The Dubai conspiracy is one that has taken six months to unravel. I've been here three times now, and have tried to like this place every time. I keep getting told it's a fantastic airport, and the best port of transfer you could hope to embark/disembark from.
My first impression was one of complete ambivalence. It's extremely big, and extremely brash. For those of you familiar with the palm tree islands and Venice themed resort (whereby each room is accessed via a gondola and your own punt) this brash exuberance shouldn't come as any surprise. Despite knowing this, I still found the crass plastic palm-trees and large water features extremely distasteful. Moral issues aside, (the whole of the emirates are based upon Indian slave labour) it's just vulgar. It's Las Vegas. Both are built in the middle of a desert. Both are built by people who have too much money, and want to prove this to the world. Both are morally bankrupt. Only Dubai is literally bankrupt.
Both are plastic, tacky and lacking any kind of decency.
Despite never being to Las Vegas, I have been close enough to smell the fake american stench. You can catch a whiff whenever the place is shown on TV.
The designers of the new terminal at Heathrow talked about it being a gateway into England, and as such, it should represent what it means to be in England. If the designers of this airport followed the same principles then, simply put; I will never visit the Emirates. Any of them.
Just as a quick flight update. I hate a monstrous aboriginal child in front of me, pushing her seat into my chest for the whole flight (despite her ignorant, fat little legs not being able to touch the floor) and the worst behaved Indian/English child I have ever had the pleasure of meeting – right behind me. Disgusting. Disgusting. Disgusting. Just the worst flight ever.
The Emirates staff were rude, unhelpful and above all else, they didn't give me the seconds they promised.
Showing posts with label thoughts at the ports. Show all posts
Showing posts with label thoughts at the ports. Show all posts
Monday, 4 October 2010
Post-travel Thoughts: Heathrow
Sitting in the airport, this time on the return leg of my cross world journey. I was stopped on the way out, because it's unusual for someone to be carrying a monitor in hand luggage. They drug swabbed it, interrogated me, checked my boarding card four times, and then let me on my way.
Not before warning me against labeling my items 'fragile,' however; as the security guard said they play 'throw the fragile item as far as you can,' from the boarding section in the hold. Apparently, this was captured and subsequently broadcast on national television. Luckily, I didn't see that episode. My xbox is in the hold... I wonder if it will survive. I sorely doubt it will, but for the sake of the myriad unplayed games I have on there, I hope it does. (Edit: And it did!)
In mind boggling statistic news, Halo – Reach clocked up 200 million dollars of sales in its' first day. This isn't the biggest entertainment release of all time; that crown rests firmly with Modern Warfare 2 (again proving that you don't need a good product in order to make a profit), but it is the biggest of 2010. Remember that this release is an xbox exclusive though, so the audience for it is substantially smaller than comparable releases in this genre.
The mind boggling doesn't stop there, as over the first weekend, that's 48 hours remember; some six thousand man years have been clocked with this title.
Over a million mods, videos and pictures have been created and uploaded using the ingame editor.
It's by far the best game in the franchise since the original, and the design team runs hundreds strong; but these numbers are mind blowing. Consider that most of the assets were already created for the previous two games and you realise that they were primarily slacking off for a year. A month of hard graft and eleven months of fine tuning I would imagine...
News of England: Scrabble has changed its' rules to allow proper nouns. This means you can make up any word you want, and it's now acceptable.
Traffic jams are still commonplace. We were held up, for forty-five minutes or so on the M25, only moving one junction forwards.
It rained a lot while I was here.
That's my summary of my time back in England. Notice how there's very little mention of England, and more of international entertainment releases. This signifies that I don't find England particularly interesting, and that I'm a terrible computer bore. Oh well.
Not before warning me against labeling my items 'fragile,' however; as the security guard said they play 'throw the fragile item as far as you can,' from the boarding section in the hold. Apparently, this was captured and subsequently broadcast on national television. Luckily, I didn't see that episode. My xbox is in the hold... I wonder if it will survive. I sorely doubt it will, but for the sake of the myriad unplayed games I have on there, I hope it does. (Edit: And it did!)
In mind boggling statistic news, Halo – Reach clocked up 200 million dollars of sales in its' first day. This isn't the biggest entertainment release of all time; that crown rests firmly with Modern Warfare 2 (again proving that you don't need a good product in order to make a profit), but it is the biggest of 2010. Remember that this release is an xbox exclusive though, so the audience for it is substantially smaller than comparable releases in this genre.
The mind boggling doesn't stop there, as over the first weekend, that's 48 hours remember; some six thousand man years have been clocked with this title.
Over a million mods, videos and pictures have been created and uploaded using the ingame editor.
It's by far the best game in the franchise since the original, and the design team runs hundreds strong; but these numbers are mind blowing. Consider that most of the assets were already created for the previous two games and you realise that they were primarily slacking off for a year. A month of hard graft and eleven months of fine tuning I would imagine...
News of England: Scrabble has changed its' rules to allow proper nouns. This means you can make up any word you want, and it's now acceptable.
Traffic jams are still commonplace. We were held up, for forty-five minutes or so on the M25, only moving one junction forwards.
It rained a lot while I was here.
That's my summary of my time back in England. Notice how there's very little mention of England, and more of international entertainment releases. This signifies that I don't find England particularly interesting, and that I'm a terrible computer bore. Oh well.
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