This relates to an article by Paul Moss…though you might have thought it was by Occupy’s Paul Mason:
Boom times in Dubai are attracting more and more Westerners – but a night with the expat elite was an awkward experience for the BBC’s Paul Moss.
A weekend stopover in Dubai – a friend had asked some of her friends who live there to take me out.
So, here I was being taken out. But what are the obligations in such a situation?
What do you say to people kind enough to host a stranger, yet characters so improbable not even the wildest of satirists would dare invent them?
Not a problem it seems for Moss…just mock and deride them, call them racist and adopt a holier than thou attitude towards their wealth…in fact pretty much out of the BBC handbook on how to deal with white rich people these days.
Nothing like returning a bit of hospitality and betraying his friend’s trust.
And he seems so pleased with his own cleverness at fooling them into thinking he would write something nice:
“You are a journalist,” said another woman. “Why do you not write something [did he edit out the ‘nice’?] about Dubai? Everyone is always so horrible about us.”
“You will not forget, will you?” she asked. “You will write something about Dubai, about all of us?”
I promised her that I would certainly consider it.
Charming…wonder if his friends will get their friends to entertain him again…I’m sure they will ‘certainly consider it.’
I know so many people like Paul Moss, lefty-types who proudly profess they have never heard of restaurants like Hakkasan or know anything of the finer things of London living. He’s a journalist living in London, well he seems to like drinking coffee in Portobello Road market, so I assume he lives nearby, so he should know what’s happening in London, what the better restaurants are etc..
Maybe he’s too busy concentrating on who the new ex-Labour bigwig employed by the BBC at a ridiculously high salary without any advertising of the role is and wondering how he can get more frontline work at the BBC.
According to his profile on the BBC he’s ‘has written for the BBC’s News website as well as The Guardian, New Statesman and The Erotic Review.’ Thank heavens he didn’t try to write his Dubai article in the style of an Erotic Review piece.
I had seen the stupid article at thew weekend. My thought was “Why are WE paying for this trash ?”
…..and “What has this got to do with the BBC’s purpose – “to inform, educate and entertain?””
Money for old rope at the BBC.
I think it was trying to entertain. None too successfully. Unfortunately most journalists will shaft anyone for a story and losing some friends never seems to bother them.
its an old practised trick by bbc journalists,bring up the racism and fascism card when your losing the argument,i suspect that many bbc journalists are card carrying members of the socalist workers party and the falsely named unite against fascism except if your is name is anjem choudary or abu hamsa.
‘It was lucky, really, that I was too late for dinner – the bill at the restaurant came to $210 (£137) per head, service not included.
And the guests seemed to pay up without so much as blinking.’
His surprise, no doubt, stemming from the fact they were paying for it themselves rather than out of a taxpayer-funded expense account.
One can’t expect him to write about torture and child labour in Dubai. The Arabs might get upset.