
For readers, a newspaper column that carries no illustration can be a source of good as well as bad news.
The good news, if the column is mine, is that no photograph of me is likely to appear anywhere near the words. The bad news, sometimes, is that the words themselves cry out for a picture.
So it was with my most recent midweek column. Beneath the unpardonable pun, Cementing Relations, I wrote about a visit to Fujairah as part of my little campaign to, well, cement ties with the country in which I live.

The aesthetic highlight, I said without excessively mischievous intent, was not driving along the roads past or through the Hajjer mountains, pretty as they were, but the juxtaposition of those peaks and the cement works just outside the town of Dibba.
I am no particular connoisseur of cement works, but I know what I like (click on the photo, rather squashed because it was taken through a car window and had to be cropped, for a better impression). Tell me I am wrong, if you will, but this is what I had to say about it:
How, you may ask, can any attempt to talk up the visual charm of a country mention a place where they make cement? Simple: I was genuinely struck by the symmetry of the works towers, set in flawless harmony with the backdrop of gentle peaks.
The column, in case your appetite is whetted, can be read in full - complete with the reference to this hotel, Le Meridien, where it cost 35 dirhams a head (that's seven pounds at collapsed sterling conversion rates) to play mini-golf - this link.

The hotel can fairly claim to have fed M and Mme Salut! well during their stay, and to have been reasonable in the more important matter of the room charges (Dh600 for a basic room, Dh800 for an executive upgrade, but all having excellent views along the coast).
I occasionally see packages advertised in the UK and offering very fairly priced holidays in Fujairah, staying at the same hotel, and would not discourage anyone from taking advantage - assuming the pound's decline has not made the idea of any overseas travel at all seem eccentric.
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