Salut!

Expat life: No End to bleak midwinters

Salut! is off to see in the new year in France. Or at least he hopes he is. Please bear in mind that this was written mainly for people living in warmer climes and/or reading The National, Abu Dhabi ...

Any day now, I hope to make the simple drive from London to the coast, put the car on a train and sit back to be whisked to France.

On leaving the Channel Tunnel at Coquelles, I will take safe, fast roads to the city of Le Mans to join relatives for le réveillon, the New Year’s Eve feast.

Expat life: observing the warlords of Whitehall and Washington

On behalf of the East/West column of The National, Salut! joins people of influence, and the odd luvvie, at a West End screening of a film about political intrigue and bad language that may figure in the coming Baftas ...

It is the time of year when film industry people start talking up their contenders for the poor man’s Oscars. Private screenings are held in the hope of helping those with votes or influence decide which films, filmmakers and stars should collect British Baftas.

Expat life: minarets and mischief

Forgive me for returning to France and national identity for this week's East West column in The National, Abu Dhabi. It's an important debate and, a few evenings ago, a French acquaintance answered criticism of the timing ("cynically close to regional elections") by pointing out that on that basis, the debate would never happen since there are always elections of one kind or another looming in France ...

The best part of a recent return to Paris was not strolling through the narrow streets of the Left Bank or old stamping grounds on the other side of the Seine. Nor was it the excellent meals I enjoyed at restaurants (chosen carefully; it is possible to eat badly) or at the tables of friends.

Expat life: the pickpocket's progress

Traveller's tales from Paris. Dinner chez Dumdad involved a trek to the outer reaches of the capital. The real test, as explained in my East/West column in The National, Abu Dhabi, was getting there with all belongings intact ...

For the first time in my life, I punched a number into my mobile phone and announced: “I’m on a bus.”

In recent times, the equivalent call from a train has come to be seen as a moderately serious social faux pas, one I have committed only when feeling guilty about how late home I’ll be. The evidence of my eyes and ears, since my return to Europe from a trainless part of the Middle East, is that people have taken the hint that these calls cause great irritation to fellow passengers.

Expat life: changing places

Peter Crouch is a long, stringy and fairly successful footballer who is better known for his goalscoring feats than for classic good looks. He found himself a stunning Wag all the same. His splendid response, when asked what he would have been had he not been a footballer ("a virgin") was my inspiration for this week's East/West column in The National, Abu Dhabi ...

Name a job in the UAE - or anywhere else, for that matter, now that the column is being reproduced here - you would like to have if you were not already employed in your chosen career. Surely only those supremely contented in their work never wonder what else they might do to earn a living.

Rumours of me being difficult to please are greatly exaggerated.

In Abu Dhabi, I would gladly have accepted one of a number of roles

Expat life: who we met on our holidays

Bumping into an old friend in the airport at Marrakes(c)h airport was one coincidence. Meeting someone from my North-eastern childhood on a bus in India was stranger still, though we were in the same tour group and the trip had been booked through the same travel agency Up North. But surely the latest chance encounter in a far-off land defied longer odds ...

Midnight was approaching in Istanbul and my wife had a sudden craving for mint tea.

Dodging those restaurant hustlers still attempting to lure passers-by to their tables – “my heart will be broken if you don’t eat here,” cried one – we entered a side street, ducked into the Enjoy cafe and came face to face with a man who lives four doors from us in London.

In a typical suburban street full of working couples, Greg and I have been on no more than nodding terms for two decades. Our daughters babysat for him, but the two sets of parents have never socialised.

Before the trip to Turkey, the last time I had seen Greg was in the street. He welcomed me back from France and suggested we should find time to have coffee together. It sounded like one of those very British “sometime/maybe/never” invitations; I certainly didn’t think it would be fulfilled so soon in, of all places, a far-off city where Europe ends and Asia begins.

Greg was there with a friend from university. Since graduation thirtysomething years ago, they have made an annual date for a few days away, preferably somewhere out of the ordinary.

Low cost flights have made Istanbul less out of the ordinary than it once was. Perhaps I should have expected to bump into someone familiar, if not necessarily a neighbour.

After all, I had been prepared for such coincidences, as some readers may recall, by having found, in the seat in front of me on a bus in the Indian city of Jaipur, a woman who not only came from the same small English town but had lived in the next street and attended, with only one year between us, the same school.

