Consolations of Philosophy

2. 8:07 a.m.
Shaikh Zayed Road
Taxi to the Novotel

I learned that my first taxi driver - female, Lebanese, fully robed and wearing Paris Hilton sunglasses - has been in Dubai since the day when just one building barely scraped the sky. (It's not clear to me who she was driving around in those days; I've subsequently met several taxi drivers who have been there since the beginning of the skyscraper explosion - maybe they were driving each other to work?).

Our conversation:

FLFRWPHS Taxi Driver - So, are there this many Indians where you come from?

Me - er, um [not yet sure where this line of questioning is going, but aware that she is expecting the correct answer] - yes, I live in a very diverse city

FLFRWPHS TD - They are every where. And they are awful. Just look [I looked around; she was indeed correct that our fellow road-mates were Indian, as were the dozens (hundreds?) of men filing the construction sites]. There are too many of them

Me - er, um [now aware of what she wanted to hear, also aware that we were cruising along what is considered the most dangerous highway in the world, or at least Dubai's world*]

Shaikh Zayed Road still most dangerous
By Alia Al Theeb, Staff Reporter

Dubai: Shaikh Zayed Road continues to be the most dangerous road for motorists with 14 deaths in 61 accidents in the first five months of the year.

Emirates Road followed with 11 deaths from 40 accidents.

According to statistics, this year there have been 144 deaths in road accidents in the emirate, while police reported 107 deaths during the first five months of last year.

FLFRWPHS TD - They should just go home.

Not willing to engage in this line of conversation, though not knowing exactly how to escape ["In conversations, my priority was to be liked, rather than to speak the truth. A desire to please led me to laugh at modest jokes like a parent on the opening night of a school play. With strangers, I adopted the srvile manner of a concierge greeting wealthy clients in a hotel - alival enthusiasm born of a morbid indiscriminate desire for affection. I did not publcily doubt ideas to which the majority was committed." Consolation for Unpopularity, Alain de Botton]

In this case, there was no majority - but there was a racist someone in the driver's seat, so, fully executing my rights as a british passport holder, i asked her to tell me about the weather in Dubai.