Terminal

Dear Dr Jones,

We have been referred to you by Peter Sullivan at the Foriegn & Commonwealth Office (Directorate for MIddle East and North Africa).

Here's a novel and for once, the name: Salmon Fishing in Yemen by Paul Tordoy.

Dubai Arrival

Walking up and down Terminal 3 in Dubai at 2 AM GMT (5 AM local, 3 PM in New Zealand), my dislocated mind wandered from why to why; why The Irish Bar to why Dubai Duty Free still trades so well (I presume booze and nicotine because everything else is pretty much the same as UK prices). 

I probably have walked a few kilometres, my bags slung from shoulders like panniers on a motorbike, burning calories and trying to stay awake. I needed the exercise after sitting for so long from Melbourne. I wonder if my bag will make it? I was forced to check it in Wellington but the disruption to air services due to the earthquake delayed my fight to Auckland such that I only had 40 minutes to get from Domestic to International terminals, check-in and then run the gauntlet through security and the boarding process. I made it, flustered and sweaty but at least I made it. There was a passportless German frau trying to get home after making it from Christchurch, shocked or aged or both, she seemed to think getting on a plane to Australia shouldn't be a problem, as if she'd earned the right to travel without documentation because she'd been in an earthquake.  I don't know that she made it.

I remembered visiting various architectural sites in the UK with my father a few years ago and finding where all the retired people went - they go on perpetual tours and live in hotels by night and onboard buses by day. Today, I realised that weathlty pensioners go on perpetual cruises. Most of the folk I saw in Auckland, Melbourne and Dubai were jetting between cruise ships and home.