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The other good thing about our timing was the weather. Last time we were in Dubai it was intolerably hot. If it was not air conditioned, I couldn't be there. So, the Hall of the Emirates where there was already a ski slope with real snow, was a big attraction, otherwise the hotel beckoned. This time, the ski slope has grown into a mini-Winterland but had lost much of its attraction, as the temperature outdoors was a balmy 25 or so.
In May 2025 Wendy and I returned to China. Our past visits have been self-organised (Wendy-organised) but this time it was a TripADeal - almost all inclusive, except for some meals and extras, at a price we couldn't resist, as it also included a cruise to Japan and back, out of Shanghai.
We spent a week travelling in China before the cruise. This was a budget affair so, we spent most of the time on the margins of the mega-cities of Beijing and Shanghai and in growing cities like Wuxi, huge in themselves. Yet, the accommodation was four star or above.
It often surprises our international interlocutors, for example in Romania, Russia or Germany, that Australia is a monarchy. More surprisingly, that our Monarch is not the privileged descendent of an early Australian squatter or more typically a medieval warlord but Queen Elizabeth of Great Britain and Northern Island - who I suppose could qualify as the latter.
Thus unlike those ex-colonial Americans, British Royal weddings are not just about celebrity. To Australians, Canadians and New Zealanders, in addition to several smaller Commonwealth countries, they have a bearing our shared Monarchy.
Yet in Australia, except for occasional visits and the endorsement of our choice of viceroys, matters royal are mainly the preoccupation of the readers of women's magazines.
That women's magazines enjoy almost exclusive monopoly of this element of the National culture is rather strange in these days of gender equality. There's nary a mention in the men's magazines. Scan them as I might at the barber's or when browsing a newsstand - few protagonists who are not engaged in sport; modifying equipment or buildings; or exposing their breasts; get a look in.
But a Royal wedding hypes things up, so there is collateral involvement. Husbands and partners are drawn in.
Professor Courtenay Raia lectures on science and religion as historical phenomena that have evolved over time; starting in pre-history. She goes on to examine the pre-1700 mind-set when science encompassed elements of magic; how Western cosmologies became 'disenchanted'; and how magical traditions have been transformed into modern mysticisms.
The lectures raise a lot of interesting issues. For example in Lecture 1, dealing with pre-history, it is convincingly argued that 'The Secret', promoted by Oprah, is not a secret at all, but is the natural primitive human belief position: that it is fundamentally an appeal to magic; the primitive 'default' position.
But magic is suppressed by both religion and science. So in our modern secular culture traditional magic has itself been transmogrified, magically transformed, into mysticism.