As I've said previously, I really enjoyed our UAE driving holiday, however whilst we're all in the bash-an-Emirati mood there is one thing I thought was very noticeable, whilst I was there.
Dubai and Abu Dhabi to a slightly lesser extent, are world renowned for magnificent (albeit often gaudy and/or impractical) buildings and civil undertakings. These buildings and such are built entirely by foreigners and I believe it'd be fair to suggest there are not too many Emirati who actually work rather than sponge of the labours of others, but coming from a construction background, I did notice a heck of a lot of relatively new (and expensive) work falling apart or just plain stalled and/or stopped.
They just seemed to me to be so focussed on build, build, build that the ongoing maintenance has been forgotten. It seemed everywhere I looked, I saw someones current, or future, headache. The building works undertaken has been so rapid and so mind-bogglingly enormous in scale, it just seemed to strike me that no one was or had, considered the ongoing upkeep. I really hope they've invested their multi quadzillions into something other than buildings at home, because the world is moving on from its dependence on oil and there is an old saying that goes something like, "what's old, is new again"........I wonder if, as the money runs out and all those expats that are propping up the UAE are heading out as quickly as you can sneeze, those overweight, well to do Emirati might just end up as Bedouin's once more with crumbling desert ruins all around them!
I'm not aware of any ASIO visits re the T-shirt you referred to , which was promoted by The Age - can you refer us to any, since its in the category of 'could certainly'? 
). The weirdest thing was even though I was regularly sauntering along at 120-130km/h, others would pass me like I was standing still, yet speed signs would flash up 130Km/h but 100m further on would say 110km/h! WTF???? This was frequent, not just occasionally.
