There might be the kernel of something interesting were our hosts able to offer any context, or perhaps just remark upon the odious twattery of the super-rich that leads them, as reported here, to ship a grand piano and a famous opera singer into the desert for a night’s entertainment (a snip at £100,000). But Holmes and Langsford are incapable of doing anything except stroking the furniture in hotel suites, spouting computer-generated cliches about how in Dubai “fantasy can become reality”, and listing the celebrities who have preceded them.
https://youtu.be/suXzzeUXDts?t=89
When Langsford cheerily informs us that “just 50 years ago, this was a dusty fishing village; now it’s a futuristic metropolis dripping with excess” she omits to mention the well-documented suffering of its construction workers, or the environmental catastrophe that is rapid urbanisation in a desert, because, hey, why spoil the view? At least Holmes does his utmost to peel back the layers of this multifaceted city when he meets yet another multimillionaire resident and, with his best penetrating stare, asks: “Tell me about Dubai; how wonderful a place is this?”
https://youtu.be/suXzzeUXDts?t=89
Over the next few weeks, our intrepid couple will be jetting off to Moscow to hang with some oligarchs, and gadding around London with the daughters of high society. Such larks. It remains to be seen where they will go for the next series, though I’m thinking a tour of Kim Jong-un’s ski resort and a dinner date at Bashar al-Assad’s presidential palace. Honestly, it’s the least they deserve.
https://youtu.be/suXzzeUXDts?t=89
