Opera UK in Dubai

Friday evening we visited the Burj Al Arab 7-star hotel (pictured) with some friends on the Unisys team who had stayed there.

They had arranged reservations in the cocktail bar which is located 700 feet up on the Arabian Gulf side of the building, at the helipad level (to the left of the picture).

The night time view over the Dubai coastline was quite spectacular with the tallest building in the world, the Burj Dubai visible as a vertical streak of light in the far distance, as you can see, top centre left.

Clare and myself with the Burj Al Arab as backdrop

Saturday evening we attended “A Night at the Opera” where a performing company, Opera UK gave us something like 20 opera highlights (Nessun Dorma was the close). It was more accessible opera than a chocolate box “Opera Greatest Hits”. Well done and we enjoyed it, although I doubt we shall be attending any full performances in the near future. Clare said that the English National Opera sings only in English, which would obviously help.

Talking of slow, veering to retrograde progress, I see that the Vatican now has a news website in Latin (Sancta Sedes). There is a part of me which secretly applauds this – the part which genuinely admires millennia-old authoritarian secret societies I guess.