Day 2: Musings at Dubai Airport

Dubai Airport is a breeze to get through. Check-in, immigration and onto the Emirates lounge in short order. The G is enjoying an orange juice (freshly squeezed) and I am sipping at water that has been flown in from Norway. It is a strange world we live in but one is closer to the fjords by drinking Scandinavian water from halfway around the world. Used to come from taps when I was a boy!! The G is enjoying a hearty breakfast just to top up on the Hearty Brazilian dinner that we had at huge expense in the hotel last night – though it was particularly good (she has just returned with smoked salmon, scrambled egg, potatoes and a bread made of semolina).

The Emirate Business lounge at Dubai Airport

It is at times like this (sitting in airport lounges) that I recall my days of jet setting. I do not recall these days – or at least the jet-setting parts of those days – with any fondness. Although I am sitting here in Dubai I could just as easily be in Beijing or LA. They’re all the same. Like hotel rooms. They’re all the same too, no matter hard they try. I am reminded of Boswell’s life of Johnson which recalls an incident with the great man at the Giant’s Causeway in Ireland. “Was it worth seeing, Dr Johnson?” asked Boswell. “Worth seeing, yes: worth going to see, no” replied a typically grumpy Dr Johnson. And that about sums it up. The reason for travel is to get somewhere: the benefits of the somewhere need to outweigh the pain of the travel!! And often, they don’t. Alain de Botton has something to say about this in one of his wonderful books (“The art of travel”) which starts by talking about anticipation.

Left to right: Johnson, Boswell and the Giant's Causeway

Though back to Boswell, he of course came from Edinburgh and I think a former residence is open to the public. The late 18^th century Scots played an important part in the so-called Age of Enlightenment. David Hume was another immortalised in Monty Python’s “The Philosophers’ Song”…

David Hume could out-consume

Schopenhauer and Hegel,
And Wittgenstein was a beery swine
Who was just as schloshed as Schlegel.

Left to right: Hume (what's he dressed as?), Schoppenhauer (what a looker!!), Schlegel (does his mother know he's out), and Wittgenstein (looks almost normal).

Enough, enough: let’s get on a plane!!