shimweasel

Qatar is a very strange place.

I know this is perhaps an unsurprising thing to say, but I don’t mean “ha ha, they drive on the wrong side of the road” or “gross, they eat goat eyeballs.” There’s something distinctly weird about the social structure of the place. To illustrate: while I have learnt enough Arabic to get myself into trouble (sharmuta? kis umak? Are you trying to get me roasted alive, Walid?), I have not yet had the chance to use it, because I haven’t yet met a Qatari. 70% of the population are foreign workers, and to a first approximation, no Qatari works. The law states that any business must have at least 51% Qatari ownership, so there are many, many companies and joint ventures with a Qatari citizen drawing a salary as a boardmember.

Apart from that, the place is hot, humid and dusty. My address is “down the dirt road behind the Mercedes dealership”, which speaks volumes about Qatar in general: awe-inspiring science-fiction structures are everywhere, but the desert is never far away. Cranes are omnipresent: buildings are thrown up so fast that the cement is generally only cured for an afternoon, and the useful lifespan for a building is 10 years, if it isn’t knocked down first.

This is the Spire. The Spire grows about ten metres a week, and is currently about 300m high. You can’t see it in this picture, but there’s a cantilevered pool on the side for the amusement of the Emir and his guests: this is where he will be living for the duration of the games. If only it was glass-bottomed - you could be afraid of water and heights at the same time.