you that know me will verify that I really am not a very important person). I woke up miraculously in my hotel the next day, to eventually find my phone in a cupboard and my wallet under my bed.

Now, luckily my general levels of attractiveness meant that there was no fear of night club courtship occurring, but for handsome ladies and gentlemen who are used to winning the dance floor battle of the peacocks surely the laws present some problems.

I was actually concerned that greeting my friend with a customary peck on the cheek (after all I am a continental new man) may lead to a spot of porridge. I had a plan B of kicking it old school with a 'greeting bow' or a businessmanlike firm handshake just in case.

In Dubai to even run a bar, you need to be able to offer accommodation for the night, so all bars are joined to hotels (don't worry these are fancy joints, they're not just strapping on a Wetherspoons to a Travel Lodge foyer). As an Englishman who could sleep in an iron maiden after enough sherry spritzers I can't really understand the logic of this and surely everyone knows no matter how drunk you get humans are designed with an inherent GPS system that somehow gets you home.

Dubai has a population of 1.8 million, only 100,000 are actually originally from Dubai. The country is built for tourism and foreign business investment, the retailers are all UK and US high street names, they have all your usual UK/US fast food restaurants, there are office buildings that are modelled on Canary Wharfs Gherkin and even some of the bars are named replicas of famous west end establishments.

Essentially if you would like to live in Britain with a bit more sunshine and a bit less knifing and don't quite fancy Benidorm then Dubai should be your cup of hummus.

When they first built the worlds largest aquarium it sprung a leak. They have thousands and I mean thousands of fish in this thing, including sting rays and sharks. Can you imagine being the guy working the day shift when the leak struck, trying to keep a shark alive by stuffing its head into one of a thousand emergency gold fish bowls.

When they first opened the worlds largest building the lifts broke. This building is over a kilometre high, if you were the OAP that was half way up to your roof top pent house suite, you would be pretty upset when your stannah stair lift packed in.

A kilometre high...you would have to suck a sweet just to stop your ears from bleeding when using the lift. Imagine leaving the building only to realise you left your car keys upstairs, you would have to call your work to let them know you were going to be late. For someone in my physical condition I would have to hire a sherper just to ensure safe route of passage to my front door. Imagine being the delivery man having to lug the corner suite faux leather sofa up to floor 117, that would be a bad day.

Despite all this however Dubai is in recession, even more so than the rest of the world. Apparently they don't know the meaning of the word recession, that's okay there are a lot of words I don't know the meaning of too.

They built a slick modern rail system because traffic congestion was so bad, by the time they built it recession had kicked in and traffic had eased significantly, isn't it always the way. Plans to build a Disney World and a Jurassic Park style dinosaur world (Terry, you crazy rascal) are now on hold. A lot of the buildings that were partly built are also on hold. On the plus side however this is making holidays there cheaper, so hey, silver linings and all that.

And if you like fantastic food and swanky bars then I can definitely recommend Dubai as a great eating/drinking holiday.

I hope that they do come out of recession and that long term tourism does drive their economy, ambition such as there's deserves to be rewarded.

Every time I go on holiday (apart from that Easter trip to Lanzarote) I imagine what it would be like living in these countries long term, the different lives I could and in some cases maybe should have led. What might have been if I just had a slightly larger pair of testicals and just took more risks in life.

Looking through my rose tinted glasses (back of Spec Savers) I had that same feeling when leaving Dubai. I can definitely see why people would want to live out there for a few years, the weather, friendly people, tax free riches and great night life, but on reflection I guess long term I would compare Dubai to a fake pair of breasts. Sure, great to look at, great fun too, but after a while you would long for something a bit more real.