mr spimf and i
were looking forward to a new life in Dubai - great job, no tax, sunshine, all that.

this has been pretty much ruined by mrs spimf reading horror stories on the BBC news site of forensic levels of drug detection at customs - some poor bloke had 0.004gm of hash stuck to his shoe

bosh! 4 years in jail

i'm not saying this didn't happen but around 3 million people a month pass through Dubai airport - last year they detained 59 British travellers

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7234786.stm

mrs spimf is now currently in tears at the thought of travelling there

dont go you say - iv'e resigned my job here and fly in two weeks

fucksocks


:(
( spimf ™ is whoever you want him to be, Tue 1 Jul 2008, 12:34, 10 replies)

And...
...poppy seeds, watch out for poppy seeds.

I have a mate who travels there every few months for business from the UK, he's never had a problem with it. I think its just the BBC trying to keep you in the country, handing over your cash to them
(Snuffy114 demands a cyber razor cut, Tue 1 Jul 2008, 12:43, closed)

Scaremongering.
It happens very rarely. Basically, just tell her that if you travel in freshly-laundered clothes, and make sure you don't tread in any piles of heroin on the way to the airport, you'll be fine. And avoid eating poppy-seed buns at the airport.
(The Empress it seems you CAN polish a turd!, Tue 1 Jul 2008, 12:47, closed)

^What Bob said...
If we paid attention to what the news said all the time, we'd never go out of the house!

When you get to Dubai, she'll be living the life! Perhaps she should concentrate on that...
( Devil_In_Tights the *real* DiT!, Tue 1 Jul 2008, 13:11, closed)

Erm
Whatever you do don't try and take your icon with you. You'll have to leave it here.
(oneinthepink is at your cervix m'lady, Tue 1 Jul 2008, 13:19, closed)

cheers folks
i think i've managed to calm her down. we went for 5 days in may and the arab blokes at customs were very relaxed and helpful

my own theory is that they have gone to these forensic levels in certain cases because they had other suspicions

it seems one bloke rocked up with a bob marley t shirt and dreads

clearly not a card carrying mensa member
( spimf ™ is whoever you want him to be, Tue 1 Jul 2008, 13:31, closed)

innit
The only way I would ever travel to Dubai is if I bought a complete new set of clothes (including shoes) at the airport after departures in the UK and ditched the old threads at the aiport. Even then I'd be paranoid as fuck about a particle from somewhere attaching itself to me. Obviously if you partake in any substances you're at a much higher risk but even if you're teetotal, the risk of contamination at the levels at which they're happy to prosecute are considerable in a country like the UK. If you carry banknotes you can easily pick up trace amounts of cocaine in your wallet and hash/weed is everywhere. You could easily stand in 0.003g of hash walking in any UK street and not even spot it on your shoe if you studied it closely.

On the plus side, I've heard the invariably racist officials of this medieval-attitude country target black / afro-carribean people far more than whites. If you're black, be very afraid. Otherwise, you should be ok.

Why anyone would want to go there in the first place is beyond me. All the white sandy beaches in the world wouldn't drag me to such a barbaric, backward hole.
(synapz, Tue 1 Jul 2008, 13:31, closed)

^
reason?

massive tax free salary (in fact pretty much no tax on anything)

zero crime

30% growth PA on property value

16p a litre for fuel

all year sunshine

short flights to goa, seychelles, india etc

No chavs, no aggresive junkie beggars on every other street corner, no stupid laws telling you you need a kevlar suit to take a child to the swing park

sorry did you have all day?

EDIT as much as i liked your carpet spliff post - maybe you should avoid dubai. my recent visit suggested nothing backward or barbaric - they are cool about booze, you can even buy pork if you like - where as is blighty they are selling stab proof school uniforms now.

cool
( spimf ™ is whoever you want him to be, Tue 1 Jul 2008, 13:37, closed)

I did a little snoping.
The speck of cannibis guy, Andrew Brown:

"Brown said he had been returning from a holiday in Ethiopia to mark the Rastafarian millennium, it said."

Rastafarian. Hmm.

Also:

"stuck to the sole of a shoe in his luggage"

So:

1: He was returning from a Rastafarian holiday.
2: It was stuck to a shoe inside his luggage, not the one he was wearing, so he didn't just track it in from the street that day.

Still horrible and ridiculous, but he has been released early, and there's hints that he may not have been as innocent as first seems.

uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKL2692911520080226

Interestingly, I can't seem to find the name of the Swiss national caught with the three poppy seeds, or any other details about him. Urban legend maybe?
(Musuko, Tue 1 Jul 2008, 14:01, closed)

cheers Musuko
i have also seen a picture of the bloke

he looked like jazzie B, map of africa pendant, comedy dreads - the works
( spimf ™ is whoever you want him to be, Tue 1 Jul 2008, 14:14, closed)

I kind of know
Cat Le Huy (the chap in the article)'s girlfriend. From what she said the immigration authorities at Dubai airport tend to go for.. how shall I say.. the kind of traveller of a more ethnic origin.. (ie not white).

She documented most of it in her LiveJournal users.livejournal.com/_yungfuktoi_/ - skip backwards until you get to the posts from about Jan 2008 onwards or the posts tagged with 'dubai-gate'.
(man_d is being watched by experts on, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 0:24, closed)