Coming home from Istanbul reminded me of my first weekend break in Oman while living in Abu Dhabi. I knew I’d be back. It is one of a select group of place names that light up knowing faces when mentioned, and 48 hours from touchdown to takeoff is an absurdly short time to explore its treasures.

A friend had said: “Make a list of 10 must-do things and put the rest of hold for next time.” Even that proved an optimistic target, but we did manage to pack a lot into our stay.


We marvelled at the Blue Mosque, lunched on a terrace of the Topkapi palace with fabulous views of the European and Asian banks of the Bosphorus, visited the spice market and the fascinating railway museum, enjoyed a traditional oriental show, climbed to the upper gallery of Hagia Sophia and cruised on the river. Even that, I know is barely scratching the surface.

As a melting pot of cultures, Istanbul seemed in a class of its own. Little wonder that, even in November, the flights were full and our hotel was turning people away. The next visit should really take in rather more of Turkey than one city, but I am sure that visit will take place, probably before Greg and I get round to having a drink together in London.

* From the East/West column in The National, Abu Dhabi

Expat life: professional fouls or foul professionals?

Across at Salut! Sunderland, there has been much banter about dishonesty on the football pitch. At Westminster (and in the constituencies), MPs struggle to shake off the dust from the expenses scandal. If Matt can combine two separate issues for a pocket cartoon, I can do the same for the East/West column in The National, Abu Dhabi ...

Cheating at work can be a serious matter. Stealing the office stationery may get you the sack but, as we occasionally see in the news columns of The National, more serious dishonesty or breaches of trust could land you in jail.

Expat life: maybe Britain isn't so bad after all

Did I speak too soon? Was I too hard on Blighty? No sooner was the ink dry on last week's East/West moan in The National, Abu Dhabi about nasty, greedy, surly Britain than something happened to make me think again ...

Confused of Khalidiya. The words might as well have been stamped on my forehead as I wandered around the sprawling out-of-town complex of the Abu Dhabi Police traffic section.

It had been one of those mornings. Someone had damaged my hired car while it was parked at Khalidiya Mall and I needed a police report. This was the third location to which I had been directed in my attempt to obtain one, and at last I was in luck.

A friendly official appeared from nowhere to confirm I was in the right place. He led me through corridors and along outdoor paths until we reached an out-of-the-way office where such matters were attended to. Then he was gone and I never discovered whether he had merely been doing his duty or was performing an unsolicited act of human kindness.

At King’s Cross station in London a few days ago, another official combined duty and kindness to an extent that caused me to wonder whether I had been a little harsh on Britain in last week’s column, when I described a country that had seemed to go tabloid and antisocial.

Expat life: Britain down the tubes, France à la ruine?

Coming back home can be an eye-opening experience. Pictures in the papers and on TV of a student caught urinating on a war memorial in Sheffield, a young Geordie lass made to clean up the street she'd fouled after a spot of binge drinking, rip-off prices everywhere and evidence daily of a society that has adopted a snarl as its default expression. Thank goodness I have also managed to see glorious Durham Cathedral (and a Sunderland victory aided ever so slightly by a beach ball). But perhaps you'll think my rant in today's edition of The National, Abu Dhabi is unfair ...

It may just have been that my head was still in the clouds as I gazed in admiration at the French coastline during my plane’s descent into the Mediterranean airport of Toulon. But I could not shake two thoughts: what is wrong with Britain, and how long have you got for the answer?

Expat life: there'd be none (of a certain kind) if Nick Griffin had his way

Last week's Tuesday column appeared on Thursday (pushed back by pressure on space). This week's appears on Monday (to preserve topicality). It is my account for The National, Abu Dhabi of Nick Griffin's debut on a Question Time panel. The cartoon strip is from the sundayfunnies blog.

As Voltaire might have said but didn't, I find the man's views despicable but would vigorously defend his right to express them ...

The big television event in the UK has been the appearance on the BBC programme Question Time of Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National Party.

Outside the studios, there was a noisy demonstration. Inside, from the presenter David Dimbleby and fellow panellists to the audience, there was relentless hostility towards this figurehead of an odious political group based on the hatred of those its adherents consider to be different.

Mr Griffin claims to be a superpatriot, proud of his father’s Second World War service in the Royal Air Force. But he cannot deny that his party is supported by people who have, if not now, then at an earlier stage of their thinking, regretted that the war did not have a different outcome.