Is Dubai in meltdown ?

"What's the weather like out there?"
"You got a window; open it!"

A friend's mother rang her in tears the other night, "What's happened? What's happened? Are you all alright?" She recounted this story as we sat in the garden with friends, another balmy evening, having partied and bbq-ed for several hours up until that point, without reference to Dubai's financial problems.

Its not that its not important of course. The numbers are unimaginable, but on a day to day level, as we have seen over the last two years, whilst global headlines scream of the imminent demise of all that we cherish, life kind of... goes on. $60 billion dollars; that's an awful lot of debt. How much do other countries owe? And more interesting, if the UK is hitting hundreds of billions, and the US trillions... who do all these countries owe it to? And should we all be moving there?! I hear China has bought Africa (the mineral rights).... where will it all end?

For all those concerned relatives back home, we're ok. Its the Eid break, followed by National Day, and many are using holidays to link the two. The children are off school for 10 days and given it was unexpected, most families are staying local. Typical agendas for this week involve getting out on the water, golf, lying in, getting together with friends and not watching the clock, putting up the Christmas tree and shopping for gifts in time to catch the post. Its cool enough for a comfortable run in the morning and warm enough to enjoy the rest of the day in the sunshine. Last night we sat outside at the Spanish restuarant at Al Qasr and the temperature was perfect - recommend the restuarant too ;-)

Confidence is everything in the financial world of course so we will watch and wait to see what repercussions come of the proposed debt restructure. Whilst we're waiting however, we're not so much biting our nails as ordering our Christmas turkey.